Mists of Pandaria and Me

What are my experiences until now in Mists of Pandaria? So far patch 5.1 has been here, and here are my experiences. 

My history
I started playing World of WarCraft at the beginning of Cataclysm. My first characters varied from a blood elf priest to an orc warlock. Several (deleted) characters later, I started my night elf druid, the character that stole my heart. I loved him, it was a lot of fun. My first roles were feral dps and restoration off spec, but I did not understand healing at the time. I can remember a tank shouting: "One rejuvenation is not going to keep me alive noob" while I was spamming rejuvenation. Oh how I've learned since then. I switched to balance when my guild needed a ranged dps. At the time, friends and family helped me out with getting the hang of things such as hit rating and other important stats. Two persons in particular I am forever grateful, which is Jazzi (my sister) and Chalys (my mentor).

After playing alliance for a while, and having a ton of fun in my semi-hardcore guild in Firelands and Dragon Soul, I switched completly. My alliance characters became horde characters, and my night elf druid became a female troll. Now, all my serious characters are horde. However, I decided to level some alliance characters this expansion on different servers, so that I can get a taste of what I used to be. I am currently working on a draenei enhancement shaman, a worgen affliction warlock and a night elf shadow priest.

At the beginning of Mists of Pandaria, I began leveling my druid. The changes to balance were quite noticeable, and the fun I used to have with the spec vanished somehow. Therefore, after dinging 90 with my druid, I decided to change my main into my goblin shaman. Shamans are a lot of fun, elemental is epic and restoration still is brilliant. If I will ever change back to my druid is unknown for now, because balance is bad and (druid) restoration does not interest me that much. It went in the wrong direction when they nerfed Wild Growth.


Class Guides for Patch 5.0.4

So I've decided to upload Guide videos for the release of Patch 5.0.4 from World of WarCraft: Mists of Pandaria. All guides are updated for the latest patch (5.0.4) and may count for the whole expansion. A summary...

1. BALANCE DRUIDS

Blog Link: http://moonkinspandaria.blogspot.nl/2012/08/pandaria-moonkins-on-ptr.html

2. DESTRUCTION WARLOCKS
Blog Link: http://fransgaming.blogspot.nl/2012/08/warcraft-destruction-locks-504-guide.html

3. FIRE MAGES


4. FROST MAGES


5. ELEMENTAL SHAMANS

WarCraft: Destruction Locks 5.0.4 guide

This blog is a part of the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNoKXCNh-8&feature=youtu.be

Destruction Warlocks in 5.0.4:
With patch 5.0.4, destruction warlocks received many changes and with it came new abilities and old abilities revamped or removed. For example, Destruction loses its Soul fire and corruption, while it focuses on immolate, conflagrate, incinerate and chaos bolts. It's really all about building up Burning Embers and spending them on Chaos

Stat Priority in 5.0.4:

Intellect >  15% Spell Hit > Haste > Crit => Mastery

- The most important stat is still Intellect, although everyone's mana has been downgraded (or upgrade) to 100.000k at level 85. However, intellect still improves your spell power which improves the power.. of your spells. That's why intellect is still the number 1 stat.
- 15% Spell Hit is really important, else you'll keep missing your targets and that's really bad for your chaos bolts since they hit very hard.
- Haste improves the DoT time of immolate and increases your cast time. Really important stat!
- Crit rating gives a better chance of hitting your enemy.. criticaly.
- Mastery improves the power of Burning Embers, as well as your core abilities. Mastery and Crit have the same value, though Crit is favored by most.

Don't use these stats:
 - Spirit is still useless for destruction warlocks, because you'll get 624% increased mana regen from the Destruction tree. No worries there, so don't steal the loot from priests.
- Strength and Agility don't add anything for warlocks.
- Expertise and more than 15% SPELL hit shouldn't be on your gear. You're not a hunter after all.
- PvP Resillience and PvP Power, unless you're PvP'ing. This is a PvE guide.

Reforging stuff:
- If you don't have 15% SPELL hit yet, reforge either mastery or crit from your items to hit.
- If you're above 15% SPELL hit, reforge HIT > Haste or Crit.
- If your hit is fine, reforge your crit/mastery > Haste.

Rotation:

Check out this video for the full rotation.

War of Legends Startup Guide


War of Legends
War of Legends is a browser-based game, made by Jagex Incorporated (known for RuneScape). It's a Strategic game which requires lots of time to become better and better. In order to play this Chinese oriented game, you need some time and patience, because at the start it may look a bit boring or long-taking. However, when time will come you'll notice it's much fun.

