Manic Mage

With this most recent aquisition, my mage is sitting at 128 mounts (and 126 pets, for that matter).  Man, I love robots.

Now, what cool flying mount is Cataclysm gonna have?

Here are some videos Dan and I have made of some end wing bosses in ICC Hardmode recently.  Check out more on our video pages I currently have 11/12 hardmodes up on my page, and Dan has a bunch of content from his last guild. Dan recently transferred to Firetree to raid with my guild as we were recruiting mages, so you’ll see the same guild in all kills from now on.

Blood Queen Lana’thel: Alouette POV

Professor Putricide: Daninkai POV

Sindragosa: Alouette POV

Thank you for checking out DaniUI, the first release of my UI.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE | VIEW IT IN ACTION

Special thanks to my guildie Alouette for all those late nights talking about game mechanics, UI, and other stuff.

This user interface is intended for 1680×1050 and is provided as is.

ADDON LIST
Bartender, Bison, BuffEnough, ButtonFacade (Caith skin), Chatter, Clique, Combuctor, Docking Station, FortExorcist, Geist, Grid, kgPanels, OmniCC, Omen, PowerAuras Classic, Quartz, Recount, Reflux, Sexy Map, Shadowed Unit Frames, Shared Media, TipTac, TidyPlates, xLoot

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
1. Backup your WTF, Interface, and Font folders
2. Delete and replace them with the ones from the zip package
3. Rename ACCOUNTNAME, SERVERNAME, CHARACTERNAME folders in WTF folder appropriately
4. Type /reflux switch DaniUI to load each addon’s profile
5. Enjoy!

NOTE
I forgot to reset the chat windows to their default settings entirely. If you are having any trouble seeing whispers, double check to see if whispers has been checked off. If that doesn’t work, then reset the windows to their default settings (right click any chat tab > Reset Chat Windows) and then move the chat window back into position.

Download AloUI v2.0 here! AloUI is a clean, light user interface with medium memory usage. This UI is intended for DPS or tanking, though I’m sure a healer could use it too with slight adjustments to Grid. Any comments, questions, or feedback? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear what people think.

Installation Instructions:

1. Backup your WTF, Interface, and Font folders
2. Delete and replace them with the ones from the zip package
3. Rename ACCOUNTNAME, SERVERNAME, CHARACTERNAME folders in WTF folder appropriately
4. Load your game and type /reflux switch AloUI
5. Enjoy!

Included/Credits:
AtlasLoot, Bartender 4, Buttonfacade (Skin: NotCaith), Cael Nameplates, Combuctor, DockingStation, DXE (Boss Mods), FortExorcist, GnomishVendorShrinker, Grid, KGPanels, Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text, Omen, OmniCC, Opie, Panda, pMinimap, Postal, Power Auras, Prat, Quartz, Recount, Reflux, Satrina Buff Frames, Shadowed Unit Frames, TipTac

Thanks:
To all of the amazing addon authors who made this sort of modding possible, my mage partner in crime Daninkai for walking me through Reflux profiles and discussing UI/mage stuff for hours on end, and all who have been unwitting guinea pigs to my various modding experiments! :]

Well, it’s been a while, but game-related activity takes precedence over the blog.  That said, my UI is pretty much complete, and now that we’re working on hardmodes and no longer racing for server first, I will be posting a bit more regularly again.   Expect my UI within the week.

My guild killed The Lich King on Thursday night (well, more like Friday morning!) for a realm first Arthas kill – on 25M to boot!  A VERY epic encounter.  We unlocked the statue for our server and watched a pretty epic cutscene, now available to our entire server via the statue fountain in the middle of Dalaran.

If after watching, you’re interested in my guild, we’re always recruiting exceptional players for full time spots  (we never recruit for bench).  We raid Tue/Wed/Thu/Sun 7:30-12:30 EST.  Visit us at: http://piechart-guild.com.  Pie Chart is the top guild on Firetree, and has an extremely stable core and solid leadership – easily the best guild I’ve ever been in with an incredibly fair loot council and talented and fun players to be around.

Enough about that!  Without further ado, here is our kill video from a mage POV (that’d be me!).  Sorry for the random lag spikes, but something about the encounter incurs massive FPS lag at random points.  Be sure to watch in HD if your connection can handle it!

Part I:

Part II:

Much like my last post, I’ve gone back and done another “gear check” achievement… and been rewarded with the “Argent Defender” title!  This time, it was in Trial of the Grand Crusader, 10 Man.

