10 reasons to QQ

I've noticed lately how there seems to be more and more whining/qq about the game everywhere. Of course there are some who seem to have turned QQ into a profession, but mostly we love this game, right?

Right.

So why then does there seem to be such an increase in whiners at the moment?

Over the past couple of days I've asked this to some people and the answer were very varied. I figured I would start with giving the 10 reasons I think that people QQ mostly, and on the right you will find a poll, so you can let me know what your number 1 reason is to QQ. The poll will stay open until next week Friday. I'm curious to see the answers!

1. Class Imbalance (perceived/actual)

Number one by a big lead I think (we'll see) is class balance. People seem to constantly be scared that Blizzard favors one class over the other and I honestly think that every class is by now OP except the one that is the choice of the QQing player.

I think it's actually rather funny how you see just about every class going on about how badly designed their class/abilities are compared to all the other classes. Everybody wants to be more powerful, and everybody feels that the rest has gotten more and better tools to work with.

I think in reality it rarely happens that a class stays OP for too long, if there even are seriously OP classes. Simply because it isn't in Blizz's best interest to create class imbalance. If a class is indeed too powerful compared to other classes Blizzard will discuss it and fix it as soon as they have found a way to do so without breaking the game.

But, as I work in an IT company, I can tell you that fixing one thing can often lead to another falling over. Class balance is the same thing. Fix the DK, and see all the other tanks become OP. Give the pallie healer more tools, and watch the other healing classes cry. Give a rogue an extra, and hey wait...why is that fury warrior doing so much dps...oh crap, it's because we did so and so to the rogue.

Blizzard must have a hell of a job to keep the balance of classes just that, balanced, and I salute them for doing a pretty darn good job.

2. Loot
Ninja whining is probably about the most common type of loot QQ, but there are other types of loot whining. So and so item doesn't drop often enough, or it drops too often. The stats are wrong, the color is wrong, the look is wong altogether, or hey, why on earth can priests not use swords.

3. Other Players
Good players whine about bad players spoiling their raids, and bad players whine about good players not wanting to bring them along. Then there is of course all the guild drama, raid drama...WoW.com has a whole lot of examples of drama involving other players.

4. Patch Day
The closer a patch day comes, the more QQing I seem to see. People are always scared for change, and we have seen a lot of big changes in a very short time in the game.

The other type of QQ you see around patch day is of course the 'your addon is out of date' fear. I mean lets face it, having to update most of your addons just isn't fun. And in the worst case you'll find out that your much beloved addon isn't supported at all anymore, and you'll have to find an alternative.

5. Boredom
I think this is currently a big reason behind the QQ. In fact, if I myself would QQ this would be my reason. I now have levelled 3 characters to 80, and am working on 4 and 5, and I've seen the content.

This reason is not often recognized as it is though. People complain about quests, about dungeons, about all sorts of stuff, but in the end it just comes down to being bored. And I guess the whole being bored can come with a fear of not feeling motivated to play at all anymore, and losing the game you have cherised and loved for so long. And what then to do in the time you just gained by not playing?

6. Too Difficult/Easy
In BC we heard the whole too difficult a lot. And I have to say, it was hard progression. My guild managed to get Illidan down before WotLK, but not before the famous patch that made it all easier. And we never even saw Sunwell until we were all level 80 and went back for our achievement.

Now however you often hear complaints about things being too easy. I can sort of agree to a point that I do feel that Blizzard has made the progression rate too easy. Not so much the raiding, but the dungeons and questing.

I remember doing quests in Netherstorm that really required a group to do, but this time around the most difficult quests still only required two. I think a lot of people are done with the casual content, the content that you can just slip in for an hour. And maybe, just maybe, it had been better for the game to make the dungeons slightly less easy.

7. PVP
There are various reasons people would QQ about PVP. It can be the battle ground layout, or the arena size/shape/objects. It can also be abilities used against them, or in the case of Wintergraps lag issues, or the fact that defending is easier than attacking or the other way around.

Justified QQ or not, PVP is definitely one of the number one causes for some good old whining.

8. Summer
Ahhh..sun, beach, trees, cloudless skies...who wants to be inside when there's all that to enjoy out into the Real World. A lot of guilds will soon start feeling it again, in fact I think it has already started happening. The summer lull.

People take holidays, go outside more often, or simply don't feel much like playing in this time of year. To all the QQers with this problem I would say, "It happens every year, it'll be better in fall, you'll see."

9. Blue QQ
GC never checks my threads, GC probably thinks that shaman are OP, GC needs to check out engineering. CHECK THIS OUT GC!

People QQ when they get a blue tag, and they QQ when they don't get a blue response..make up your mind people.

10. Technical Issues
This, to a certain extent, is actually a very valid QQ at times. If the server is down, the server is down. The lag in Wintergrasp is causing the game to be less fun, people not being able to connect due to problems with authenticating...no fun.

All I can say about any type of QQ is that in the end it just doesn't make the game more fun. It only makes people get snarky at each other and dislike the game more. It makes people quit guilds, and give up something they really enjoyed.

My suggestion for it all?

Lets QQ a bit less, and make the WoW a better place. Kay?



Edit: AAAARGH...the polls don't work!! WHINE QQ CRY!

I'll come back with it later...

Ulduar 10 for Dummies: XT-002 Deconstructor

First, Shy's asked me to congratulate Nefernet on her custard cake... it looks delicious!



After we finish admiring the tasty cake Nefernet's won (that you're not allowed to touch... stay away! It's not yours! Wait.. it's not mine either. Darn!)

Ahem. After all that's said and done (sorry about the missing piece! I had to test it's quality... that's it. Quality testing!), let's talk about XT-002.

Going straight ahead from Flame Leviathan, you reach XT-002. He has two trash packs inside his room, to the left and right of the entrance. The most important mob to down in these packs are the two Parts Recovery Technicians. These mechanognomes shield their allies, meaning you have to move the groups out of the shield effect to keep killing them. The next most dangerous (or annoying) enemy is the Salvagebot - it throws out a spinning sawblade that bounces around the group, doing damage. The sawblade can be targeted and should be killed.

Raid Composition

2 tanks, 2 or 3 healers, 5 or 6 DPS. Ranged DPS is better for this fight due to being able to spread out for Light Bomb (Searing Light) and Gravity Bomb, as well as providing ranged AoE on the add packs during Phase 2.