How to play War of Legends
- In order to play WoL, you need a browser and Java updated.
- You can create an account via www.waroflegends.com. Currently, you can log in with Facebook if you like or create an account by using your emailadress and a password. People who play Runescape can log-in with theirRunescape data.
Getting started
- When you've created an account, you have to create a legend. Legends are legendary soldiers that fight by your sides and lead your cities and armies to victory. I suggest assigning your own created legend as governor.
- After you have created a legend, you'll enter your city. You'll notice several things in the interface:
  1. Your legend: here you'll see your legend, the one you've created. It's important to level your legend, so that your city gets more bonuses such as an attack bonus for your army.
    The bonus-time bag: Right next to the level indicator of your legend, you'll see a bag. When you click on it, you can see the "Time Online" bonuses. These are easily obtainable by being online. You'll get a reward after 5, 30, 60, 120 and 180 minutes. The longer you stay online, the better the reward is. You can simply keep the game running while you go away, that will count too.
  2. Name, Rep, Pos., All., Cash, Rank, Side, Role: On 2, you see the name of you(r legend), the Reputation you have, the position you are, the Alliance you've joined, the WoL cash you own, the rank you are, the side you are and what role you are in the alliance. More information later.
  3. Your City name and the 3 tabs: On 3 you can see the name of your city, as well as 3 tabs. The first tab brings you to your city, the second tab brings you to your resource-fields and the third tab brings you to your surrounding area. When you get a second city, you'll be able to chose at number 3 to which city you want to go.
  4. Ruler, Inv, Task, Rank: At 4, you can find 4 pictograms. The second and third pictogram are the most important once, because you need tasks to grow and in your inventory all treasures and important items will be put. 
  5. Your palace: It is important to get a high level palace, because the higher level your palace is, the morewildlands you can occupy and territories you can own. The max. level of all buildings is level 20. In the palace, you can assign a governor, change the name of your city, change the Tax fee, check yourwildlands and territories, see how construction goes and pacify your population.
  6. Internal affairs, Legend, Alliance, Trade, Military situation, Report, Mail: Most important tabs here are "legend" and "report". At your legends tab, you can see all the legends you own and assign soldiers to them. At the report tab, you can see reports of battles you have fought with your army, as well as attacks to your city. Don't worry, the first days you play you cannot get attacked. 
  7. Buildings being constructed/upgraded: Here you can see the time that is required until your building has finished upgrading/being constructed. Without a labour bill, you can upgrade/construct 2 buildings at the same time. With a labour bill, you can upgrade/construct 5 buildings at the same time.
  8. More WoL-Cash, Shop, Support, Forum, Help: At 8, you can buy more WoL Cash (more on that later), spend that WoL cash on items in the shop and ask for support (in the forums).
  9. Resources: At 7, you see what resources you own and how many there are produced every hour. 
  10. Population, Gold, Loyalty, Tax Rate: At 10, you can see how many people there are in your city, as well as idle population. You can see how many gold you own and how many your income is per hour. You can see what loyalty the population has against you, which is influenced by the tax rate and attacks from outside.
  11. Chat: There's a World, Alliance and Private chat system as well as a system notification tab. You can find all those features under the global tab, or chose 1 by clicking on it. Be aware that chatting in World chat costs Horns.