The criteria for this is a lot less strict than the Herald of the Titans achievement.  We used a balanced group, which was almost exactly the same as the Algalon achievement – with a swap of a guild holy paladin this time around for the non-guildie priest that healed our Algalon.  A Holy Paladin is invaluable for P3 Anub’arak.

Healers:
Restoration Druid (Lunarien)
Restoration Shaman (Peleana)
Holy Paladin (Arsina)

Tanks:
Protection Paladin (Lorothar)
Protection Warrior (Vudani)

DPS:
Arcane Mage (Alouette – that’s me!)
Destruction Warlock (Lethalis)
Fury Warrior (Gigan)
Balance Druid (Treewa)
Survival Hunter (Raeesha)

We had Peleana, our resto shaman, go elemental and DPS for Anub’arak, as the dps requirement for the fight is fairly high.  We also had our normally feral druid Treewa go Moonkin for this to further buff the strong caster DPS we had.  Both our Warlock and Hunter provided replenishment, which is incredibly important for the last boss – as is the inclusion of a shaman for heroism/bloodlust.

I won’t go into the fights in detail, but I will give some general pointers for the instance and the common pitfalls.  Also, I would strongly suggest to 3 heal everything but Anub’arak.  There is too much potential for disaster otherwise.  Healer stunned in fire, accidentaly dc’ing, getting insta-gibbed on Faction Champions… it may not happen, but the possibility it will far outweighs any potential dps gain you may get from bringing 6 dps over 5.  I digress – on to the fights!

Beasts:

• Levitate bug no longer works for avoiding fires.
• Worms: must be picked up timely, avoid being breathed, spread out.
• Icehowl: A hunter with Aspect of the Pack for people with crappy latency is very helpful.

Jaraxxus:

• Have EVERYONE switch to portals/volcanoes.
• Purge/dispel at least a stack of nether power, even if you have a mage to spellsteal.

Faction Champions:

• SPREAD OUT, and make sure none of the healers are standing close together.
• Tanks:  Your warrior should be interrupting a healer, and a paladin is best suited to controlling a melee due to their double taunts.  Death Knight, best on a melee due to grip, chains, etc.  Druid can do either well.
• Initial burst damage is what wipes groups, use your cooldowns – all of them – to stay alive.  The fight decreases in difficulty over time.  Don’t save your cooldowns thinking you’ll use them soon – use them NOW.

Twin Val’kyr:

• Have someone blocking orbs, even if you feel you can heal through it.  You can always get unlucky.
• Split your dps into two colours, so that damage on one twin is not higher than another with the possibility of a shield heal going off due to slow switches.
• Have a designated interrupter for shields.  We burned through shields incredibly fast, but almost let the twins heal once because we didn’t have a rogue kicking.  The bug allowing you to “pre-interrupt” has also been hotfixed.

Anub’arak:

• We used a resto druid to hot both tanks and heal penetrating colds.  Our holy paladin kept both tanks up with beacon.
• Keeping the raid as low as you can is important here – so having the entire raid grab healthstones and frost pots to use for the first tick of penetrating cold eases the pressure on your healers.
• Only drop as much frost is necessary for kiting – you should be submerging him once only.  I believe we only used 3 frost patches for the submerge phase.
• Do not blink, dash, speed pot, or sprint if you are being pursued.  It can bug Anub out when he is running through the ice and cause him not to use the ice.
• Similarly, do not use shadowmeld, bubble, or iceblock if pursued unless you fully intend to have him drop aggro on you.

Gear Requirements:
Allowed

• Any item below item level 245.
• The item level 245 set pieces that drop from 25-player Trial of the Crusader but also appear in the 10-player Tribute Chest.
• Any gear that drops in 10-player Trial of the Crusader or Trial of the Grand Crusader, including item level 245 Trial of the Grand Crusader drops and item level 258 cloaks from the 10-player Tribute Chest
• Any item level 245 items purchased with Badges of Triumph.
• Any item level 245 Bind on Equip item, including crafted pieces.

Not Allowed:

• Any item level 245 item not included above (primarily Bind on Pickup drops from 25-player Trial of the Crusader, but also notably Val’anyr).
• Any item over item level 245 except for the 10-player Tribute cloak.
• Any higher item level loot introduced in future patches (25 player Onyxia 245s, Icecrown loot, etc.)

While I didn’t find this achievement very challenging (it was much easier than Herald of the Titans), it was fun to put together and run.  The margin for error is fairly low though, so perhaps we were just lucky!

That’s all from me for now, but in the next couple weeks I should be posting a fair bit more content!  Check back for posts on The Insane  feat of strength, A Tribute To Insanity – 25 man, and my new UI compilation!