Pull and Positioning

• The MT should aggro XT-002 when he's standing at the stairs in the center of the room, then run through him and stand on those stairs so XT-002's back is to the raid
• Ranged needs to spread out with at least 10 yards between them. (Type /range if you have DBM installed.) melee should stand in two groups on either side of him to make it easier to run out if one of them gets a bomb effect

Tantrums and Bombs - Phase 1

• During the first phase, XT-002 can use Tympanic Tantrum, causing an earthquake affect that hits everybody for 80% of their HP over 8 seconds
• If you get Light Bomb, stand 10 yards away from other players, as this ability does damage to everyone around you
• If you have Gravity Bomb, run away from the raid - you need to be 12 yards away from the nearest player, because 9 seconds later you'll spawn a gravity well that pulls everyone within 12 yards into it, then deal 12k damage to them

Heart and Adds - Phase 2

• At 75%, 50%, and 25% health, XT-002 shuts down and drops his heart on the ground for 20 seconds. This heart takes double damage, and that damage is transferred to XT-002, shortening his next phase
• The offtank should keep track of the corners. Three types of adds spawn. These are:

• XM-024 Pummeler - these need to be tanked slightly away from the raid, it has small-ranged AoEs, but doesn't hit for very much. No real effort needs to be made to kill them
• XE-321 Boombot - These walk towards XT-002 and need to be killed before they move into the raid at 50% HP, they explode, dealing AoE damage around them
• XS-013 Scrapbot - These come in packs that move towards XT-002 and need to be AoEd down. When they reach him, they heal him back for a small amount of his health

Final Thoughts and a Word of Warning...

• At the end of Phase 2, the heart returns to XT-002 and Phase 1 resumes
• Each time you enter Phase 2, the heart spawns with full HP
• If you kill the heart in Phase 2, then XT-002 enters hard mode, increasing damage dealt, HP total, and gaining new abilities. Unexpected, this will wipe your raid

CC: Equipment Manager

Exactly a week ago today the patch dropped that brought us the new equipment manager. We’ve had all sorts of reports on it already here and there, but I wanted to put it through my own research and figure out what exactly could and couldn’t be done with it. Now I've been playing with it for a week I figured it was time to give my own review.

Basics.

Of course the basic idea behind the equipment manager is to be able to switch between gear sets easily. But to be able to do that you should set up those gear sets first. I figured I would start out with a set for my main discipline spec, and a set for my PVP spec.

These two gear sets are different for about every single piece, so I had to go set up two completely different sets.But first, you have to go to the interface options to turn the equipment manager on.

The first set wasn’t too difficult, in fact it was fairly easy to set up. I was already wearing the gear I normally wear in my regular disc outfit, so all I had to do was save it as a set piece.

But then of course I wanted to create a second set. I opened all my bags and started equipping all my items, thinking that there must be an easier way to do this. When I finally had my pvp gear equipped I saved the set, and played a little with switching back and forth.

Funky, this worked fine.

But there was still the point of having to go through my bags to find the gear pieces for the second set. Turns out there’s no need for this at all.

If you simply open the character screen (press C) and you mouse over an item while holding down alt it will show you all the available gear pieces for that slot. It even goes so far that if you’re standing next to the bank, it will include all the available items in the bank for that gearslot as well. So wow, all the fiddling with bags had not been needed at all…doh.

Enfin. I saved my two gearsets and then decided to create my frost resist set, since we sometimes still need this (Hodir is a fight where it can help, especially while learning the fight). So I switched in my 3 pieces and saved a third set.

Looking around in the options under the alt buttons I find another button, namely a big red O with a stripe through it. Mousing over tells you that you can ignore a slot, so you don’t have to change your entire gear, but can create a set for just a few specific items, and that will otherwise simply keep equipped whatever you’re wearing at that moment.

In this slider you can also chose to stick certain pieces of gear back in your bag, or to unequip it basically.

You do have to have the equipment manager menu open to get the ignore option btw, while just switching in one item or sticking it in your bag can be done by holding alt and mousing over the item in the character screen at any time.

Macro

You can equip a gear set through a macro. For example for switching into my shadow gear when I switch to shadow form:

#showtooltip
/cast shadowform
/equipset shadow

Or for switching my weapon to my fishing rod:

#showtooltip Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole
/equipset Fishing
/cast Find Fish

Or for when you want to cast spell reflect and you want to switch in a shield quickly:

#showtooltip
/equipset shield
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Spell Reflection

You do of course want to equip a set that has a shield and a weapon in it, and because there are two spell casts in there you have to click the button twice, but the fact that you can macro in your gear set in one line does mean that it's shorter and hence leaving you with more lines in your macro to use for other handy tricks.

The Not so Good.

The Equipment Manager cannot switch your gear set upon spec switch, as Wowinsider (oh excuse me WoW.com) has already put into details. Well...Boohoo! you have to click two buttons instead of one. You can't keep going anyway after switching specs, at least not if you have a manabar. So to be honest I'm sort of glad that those without cannot just switch gear in 1 second on top of that.

There is a maximum of 10 gear sets. Which seems, as I think about it with a multispec class like a priest, a bit low. Lets see if I could get to 10 sets...Disc/Holy/Shadow/Frost/Regen/High Int/High Stam/High Spellpower/Fishing/PVP/In the City...ok yes, 10 is definitely not enough. And I didn't even stretch the options, and went min/maxing for this.

Lookswise it's clunky and just not streamlined. I've had this comment before, but everything in WoW seems to be designed for the visually impaired. They should really start thinking about a complete visual redesign of the UI since they're sticking stuff in here and there, and the UI becomes fuller and fuller. Which, in turn, is one of the main reasons that I use several of my mods so that I don't have my screen cluttered with clunky blizz stuff.

Holding down alt is not the best button to do this with. Alt is a much used modifier, and people often have it tied to one spell or the other. Also, the interface is not at all intuitive. The fact that you actually have to use alt is already a hard to find option. What I don't understand is why they had to stick it on a button. Item Rack showed me the slider just when I moused over a piece, which worked a lot handier. (like holding down shift to compare two pieces of gear is also the worst choice ever since in windows holding down shift standardly has some option with stickey keys attached that I've had to switch off manually).

Switching at the bank is a pain in the ass. So it switches stuff that you have in your bank in, but you cannot select a gearset and stick it into your bank in one go. I was very used to doing so with some of the more specific sets, and it was a very handy way to quickly dump a gear set in the bank. On the upside, at least it does correctly switch in all the gearpieces, so if you made the switch at the bank you won't have to be scared that you suddenly are missing a piece.

The Biggest Advantage

It does what most people would use it for, and it does mean you have one less mod to update on patch day!

Where am I?

Only a quick post today, but I am already working on tomorrow's CC, I'll be writing about the ins and outs of the new equipment manager.

I went back to last week's 'Where am I?" and took another screenshot as an extra hint. Should help to figure out where Anzu took me last week.


Of course I also explored a little more and came up with a new screenshot, should be a bit easier this time around.

This week I'll find a big custard cake for the person who can give me the coordinates!

While looking around for a good place I also found out something funny. I went up to the violet parlour, and was standing next to the portal and this is what I discovered.


Standing next to the portal, zoomed out as far as I could. Check out the book cupboard next to me...empty, right?