    What should I do first?
    Go to Task and click on "Novice". There, you will find the first basic tasks which help you get used to the game. Eventually, the Novice tasks will be complete where you then have to follow the Growth and Daily tasks. 
    Besides following the tasks of Novice, make sure to build and upgrade your resource fields (Second tab above, called "outskirts"). There are 4 resources: Food, Wood, Stone and Copper. Food and wood are the most important resources, because you need both of them for building and creating an army. Stone is used for the wall of your city and all resources are used to build buildings and new resource fields. 
    I suggest building 1 of each resource fields, and start upgrading your food and wood as priority. When you notice you're short on 1 particular resource, build/upgrade that one until you have sufficient.
    - Be aware that your army takes food, so always have enough food to cover your army. You don't want to have 0 food because everything is going to the army. Balance it out.
    - Be aware that the wall takes stone, but that shouldn't be a problem since stone isn't needed for an army.
    Important buildings
    If you follow the novice tasks, you'll automatically build several buildings which are important for your city. Here's a list of important buildings:
    1. Your Palace, which you automatically have when you enter the game the first time. Make sure to upgrade your city quick, but stop at level 9 because at level 10 you will no longer be in the player-protection time.
    2. Villages. When building villages, you increase your population. More population is important for upgrading your palace, hiring new soldiers and getting more gold thanks to tax.
    3. University, where you can learn new skills which make several things easier or more profitable, for example increased tax rate, increased food/wood/stone/copper, lesser time to recruit new soldiers/build buildings, etc. etc. Always make sure to learn something, because eventually they can take a lot of time.
    4. Garrison. At a garrison, you train new soldiers. There are 4 different (basic) soldiers: halberdiers, swordsmen, archers, charioteers. You'll start by training halberdiers, and once you upgrade your garrison you will get access to better soldiers, the best being charioteers.
    5. Parade Ground is where you assign soldiers to legends. Upgrading the parade ground allows you to send out more legends on war or research. At the parade ground, you also have to assign legends to defend! You can do that by clicking in the parade ground on "defence". This is important, don't forget to assign your best legends to defend your city. You can still send out the legend assigned to defend.
    6. Legend Pavilion is where your legends "rest". Upgrading it will allow you to own more legends, but be aware that legends cost a lot of money.
    7. Your wall + Watchtower need to be upgraded for safety reasons. Upgrading your watchtower increases spy chance by your spies and decreases the spy chance of enemies. When you have been spied on, you'll get a report under the "Report" tab.
    WoL Cash?
    War of Legends has a currency, called "WoL cash". This costs real money and can be purchased via the website of WoL. Be aware that you don't NEED to buy anything, however WoL cash does make the game easier. But then again, many top-ranked players haven't bought a single WoL cash.
    Alliances
    When joining an alliance, you'll get 10 horns a day if you donate 30.000 gold every day via the "Alliance" tab. You can use horns to speak in World chat or safe them for nice rewards (more information about that in the task screen, under "Destiny". Look for "Horns 1/2/3/4/5/6"). 
    Alliances give a bonus to you and you can ask alliance members for help when you're getting attacked or need resources. Try to join an alliance from your neighbours, so that you cannot get attacked by them and so that you have more defence.
    Last tips
    • Make sure to have enough food and wood.
    • Make sure you have assigned a defence team via the parade ground and build a warehouse so that you keep some resources when you've been attacked and defeated. 
    • Save jewelry such as gold beads, jades, yarns or pearls, because you need them for the Aspiration task. 
    • Check the Daily and the destiny tabs on the task menu every day, because you get lovely bonuses such as a daily bag and free resources.
    • Use the bonus items in your bags when you play, because you want to get the most out of the game while you play. It's more fun when using increased tax for example.
    • Make sure to have enough population and enough Tax rate so that you don't lose cash every hour! You lose cash to the army and legends. When losing money, upgrade your villages ASAP and try to fire some legends you don't use. If you're really desperate, downgrade buildings so that you get 33% of the resources used to build it back. 
    If you have any questions, leave them below.

    MOP RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCED

    World of WarCraft Mists of Pandaria will be released on SEPTEMBER 25th 2012!


    The proof:



    The blue post:
    Land, ho! Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the fourth expansion set for the world’s most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, will be available in stores and online starting from September 25, 2012. Upon the expansion’s release, intrepid explorers of the Alliance and the Horde will be able to set foot upon the shores of the long-lost continent of Pandaria and embark on a perilous journey to uncover its ancient mysteries.

    Mists of Pandaria will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 and Macintosh® at a suggested retail price of 34.99 € / £29.99. The expansion will also be available digitally directly from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft website (www.WorldofWarcraft.com), also priced at 34.99 € / £29.99.

    A special Collector’s Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of 69.99 € / £59.99. In addition, for the first time, World of Warcraft players have the option to purchase a special Digital Deluxe version of the expansion containing the in-game bonus items from the Collector’s Edition. The Digital Deluxe version is available to download directly from Blizzard via www.WorldofWarcraft.com for 49.99 € / £39.99. Players who purchase the standard edition digitally or at retail will have the option to upgrade to the Digital Deluxe version at any time (for as long as the standalone Digital Deluxe version remains available) for an additional 15 € / £10.

    Presales for the standard digital and Digital Deluxe versions of Mists of Pandaria are now live. Players who would like to purchase either version and be ready to play the moment the expansion launches can do so now by visiting www.WorldofWarcraft.com. The expansion content will automatically be digitally delivered to pre-purchasers via World of Warcraft’s streaming launcher prior to the release of Mists of Pandaria. Players who would like to preorder the standard box or the retail-exclusive Collector’s Edition can do so by visiting their local retailer.

    “Mists of Pandaria contains the biggest variety of new content we’ve ever created for a World of Warcraft expansion, with features that will appeal to new players, veterans, and everyone in between,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’ve received a lot of great feedback from players during our most extensive beta test yet, and we hope they enjoy exploring everything Pandaria has to offer when the expansion comes out in September.”

