Don't Be Shy!

Drop me a line! Say hi! E-mail me! Send me questions anonymously by postcard!

Any and all comments automatically get sent to my e-mail, so rest assured (or paranoid) that everything you say can and will be read.

You can always e-mail me at:

criticalqq@yahoo.ca

E-mail me about anything. Questions on Spec? On gear? Instance strategies? Want me to constructively critique you? Your gear? E-mail away!
I can send a confidential reply back, post it up here on the blog if you wish (anonymously if you prefer). I might even extrapolate it into a general post about stuff.... of whatever. Ya know.

Confessions of a Magi

Even we, the elite of the arcane, masters of fire, have our dirty little secrets.

And where better to admit them then here?

We only drop Refreshment Tables in battlegrounds because we're too lazy to summon our own food and water.
Then, we click them as fast as possible, to empty the table in seconds. Then, we delete all the manna biscuits, besides the ~100 we need, and then blame the hunter next to us for draining the table.
At this point, we tell everyone else that its on cooldown, sorry they missed the biscuits.

The only reason we spec frost to level is because frostbolt makes a really cool noise when you shoot it.

We cast Blizzard on the melee in the Shade of Aran fight, and see how many panic and run out.

We go an entire raid casting only Scorch, because we're playing on a laptop and watching a Zombie movie with our friends.

We always spellsteal a Paladin's "Wings" because, quite frankly, they look better on a mage.

We all secretly wish we had rolled gnome mages.

We all have an inexplicable loathing of retribution Paladins.

If anyone gets mind controlled in a raid, we will do our utmost to kill that person as fast as possible.

If we see a warrior pop Spell Reflect, we cast Polymorph to get a free heal.

We ninja killing blows in battlegrounds with Fireblast.

We will gladly cast Pyroblast on level 1 critters to pad our WWS damage reports.

We all secretly lust for female dranei.

We all have warlock alts.

We love to ride at about 110-120% threat to make the tanks sweat.

We secretly love to be turned into Little Red Riding Hood.

When blizzard stopped letting us summon Portals to Capital Cities in battlegrounds, we mages wept.

Dropping somebody to 1% in a battleground, then casting slow on them and melee'ing them turns us on.

Wehn we meet hunters in a battleground, we take pleasure in killing the pet then running away. Ice blocking, jumping off a cliff, whatever, so the hunter cannot kill us. Then we do it again a few minutes later.

We heal the other side in battlegrounds.

We break our own sheeps and blame someone else. After all, what kind of mage breaks their own sheep? Right?

Restoration druids make us cry.

We use Ice Block at 1% just to be a prick.

We keep polymorph right next to the Arcane Power + Trinket + Presence of Mind + Frostbolt + Icy Veins macro, so people will know how awesome I am... by accident.

We spec to get Imp. Flame Ward, and then run around FRAPSing ourselves reflecting Fire spells.

We all break out into a cold sweat when we're low on Teleportation Runes.

We love to sheep sheep.

Powered by Wowhead!

I USED to have proper pop-ups working here.

Then they stopped for whatever reason.

Let's try this again.

Malistar's Defender

A Dull and Flat Elven Blade

Elven Gems

Edit:

Invisible elf gems!

Primordeal Essence

A PRIMORDIAL ESSENCE?!?!?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

HELLLLLZ YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!


Finally, after all this time, I can go gouge my eyes out in peace.

Sorry, I'm Chair Spec

Alterac Valley

"maeg tabl now kkthx"
"Sorry, I'm Chair Spec"

Standing Around Orgrimmar

"plz giv watr"
"You say plz because please takes too long to type. I say no rather than yes for the same reason"

"hey can i hav sum waters?"
"Sorry :( I'm fire specced, can't make water atm"

"yo mage water?"
"/afk"

"need 3 stacks water"
"Sorry, food specced"
(NOTE: This didn't actually work)

*Opens trade*
*I put 500 gold into the window*
"/afk"

"hey i need some food"
"Sure thing." *Invites to party* *Makes portal to Thunder Bluff*
"Click for food"
*Leaves Group*

Standing Around Shattrath

"can yo make me some water?"
"/cast Invisibility"
*Run and hide*

"i need a coupla stak s water"
"Thats nice"