Wrong! To the right of me the same book cupboard, only then completely filled with magical books. Wish I could pick those up for my Higher Learning achievement!

Got any cool screenshots yourself?

So I wanted to write a post...

Think the clock at Stockades is broken. I stared at it for 5 minutes, realized that it didn't move...funky.

I had wanted to write a post, but then I discovered that I had to do my tournament dailies still. So we did those.

Then I figured I would write a post, but we ran into a Vault 25 group who needed a healer, so we went to get our Emblems of Conquest.

Than I thought, "Lets go write a post!" and a guildie asked me if I could quickly brew up some flasks for him.

I figured I would write my post after, so I switched to my bank alt, and discovered that she had a mailbox that was filled to the top, and half of it was about the disappear. So I unmessed my bank, and got my mailbox empty. (I had no idea that I had 193 Icethorn, what on earth am I supposed to do with those o_O).

I quickly mailed myself some Goldclover as well to fill up my stock of Crazy Alchemist potions. I ran sort of low, and we're supposed to beat our head against mimi tomorrow, so I think I'll need them.

And now it's sort of 11 pm, and raid is at 5 am tomorrow...think I'll go sleep a little.

Ever feel like time is just slipping away when you're playing?

Ulduar 10 for Dummies: Razorscale

Straight after you've killed Flame Leviathan you can chose to do Ignis or Razorscale. Both of these bosses are optional bosses. Only Razorscale has no trash to clear through.

Raid Composition.

2 tanks, 2 or 3 healers, 5 or 6 dps. Melee or ranged doesn't make much difference, but it is handy to have at least one ranged dps around.

Activation.
When you enter the area that Razorscale is flying above you will find a group of NPCs down below at the entrance standing behind a couple of harpoons. Speak with the excavation commander to start the fight.

Air phase.
When you start the fight dwarf engines come ploughing through the ground. These spit out, guess what, dark rune dwarves.

The tanks should be picking the adds up close to the turrets, and it's easiest if each tank takes a side.

While you're fighting the adds, Razorscale will drop two types of fire from the sky. One is direct impact on a player, non avoidable. The other makes a flame patch on the floor, don't stand around in it. It hurts.

During all this the npcs will fix the turrets. Once a turret is ready an announcement is given, and someone needs to go fire it. This is where the ranged dps comes in handy since they can fire the harpoon without having to stop dps too much. If you have 3 healers, the third healer can also easily do this job.

When the second harpoon is fired, Razorscale comes down, and the fight moves to the ground. Everybody should move behind her because of a frontal cone fire breath, and any adds alive should be ignored. DPS her as much as you can since she is more vulnerable on the ground.

Little tip, don't shoot the second harpoon when any sentinels are alive, you'll make it much harder on yourself.

When Razorscale is at 50% health you get an anouncement that she is permanently grounded, and you move to ground phase.

Kill Order for adds

1. Sentinels: Kill sentinels first, their whirlwind is pretty destructive. You can see when these join in because a third engine will come up through the ground. They're actually not dwarves, but Vrykul, so easily to recognize since they're the tallest of the bunch.
2. Watchers: After the sentinels you kill the watchers, they do magical damage, which is less bad, but still pretty nasty.
3. Guardians: Lastly the Guardians get killed, they're pushovers.

Ground Phase:
Once Razorscale is grounded you finish off any adds that may still be alive. In this fase everybody gets a stacking debuff that increases fire damage taken. Nobody but the tank should be in front of her to avoid taking said fire damage.

She does a periodical knockback, which is not too dangerous, and still throws patches of flame on the floor. Make sure to move out of them.

She also stacks an armor debuff on the tank, and the tanks will have to switch out every one or two stacks of this debuff.

Keep dpsing till she's down, and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

More use for Embolisms (Emblems of Heroism)

So with my shoulder needing some rest I've been trying to stay away from computers a bit. This means no playing WoW all evening, every evening. This used to make me very restless. So restless that I had a hard time sitting though a film, or reading a book. I used to find myself back in the game every time I could.

Funny enough, at the moment it's not too bad. Yeah sure, I keep thinking about things I had planned on doing in game, or of course my blog, but I manage to slide it to the side more easily than not so long ago. I think somehow the need to be there all the time is disappearing.

I'm a PVEer. I PVP a little, but most of my enjoyment in the game comes from facing dungeon and raid encounters. Every week again I look forward to raiding Ulduar in the weekend, it's where I get my WoW high, what keeps me going. But outside the weekend there's nothing left in the game like that at the moment. There are no challenges left to face that you can just pick up easily. All of my current challenges lie in raiding, and there's just no way we can get enough people together to raid all the time.

So what do you do when dungeons, even the heroic ones, have no goal anymore but to gear up alts, or your friends' alts? There are two options the game currently offers, chase achievements, or fiddle around with pvp a bit more.

Well, I've chased so many achievements already that the ones left are the tedious ones, the ones that you really don't want to fill an evening with. So I end up in PVP, in fact like many others I end up in Wintergrasp. And more and more people seem to come to the same conclusion, since Wintergrasp has become laggier and laggier lately.

Blizzard is trying to fight this by changing the Wintergrasp dailies to weeklies. I can tell them right now, it won't work. Those people aren't all in Wintergrasp for the dailies, they're there because they have too few other options to engage themselves in without little or no preparation and organization.

I hear sounds like this on other blogs left and right. People are less motivated, feel like the game is losing it's shine. Well, I'm still in love with this game as much as ever, but I just don't manage to fill the same hours with it as I did before.

Instead of trying to take stuff away from Wintergrasp and trying to make it less attractive, Blizzard should really start thinking about what they can offer to the players to grab their attention elsewhere.

My option for Blizzard would be to come with something that makes it worth running heroics again. Makes it worth running Naxx. Give people something to do with those emblems of heroism that are now just piling up. Give them something to work towards, something that will help them in their real goal: raiding.

It could perhaps be an extra gemslot on one of your gear pieces for 500 embolisms. I bet that would get all the min maxers out doing heroics like all hell. It could also be a badge of conquest for 100 embolisms, it would offer people a way to do something about their improvement outside of raids.

Another option would be to have people earn themselves a road into a specific quest line with emblems of heroism. Hand in 200 embolisms to do a quest line throughout the dungeons, and give something as a reward. It would be a whole new way to doing your daily quests. The reward could be a gear upgrade, item level 219 or so. It allows people to upgrade their gear in a very, very slow fashion, but through a very fun way of doing so. It would give people something to do again, something that would keep them busy for a while as well.

And hey, as long as I'm on the subject anyway...I still think I should get my purple cat. Maybe they can introduce that for 5000 emblems of heroism...

CC: Absorption in WWS

Special thanks to Thrornir who played my secretary and typed out this post. Somehow I have done something to my shoulder, and it hurts like hell. I've watched several TV shows this evening (been a looong time), and dictated my post to him. Lets just hope the chiropractor knows how to undo what I did to it.

