Warlock Quickies

Two quick Warlock notes as an addendum to my 3.0 Impressions post.

First of all, while on Defensive, pets will automatically attack any target you cast on. They will stay on the first target unless you tell them otherwise. Nifty.

Secondly, I'm half retarded. It took me two weeks to find out about the stone changes. Here's the new Spellstone and Firestone. This is awesome. I wonder how much Spellpower that 1% translates into. I used to roll with a Firestone for the proc just for the heck of it, but it will be nice to equip a wand again. I was excited when they changed the stones from off-hand items, and now I'm even more excited. The loss of the Spellstone for PVP will take some getting used to, though.

Sam vs the Undead

Took Sam out for some Deadite bashing last night.

Twenty minutes later, I was done. Yeah, I'm hardcore.

Decided to head over to Kalimdor. I figured, since most people would be too lazy to hop on a boat and would rather just fly from EPL to wherever was being invaded, the Western concinent would be less populated. Of course, as usual, I was right. Upon arriving in Theramore, I saw that a necropolis had just appeared in Winterspring and hauled Warlock butt over there. I found an invasion point that was unoccupied by any players and went to town. I was there for about twenty minutes. I got two rare spawns. the first dropped Mail pants, the second my Cloth. By then, I had about 40 runes, more than enough to get what I wanted, so I went on my merry little way. Completed the quest, got my gloves and picked up a tabard for the Hell of it. No sense in getting the shoulders or body piece, they would be major downgrades from my Shadoweave set.

Event complete, as far as I'm concerned.

Interesting note: Denarian member "SquidMage" noticed that the necropolis outside Stormwind seems to be slowly descending. Nice catch! I'll be sure to keep my eye on it.

October Musings

I've planned to do a "random thoughts" post to end every month. I may be a little swamped at work this week, so October's is a bit early.

• When major changes are made to a game, and one class is clearly more powerful than others by a large margin, any changes made are called "fixes." "Nerfs" are changes made to long-standing abilities that have been decided to be too powerful after long periods of testing.
  
• I'm glad they brought the Scourge Invasion back, but now EVERYBODY has a Tabard of the Argent Dawn. Ralken has been holding on to his for over 2 years, and I was proud to be one of the few to have the achievement.
  
• I wonder how the Paladin FIXES will affect Protection.
  
• Philadelphia may fall of the face of the Earth is the Phillies win the World Series.
  
• Why does FOX insist on showing the Simpsons Halloween special AFTER the holiday every year? I know baseball gets in the way, but I'm sure they can find a spot in the schedule for a special showing.
  
• I wish I could afford the new Guitar Hero.
  
• Or Fable
  
• Or Fallout
  
• Seriously, I've had "Bad" and "Mr. Crowley" stuck in my head for over a week.
  
• I really miss Totemus.
  
• Jackie Chan could totally beat up Jet Li.
  
• What is Gamestop thinking giving away a level 60 weapon to any stupid kid that preorders Call of Duty?
  
• Inscription was way too easy to level. Not that I'm complaining.\
  
• Gurren Lagann is one of the best animes I've seen in a few years. Too bad it will be ending soon.
  
• I'm glad Heroes has shown they can still be one of the best shows on TV.
  
• Maelstrom Weapon WILL be nerfed. Yes, that's a nerf. Bliz has said they are happy with its current function.
  

In case I don't get a chance to post again this week, Happy Halloween everyone!

Shaman 3.0 Impressions

Holy Space Goats, Batman!

3.0 Shamans are amazing. Dare I say, as Enhancement, I may be a little TOO powerful.

Haddar is level 64, specced full Enhancement, geared in Outland greens, questing in Terokkar. Typical attack rotation is Stormstrike -> Earth Shock -> Lava Lash -> Earth Shock/Lightning Bolt. If anything's alive after that, it's a miracle. Most fights don't even make it that far.

Enhancement Shamans can be summed up in one word: Hybrid. I know, "Aren't all Shamans, Paladins and Droods hybrids?"