    The Digital Deluxe version of Mists of Pandaria includes a full digital copy of the expansion along with the following exclusive in-game bonus items:

    World of Warcraft In-Game Mount: Take to the skies of Azeroth astride the mystical Imperial Quilen flying mount.
    World of Warcraft In-Game Pet: Journey across Pandaria with the Lucky Quilen Cub at your side.
    StarCraft® II Battle.net® Portraits: Bring the Horde and Alliance rivalry to the far reaches of the Koprulu sector with exclusive Infested Orc and Night Elf Templar Battle.net portraits.
    Diablo® III Banner Sigil and Accent: Display your status as a hero of Pandaria with the iconic markings of World of Warcraft’s newest playable race, the pandaren.

    The Collector’s Edition of Mists of Pandaria includes the full version of the game on DVD-ROM and contains the following exclusive bonus items, in addition to the in-game content from the Digital Deluxe version:

    Behind-the-Scenes DVD and Blu-Ray: Learn about the creation of Pandaria with this two-disc set featuring over an hour of commentary, insider interviews, and developer roundtables.
    Collector’s Edition Soundtrack CD: Experience 20 orchestral pieces from Mists of Pandaria.
    The Art of Mists of Pandaria Book: Explore this 208-page hardcover tome featuring never-before-seen pieces from the expansion, from early concepts to final 3D renderings.
    Chen Stormstout Mouse Pad: Equip your desk with this special-edition mouse pad featuring the legendary pandaren brewmaster.

    In World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, warships of the Alliance and Horde clash off the coast of a long-lost continent, signaling the start of a new era of discovery and conquest in the history of Azeroth. As players storm the shores of this exotic new frontier and begin to explore its mysteries, they’ll encounter brave new allies, unearth ancient secrets, and play their part in reigniting the long-brewing conflict between the Horde and Alliance on a strange battlefield far from home.

    Mists of Pandaria offers a wide variety of content for new and returning World of Warcraft players. Features include a new playable race (the pandaren) with its own starting zone and quests, a new character class (the monk), and an expansive new continent for players to explore as they adventure to the new level cap of 90. The expansion also includes a host of new gameplay elements designed to give players even more ways to enjoy the game, including scenarios -- a flexible new kind of cooperative PvE trial; challenge modes, which offer high-prestige rewards for mastering Mists of Pandaria’s 5-player dungeons; and an all-new pet battle system.

    In addition to the English version, Mists of Pandaria will be fully localized into Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, European Spanish, Russian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and for the first time with a World of Warcraft expansion launch, Italian. Availability of Mists of Pandaria in mainland China will be announced at a later date.

    To learn more about World of Warcraft and Mists of Pandaria, please visit the official website at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com. To set up a Battle.net account and to opt-in to Blizzard Entertainment beta tests, please visit the official Battle.net website at http://www.battle.net. With multiple games in development, Blizzard Entertainment has numerous positions currently available -- visit http://jobs.blizzard.com for more information and to learn how to apply.

    I've started filming in WoW

    So, since 3 days I've started recording my World of WarCraft games. I find it quite fun to share my point of view when it comes to gaming. I'm planning on recording MoP, Diablo III and SC2 as well.


    The first 3 videos uploaded are the following:

    You can find my channel right here.

    5.0.1 Patch comes soon to WoW!

    It's almost time for Mists of Pandaria! The Pre-Expansion patch 5.0.1 will soon hit live servers, which means that a lot of new features from MoP will be added to the live game (such as the new talent system, new spells, pet battle, etc.). However, you will not be able to enter any new areas from Mists of Pandaria.

    The confirmation of Patch 5.0.1 came via this blue post today:


    We will soon begin public testing of patch 5.0.1 of World of Warcraft, a patch that will precede the Mists of Pandaria release, and includes many features and functions that are new to the game.
    We encourage all players who wish to test patch 5.0.1 with us to take careful note of the following:

    • It will not be possible to access the 5.0.1 PTR realms with a game account that accesses the Mists of Pandaria Beta.
    • If a game account has been flagged with a Mists of Pandaria Beta license, it can only be used to enter Beta realms.
    • This limitation is on each World of Warcraft license, and is not Battle.net account-based.
    • While testing 5.0.1, players will not be able to access zones or content that is a part of the Mists of Pandaria expansion.


    Thank you for your continued support of our testing and tuning process. We look forward to seeing you in-game.

    Don't Server Change now

    World of WarCraft has an option to transfer your toons to another server. While normaly this is fine, I recommend currently not doing this because of some factors.


    Notice players in your guild aren't online as much as they used to be? Notice raids are more and more canceled and progress isn't going smooth anymore? That's all because of the end of Cataclysm. Patch 4.3 was the last World of WarCraft: Cataclysm patch, and Dragon Soul was the last raid with of course Deathwing as the final boss.