And oh, no correct answers to my Where am I? from yesterday yet...


For this week's Constructive Criticism I'm going to talk about one of the changes in today's patch. The change I' m talking about is the following:

"Soul Warding: Mana cost reduction is now 15% down from 30%."

There's a couple of reasons I can think of for why Blizz is making this change, they might have found out that disc Priests were pretty powerful in PvP. Or maybe they thought that they were too good in PvE situations. However, today I'm not going to write about how my class is getting nerfed. Because knowing Blizzard, they're probably correct and Discipline Priests needed it.

But you know what really irks me? There are just no numbers to back this up.

So instead of being sad about the nerf, what I am going to talk about today, is the fact that there still is no way of seeing in the combat log how much damage is absorbed by any type of absorption abilities. Because,let's face it, Discipline Priests are about the worst healers you can think of... if you go by the meters.

I used to pride myself in being in the top three of the healing meters. However, once I decided to become discipline, I had to accept that I would always be at the bottom, at least against any healer who knows what they're doing.

Discipline Priests simply don't shine through their healing, they shine through their mitigation talents, their absorption, and their abilities to prevent damage from happening. One of the biggest tools in the disciple priest's toolbox is Power Word: Shield.


Even though it is very clear that a discipline Priest can bring a lot to a raid, the top guilds in the world simply aren't bringing discipline Priests. Poptisse from Ensida for example, says to bring a priest who isn't Holy is a waste of a good raid spot. In my view, this is due largely to the fact that there are just no numbers to back up what a discipline Priest can do.

There are ways to calculate how much PW:S has absorbed through estimation. One of them is looking at the glyph PW:S, because the healing done by this glyph is actually recorded in the combat logs. The other way is to look at the damage the talent Reflective Shields does. Both ways allow you to deduce how much damage is mitigated. In the end, it's just annoying that they haven't incorporated absorption in the combat logs.

Not only should this be in the combat logs to make raid leaders understand what a discipline Priest can do, and how important their mitigation skills are, but it can also help the discipline Priest hone their skills.

If I would know for how much damage my shield has absorbed during the fight, I would also know how much it had healed per mana. I would be able to tell if I should have been healing more rather then preventing. Because maybe, instead of throwing five shields around, my Prayer of Healing would have been a lot more effective. The only thing I know for sure now, at least, is that if my shield was absorbed fully, then no mana was wasted. However, I can not even see if my shield was fully absorbed or not.

This does make me wonder if Blizzard has maybe intentionally kept absorption out of the logs. Maybe it is more effective then thought it would be? Maybe they don't want to share with the entire world how good this spell really is?

Then again, as far as I've always understood, Blizzard has access to the same logging as we do, so to know how powerful (or not) the absorption of PW:S really is, they too would have to go through silly calculations. What I can hope for is that they are basing these sort of nerfs on actual numbers, rather then the whining on the forums.

Blizz may have decided that discipline Priests had too much mana, but I too struggle with mana. I can tell you that in our last 3v3, I ran out of mana before the healing paladin did. And yes, I am definitely having fun with my class, but I really wish I could see how effective I actually am, and if I should work on certain points or not.

Where am I?

So while I have my post planned out for tomorrow, today I wasn't in the mood at all for something serious. So I was riding around a bit without my UI showing, just enjoying the WoW scenery while thinking what I wanted to write about.

When I saw this great image for a screenshot. So I started looking around for random places that would be cool screenshots.

One of my favorites

And then I suddenly knew what the post would be today! So I took a portal, took a gryphon, did a bit of running, and voila. I had a screenshot that was perfect for what I wanted to do today.

Where am I?

The second screenshot you see me from above somewhere in the world of warcraft. I wonder if you can guess where it was taken. And you know what, I'll throw in an extra cookie for the person who can give me the exact coordinates!

Ulduar 10 for Dummies: Ignis the Furnace Master

Welcome to the next part of Ulduar 10 for Dummies. This is Thrornir, and I'll be giving the rundown on how to do Ignis the Furnace Master.

Trash

• Ignis has six pulls before you get to him. The very first, two molten Colossi, leaves a nasty debuff behind in the raid called 'Unquenchable Flames', which bounces from person to person, doing damage until the entire raid can sit in one of the forge pools.
• There are three pairs of Magma Ragers. Their worst ability is called 'Superheated Winds', which creates a tornado under the Magma Rager, knocking anyone hit back while causing damage when it touches them.
• There are two pairs of Forge Constructs, which are the simplest enemies - simply keep them pointed away from the raid.
  

Clear one side and get into a pool as soon as possible to clear the Unquenchable Flames debuff, then clear the rest of the room.

Preparation

You want two tanks, two or three healers, and five or six DPS. There's no real bias between ranged and melee, but it's helpful to have a ranged DPS who can consistently do 5k damage in one hit.

The Pull and Positioning

• Ignis stands in place at the end of the room, and can be pulled by the main tank or with a misdirect from a hunter.
• Pull Ignis so he stands near a pool, with his back to the center of the room.
• Healers and ranged stand in the center, melee stands behind Ignis and follows as the tank moves him.
  

Scorch

• When Ignis places a Scorch on the ground, pull him alongside the pool so that neither the tank nor the melee behind him stand in the Scorch.
• After two scorches are on the ground next to one pool, move across to the other pool.
  

Dealing with Adds

• When Ignis calls for soldiers, one of the constructs along the walls activates and moves towards the raid. The offtank picks up this construct and moves it to stand in a Scorch.
• Wait until the add turns red and changes name to Molten Construct, and move it to the pool. The water stuns it and attacks against it have a 50% crit chance bonus.
• The offtank moves away and preferably a ranged dps shoot the brittle golem. If no ranged is available for this, the healer should know that the tank will attack it. When it dies, the golem explodes and deals 20k damage to anyone nearby.
  

Slagpot and Flame Jets

• Ignis randomly sticks one person in the Slag Pot, where they take extra damage and will need some extra focus from one of the healers.
• Healers can heal from the slagpot
• Ignis has a long channel spell called Flame Jets. If Flame Jets goes off while you are casting, you're spell locked for 8 seconds.
  

Repeat the boss movement and golem breaking until Ignis dies. Collect your loot and /cheer.

All your Power Bases belong to us!

After yesterdays post one of the classes I took once in school kept going through my head. The course was Organizational Behavior, and I think many people use a lot of the theories that were described to me during this course instinctively.

One in particular I would like to talk about is power. Not the negative Darth Vader type of power people immediately think about, but power to get things done. Power to make stuff happen in a good way.

Two types of Power

There are some scientists that believe that power is a basic human need (referred to as 'n Pwr', sounds like rawr almost, no?). These same scientists believe that there are two types of power. Socialized Power which is directed at helping others, and Personalized Power which is directed at helping oneself.