NO!

Droods as a class are hybrids. They can tank, melee DPS, range DPS and heal. Same with Paladins minus the range and Shamans minus the tanking. Now, that's a CLASS hybrid. I'm looking at it as a GAMEPLAY hybrid. Droods, Paladins, and Ele/Resto Shamans perform one kind of combat. Boomkins and Elemental Shamans aren't going in to melee along with their casting. Healers just heal. Tankadins and Retadins deal melee and holy damage, sure. But most of that is procs, very little actual spellcasting. Enhancement Shamans are the only build in the game that can effectively melee and cast offensive spells. And, damn, it's fun.

The addition of Lava Lash pushes Shamans to use Flametongue on their offhand weapons. This, of course, gives a nice bonus to Spellpower for those Shocks. Also, Flametongue now deals nice damage of its own. Testing at level 70 has shown that dual-Windfury is still the top-DPS until Wrath, I don't care. First of all, I cry every time my offhand steals my Windfury proc. More importantly, Flametongue is just more FUN.

Mana is a non-issue. With the change to Shamanistic Focus, Shamans are much more consistent with their mana usage, since it's no longer crit-based. Water Shield is now trainable at level 20, which is a big win, especially with the glyph. Of course, Shamanistic Rage is still there when you need it.

Ah, but Mana is not the only thing we can regen now! Feral Spirit, in addition to being full of awesome and tons of fun, will regen your health with each attack. Get a couple adds? Summon these babies and it's not a problem.

The one thing that puzzles me about Enhancement is Maelstrom weapon. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun talent. I love launching instant Lightning Bolts. I have to wonder, though, is it a little TOO powerful? This thing is active pretty much all the time. Bliz has said that they balanced it for 2-handed weapons, and they agree it procs a little too often, but they have also said that Shamans are having fun with it, so they're going to leave it as is for now. Now, I'm sure that's dev-speak for "expect a nerf in the future." One must wonder, though: Why would they balance a deep Enhancement talent for 2-handed weapons? Anybody with this talent will be dual-wielding. I'll be keeping a close eye on this talent in the future.

All in all, Shaman was the most fun I've had with any class pre-3.0, and now it's even MORE fun. Anyone who hasn't rolled one yet should give it a try. That pre-40 dead zone is a little more manageable now, it would seem.

Monkey Business Explained

Well, after some research I found out what's going on with Eldrar.

First the bad news. Growl is completely hosed at the moment. Many Hunters are as helpless as I am. Guess I better put Raptor Strike back on my action bar. I would assume Bliz will have this fixed shortly.

How about some good news? Thunderstomp is more intelligent than me. Thunderstomp is programmed to only autocast when the gorilla is fighting 2 or more mobs. Why didn't I think of that?

Monkey Business

Okay, Eldrar is hosed.

I took him out to Quel'Danas tonight to really test him out. The stupid ape couldn't hold aggro at all.

Yes, there is a well-documented bug where the abilities in your spellbook will turn on autocast every time you dismount or otherwise summon your pet. I checked, and made sure Cower was off. Still got my Dwarf butt smacked around. When I checked my combat log, Growl missed its target. Every. Single. Time.

Lame.

Also, Thunderstomp never once autocast. I have no idea what's going on. It's not addon-related. I'll have to wait and see.

Hunter Pet History

When I first started playing WoW, I didn't know a whole lot. I knew I wanted to be a Dwarf... and that's about it. I watched the opening cinematic and saw the Hunter and his bear and figured I'd give that a try. I mean, boomstick! How awesome is that? So, WoW Ralken was born.

I logged in ad promptly ran around Anvilmar trying to figure out how to get a pet. Look, that level 2 Warlock has one! Why don't I? Yes, I was a noob, but everyone was back then.