    Because Mists of Pandaria is coming "Soon", a lot of players decided to stop playing WoW for a while. This happened with Wrath > Cata too, and will happen in the future with Mists > ??. When Patch 5.0 hits live servers, I expect to see lots of people returning to WoW. Another factor with the declining people online, is the release of Diablo III. In my old alliance guild, a lot of players were waiting for Diablo and are now playing it. Even my own friends, who used to only play WoW, are fully Diablo addicted and aren't coming back to WoW untill Mists.

    Because of these two reasons I do not suggest transferring a toon to another server with more players at this moment in patch 4.3. If you're planning on transferring a toon in MoP, then sure.. why would you wait? But you shouldn't change servers when your guild isn't bussy or your progress falls behind. Give it two/three more months untill MoP hits. Then, reconsider transferring your character(s).

    What to do untill then?
    1. Level another toon. I almost finished leveling my paladin, and after that I'm planning on continuing with my warlock. Leveling can be done alone, and doing quests/dungeons rewards gold. 
    2. Make a character on another type of server. If your main server is full, and it's f.e. a PvE server, you might want to think about creating a character on for example a PvP server. This way, you can A) look how such a server is different from yours and B) start all over again! No heirlooms, no gold.. no nothing. For some a dream, for others a nightmare but definitely timefilling untill MoP.
    3. Change your main spec on one of your characters. I did this with my druid. I started collecting Agi gear with HP, and tried some BG's as Feral kitty. This was very challenging, because I had to learn a new spec, rotation and gear optimization. 
    4. Solo old content, for gold and achievements/mounts or for Transmogrification gear. 
    5. Do daily quests, for gold and reputation. This is really a time killer.
    6. Plan ahead for Mists of Pandaria. What character are you going to level first? Are you capping HP/JP before Patch 5.0? Are you going to level a pandarian? Remember, you can have 11 characters in MoP so don't delete a character!
    7. Try another game untill MoP if WoW is really boring. I recommend trying Diablo III, Rift and StarCraft II.

    5 Diablo III tips for WoW Players

    I started playing Diablo since yesterday (I know, rather late..) and I discovered some big differences between World of WarCraft and Diablo III in playstyle. Here are five tips for those WoW players out there, who are (like me) new to Diablo.
    Diablo III is made by Blizzard Entertainment, the same company which created World of WarCraft. Diablo III is called a hack and slash game, while World of WarCraft is called a MMORPG. But because the game is of the same creators, there are some similarities between the two. I stumbled upon these 5 things, which you should be aware of as a World of WarCraft player.

    1. You move by clicking, not WSAD!
    The first major difference between Diablo III and WoW is moving around in the world. I'm used to using the W, S, D and A buttons on my keyboard. However, in Diablo III, you have to click in order to move to a certain point.

    2. Hold your mouse if you're moving to one direction
    This is something I first did wrong, but thanks to a tip I can prefend a mouse arm. HOLD YOUR MOUSE when you're moving to one direction! Stop clicking to every point you have to move, because you'll only get pain in your arm and neck. Just hold your mouse, it makes moving much easier in Diablo.

    3. Attacks are done by clicking and 1-2-3-4
    You don't use 1 till 9 for your basic attacks. Instead, your main attacks will be your left and right click buttons on your mouse. You'll get special abilities for buttons 1 to 4, which are used sometimes. Oh, and also important to remember: your health potion is on Q.

    4. Don't click the tips away like in WoW
    When creating a new character in World of WarCraft, you'll click through the tips as much as possible, or you've disabled them in the menus. However, if you're new in Diablo III, read all the tips so that you know what to do later. They're really helpful and provide basic information on for example talents or skills.

    5. Keep walking, you'll find the quest eventually
    Sometimes, the map will help you with your quests with a moving circle so that you know you have to move there. However, this isn't always the case. Read the quest objective and make sure you run the whole dungeon. And if you really can't find it, keep walking because you will get there eventually. Once you're there, doing it again will be much easier.

    Diablo 3: First impression

    I haven't been familiar with the Diablo franchise untill Diablo III was released. I purchased the World of WarCraft annual pass, and so I received Diablo III for free. Here's my first impression fo the dark and awesome game.


    I've been playing WoW for some time now, so I'm used to using WSAD to move around. This was the first big new thing for me in Diablo III, you have to move with your mouse. At first, I clicked for every step I had to make. If I were to still do that, I would have a mousearm. Thankfully, someone gave the tip to hold the mouse so that your character moves in that direction. That helped a lot.