Of course if you're in a leadership position you come accross both types of power, but most officers proabably got themselves into the officer role because they wanted to obtain social power. The ability to help your guildies is a massive reward for any officer, though my experience I've found that funny enough through socialized power you often obtain personalized power as well. By helping my guildies I feel good about myself.

Five Bases of Power

There were two scientists (John French and Bertram Raven if you were interested in the names) who figured that there were five different ways to get power.

• Reward Power: Obtaining compliance with promised or actual rewards.
  A while ago Wow Insider's Officer's Quarters reported that there was some sort of loot drama about a guild giving one of the drops from KT to a guildie who was in no way the first in line to receive this loot according to their loot system. Turns out that this guildie had paid for the vent server, and that a deal had been made.
  
  Of course this is an example of how not to use power, but it does an excellent job of describing Reward Power.
  
  
• Coercive Power: Obtaining compliance through threatened or actual punishment
  I think some of the best examples of this power come from parenting. I'm sure we've all been sent to our rooms once or twice when we were younger and had done something that our parents didn't exactly like. They used their Coercive power.
  
  Another example of both of the above power bases is how a lot of loot systems work. Good attendance is rewarded, and bad attendance is often punished in some way (less DKP or none even). This power base is generally put in place by the guild, or the officers ,to obtain compliance with raid rules for example.
  
  
• Legitimate Power: Obtaining compliance through formal authority
  The saying that goes with this I think is 'Pulling Rank'. Not for nothing does every guild have a leadership structure of some form. Already it makes it a lot easier for the members to see who they should look at for decisions, and in some cases who they should look at for permissions.
  
  It also helps if someone has been formally instated as an officer with the complete backup of the other officers and the guild leader. If the membership knows that the leadership as a whole has given this person the authority to make decisions they will more easily comply with the decisions made.
  
  
• Expert Power: Obtaining compliance through one's knowledge or information
  The best example of this power base is class leaders. Most of the times they have gotten into the position of class leader simply because they know everything there is to know about their class. They also know how to teach others to know about their class.
  
  In WoW these people are the theorycrafters, the people who you see making spreadsheets. People turn to them for help with their class, and grant them this power.
  
  
• Referent Power: Obtaining compliance through charisma or personal attraction
  The power of some of the greatest leaders in history were based on this power base. Martin Luther King was charismatic, he was so charismatic that because of this people chose to follow him. Clinton in some way was charismatic, hell even Hitler was a charismatic leader. He was absolutely nuts in the head, but when he started people wanted to follow him because of his charisma.

Everybody generally has some of every power base in them, and knowing what your strong and weak power bases are can help you on how to lead your raid group. Knowing yourself is always a good thing, and being aware of why people have decided that you were the right officer can help you to become a better officer.

It's also good to realize that there are different methods out there to get things done, and that in the end you always have a choice on how you wish to obtain your raid members' compliance. Perhaps Charismatic Power is the only one you cannot actively learn, but you can change the others by being aware of how you're using them.

What might be funny to know is that they researched the relationships between power bases and work outcomes, such as job performance, job satisfaction and turnover.

• Expert and referent power had a slightly positive impact
• Reward and legitimate power had a slightly positive impact
• Coercive power had a slightly negative impact
  

Mandii obviously has some form of power too, up to you to decide which one! ;)

So what is your Self-Perceived Power?
A little help to see where your power bases are.

Score your various bases of power for your current (or former) job, using the following scale:

1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Slightly agree
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree

Reward Power Score

• I can reward individuals at a lower rank than myself
• My review actions affect the rewards gained by others
• Based on my decisions, members may receive a bonus
  

Coercive Power Score

• I can punish lower level members
• My position checks on members
• My diligence reduces error

Legitimate Power Score

• My position gives me authority
• The decisions made at my level are of critical importance
• Members look at me for guidance

Expert Power Score

• I'm an expert in what I do
• My ability gives me advantages in what I do
• Given some time, I could improve the methods used
  

Referent Power Score

• I attempt to set a good example for other members
• My personality allows me to do good in my position
• My fellow members look at me as their informal leader

Scores for the power bases are:
3-6 = weak power base
7-11 = moderate power base
12-15 = strong power base

My strong power bases are expert and referent, moderate are reward and legitimate, and weak is coercive. How about yours?

Attack the Officer!

So I got a couple of not so nice comments on my post 'My guild is the best guild'. I reacted as well as I could, but it did get me thinking about some things. When these sort of comments are aimed at you personally you would be a very indifferent person, or be very very thick skinned, if you didn't at least check with yourself if it was deserved or not.

Luckily I have the most wonderful boyfriend who told me straight away that I didn't deserve this, and I got support and advice from some of the people at twitter as well (who I am quickly starting to regard as friends, thanks Lodur and Veneretio!), plus a guildie backing me up (yay Mandii!).

But it still makes me wonder if every officer deals with these sort of feelings. I mean, from what I read most officers are people who got in those positions by working their asses off within the guild. Most of these leading type people know everything there is to know about their character, are always doing their best to keep their knowledge available to the rest of their guild, and are generally doing just about everything they do with the best interest of their guild in mind.

Still there is just no way to get around the fact that there simply are douchebags out in the world. And even when you're lucky enough to avoid the complete douchebag, you still have to deal with the people who just don't agree with how you do stuff, your decisions, and your leading style.

So while I'm new at dealing with not so nice comments to my blog, I have learned a little in the time I am an officer now to deal with the unhappy part of being in this role, and I figured I would share some of my experiences.


Decisions.
Most people don't like making decisions, this is also a pretty good thing, since a guild full of officers would probably be an epic fail as there would be no way in getting everybody faced into the same direction.

However, in the end a decision has to be made in certain situations. And you can believe me, whatever decision is made, it will never be the right one.

So if you're the brave person actually daring to make that decision, and you and I both know that you really did think about it before you shared the decision with others, stand behind it.

There are too many different flavours in a group to serve a dish to all of their tastes. No decision is every advantageous for every individual in the group, but as long as it benefits the group as a whole you did a good job.

Don't be affraid to admit you were wrong and recall a decision though, every person makes mistakes, and you stepped up to make the decision, so carry the responsibility. Not the nicest part of the whole decision process, but owning up to a bad decision, and then learning from it, will make you a better leader overall.

Iron Man
Sometimes you have to step aside and let others take the lead. For me this is always a very hard thing to do, I'm what they call a natural leader (though some would probably say bossy), but I do generally take the lead. Stepping aside at times allows others to shine, and also gives you a different view of how things can be done.

I'm not talking about putting down the officer title, good officers are hard enough to find that I certainly wouldn't want to be the cause of some guilds losing theirs, what I mean is following a strategy one of your raiders came up with, or ask your raid group for advice on a certain boss, show that you don't always know everything either. There's no need to be the man/woman of iron and be infallible, we're all human.