Anyway, I drudged through those first 10 levels in what seemed to take months, and finally learned how to tame pets. I instantly went out and got an Ice Claw Bear. That was Eldrar 1.0. No, I left the 1.0 off his name, I just use it here as a naming designation. After a few levels, I did the A Pilot's Revenge quest and met Mangeclaw, a beautiful white polar bear. This guy was a pain to tame at level 12, due to his interrupt attack. It took a few tries, but I had a pet very few other players did, especially in those early days. That was Eldrar 1.1.

I don't know if any of my readers were playing back in the dark days of WoW 1.2, but let me put this simply: Hunters sucked. Or maybe I sucked. I'm not sure, but I do know this: Hunter PETS sucked. Sure, nowadays you young kids have scaling pets, focus dumps, talent trees and all kinds of toys. I had Growl and Bite, and Bite was a waste of Focus. I could have used Claw, as well, but pet autocasts were stupid back then, and Claw would leave me with no focus for growl. It all came down to one simple realization: poor Eldrar wasn't cutting it. He couldn't hold aggro. I needed something that could do damage. I was leveling in the Wetlands at the time and figured I'd try a Raptor. I went out and got Rubio, a Mottled Raptor.

Anyone who gets the reference for that name gets a cookie.

Rubio and I did well for a while. After a dozen or so levels, I realized that Rubio was getting beat around a bit too much. At this point, I had grown smarter. I started researching. I found out that Raptors were Offensive pets. Sure, he could hold aggro, but he had no defensive capabilities. I needed a Defensive pet, but I didn't want the trouble I had with Eldrar. After some digging, and discovering the Holy Grail of Hunter information, Petopia, I learned that the only Defensive pets with Medium DPS ratings were Crocolisks and Gorillas. There were no Crocolisks around my level, but there were some pretty white Gorillas. Once I got to level 40, I got myself an Elder Mistvale Gorilla. Here's Eldrar 2.0.

Eldrar and I stomped all over the rest of the game, literally. Thunderstomp had a 60 second cooldown back then, but it was still amazing. I recieved whispers any time I was in town asking where I got such a cool pet, but the only other Hunter I ever saw with a Gorilla was a guildie I was mentoring.

I kept Eldrar on as my tanking pet, and also picked up a Giant Ember Worg, Hayate, for groups.

Then, it happened. Two weeks before Burning Crusade, I got hacked. These jerks used Ralken for farming in Winterspring. With a cat. They abandoned my partner, my lifelong companion, my monkey for a freaking CAT.

I hate Cats.

Fast forward a year or so. I had no motivation to play my Hunter without Eldrar. I took up Sam as my main character, and was working on Ullic. Around this time, my girlfriend took a hiatus from Final Fantasy XI to give WoW a try. She rolled a Hunter and I helped her along. I got the itch to get Ral going again, and I geared him back up and brought him to Outland. He needed a pet. I looked at my options, tryed Hayate, but he wasn't cutting it. I tamed Rico, a Razorfang Hatchling, but I didn't like him. After some further research, I found out about Boars. There were level 60 Boars in EPL, just sitting there waiting to be tamed. They were ugly things, but I gave it a shot. One Plagued Swine later, Chops was mine.

Chops was amazing. An unkillable tanking machine. Alas, it was not meant to be. Bliz stealth-nerfed the Charge + Growl combo in patch 2.4.2, in preparation for Growl scaling off Hunter's AP instead of Pet's AP in 2.4.3.

Great, now what? Ooh, Screech is a good aggro-holding focus dump. Let me try a bird. Cema 1.0 was a Greater Windroc. I upgraded to a Dire Raven when 2.4.3 hit since Carrion Birds were Defensive pets, while Owls were Offensive. Cema 1.1 got me to 70, and she's still with me.

The biggest announcement about Wrath for me was that pets would auto-level to within 5 levels of the Hunter upon taming. I could get my monkey back! Two days after 3.0.2 went live, I picked up Uhk'loc and squealed with delight with Eldrar 3.0. Sure, thanks to BRK, everyone has a Gorilla now, but I doubt many will stick with them. There's Devilsaurs and Core Hounds and Rhinos for those wannabes. I'm a Gorilla man to the end.