"hey, can i have some Water?"
"There's actually a secret way to make your own water. When you throw a snowball at any fire elemental mob, when you loot the elementals body, it gives you water of whatever rank the elenmental was"
"REALLY"
"Yeah! I just found that out yesterday! Go try it out!"
"Alright, thanks man!" *Runs off to flight path*
*20 minutes later*
"YOO FUCKING ASSHOLE"
"/lol. Pwnd"

Arathi Basin

"Yo mage, make us a table"
"Sorry, guys, it has a one hour cooldown :( Can't do that yet"
(NOTE: the other mage in the BG whispered me: "i fucking love you")


Me on my Hunter Alt to a 70 mage on Orgrimmar

"Oh Mighty Master of the Arcane... May this worthless pile of pixels beg of you for but a small drink, so that he may quench his unworthy thirst upon your Holy Nectar of the God's Themselves?"
(NOTE: Shamelessly stolen from the forums, it works incredibly well. Have never, ever been turned down with this proposition)

So You Want Some Mage Bikkits

Have I talked about this before? I don't know if I have, but here goes.


ALRIGHT, ALL YOU FUCKTARDS IN BATTLEGROUNDS WHO WANT SOME MAGE BISKITS. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Ok, seriously. All you people in Arathi Basin, Eye, whatever, who ask for mage biscuits, and get alarmed and outraged when none appear, you guys need to know some things.

One. You are not entitled to this stuff. When you say in Alterac Valley /bg "wtf no mage table?", guaranteed I will never, ever summon a table for the rest of the night. You piss me off. What makes you think you deserve to have mage biscuits? What gives you the sense of entitlement that I would spend hundreds of gold to be able to get this spell, and give them away to some fucktard like you I've never met, and probably will never see again? Just shut up and buy your own damn food and water.

Two. What makes you think mage food/water/bikkits are free? Do you have any idea of the amount of gold we sink into this convenience? First off, buying the second highest food/water ranked spells costs us 5 gold apiece. Thats 10 gold just to get the prerequisite to being able to buy the food and water books.
Care to take a guess at how much these books cost?
Lemme check my Auctioneer addon, an brilliant, incredibly handy tool that no self-respecting mage, or any WoW player for that matter, should go without (spikes the camera).
The top ranked food book costs, on average: 180.9g (B.O.), 120.1g (starting bid)
The top ranked water book costs, on average: 226.5g (B.O.), 143.2g (starting bid)
So let's see. 10 gold to get the prerequisite to the books, bare minimum of about 300 gold to purchase said books. Combine that with the spell costing 9g to even purchase, and about 16 silver (or more, depending on reputation) PER SPELL, thats a ton of cash.
So... explain this to me. Why would I spend well over 300 gold to give you free food? Just attempt to explain this to me.

"Cause you'd be helping a temmate".

Yeah. STFU and petition Blizz to allow friendly fire.

And don't try and pull soe bullshit about it being free to cast because of the "Free spell" thing before battlegrouns. I still put down 2 of the dusts for every summon. Which is still 16 silver.

"Oooh, 16 silver, thats so much /sarcasm"

No, its not a lot of money. But why on earth would I spend ANYTHING on you?

So, yes. I have a problem with people asking for biscuits in battlegrounds. I spent a lot of money to get to the point where food/water are never a concern for me or my raid group.
I did not spend a lot of money so that some random scrub I meat from Andorhal can have some free food.

And to those people who /w me "Hey can I have some food?"
Don't get outraged when I say "Sure 3g a stack"
Remember. I paid gold so you can have the privelage of asking me for food. It will never, EVER be free.
Unless its downranked. In that case, its so bloody easy I'll give you 5 stacks for free.


For those who are wondering, I paid 120 gold for the food book, and 135 gold for the water book. Not bad, considering.

I Try To Roleplay

After many months of playing a troll, I wondered what it would be like to roleplay one. Hmm....

"Yo, mon. I am Euripedes, and I am a mage. The forces of the arcane, and the elemental powers of fire and frost are at my control. I can destroy you in a blaze of fire at a whim. I can become immune to anything and everything, including gravity. I can even turn the most potent enemy into a cute wittle piggy.

So why, I ask, is the Darkspear tribe in such a horrible condition? Why is our entire society degraded into a tiny little hovel at the bottom of Durotar? We are trolls! We are strong! Why do we not take action?