Strong Leadership makes the world go round
The next thing I will say might sound contradictory to the previous point, but people want strong leaders. If your raid leader seems uncertain about the fact if the group can or cannot do a boss, it is more likely that the raid will fail.

So while it's ok to not know everything, you should even try to come accross as decisive about the things you don't know, if that still makes sense. Decisiveness is a form of confidence (Thror's phrase) and confidence is comforting.

Dealing with Drama
The other time when you should really step aside is when attacks are aimed at you personally. You can try to defend yourself, but no matter what you do, defending yourself will often make it look worse. When you're an officer, this is the time to speak with the guidleader and ask him, or her, if it can be taken out of your hands in a discrete fashion.

I have no idea what to do if you're the guild leader at this point, I've never been in this position, and we have a pretty amazing guild leader who just hasn't manouvered himself into this position yet either...as far as I know at least.

Stay clear of the heat for a while, nothing good has ever come from letting things escalate. And even though you might rear on your hindlegs at what is being said/done to you, keep in mind that in the end you're in this position for the good of the guild, not to start flame wars with your guildies. No matter how unfair it might seem at that moment, in the end it is often better to let a neutral person in a leadership position step in, and shush things a little.

Don't regard it as a loss, the situation was dealth with in the end, right? So you have still achieved your goal.

When you've really had enough of it all
The stress on you in an officer position can become too much. I have a character on the EU servers for this purpose. I'm in a tiny little friends guild, and I mean nothing there. It relaxes to just play the game without the hassle, and while doing so you will start to remember again why you love your guild so much, and why you put up with all the mess of being an officer. You once made the decision that it was worth it, I promise you, it still is. You just needed some time to blow off steam.

Ulduar 10 for Dummies: Flame Leviathan

So I read raid tactics, strategy guides, and watch videos before I go into a fight. Often I find them giving a lot of excess information, and me having to pick out the important parts. I thought about it for a while, and figured that there must be an easier way to lay down strategies for a fight, and here we are. The first in a series of 'Ulduar 10 for Dummies.'

I will approach this as if I'm giving quick drive through lessons to someone who has heard of the fight, has a pretty ok sense of how the game works, but has never done the fight before.

I will not include hard mode information or achievements. After all would you want to go into hard mode with people who have never done the fight before? Yah, I didn't think so.

Imagine yourself to be the raid member filling in for a regular, needing super quick simplified fight explanation, and let me know if what I wrote actually makes sense to you.

Flame Leviathan

Download ratingbuster (or a similar mod)
Find your highest item level gear and make sure to wear it. The higher the average item level on your gear, the higher the health of the machine you'll be driving

Choice of Machines
For 10 man you want 2 demolishers, 2 siege engines, 2 choppers. Who drives which machine doesn't matter, as long as you make sure that the passengers of the demolishers can do pretty ok dps.

Activation.
Speak to Brann to start the event.

Towers
On normal mode you can just ignore all the towers, and go straight through the middle. Kill the pillars to stop adds from streaming out of them. Have some fun while doing this, and get to know the abilities of the machine you're in.

Flame Leviathan
When you kill the last two big dudes you hear Brann babble and Leviathan comes driving in.

• He will drive to the middle and announce his first follow target.
• Follow targets can be siege engines or demolishers.
• The only job for the target being followed is to kite him around, stay away from him as far as possible, and not get hit.

Target = Demolisher

• Choppers put tar in front of him to slow him down
• Siege engines make sure the flame vents get interrupted
  
• The other demolisher makes sure the tar that the choppers put down is ignited
• Do damage after you have made sure that the respective jobs per machine have been done
  

Target = Siege Engine

• Both demolisher passengers load themselves into the gun, and the driver shoots them on top of the boss, where the passengers will kill the turrets
• The main job of the Siege Engine who is not followed, is to interrupt flame vents
• Choppers still put tar down

Turrets are down

• Leviathan is stunned and the demolisher passengers are thrown off
• The choppers need to pick up these passengers, heal them up to full and drop them off next to their respective demolishers
• While being stunned Leviathan takes more damage so do as much damage as you can
  

Rinse and Repeat

CC: Quest Tracking

Since I slept about 10 hours yesterday (boy was that needed) there was no post. Today however, I'm back with new energy!

Every Tuesday I will pick out one of the in game utilities that I will turn inside out, criticize and will even see how the Blizz developers could've done a better job. The Tuesday posts will from now on be baptized Constructive Criticism or CC. This first week I will talk about the in-game quest/achievement tracking.

CC: Constructive Criticism

One of my mods kept telling me that I should stop tracking quests before I could track any others, even though I was tracking no quests. It turned out to be Chinchilla, an addon that replaces my minimap, and apparently the Blizzard quest tracking didn’t enjoy my minimap being replaced.

And while I don’t care so much about quest tracking (monkey quest was doing just fine), I do like the achievement tracking every now and then…especially those built in timers are very handy when you’re trying to do the Blade’s Edge bombing achievement for example.

I would love to be able to play the game without mods, or at least as few as possible, so I disabled Chinchilla, disabled Monkey Quest, and figured I would give the in game tracker a serious try, maybe it had changed so much that I could keep the mods turned off.

I logged in and went to the interface menu to turn on all the funky options for quest tracking. The first mistake that is easily to make is that you can turn on a checkbox called 'Disable Mouseover' this means that you cannot use the options the quest tracking frame actually has to offer.

After this I figured I would do my normal questing round through the argent tournament dailies, while picking up some extras on the way. I started picking up quests and they started appearing on the right of my screen. By the time I was done picking up quests, I was tracking 10 quests of which 2 had quest items.

The quest tracking was now scrolling under my buttons, so I either had to stop tracking some quests, or I had to resize the window. I resized the window slightly, but to keep it readable I then had to make it wider.

Still the quest tracking was so big that it filled up most of my screen, and this was made worse by the fact that both quests with items were underneath each other and there was a huge gap in between those two. I sort of looked at it and frowned, not really pretty, but hey, getting errors that I couldn’t track anymore quests while I wasn’t tracking any wasn’t pretty either.

So I stuck with it for another while and set off to do my quests. I went to kill scourge and Valkyrie (the perfect combination since they count for both) and found out that while the progress was showing up in the middle of my screen, the quest tracker for this quest was at the bottom of the row, and hence disappeared off my screen. I couldn’t see my tracking at all. I completed this quest and went into my log to turn off tracking for the quests that were finished (already annoyed that it didn’t stop tracking completed quests automatically), and cleared up some space.

Next I did the wood-chopping, and I have to say, I really, really like not having to look through my bags for the quest item. So I was neatly chopping away, and remember thinking that it would be nice if the quest that I was actually working on would slide to the top of the tracker. I finished this quest and clicked on it to open up my log. Nothing happened. Turns out you have to click the title of the quest to make your log open, clicking anywhere else just doesn’t work.