With nothing else to do, my guild went back to Ulduar to finish up the last few achievements we needed for Glory of the Ulduar raider. Tonight we completed the last that we needed, One Light in the Darkness. After a number of attempts as arcane, I felt that I wasn’t able to put out sufficient damage with the amount of movement that is required in order to avoid death rays of death and fellow raiders with malady of the mind. Mana also seemed to be a large issue, as I felt I never had enough; this was probably exacerbated through our raid only having 5 ranged dps up top to deal with crusher tentacles.

A couple raid member swaps (to bring in more ranged for upstairs) and a spec change to fireball later, things went much smooth smoother on subsequent attempts. I ended up dying to a constrictor tentacle (kind of embarassing, but whatever), but I’m glad that we did this fight. I don’t know if we are going to ever attempt Alone in the Darkness, I’m hoping that isn’t the case. We just have Algalon to go, and then I think I’ll be done with Ulduar forever.

Raid Composition

Tanks
Prot Paladin (Valdrick)
Prot Warrior (Titaan)
Blood DK (Grytswyrm)

Healers
Restoration Shaman (Norita)
Restoration Druid (Snowmanboy)
Holy Paladins (Neyda, Danglyparts)
Holy Priest (Loten)

DPS
Fury Warriors (Zanotact, Clexicus)
Arms Warrior (Tredankies)
Ret Paladin (Fortytwo)
Combat Rogues (Samitoo, Tynkle)
Unholy DKs (Haude, Exotic)
Frost DK (Tradge)
Feral Druid (Amateras)
Arcane Mages (Nooma, Silkysmoothe)
Fire Mage (Daninkai)
Elemental Shaman (Warmth)
Affliction Warlock (Chersuine)
Shadow Priest (Yuvem)
Survival Hunter (Olif)

My mage has a shiny new title after tonight’s events – I got a raid together and successfully lead a Herald of the Titans group! I’m quite excited about actually completing it, as I feel it was one of the more challenging (and fun!) encounters I’d done to date.

It really felt like a progression boss, especially because a lot of the raid was undergeared due to having deleted their lower level gear.  Many people were sporting very subpar gear and pvp items in order to meet the requirements – so that was a bit of a challenge!

I’d been wanting to do this achievement since Ulduar’s release, as the achievement nerd I am. The reason it appealed to me so much is because it combined two factors: the skill of getting the hour time limit boss down coupled with the fact that you could simply never outgear it and “zerg” the boss.

The strict gear requirement on it meant that you needed to kill the boss with a very rigid and small gear set available in only early raids of the Wrath expansion, requiring a fair amount of skill.  Thus, few people will ever have the talent or the dedication to get this achievement, and accompanying title.

Here’s a look at my mage in her normal gear, and then the Herald set I used:

Personally, I had some issues in my old gear (which luckily, I never deleted in hopes of one day getting this achievement -  and I now have a lot more free bag space after doing so). I was playing arcane, a spec that didn’t really become viable until Trial of the Crusader was released.  I had mana problems.

I also hadn’t specced into pushback, which is definitely an issue when dealing with continuous Cosmic Smashes, star deaths, and other miscellaneous raid damage.  Plus, my Herald gear isn’t nearly as snazzy as my current getup; after all, Tier 8 was PANTS!  And as a recently undead mage, I certainly have bony knees…

I’ll outline our raid composition, which admittedly could have been better – but you work with what you have!  A holy paladin would have been ideal for tank healing, but we got by with a disc priest.

Healers:
Restoration Druid (Lunarien)
Restoration Shaman (Peleana)
Discipline Priest (Telethar – non guildie, but great!)

Tanks:
Protection Paladin (Lorothar)
Protection Warrior (Vudani)

DPS:
Arcane Mage (Alouette – that’s me!)
Destruction Warlock (Lethalis)
Fury Warrior (Gigan)
Retribution Paladin (Minoritee)
Survival Hunter (Raeesha)

As for what gear is allowed and what’s not? All armor, rings, and trinkets must be iLVL 226 and below.  All PVP armor, rings, and trinkets 226 and below are okay.  All iLVL 232 Ulduar and PVP weapons (ranged, main hand, offhand, and 2handed) are allowed.  All Trial of the Crusader 5 man and 5 man heroic gear is okay.  All Ulduar gear is fair game minus the 25 man hardmode loot, which is iLVL 239.

It’s debateable whether TOC10/Onyxia iLVL 232 weapons/ranged slots are allowed, but to err on the side of caution my group did not use them.  There have been conflicting reports on whether or not they’re okay.  I’d say to be safe, don’t risk it.