    Secondly, the interface looks quite different than what I'm used too. There are many new things to discover in Diablo III for a WoW player, such as the skill tree or the achievements. Some things quite look like World of WarCraft, but other things are really strange or hard to find. I also have to get used to the fact that looting absolutely EVERYTHING isn't helpfull for your inventory. I'm just not used to having a full bag every 15 minutes since leveling my first WoW character.

    I love the game already, because it's different and fun. I'm currently leveling a monk, which I enjoy because the fighting is quite active and it requires a lot of special moves. Fighting is another point for me to get used to, because I'm used to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9. Now, you have to click left or right for attacks, and sometimes you use 1-2-3-4. But so far I like Diablo III.

    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 7

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 7» The reason behind my blogs name


    Sorry that I missed a couple of days, I passed my examens so I had some celebrating to do! Today's topic on the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge is the reason behind my blogs name.

    I can be real quick about this one, because my blog is called 'My Gaming World'. In this blog, you're going to read about my world, my gaming world. I share as much as possible of the games I play, which include StarCraft II, Diablo III, World of WarCraft Cataclysm/MoP (beta), and more in the future.

    What to do with Honor Points?

    Isn't she lovely?
    I PvP mainly with my Fire/Frost mage. I have the total season 11 Honor Point set, which means I don't have to save my HP for gear anymore. What can I do with those points? I'm close to 4000 HP again, which is the current cap (patch 4.3 Cataclysm). Here are my options.


    1. Save HP for PvP Enchants
    The Honor Quartermaster sells, next to ilevel 390/378 gear, enchants for your head and shoulder items. I currently have a 403 PvP head and 390 shoulders, so theoretically speaking I would only need 1 shoulder enchant. That's 2000 HP.

    2. Buy heirlooms
    To be honest, I already have most heirlooms for my alts. And those I would need, would be for 85 characters. So this option is for me a no-go.


    3. Buy heirlooms for Mists of Pandaria
    This option is more interesting, as I could look at intellect leather heirlooms for my future monk. However, I do have cloth intellect heirlooms and a lovely spirit mace. I think I'll manage the first 80 levels with those.

    4. Buy transmogrification gear
    This idea came to me earlier, because I did buy a staff the other day. I guess I could buy a set, and look old school awesome.

    5. Buy cheap HP armor (like wands) and disenchant them
    This is also a viable option, because disenchanting is currently very profitable since people get new gear quite  fast (LFR, Dragon Soul nerf and such). This option would reward maelstroms (more than buying them from the Honor trade goods).

    6. Buy items from the Honor trade goods
    This is also a good option, if you look at herbs, cloth and enchanting stuff (except for maelstroms). I love the herb bag with 20 random cataclysm herbs! If I have all my transmogrification stuff, I would go for either option 5/6.




    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 6

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 6» My Workplace/desk


    The first sentence in my head for this blog was "although this 20 Days of WoW blogging challenge doesn't have much to do with WoW..". However, I realised quickly that this subject has got everything to do with World of WarCraft! It took me a second to realise that everything happens on my computer. I write blogs, play World of WarCraft and listen to music a lot. Every day I spend a lot of time behind my desk, in my workplace.

    A picture of my desk is above, and as you can see I have 2 computers. Well, actually I have 3 at this moment, which will soon change. My desk is in front of a window and has another desk next to it where my printer stands and where I throw stuff on. I usually have my iPad next to me, but I needed it to make the picture. For fun, I have a cactus which I water every 3 months.

    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 5


    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 5» Favourite item(s) in the game


    Throughout all the expansions of WoW, lots of items are in the game. However, 2 of my favourite items in the game came in patch 4.2.

    Leyara's Locket transforms your character into a druid of the flame. I love druids, I love the Firelands lore and I enjoyed doing the dailies of Firelands.

    Flameward Hippogryph is my favourite mount and I cannot wait for all my characters to ride it in Mists of Pandaria!


    My Opinion on Druid Armor forms

    MMO-Champion.com released new pictures of an armored version of the Druid cat, bear and moonkin form. These armored forms will be available through the talent 'incarnation', which: "Grants a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization for 30 sec. You may freely shapeshift in and out of this form for the duration of Incarnation."

    Three versions of the Tauren druid incarnation forms are following:



    source: www.mmo-champion.com
    My opinion on the talent
    I love the incarnation talent, because it basically buffs your normal attacks and makes you look.. more interesting. I could see the use of this talent for PvP, when for example burning your enemies or a boss in Alterac Valley and such. 

    The Moonkin bonus?
    When an eclipse occurs, you do extra arcane/nature damage while in incarnation form. It's a lovely bonus, which will mostly be used in solar eclipse because of the wrath/starfire bonus. 