Maybe I’m just too spoiled by monkey quest, but I was in the area of Dalaran now, and flew back there to turn on my monkey quest.

The negatives:

• It’s just too big. On my screen it took up about a 5th of my screen. I have a 24” and still have enough screen space to look around it; if you have a 5th of a 17” taken away you don’t see the game anymore.
• Extra gaps created every time a quest has a quest item.
• No priority on tracking. The quests seem to be tracked in the order that you pick them up, instead of the one you working on being on top.

The wannahaves:

• I would like an option that automatically takes completed quests off my tracking.
• A command to bind to a key to collapse the entire quest tracking would be brilliant. That way it’s out of the way when I run into a pvp flagged hordie, or when I go raiding, and I don’t have to go through my entire log to turn on or off tracking one by one.
  
• It would be lovely to have my quest turn-in points appear on my map. I often forget where so and so NPC is again, and can’t even count the times I had to look it up in wowhead or so where to turn in my quest again.

The positives:

• The fact that they stick the quest item straight next to the quest does make it so that you don’t have to go through your bags to find the item back.
  
• The extra tooltips they have introduced are nice, though sometimes a little too much information is given and it would’ve sufficed to just show which quest the mobs belonged to.
  
• I like that I can open the log from the tracking, but it should really be opened from anywhere I click, not only from the title.

How about you? Do you have any tips to Blizzard on how to improve their quest/achievement tracking?

My Guild is the Best Guild

I happen to think that I'm in the best guild there is out there. We're not the top guild on the server, but we do ok. We don't even raid 25s at the moment, and still there would be no other guild out there I would rather be in, no matter how competitive I can be.

My guild is there for me. We have fun together, we laugh together, and like I saw today when we were in Ulduar, they are also understanding if stuff comes up, and suddenly you have to leave.

(Thanks you guys!)


So what makes a guild good?

Some people think that the top guilds are those that always have the world first kills. Well, in some ways they probably are, but I know that about 99% of the players wouldn't feel happy at all with being in a guild like Ensidia, The Dark Embrace, or Vodka. These guilds have fun in their own way, but it definitely wouldn't be my way, and probably not your way.

After Larisa from the Pink Pigtail Inn linked Kungen's blog I read his story, and I can tell you, I may be jealous of the content they get to see at times, but not for all the money in the world would I want to spend over 40 hours without sleep just to get server first titles.

No, a guild should be your home and family online. If you spend many, many hours in each others company you at least have to like each other. This is also why I've personally never understood the whole looking for guild thing too much. In my eyes if it doesn't come naturally, should you really treat it as a job?

Maybe I had an easy ride. When I started playing I wasn't alone in the game. A very good friend was there already, and me and my boyfriend (Thrornir) levelled together. The friend sponsored me into Furious Pantaloons, and it was such a good fit, I just never left again.

Also our guild doesn't just recruit, the people who are joining are friends or family from members, and even then we make sure that they fit into the guild as a person. They don't have to raid, or even be of a specific level. They just have to fit on a personal level.

In some eyes that makes FP elitist, I just think that we're making sure that existing and new members will indeed find that homely feeling online.

So what if you're not as lucky as I were?

Well there are several options out there. You could find guilds on lookingforguild.net or wowlemmings.com. There are probably a couple of other sites out there that offer similar services.

Or you could just have fun in the game, and join a random pug group. People will notice soon enough that you don't have a guild tag above your head yet, and if you just let it happen, one day you'll find yourself being invited to join a group of people who are likeminded.

Just remember, as long as nobody pays you to play WoW, you better darn well make sure that you're having fun in the game. So don't let yourself be seduced by the lists that say that so and so guild is the best to join. It may well be that it's just not the right guild for you.

And hey, if you do happen to be the right material for one of those 'Top-end' guilds, I have a request and a general advice.

Share the content with those who don't get to see it as much as you can. Let those who won't see it first hand enjoy the content second hand.

As for the advice, don't climb too high, you'll have to come down one day.

Must Have Bookmarks

Today I will talk about linkies.

Uhm yeah, so not that type of linkie....






(sorry, I hope I didn't hit the pun button too hard?)



I was looking at my bookmarks list today, and discovered that over time I have gathered over 50 WoW related bookmarks. I thought this was a bit much, and since I've been cleaning up anyway, I figured I would clean up my bookmarks list as well.

After cleanup I was left with 18 WoW bookmarks, some of which I consider a must have for anybody who plays World of Warcraft, others are just so cool that I didn't want to get rid of them, and others again are funky little tools to play with.

General Databases

• Thottbot
  I can't help it, they were the first, definitely not the best anymore, but their database still has some handy features that I like using. It was once called the WoW Bible, now Wowhead has probably taken that position.
  
  I mostly use it to look up tradeskills and drop percentages still. I normally would use Wowhead too, but as a golden oldie it keeps a spot in my bookmarks list.
  
  
• Wowhead
  The place to be to find just about everything. From quests to maps, from boss tactics to set bonuses, and much, much more. This is the spot to go for information. Available in English, German, Spanish, French, and I think what must be Russian. Also has a talent calculator, pet talent calculator, and also does item comparison for you.
  
  
• Allakhazam
  Another general information database. I used to use this one mostly for AH prices, but Wowhead now has this information integrated. I prefer the gem section of Allakhazam above the other 2, but that's just personal preference.
  
  
• WoWWiki
  Information from gamers to gamers. Like any wiki written by the reader (so player base) and provides a lot of good information about a lot of subjects.
  

The first three offer a similar service, of which Wowhead is probably the most used one at the moment, which gives the advantage of always having up to date user comments.

Wowwiki is more of a wow dictionary, not only does it have heaps and heaps of lists like the other three, it also has a lot of lore information.

Handy Stuff

• Jame's Guides
  Jame has many guides, all of them as handy, and all of them free. I use them mostly to find the quests I still need for my loremaster achievement, but if you level an alt and want to know how to best connect quests together, or wish to know how to find your way in Sunken Temple again (I still don't know by head what the order of the statues is) this is the place to be.
  
  
• Chardev
  This site is the faster version of Warcrafter, a sandbox to play around in with your character stats. You can find your character information from the armory, and then check what switching out certain gear pieces would do for your general stats. An excellent tool for out of game theorycrafting. However, if you wish to also know what your spells do (by aproximation), you will still have to revert to Warcrafter.
  
  To use the sandbox go to character planner, tab 'armory' and look up your character.
  
  
• Be Imba
  Another theory crafting site. It will help you to find if you took the right enchants, the right gems, gives a score to your gear, and has a funky Gear-o-meter that's rather fun to play with. Gets the information from the armory, so if you plan to use this tool, you do have to make sure to log out with the right gear on, and not with your fishing pole equipped (wooops, silly me).
  