*sigh*

I suppose there is something to be said for sacrificing oneself for the greater good. It is no longer about the Tribe, it is about the Horde. We have a Warchief now. We have blood brothers now, outside the tribe.
We are scarred peoples. The trolls used to weild far and widespread power. Our history is one of bloodshed, of betrayal, and death. Our empires were torn to pieces by the elves, by the humans, by even other trolls. We, the Darkspear tribe, have fallen very, very far. But we will have our revenge. Of all the members of the Horde, we are the only ones to not have a land to call our own.
The orcs are even more scarred than we trolls. Their entire race, used, abused, and tossed aside like a ratty rag. Yet they saved us. We owe the orcs a great deal for our continued existence, and it is my pride and honor to fight and die beside them.
The Tauren are an honorable people, and I have a great deal of respect for them. They have solid societal and shamanistic values that have grounded the Horde, at least on Kalimdor.
The Horde of the East is a thing entirely different. The Undead, I can sympathize with. They've died, for Zul's sake, died and continue to fight on. But I do not trust them, and I will never trust their motives.
And the blood elves... traitors to their own kind. The remnants of the high elves, shunned by the Alliance for their dealings with Lady Vashj, among other things. As far as I'm concerned, they are not true members of the Horde, just lost elves with nowhere else to go.
And I cannot stand them! They are self-important, condescending pricks! What gives you damned elves the right to look down on me? What gives you the right to think yourself higher than me? You do realize that the land your precious Silvermoon was Troll land? You do realize that all you pansy ass elves are descended from trolls?
This world, it used to be ours. You, you damn elves, are nothing but the ungrateful bastard children of trolls long dead. And I will suffer your superiority no more.

But I do not hate them. I merely cannot stand them.

But the Alliance.... /spit. Conniving shitheads! The Night Elves have hunted us for centuries. They do not care. They show no mercy. They slaughter us all, given the slightest opportunity.
I hate them so... I will kill them. I will maim the men, rape the women, torture the children. They will scream. They will beg. And I will never show mercy. They will die, humiliated, and in incredible pain. They deserve no better.

And the humans.... *hisssss*. They are even worse. They will suffer even more. They will watch themselves burn, they will watch their loved ones suffer and due in front of them. It is merely justice. They have done the same to trolls, now they will suffer the same fate.
They will not die alone, but surrounded by their friends and famiy. They will watch their cities burn, watch their children fed to our Mounts, watch their wives tortured, watch their husbands ruthlessly maimed and left bleeding in the burning streets to die.

The dwarves and the gnomes are damned for their decision to join the Alliance. They will die and burn with the rest.
The gnomes especially. I HATE GNOMES!! How is it POSSIBLE for a race that annoying to develop? How can they go day to day without killing themselves? They are a cursed people, annoying as hell. They deserve nothing better than death out of spite. Stupid gnomes.

And the Dranei... what the crap are they? A bunch of self-righteous morons who worship "the light". The light? What the hell? You would base your entire civilization off a source of illumination? What is wrong with you?
Just stay out of my way so I don't have to kill you.

Fucktards, the lot of them. Nothing but a bunch of fucktards."

I was banned from the server. Something about breaking the ToS or something... I think it might have been the whole raping elvish women part.

The Ultimate Raid

Sure, you may have cleared Serpentshrine Cavern. You may have beaten the Eye, finished Hyjal, and even managed to take down Illidan himself.
But are you ready?

Are you ready for the ULTIMATE test of your mettle, your abilities to withstand such incredible and chaotic forces, and yet still maintain control and do your job?

I am, of course, talking about the World of Warcraft Forums.

The official WoW forums are known to cause serious injury to ones ability to think coherently, and have been proven to cause a loss of all basic motor skills.

Here are some Gems of comments I found from the Mage forums. Whether they are said in all seriousness, or as a joke, well, take a guess! That makes it so much more fun!

• Make ice block able to crit!
• in a world where a zombie can summon and then launch bolts of ice from their hands, gravity is the least you have to worry about. (In response to someone suggesting that Ice block should be able to crush someone if the mage uses it while above them)
• You mean this level 62 Paladin didn't hit 2500 in every bracket and then come post about it in the mage forums? (It was a keylogger)
• I could macro a Nintendo controller to play a 23/38 lock to maximum efficiency.
• Did anyone actually read my post? (to which the response was) silly bunny, this is the mage forums! no one ever reads well thought out posts!
• Oh pray do tell, how long does your CoC last ?
• NEW AND EXCITING METHODS OF EXPLOITING STUPIDITY!
• I swear, she told me she was 18!