    The Feral (pre-mop: Cat) bonus?
    The kitty incarnation bonus is comparable with the subtlety rogue talent (pre-MoP) Shadow Dance, because a kitty will be able to use all the abilities which normally require stealth. This will be mainly useful in PvP. 

    The Guardian (pre-mop: Bear) bonus?
    A reduced cooldown for all melee attacks (1.5 sec.). Useful for burn phases on bosses.

    The Restoration bonus?
    I'm disappointed that we didn't receive anything extra as restoration, because we're stuck with the tree-form as being an incarnation bonus. Don't get me wrong here, I love the tree form (especially for bursthealing in PvP), but we're the only spec that don't receive anything fancy with this talent. If you didn't took the treeform in Cataclysm (and believe me, some people didn't), this talent will be yours to skip. 

    My opinion on the armored version
    Looking at all the pictures MMO-Champion posted, I kinda like the armored version of the troll moonkin. I find the cat form rather .. meh for trolls, but it suits the night elf kitties very well. The bear form looks extensive, guardian druids must use a lot of deoderant. 

    Will I pick the talent?
    Other choices in the level 60 Druid tier are 'Soul of the Forest' and 'Force of Nature'. I could see FoN being used in several raid fights, where these will be a lot of help. However, in FoN vs Incarnation, I think Incarnation will always win because incarnation has the same CD as FoN but gives in my opinion more DPS output. 

    Now, Soul of the Forest vs Incarnation will be a very hard choice, because I love the bonusses SotF give. I think for restoration I'll go with Soul of the Forest in PvE and Incarnation in PvP. With balance, I'll go with incarnation, because it seems more  useful to me than the bonus SotF gives to moonkins. I'd rather have an extra button to click for f.e. burst phases. 

    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 4

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 4» your best WoW memory




    I'm not a classic World of WarCraft player, so I remember quite well how playing as a newbie was. At least, playing and learning through leveling. I tried healing on a good day on my Druid, but it wasn't really successful because I didn't know what spell to use on what occasion. I've learned healing thanks to my sister, who plays a priest as main since 2008. I love healing, healing is for me the most fun and I have a Druid, shaman, priest and paladin healer. For Mists of Pandaria, I'm definitely going to be playing a healing monk. I'm not sure what class though, I do not like the casting animations of the pandaren.

    Back to the subject of my best WoW memory. Firelands was the best raiding experience for me personally, I loved the bosses and had TONS of fun with my raiding guild. Eventually, I reached 4 out of 7 heroic. So Firelands is my best raiding memory for World of WarCraft. For PvP, the best memory happened just last week. I had an amazing fight in the arena with a guildie. I played my resto Druid and she played an unholy DK. We queued for 2vs2 and got into a fight. We had to fight against a holy paladin and an elemental shaman. 

    My first reaction was 'impossible!!!'. However, it was possible and it turned out to be an awesome fight. I reached 10k health around 3 times and the holy paladin looked unkillable, but after 5 minutes of shape shifting, crazy healing and gaining new mana, my guildie did the impossible and killed the holy paladin. I literally screamed and it felt so epic! This fight will certainly be my best arena WoW memory.

    For questing, my best memory is the Uldum questline, because it was super fun and felt quite rewarding. Although some quests were buggy, it was really engaging and I managed to do them all.  For professions, my best memory is reaching archeology 525. I love the profession and it was super fun to search for fragments, and eventually get gold and experience for it. The 525 'ding' took some time, but was awesome. 

    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 3

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 3» Your first day playing WoW


    My first day in World of WarCraft: Cataclysm was 1 year ago. The first character I made was a blood elf male priest, because I love the starting zone for blood elves. I've played the game a lot at my sister, and for some reason I would always make a blood elf.

    Unfortunately, the priest didn't last for long. I deleted it when it was around level 21. My WoW characters looked like this after I played for 2 weeks >>.

    Non of these 4 have survived. After I started all these, I decided to delete my worgen druid and began leveling a night elf druid. I love night elves, they're so purple and fun! After leveling my (new) druid to 55, I decided to make a night elf death knight, which was deleted at level 71. Since then, I had around 3 DK's, all deleted. Untill I managed to get a dwarf to 85, which was later transformed in to a gnome.

    I now have a goblin hunter (13), troll warlock (39), tauren paladin (76), gnome priest (85), gnome death knight (85), blood elf mage (85), goblin shaman (85), and my troll druid (85). The troll used to be the male night elf, but after the declining interest of the alliance guild, I decided to become a troll.

    MoP: A look at Druid 90 talents

    In this post, I'm going to take a look at the new level 90 Druid talents for the game World of WarCraft: Mists of Pandaria. I personally play a troll Restoration/Balance druid, and am currently experimenting with the feral spec for PvP. 

