This year has been a real roller coaster ride for me in Warcraft and to be honest I got to admit that what looked real scary at the beginning ended really well and I'm really looking forward to the next ride although I must admit I'm hoping for a more gentle run this time around. That said, I have doubled my wow friends list and have had the honour of being in 2 awesome guild with a load of awesome people and really I couldn't wish for being surrounded by better people.

So with a new year almost upon us (or probably here by the time you're reading this I thought I'd take you all on a whirlwind tour of MY 2012.

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A lot of my posts has moaned about how bad X was and stuff. But to be fair I'm only critical of the game because I love it so much and with the post-expansion blues being around I thought I'd put a short post together extolling the virtues of the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion.

My aim here is to be only positive and what I'm about to post will no doubt be deemed controversial or potential troll bait by some folks. So without further delay here are my 5 reasons Cataclysm the expansion rocked.

1. Heroics felt heroic;
2. Tier 11 was great content;
3. Guilds mattered;
4. 1-60 revamp:
5. Transmogrification;

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Deathy is dead! 
(screenshot courtesy of Exhumed)

I'm glad to report that on February 9th, 2012 myself and 9 friends from Exhumed successfully slaughtered Deathwing and therefore saved the citizens of Azeroth from their impending doom. But seriously, I was honoured to be part of the guild's first kill and as much as my ego would like to think they couldn't have done it without me they most definitely could have although I'm glad they did let me tag along despite my lowly trialist rank in the guild.

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Welcome to the third and final guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3. The Hour of Twilight is a 3 boss instance which is also another Thrall escort quest instance just like Old Hillsbrad, will this guy ever do something without me there to help? This time we take Thrall to Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to my second guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, The Well of Eternity a short NPC led dungeon with 4 bosses and 3 encounters and during the instance you'll be transformed into a Night Elf. As you'd expect with it being centred around a major lore event you'll get to meet and assist major lore figures.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to the first of my guides to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, End Time. a 3 boss dungeon with a twist as the first 2 encounters are selected from a possible 4 scenarios based around heroes/heroine of the Alliance and Horde, namely Jaina Proudmoore, Tyrande Whisperwind, Sylvanas Windrunner and Baine Bloodhoof and each takes place in one of the Drgaonshrines found in Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to the second of my guides on healing strategies for the Cataclysm dungeons, yes I KNOW we're many months in and us veterans can do it sleep walk but many alts and new players are coming through now. My viewpoint will be from that of a priest, but much of the information will be generic to help out other healing classes also. Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

Blackrock Caverns is a medium length dungeon with 5 bosses, it is located in Blackrock Mountain and consists of tunnels created by the Twilight Hammer who are using this as a transport hub for reinforcing Ragnaros in Mount Hyjal as well as conducting experiments to turn humanoids into dragonkin.
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Welcome to the first of my guides on healing strategies for the Cataclysm dungeons, yes I KNOW its six months in and us veterans can do it sleep walk but many alts and new players will be coming through about now. My viewpoint will be from that of a priest, but much of the information will be generic to help out other healing classes also. Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

The Throne of the Tides is a short dungeon with 4 bosses, it is located in Abyssal Depths and is part of the Abyssal Maw complex. Our enemies here are naga, murlocs, faceless ones and servants of the Old Gods.
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I rolled a priest back in 2005 and the 1st 4 years Evlyxx was primarily a Holy priest. Shadow was my occasional "off-spec" and Discipline was this nasty kind of PVP spec that never appealed as it was neither healing nor DPS. It filled this strange place.

I knew a few priests that dabbled and then returned Holy and that was how it went. Then along came Wrath, Discipline was the revised and became a viable healing alternative spec. I stayed Holy, I liked Holy, Holy was priest healing spec. Then Blizzard did something that tempted me to try Discpline, they gave us dual specs, sure I could have gone shadow but there was this new thing I could test in raids and still heal.

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Everyone knows that Cataclysm Heroics are not the faceroll that heroics were in Wrath.However, it is still possible to run any dungeon quickly and efficiently. The trouble that most people are having is because the Wrath method of achieving this goal is currently not viable and the method I am about to layout would have slowed down groups in Wrath. There are also some changes people need to make in the way they play and the abilities they use.
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One of the refreshing things about Cataclysm is the return to life of the capital cities. I remember the days of "unknown entity" in Ironforge in Vanilla and the lag that was also in Shattrath. But with Wrath we were assured that the no fly zone would help prevent the lag in Dalaran.

Sadly even Dalaran was way too small to play host to all the citizens of Azeroth without causing major lag for most people at all times of the day and particularly around late afternoon/early evening rush hour. So bad was the issue that Blizzard had to change its plans for the Argent Tournament to be hosted in the Crystalsong Forest and relocated it to northern Icecrown (did you wonder why the pre-Qs were in Crystalsong?)
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With 2010 drawing to an end I thought I'd take a look back at the year's highs and lows. From changing guilds, to killing the Lich King suffering ISP issues and more guild drama 2010 has bee a strange year. I have had great times and bad times, happy days and sad days but I've never regretted anything I have done and have become better as a person out of game as well as in game because of it.
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Cork, our resto druid in Halls of Origination, yes they let me DPS sometimes too

Blizzard seem to have the healing thing rightish but not perfect, The main flaw is my heal size compared to tank health pool and the damage coming in, it simply is not in balance. Lets define a few things here. 