Ehhh, not much of a post. But I laughed.

And its my blog. So whatever.

And We're Back!

I didn't post on Sunday. Do I fell guilty? No, not really.
A good friend celebrated his 18th, and I went and got pleasantly drunk. By pleasant, it means I can remember most of the stuff that happened, but everything is coated in a warm, fuzzy feeling. It makes all my memories somewhat fuzzy as well, though...
Some stuff sticks out. Like a blonde chick named Cheryl. And a bowl of phenomenally good Poutine. And being run over by a tank in Halo3.

But I digress. Quite simply put, I don't have enough enough to say to warrant Daily Updates. From now on, I am going to update 4 times per week. Schedule for that TBA; for sure, Mondays and Saturdays will be update days. The other two update days will PROBABLY be Wednesday and Thursday. We shall see.
BUT. Seeing as how I promised daily updates, we're going to need to find someone/thing to fill in on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. I'm hoping to rope Vox into a regular gig as "That Crazy Sumbitch Wit Da PewPew". We shall see.

Also, I added a new html template thingy to my blog... let's see how it works:

[Gyro-balanced Khorium Destroyer]

Heh. That seemed to work nicely. Let's try some other stuff:

[Robe of Oblivion]

Kek ^_^
Ma links is no longer borked.

Actual update coming later.

Random Saturday Musings

There's a quest in Shadowmoon Valley to kill Ravenous Flayer Eggs. The troll animation for attacking it is "Slap! Backhand! Slap! Slap!" The slaps look like not-so-friendly thwacks on the bum. I always knew there was something... alternative with them trolls

Turns out, I really, really miss playing as a Fire mage. I haven't two-shotted an equal level mob in so long... I forgot what it was like. I really, really missed the damage I can do, and I really, really miss those fantastic crits. Oh, fire spec, I have transgressed against thee, can thou find it in your Burning Soul to forgive this lost sheep? Welcome me back into your glorious embrace, of fire god of the uber pwnage. Cleanse me of the curse that is frost spec, and enlighten me in your ways of burning everything flammable.

Just like frost mages, fire mages can also solo group quests. Its easy, really. Kill the mob as fast as you can, and hope you're alive to loot it. Damned if I care if I'm alive, so long as I get my loot!

10/48/3 spec + Essence Infused Mushroom + Full Imbued Netherweave set = I never run out of mana. Seriously. Never. When grinding as frost, I would stop every now and then and drink. As fire, I only ever stop to eat. Because... I take damage as fire. I take quite a bit of it. Things hurt me. They really do.
On that note, I miss Ice Barrier. /sniff

I hit 666 gold today. I celebrated my triumph by running around shooting stuff with fire spells. Wait a minute... I've been doing that all day.

Does anyone else have a feeling that spirit is a dying stat for mages? Seriously, think about it. Evocation used to run off of spirit, now it restores a base percent of mana.
The arcane talent Arcane Meditation is recieving a buff, increasing the mana regen a very hefty amount. What does this mean to the average mage? I'm glad you asked.
As of right now, spirit is generally a very poor stat, unless you are specced arcane and have the handy little Meditation talent. For the rest of us frosters and flamers, spirit is a stat that only effected Evocation. Which is why so many mages carried around spirit sticks/wands for use during Evocate only (Now with evocate effecting mana, we're going to carry Intellect sticks/wands instead). So, with the change to Evocate, spirit is a completely and utterly useless stat for everyone except arcane mages.
This means that you, loyal fire mage raider, have pointless stats on your Tier 4, your Tier 5, and yes, your Tier 6 gear. Didja hear me? That spirit is weighing you down, and forcing you to be worse than you could be by the simple fact that Blizzard didn't give you good gear.

HOWEVER.

If anyone has bothered to check out the new loot in Zul'Aman, you might notice something... something a little strange.
Check out the cloth drops from Zul'Aman. Look at them. Revel in them. Envy people who have them.
Then look closer... go on look. Go find the gear. LOOK at it!

Then let me ask you something... do you see any spirit? I bet you don't, do you?

Thats right mages! Zul'Aman gear is totally and utterly devoid of spirit!

So what does this mean?

Mark my words. Spirit mechanics and the whole idea of Spirit is going to go through some very major changes in the coming patches.

Something is cooking, only time will tell what.