    Mists of Pandaria brings in a lot of changes for all classes, including the druid class. The expansion brings a new talent system, removing the Cataclysm edition and bringing a 6 tier talent system. Every 15 levels, you get to choose a new ability or passive ability.

    The talent tree for druids looks as following:














    And the level 90 abilities are:





    Now, let's have a look at the talents, how they work and what I would choose at this moment.


    Heart of the Wild
    When activated, dramatically improves the Druid's ability to perform roles outside of their normal specialization for 45 sec. This ability grants a diverse set of abilities, depending on your specialization. What this ability basically does, is making a druid more hybrid and more able to fill a diverse set of roles in PvE/PvP.

    I can see this ability being AWESOME in PvP, because you now are able to do a fair share of attacks when shifting to catform as a restoration druid. I have this problem all the time in arena. When I shift to kitty form, my attacks are weak and only the interrupt is very powerful. I like this talent for PvP, but I'm not sure if I'm going to choose this in PvE scenarios. I'd rather stay focussing on healing, than shifting to a bear and tank some adds in a raid.

    Dream of Cenarius: 
    Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase healing done by your next healing spell by 70%. Tranquility is not affected. Non-instant casts of Nourish, Healing Touch, and Regrowth increase the damage done by your next damaging spell by 70% or by your next melee ability by 30%. Each of these bonuses lasts 30 sec.

    Again a nice talent for doing more than just healing/dps'ing. A moonkin can help the healers with a casual heal on for example the tank, and a restoration druid can dps for example burn fights as Spine of Deathwing. But to be honest, this will be a kinda PvP ability if you ask me. I'm not sure how raids will be in Mists of Pandaria, but this talent will be very useful in PvP.

    Disentanglement:
    This ability works the same as it currently does, making shapeshifting removing snares and slows. However, new in MoP is the 20% heal you'll receive when shapeshifting in for example a cat or bear as restoration. The 20% heal can only occur every 30 seconds.

    Now if you ask me, the 90 druid tier is kinda PvP focust. However, Disentanglement could work on fights like Ragnaros where you have to run as a group towards another point (in the adds phase). I had to shape into a kitty and use stampeding roar. If, while having this talent, the shapeshift would heal me for 20%, my healing wouldn't suffer too much from shapeshifting. I could see this talent working on several raids, but it will be most useful in PvP situations for restoration.

    Conclusion?
    As the developers said themselves, the talent choice will be focust on the raid instance. So, for PvE I cannot really tell what I would choose at this point. For PvP, I would have to test Dream of Cenarius and Heart of the Wild, but my first choice (for arena) goes to disentanglement, just because I use it a lot currently in Cataclysm. Most arena fights start with me having to burst heal myself, and throughout the fight I have to shapeshift a lot. Disentanglement would work best with that playstyle, although I could see Heart of the Wild working if for example I can help with dps'ing the healer in cat form (so that a priest can't manaburn me :S).




    20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 2

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 2 » Why you decided to start a blog


    Today, I'm explaining why I decided to start a blog.. again. And believe me when I say I've created a lot throughout the last 3 years. My blog history begins with a Dutch blog about basically everything. It went well for some time, but I lost interest after a while. My second blog was a blog about laying in the hospital, and all my experiences there. I decided to delete it because of the Google search results.. and because I felt I had to.

    Then, English blogging began. I was active on a diverse number of internet blogs, and eventually I found Triond.com to be the best one for me. I could write in whatever catagory I wanted to, and could earn a little penny for doing it. It was a great motivation, and since 2011 I published 140 blogs and reached over 7000 views.

    The start of this blog
    I decided to start a gaming blog, because I want to collect all my gaming articles under one domain. This is the place to do it. I've been writing since 2011 actively about World of WarCraft, but I wanna write about more games, so that's my goal for this blog. And if I fail, I can blame World of WarCraft for being too addictive.

    20 days of WoW Blogging: Day 1

    20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge: Day 1 » Introduce yourself


    Welcome to my blog. I'm Frans, a student from the Netherlands. I play World of WarCraft since 2010, and I enjoy it a lot. I started playing WoW on a private server back in 2007, which was kinda fun but as I see now not as fun as the real game.

    I'm active on the internet since I was 6, when I first made my 'homepage' on a free server. It was really basic, and looking back now it was hilarious. When I was 11, I created my own 'company' with two relatives, which included a spectaculair homepage as well. I'm an active blogger since before I was in the hospital. Since 2011, I'm an active writer on Triond and I had several blogs, including a Wordpress one.

    Why I decided to make a new blog, will be posted in the scond day of the 20 days of WoW Blogging challenge.

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