Affliction Tree 3.0

Alright, I've given my impressions of Affliction gameplay, let's dive a little deeper into the tree itself.

My build can be found here. Keep in mind that this build is optimized for solo play.

Let's break that tree down.

Tier 1
Improved Curse of Agony: 0/2 I prefer CoElements, so these points are better spent elsewhere.
Suppression: 3/3 Extra hit is nice. Mana efficiency is a big goal of mine, this is where I put my extra points to get down to further tiers.
Improved Corruption: 5/5 Extra damage with it now base instant-cast? Yes please.

Tier 2
Frailty: 0/2 I guess if these are your dedicated curses in a raid setting, this would be a decent talent.
Improved Drain Soul: 2/2 Haven't had much use for the mana return at 70, perhaps later. Threat reduction is always nice, but not sure how neccessary it will be with tanks getting huge buffs. Perhaps these points will move in Wrath.
Improved Life Tap: 0/2 Nice talent for a pre-40 build. May take this if I decide to drop Imp Drain Soul.
Soul Siphon: 2/2 A must for Drain-Tanking.

Tier 3
Improved Fear: 0/2 Nice PVP talent.
Fel Concentration: 3/3 Another must for Drain-Tanking. Now that is affects UA and Haunt, it's an amazing talent.
Amplify Curse: 1/1 This is more of a PVP talent. I put this here just because I had one extra point left. This will be removed in my level 80 build.

Tier 4
Grim Reach: 0/2 I never understood this talent. Why would I want extra range on my Affliction spells, but have to run in to fire Shadow Bolts or put up Immolate?
Nightfall: 2/2 Easily my favorite talent in the game. And, yes, Glyph of Corruption will give you double the Nightfall procs.
Empowered Corruption: 3/3 No explanation required.

Tier 5
Shadow Embrace: 5/5 A decent talent becomes amazing. Useful in PVE and PVP. Also, the Shadow Embrace effect counts towards Soul Siphon.
Siphon Life: 1/1 I rarely use this spell in normal leveling, due to it's mana inefficiency. It just takes too long to get the full effect. But when i need it, I'm glad I have it.
Curse of Exhaustion: 0/1 Primarily a PVP talent. Warlocks can use it to kite, but just bring a Hunter instead.

Tier 6
Improved Felhunter: 2/2 Love it. Love it. Love it. Affliction finally has a dedicated pet.
Shadow Mastery: 5/5 If you see an Affliction Warlock without this, ask him where he bought his account.

Tier 7
Eradication: 0/3 Nice talent, great name. More of a raiding talent, for help with Shadow Bolt spam, I would imagine.
Contagion: 5/5 Another mandatory talent.
Dark Pact: 1/1 The reason to go Affliction. With Improved Felhunter, I see almost no need for Life Tap now.

Tier 8
Improved Howl of Terror: 0/2 More of a PVP talent. I know many 'Locks like to Drain-Tank multiple mobs with this, but I'm happy with my playstyle. Using fear mechanics as a leveling method just seems too risky for me.
Malediction: 3/3 Curse of Elements is my primary curse. Extra spell damage is icing.

Tier 9
Death's Embrace: 3/3 I really like this talent. My biggest problem with Affliction in Burning Crusade was difficulty finishing enemies off. This talent fixes that.
Unstable Affliction: 1/1 More DoTs!
Pandemic: 0/3 The only reason I'm avoiding this talent right now is I have almost no crit rating. My gear is focused on pure Spellpower. I may pick this one up in Wrath.

Tier 10
Everlasting Affliction: 5/5 This is brilliant. I really have nothing to add here.

Tier 11
Haunt: 1/1 This is the best new skill of the patch for me, across all classes. Bliz did tons of tinkering to get it just right, and I believe they were successful in a big way.