VOLUME III OF MAGECRAFT GOING UP TOMORROW

Another stupid post about nothing

The rather large and bulky "World of Magecraft" is on its way.

We're working on it as we speak! I swear I'm not watching Youtube videos.

"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"
"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"
"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"
"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"
"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"
"ZIM!"
"Whaaat?"

Expect the first installment later on tonight. I plan on having the whole basics/not-so-basics guide totally done and posted by this time Friday night.

Yeah... typos

So, I got linked in BRK's blog today. Presumably that means that I am now a respectable blogger?
Le gasp! Let it not be so!
That means I need to get someone to check out for my typos. If you didn't know, I have a lot of typos. By this time in the post, I'm already up to eight of them. Nine now. Crud. Ten.
And I don't catch them all either, (twelve), and some typos escape my eye of criticism.

So, please, my faithful reader (maybe I can use a plural form now?), please leave comments, or at least e-mail me with my spelling and grammatical failures. It will make this blog soo much better.
Or, I could keep right on rambling about nothing as usual.

Anyways, no actual post from me tonight. I'm going to start working on some magery guides, with number crunching on hit rating, how to spec, how to level... you know, all the basic stuff.
Then I get to make a special section that links all the helpful guides and things!

Guest post coming up a little later!

Something Completely Different.

Anyone who has read the best work of Maddox knows that the men's washroom is a very structured place.
There are rules governing a men's washroom, far more powerful than the oldest laws laid down by any civilization. These laws are not written in stone, they are written in TESTOSTERONE.
A far more powerful force than mere rock. When these laws are broken, there are dire consequences. The whole natural order is thrown into chaos, and some batshit crazy stuff happens.
As a recap, here's a theoretical washroom.
______
UUUUU

Where each "U" is a urinal. Say the door is here

X
______
UUUUU

Therefore, the "U" to the furthest right will be Peed in first

X
_____P
UUUUU

And the furthest left will be the next one used, and then the middle on. At that point, a fourth guy will use a stall. Setups such as this

X
PP____
UUUUU

Are strictly forbidden, upon pain of chemical castration.

So here I am in the washroom, urinating in the furthest stall from the door. Doing my usual business. It is a public washroom, and thus is disgusting. Most of the mirrors are covered with unidentified gunk, the sinks are full of phlegm, and the toilet seats are inexplicably covered in single ply toilet paper. The urinal next to mine has a soggy bagel stewing in the juices of at least 5 or 6 men.

Then the door creaks. I hear footsteps. They are coming towards the stalls.

Just to avoid anything awkward, I shift a little to the left, so as to essentially cut off any possible chance of eye-penis contact from occuring from either party.

The footsteps keep walking, and ARE NOW DIRECTLY BEHIND ME.

My mind is reeling. My pituitary gland is hyperventilating. My anus preps its anti-trespasser weapon systems. My body is preparing for the worst here.

I turn my head to see what's going on. What the hell is this joker doing?

Thus I was in the perfect position to watch a water balloon casually sail over my right shoulder, and descend into the bowl of the urinal.

It was like a horror film. Everything was agonizingly slow... I wanted to run, to scream, something, anything!
But I could do naught but watch in fascinated horror, as the pregnant balloon struck the ceramic bowl, and burst. My poor exposed manly organs were showered with freezing cold water, my own urine, and other substances I don't even wish to think about.
My pants took a lot of this sudden sneak attack as well... and had to be run through the laundry twice to get them cleaned.

And as any sadistic joker does, after his prank was fulfilled, instead of running to safety, he stayed and laughed.

Now, being the quick thinker I am, the only thought on my mind was "REVENGEANCE!!" I had no desire greater than to hurt this idiot, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally.

My mind searched for ammunition for my killer desires... and it found a urine-soaked bagel in the urinal next to me.
Hoisting my pants up in the process, I quickly scooped the ammonia pastry up, and hurled it at the grinning face of my attacker.

Anyone who's thrown soaked grain products knows that they have very little structural integrity. This bagel was no different, splitting into pieces in midair. Two large chunks slammed into the face of my attacker, water and urine providing an incredible amount of "splash" damage.
One chunk laned on his left cheek, a hefty amount of gook entering his rapidly non-smiling mouth. The other chunk hit him above his left eye-brow, which rather comically dripped urine into his furiously blinking eye.
Both chunks fell of his face, landing on the washroom floor with a satisfying "splush" noise.

Smiling in resignation, he said:

"Touché"