  
• WoW Armory
  The place to go for character information. Show you your character sheet out of game, arena ranks, has an item upgrade help, item database, and a lot more information. This is the official Blizzard site, and this is where a lot of other sites pull their information from.
  
  
• Game Atlas
  Maps, maps with quests, cities on maps, zooming in on maps, and all sorts of other related stuff. NPC locations, object locations, you need to find where something is? This site can show you on a map where to go. They also have an item database, and quests overview, but to be honest you want to use Wowhead for that.
  

Collectors

• Mount Checklist
  There are others out there, but this is just the easiest to use checklist for every collector of mounts. A tentative button for pets and tabards is still at the top, but aren't implemented yet, I do hope it will get to that one day.
  
  If you do look for a site with a bit more information about mounts, then check out warcraftmounts.com.
  
  
• WarcraftPets.com
  However, there is a complete site dedicated to in game vanity pets, where to get them, how to get them, and which ones are most appreciated.
  

Tradeskills

• Crafter's Tome
  All information about all trade skills in one spot. Very handy site if you're looking for information on how to level your skills, what goes into that potion again, or just a simple recipe list.

Funky Stuff

Some things that I found while cleaning up, and figured I would share because they're just funky to play with.

• Arena Tabards
  Allows you to check out what your arena flags look like before you actually pick your colors.
  
  
• Cosplay
  Some random photo album I found online, but that is rather impressive. Check out the nightelf.
  
  
• Signature Creator
  Still looking for a funky signature for your guild forums? This site may help.
  
  
• Percula: Blind
  Best machinima I've seen so far. If you want to see some more of my favorite machinima's, check out the sidebar linkies.
  

UI Review - What's Left

My little cleanup from yesterday did make me feel slightly better about the number of addons I'll have to update on a regular bases now. And as said already, today I will have a look at which addons I use, and why.


This is my ui showing almost all the addons that I currently have installed.

This is my UI as I normally see it. Though when in group or raid grid is replacing the wow frames.

So why do I have it set up like I have, and what is it all that you see in the screenshots. I'll go through all the different mods and will specify one by one.

Ones you can always see:

• Dominos
  I use Dominos to replace my buttons. I have stuck most of them in the middle where I can easily reach them, though I mostly use the buttons as cooldown monitors because I use clique and grid to actually cast my spells. The reason I finally got convinced to use a button mod was that I simply started running out of space. Dominos helped me to clean up my UI and still allowed me to keep the same number of buttons available.
  
  I have to add here though that if Blizzard allowed me to just place the buttons where I want them I would still be using the standard action bars.
  
  
• Elkano's buff bars
  By keeping them in the middle of my screen I achieve a couple of things. I get a sort of divider for my buttons so that I can stick damaging spells on one side, and healing ones on the other. The second thing it does for me is that I now get reminded all the time whether I have certain buffs or not. And lastly it cleared up the right corner of my screen, meaning I have less items in the corner of my eye drawing my attention away from where my attention should be.
  
  
• Omen
  I'm a discpline priest, I don't use omen to watch my thread, I use it to watch the tank's threat. When I have to drop a pain suppresion I want to be absolutely sure that me dropping pain suppresion is not going to kill the rogue who is next in line on the agro list.
  
  
• MinimapButtonBag
  Simple clean addon to gather all my minimapbuttons up in one button and keep the minimap free from button clutter.
  
  
• MonkeyQuest
  I have tried the blizz quest tracking, I really did. But it's clunky, doesn't prioritize, leaves big gaps in between quests, and generally is just too unhandy. So I went back to my faitful monkey quest. It shows me all the quest I want to see, is resizable (yes, I like this small as well) and gives me neat sounds upon completion. It doesn't have quest arrows to play the game for me, but I tried using Carbonite during levelling, and not only did I feel cheapish, it just seemed to take the fun out of questing. On top of all that, it's buggy as all hell.
  
  
• OPie
  This is a mod that allows me to quickly access some key buttons. I press ctrl+q and I get a small circle of quest items around my mouse buttons, ctrl+t gives me my trade skills, and there are a couple others like that.
  
  It's another one of those mods making sure I have stuff available at a keystroke, just not in my face constantly.
  
  
• Grid + Clique
  These are two different mods, but I name them together since I have never used them separately. Grid replaces your raid frames, and clique allows you to bind your spells to mousebuttons. I only use a 3 button mouse, but I have all my important spells on there somehow.
  
  While healing it is also rare that I use my keyboard for anything then turning and running, while I use my mouse to click cast and turn my camera as needed. DPSing I normally do have my spam buttons bound to some key or the other.
  
  There are those that say you cannot possibly heal without keybindings, I say they're wrong. You need to heal the way that you are comfortable healing, I have never healed differently, this is my playstyle. It makes that I'm never uncomfortable about where my targets are, I also don't have to mouse over and then find the keybinding, I just click. To each his own.
  
  
• DrDamage
  The mod allows you to see at the glance of an eye which spells do most damage, and there are a lot of other configurable options to do in game theory crafting. I use this mod more on my dps characters than on my healer, I know my priest inside out, and I also know which spell heals for which amount.
  
  I also think that if you need this mod on your main, you should play more. On your main you should know exactly which spell does what, and for how much without needing the mod.
  
  
• Itemrack
  Switch gear with the click of a button. I don't use all the fancy 'dress for the occasion' (stance changes, etc) so once the in game equipment manager finally comes out, I'm likely to switch to using that one.
  
  
• Ratingbuster
  I used to have complete lists of gearupgrades, sidegrades, and specific purpose gear lying next to my computer. Ratingbuster now calculates stuff for me. I've heard of pawn, but I don't very much like giving my stats weight, the weight of each stat depends on the gear I already have on me. I can tell a mod that int is very important, but without at least a little bit of the other stats I will still have a problem. So I let ratingbuster calculate the difference between stats on items for me, and then I will decide if I need it, not the mod.
  
  
• Atlasloot
  This mod shows you all the possible loot drops of bosses in the game. Not too much use anymore on my main, I know where my upgrades drop, but I can't help but liking the window shopping you can do with this mod. And for alts it definitely is handy when you're trying to decide which dungeon you want to go to.
  
  
• InspectEquip
  I use this for the same purpose as Atlasloot. It allows you to see in a quick window what someone else is wearing when you inspect them. I use it for window shopping. Sort of like 'oh, pretty robe, wonder where it dropped'.
  
  
• Swatter
  This is a bug catcher. It's sits in a slidebar at the side of your window, and you don't see it, but it catches nasty mod errors for you.
  
  
• Minimalist
  Finally a handy little mod that auto sells greys, skips useless chatter at vendors, auto accepts rezzes, allows me to scroll through my chat log, etc Doesn't take much memory, does a bunch of handy little things.
  

So all in all quite a bit still, but hey, if it does get to unbearable with updating. The only two I can absolutely not play without are grid and clique, not too bad.

If you have any questions, feel free to poke me about them.