From here, I prefer to go Demonology for the stat boosts and Demonic Aegis.

Before I sign off on this post, I'd like to give a huge shout-out to Wowhead. Powered by Wowhead has got to be the greatest tool a WoW blogger has.

Listed!

Whee, it took a while, but I'm finally listed on Warcraft Bloggers.

*waves*

I put a shiny little badge on the page to show it off.

Warlock 3.0 Impressions

Alright, had some time to test out my new 3.0 Affliction build this weekend. Took him to Quel'Danas for some daily action. Tons of fun. Seems way overpowered, if you ask me, but of course, everything's balanced for level 80, so we'll see how it works out.

Cast rotation was as follows:
Curse of Elements -> Corruption -> Unstable Affliction -> Haunt -> Drain Life
That's it. Only one DL before the mob dies. No time for Nightfall procs or even a Drain Soul to finish it off. Enemies were half dead before I even started draining.

The boosts to Fel Concentration make this cast rotation very easy to pull off. Normally, I would start with the cast-time spells before the instants, but now, the ablity to put Curse of Elements up first is very handy.

Here's some quick numbers:
Self-buffed bonus spell damage is at 808 with untalented Fel Armor. Used to be quite a bit higher, but the Spellpower change nerfed all the Shadow-specific damage on my gear.

Corruption: 669/tick
Unstable Affliction: 609/tick
Drain Life: 358/tick
Haunt: 1104

Haunt gives 20% increased damage to all DoTs on the target, plus an additional 5% with the Shadow Embrace talent. Fitting it in to your cast rotation is a must. Gaining over 1k health back at the end of each fight is a nice bonus, as well, especially since Fel Armor no longer grants extra healing. That effect has been moved over to Demon Armor, although Fel Armor got the health regen from Demon Armor to make up for it.

Mana efficiency is insane. Drain Soul at the end of every mob was not necessary. Good thing, too, since I'm hopeless at managing shards without Necrosis. (UPDATE: Necrosis 3.0 wentlive late Saturday)

Now for the best part of 3.0 Affliction leveling: the Felhunter. Previously, Affliction 'Locks would use Imp as a mana battery or Succubus for damage. There's also the ones who didn't know any better and rocked a Voidwalker. Those poor lost souls.

However, we now have a dedicated Affliction pet thanks to the Improved Felhunter talent. Fel Intelligence is a great buff, since Fel Armor now grants a percentage of your Spirit as Spellpower. And Shadow Bite. Holy Crap, Shadow Bite. Extra damage for DoTs on the target... nice. Netting 5% base mana each time it's used... amazing. This will keep your Felpup topped off at all times for Dark Pacting.

Once all the post-patch insanity dies down, I'll run some damage meter tests with the Training Dummies.

Initially, though, I must say I'm very happy with the new Affliction tree.

Uhk'loc tamed

Everyone, meet Eldrar. Smile for the camera, Eldrar.



No no no. The camera is this way, silly ape.



That's better. Yay!

Inscription 300

Got Inscription to 300.

Slightly underestimated the amount of herbs needed for the lower tiers. Had to transfer a couple hundred gold over from alts. However, with the insane rush to buy Glyphs, I stand to make all that back and then some overnight.

Minor Inscription research is a fun little aspect. Basically, once a day, you have a chance of discovering new recipes. Also, since Minor Glyphs are not trainable, this is the only way to get some very fun effects.

Just great

First, servers blow up Tuesday, no chance to play with Inscription.

Now, BRK wants my monkey. What does this mean? Since BRK is the king of internet Hunters, this means that every Hunter on the planet will want him.

Fair warning, A-N... back off my monkey!

Okay, that didn't sound quite right.

Just in time!