Blizzards goal: Healing should not be a spamfest but rather a triage approach;

Tank HP: 150,000

Stad Boss damage: 25,000 every 2 seconds

Heal = my econo heal: 8,000 every 2.3 seconds

Flash Heal = my fast heal: 17,000 every 1.4 seconds

Greater Heal = my big heal: 22,000 every 2.3 seconds

Renew = my HoT: 3,000 every 3 secondsm

Power Word: Shield: absorbs 10,000 damage every 15 seconds;

Prayer of Mending: a heal in advance approx 5,000 every 6 seconds

To cope with the incoming damage there are 3 choices:

1) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and spam my heal;

2) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and my hit the tank with a Greater Heal when his HP needs topping up;

3) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank, spam my heal and throw in a Flash Heal or Greater Heal depending on the speed I need to play catch up;

All 3 are viable solutions but they all rely on DPS either not taking damage or applying self heals and either the tank avoiding a lot of damage and applying some self heals and if 3 is applied I end up out of mana real quick and even using potions, the Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend really provide very little returns. Although I did /cheer when the mana regen hotfix got applied on December 15th and it did make a noticeable difference.

The big point for me though is that I am having to throw out a heal every Global Cooldown (GCD) which goes against the Blizzard goal. To add to the frustration any movement I need to make is a huge risk as it is a few GCDs without heals going out to either the tank or the DPS and either the fight mechanics are designed really intelligently or I'm on the end of bad luck as the times I always need to move are those clutch situations where I really need to be casting big heals.

The major plus point for me is that I have become a better healer and begun to blow cooldowns Pain Suppression, Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope much more freely than ever before. Well I was always liberal in my use of pain suppression but never the hymns.

Also, the guys from SKF have begun to realise that I will let them die if it is a choice between them or the tank and have begun to move faster from the fires or using any self heal abilities. 2 weeks ago I was offended when Dixxie, my pally tank (yes he belongs to me not the guild) was healing himself with his Word of Glory as I took it as a failure on my part, now I love it and treat it as an intelligent "oh shit" feature.

All told the new heroics are just that, heroic. They are really like 5 man raids and for that Blizzard must be applauded. The players that want to get better will get better by running these heroics and those that QQ about them being to tough, to long and needing too much strategy will either quit or just get by running normals until their gear is maxed out with 333 loot, rep rewards upto 359 and all the heroic badge gear their class can get from Justice Points that they are able to pug heroics at a reasonable pace. 

Finally a plea to Blizzard, please, please, please do not nerf these heroics not now, not ever. Infact, when the next tier of raiding comes out could you buff them so the mobs hit a little harder and have more HP so we don't start over gearing them.

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Go me, I did ding 85 and yes I still had my T10 robes (although all other epics had gone /cry)

Well the first 3 weeks of Cataclysm have passed and it is really about time I started to talk about it I guess. I have been very busy playing and have had some time off work but now the main buzz has settled.

I did not do the mad zerg to 85 many friends and guildies did, day 1 was spent farming ore and herbs on my druid to fund my profession levelling and I managed to get him to 82 just doing the farming piece. Days 2 and 3 were spent gathering, levelling professions and levelling Evlyxx through quests and dungeons. Healing the Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns present no real challenge but they did show signs of advanced strategy and that is only good for us all.

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Tonight the boys and girls from All about Beer, the guild of friends that I house my 'lock with managed to kill the Lich King. Sure, to many this is no real achievement, but for a small group of very casual folks its a big deal and it was done in gear that would qualify us as a strict 10 man group and many people don't get to do that.

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With Cataclysm almost upon us and one of the main features is a new secondary profession. This is the first secondary profession added to the game since launch and rather than being on that will make money is one that will enhance your character with a few of the finds but more importantly provide some interesting back story.

So what is archaeology?

a

Archaeology is a secondary profession which means everybody can learn it, which is cool. The general idea is that you collect fragments of historical items and store them in a journal. Once you have all the fragments for an item you'll be able to study it and you'll get a reward which can be anything from BoA armor/weapons (sadly not ones that level with you) vanity pets, gadgets and even mounts. Some of the rewards are very good epic items (eg X), also when gathering these fragments you will gain XP until you're at level cap just like the other gathering professions.

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To avoid upsetting anyone all my beta information is going to be hidden from the main page, So if you want to have content spoiled you will need to click the "read more" link further down the page. The only clue will be from the title of the post but these will, I promise, always be vague enough to not give anything away.

My purpose of playing the beta is to try to break the game, I'm not doing any actual content that I am likely to run Evlyxx, or any of my alts through a kajillion times after the launch. I am here for exploration, looking at the older Azeroth content and to see where I need to go to be able to power level professions.

If you have any requests for places you'd like me to go or NPCs to visit drop me a line at evlyxx at evlyxx dot com or leave me a comment below.
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To avoid upsetting anyone all my beta information is going to be hidden from the main page, So if you want to have content spoiled you will need to click the "read more" link further down the page. The only clue will be from the title of the post but these will, I promise, always be vague enough to not give anything away.

My purpose of playing the beta is to try to break the game, I'm not doing any actual content that I am likely to run Evlyxx, or any of my alts through a kajillion times after the launch. I am here for exploration, looking at the older Azeroth content and to see where I need to go to be able to power level professions.

If you have any requests for places you'd like me to go or NPCs to visit drop me a line at evlyxx at evlyxx dot com or leave me a comment below.
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On December 7th, we will begin the charge to kill Deathwing, but before we even think about the ultimate goal of this expansion we need to consider what smaller steps we need to take.

Firstly you should review the 10 steps I mentioned in my post Preparing For Deathwing last week as at least 9 are still relevant. Now you've done them, lets look at the task and set out the rest of our gameplan.

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Ever get the feeling you have a celebrity stalker? Well following my last post, Preparing For Deathwing,  on October 28th a ratehr well known blog has made a post about the exact same thing entitled, Cataclysm preparation #1. Now I'm not saying that he is following my blog or copying my content but a more suspicious man may arrive at that conclusion should he be into conspiracy theories.
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