With a few hours to spare before 3.0 hits, I have finished gathering all the herbs I (theroretically) need for Inscription.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's:
40 Peacebloom, 60 Silverleaf, 20 Earthroot, 20 Mageroyal, 80 Briarthorn, 20 Bruiseweed, 30 Swiftthistle, 20 Wild Steelbloom, 100 Kingsblood, 40 Liferoot, 40 Fadeleaf, 60 Goldthorn, 60 Khadgar's Whiskers, 80 Blindweed, 40 Sungrass, 40 Arthas' Tears, 60 Gromsblood, 100 Plaguebloom, 60 Dreamfoil, 40 Golden Sansam, 40 Mountain Silversage, 250 Felweed and 90 Dreaming Glory

That's a grand total of 1,390 herbs.

Sam's Blizzcon thoughts

While I was not lucky, rich or motivated enough to trek cross-country for Blizzcon, I had to be happy with refreshing MMO Champion every 5 minutes trying to get the latest news.

So, I have a few thoughts on the announcements made this weekend.

First, the non-WoW announcements.

Diablo III's Wizard? Love it. Blizzard described the Wizard as a young, untrained mage not yet worthy of the title "Sorcerer." What does this mean for us players? Lots of explosions. The Video is a must-see.

Starcraft II brought the biggest bomb of the show, announcing that it would be split into 3 separate games, with each game's single-player campaign focusing on one of the three races. Some see this as Blizzard's way of milking more money out of us, but, honestly, I'm all for it. So as long as they're willing to distribute 3 full games' worth of content, I'm willing to purchase 3 full games. Think of it as Blizzard's usual "one game and one expansion" method, with a second expansion thrown in to complete the story.

World of Warcraft took up most of the show. Here's some highlights.
Dual-Spec System: I like this and hate it at the same time. I like the concept. Personally, I would love to be able to respec my Shaman to Restoration for an instance run, then back to Enhancement for leveling. If they can implement the item-rack feature to allow you to carry around a second set of armor, great. Binding hotkeys and Glyphs to each spec? Brilliant. My main issue with the system is that it's too flexible. Currently, as planned, you will be able to switch specs at any time outside of combat. This seems like a poor decision to me. It takes away all the individuality of the different specs, by allowing someone to constantly hop back and forth. In my opinion, they should make an NPC in major cities that will switch your spec. That way, players will actually have to choose which spec will be the most useful for what they want to do. Obviously, this system is still pretty far off, so I'll withhold final judgement until then.
Death Knight Talents: I would love to see this philosophy spread to other classes. Originally, Blood was the DPS tree, Frost was the tanking tree and Unholy was the PVP tree. Now, any spec will do for each purpose. The talent trees just dictate HOW you go about it. Blood is about pure damage and healing, Frost is about Crowd Control, while Unholy is about Diseases and Minions. Surely, there will be a "best" spec for each situation, but an Unholy Knight will be able to tank decently, and a Blood Knight will be effective in PVP.
Freezing Shot: This allows Hunters to CC without setting up traps ahead of time. This will allow Huntards to be useful, but I can't wait to see it in the hands of a good Hunter. I'm very much looking forward to the possibility of keeping multiple enemies trapped for extended periods of time.
Affliction Warlocks: Bliz acknowledges that the Affliction tree is a bit complicated, without a true focus, and I agree. While I am an Affliction 'Lock for life, I'm not crazy about the 3.0 tree.
Swimming Mounts: While it's nice to be able to cross rivers on my Dwarf without dismounting, when my Draenei never had a problem, I'm a bit disappointed. I would have preferred actual water mounts.
Tenacity Pets: Hunters with pets specced for tanking should be able to off-tank instances, but not main tank. Awesome.
DoTs: Being able to tag a mob when the DoT is applied, not when it ticks would be huge. Not implemented yet, but it's nice to know they're working on it.

Plenty more out there that I'm not going to comment on, but I would love to hear your input!

How to be a Hardcore Casual

Well, first of all, what IS a Hardcore Casual?

A Hardcore Casual is someone who really enjoys the game. Who knows the ins and outs of every mechanic. Who can play their class blindfolded... successfully. Who could, if they applied themselves, become a top-tier player in the game.

And why would someone not accomplish these goals?

The answer is simple: time.

Not everybody puts WoW before everything else in their life. We have jobs, families and other interests. Personally, I play for a few hours Friday night, a good chunk of Saturday afternoon and evening, then an hour or two some nights throughout the week. Playing with this schedule for the better part of the past three years, I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished.

Here's a list of things to do in order to be a successful casual player:

1: Plan
Plan ahead for what you want to accomplish on a character. Keep a mental list of your goals. Better yet, write them down. Keep a notepad file handy on your desktop. Start a blog. No matter what you do, always be working towards something. Let's take a look at my Warlock, Samodean, starting at the launch of Burning Crusade.
Step 1: Level to 70
Step 2: Buy a flying mount
Step 3: Complete all Outland quests
Step 4a: Level Tailoring to 375
Step 4b: Complete the Frozen Shadoweave set
Step 5: Reach Exalted with Scryers

2: Know your limits
Once those 5 steps were complete, I considered my Warlock "done." Sure, there was plenty more he could do, but I was happy with where he was. I did a little PVP for fun, but never really dedicated myself to it. Due to time constraints, raiding was out of the picture, but I would keep the character available for the odd Guild instance run. I try to avoid PuGs, so constanly farming instances for Oblivion wasn't a smart goal, although I would have liked to at least get that 2-piece bonus. Heroic keys required Revered status at the time, so those weren't even an interest. At this point, I decided it would be a better use of my time to focus on another character.

3: Focus
Don't keep jumping around from one character to another. Sure, play an alt here and there for fun or to break up the monotony, but try to kep the bulk of your playing time dedicated to one or two characters. For example, I play on 2 separate computers. My weekday computer is a bit of a POS. With a lame video card and low-tier DSL, I try to keep things simple. Most notably, I don't run any addons. So, without the aid of Necrosis or Totemus, I try not to play my Warlock or Shaman during the week. On the other hand, weekends are on the primary system with cable internet, and I have no limits to what I can do. So, weekdays are currently Hunter time and weekends are Shaman-focused.

4: Take a breather
Focusing on one character is all well and good, but don't burn yourself out. Set aside some time to play a low-level alt, play some Battlegrounds, have some fun with your Guild, or just go pick some flowers. Whatever works for you.

All in all, keep in mind: This is just a game. The primary goal should be to have fun. If banging your head against your desk for hours every night trying to clear a new raid instance is your idea of fun, that's all well and good. Personally, that's not my thing. And there's the thing I love most about WoW compared to other MMOs I've played. A casual player can log on for an hour or two and get something done. No, maybe they can't be the best of the best on their server, but they can be proud of what they've done. They can have fun with their game.

Why Hardcore Casual?

The question is simple. Why start a blog?

Well... why not?

I spend a lot of time browsing Warcraft Bloggers. I have become a disciple of BRK (foshizzle!) I figured, "Hey! I can do this!"

I am very proud of what I have been able to accomplish merely playing 10-16 hours a week. I figure I'd share with others how to do the same. Also, it helps to put things down on paper (or the internets, as it may be) One of the primary steps to success as a Hardcore Casual is to have a plan. Have goals. Writing them down and tracking progress really helps in this endeavor. However, more on that later...

What is Hardcore Casual?

Hardcore Casual is a blog about and for casual players who want to accomplish the same feats as full-time players. I only play a couple of days a week, myself, yet I have multiple 70s, several other high levels, maxed out professions and I even run my own guild. Basically, this is just a place to post all the random thoughts I get during the day. Believe me, there's a lot of them.

You'll find updates on my characters' progress as they very slowly accomplish things that even those who play constantly haven't achieved. There are plenty of players out there who never reached Exalted with The Scryers. I did it in a couple of weekends.

So, stay tuned, Thus Far Nonexistant Readers.

Welcome to Hardcore Casual

Hardcore Casual is now in the testing phase.

Yes, I'm new to this whole blogging thing.