Best of luck if you choose to go after this challenging (but very fun) achievement – it pushes you to your limits.   It certainly was a blast for my group and I!

Greetings! I’m Daninkai, the newest contributor to Manic Mage.

Considering the prevalence of user interface discussion in previous posts on this blog, I feel it necessary to begin by sharing my own UI.

This is a custom UI I began developing a few weeks ago after browsing through a number of premade user interfaces. I noticed some common themes among the most popular ones, and many of those are related to a number of the concepts that Alouette brought up in her previous UI post:

1. Important information is placed closely to the character so it is viewable immediately
2. Less important information is moved away from “first glance” area
3. There is plenty of available space to see around your character, and anything that might be happening to it.

These very concepts I try to include in my own UI because having the most pertinent information most readily available to you could mean the difference between life and death for you in a given raid encounter. However, what you can’t see in the screen shot is my use of Power Auras or other cool down trackers. Properly configured, these addons can be some of the greatest tools a raiding WoW player can utilize. Below I’ve included a video of my UI and its cool down trackers  in action.

Much like Alouette, I use my Power Auras to keep track of both my buffs and my stack (the actual layout of my Power Auras has changed over time; this most recent set up was heavily influenced by Alouette’s layout) and place them near my character so my eye does not have to deviate from my character or my target. One of the biggest issues I’ve come up with as a raiding mage is losing track of my arcane blast debuff stack during a heated boss fight; setting up individual auras for each stack of the debuff as well as other cool downs. Using Power Auras to keep track of cool downs is an EXTREMELY valuable tool, I even use it on my shaman in order to keep track of her cool down-based abilities (Stormstrike, Lava Lash, etc).

Using some kind of cool down tracker is also useful for the raiding mage, especially in the case of us arcane mages, as well have so many cool downs to use! I personally use a combination of two timer trackers both for their great utility: OmniCC and FortExorcist. OmniCC is great because it places a timer on the toolbar icon for each ability, so you can track how long it will be until you can use that ability just by looking at your toolbar!

However, for those that like to hide their toolbars, Fortexorcist serves as a great substitute for cool down tracking. While this addon was originally developed for use by warlocks (ugh), the author has since expanded the addon to track cool downs of all of WoW’s classes. FortExorcist’s cool down timer works by placing each cool down on a bar moving left (or whatever direction the user specifies), gradually increasing its speed the cool down gets closer to being usable. As an additional option, the user can specify an icon to appear anywhere on the screen as a secondary visual indicator that the cool down is available.

While I could go on about my UI all day, I feel I’ll leave it here with what will be my most pertinent point: there are a number of tools available that allow you to keep track of your abilities, proper use of them will allow you to play better and play smarter.

Power Auras has long been one of my favourite addons.  It’s slightly higher in memory usage than I like, but the large amount of images it needs to load to run effectively are the reason for it.  It’s a very robust addon and can do a lot more than people realise at first glance.

Power Auras can be set up for all buffs, debuffs, procs, reactionary abilities, and more.

Personally, as a mage, I find it an immensely valuable addon.  I use it to track a lot of my buffs while playing.  Right now, the primary spec I play is Arcane, and there are a lot of buffs and debuffs you need to track.

Here’s a sample of my power Auras that I use on a regular basis on my raiding Arcane Mage.  There are rings on the outside of my character that show when the following self buffs are active: Missile Barrage, Arcane Power, and Icy Veins.  There’s also a ring for Heroism when it’s active, and I have a ring for when I’m Power Infused.   Having these buffs easily in my field of vision, colour coded, really helps.  They only display when the buff is active, and disappear upon the buff fading or being consumed.

The “stacks” at the bottom are my 4 stacks of Arcane Blast.  The middle light burst gets a pink background when there are four stacks up, so I know it’s time to reset my stack.  Overall, this has made me a much better player “at a glance”, because I’m not constantly moving my eye to the buff portion of my screen to view how long my relevant buffs/debuffs have left on them, and to be easily able to pick out important buffs.

I also have auras set up for situational buffs.  An example of a few good “situational” buffs/debuffs to have set up are listed here (I don’t use all of these, but a lot of them are valuable, especially while doing progression on the boss in question):

Ulduar:
- XT002’s Light & Gravity Bombs
- Hodir’s Storm Power
- Freya’s Nature’s Fury
- Freya’s Entangling Roots
- Vezax’s Shadow Crash (if ranged)
- Yogg-Saron’s Low Sanity check

Crusader’s Coliseum:
- Val’kyr Twins Touch of Light/Darkness
- Val’kyr Twins Empowered Light/Darkness
- Anub’arak’s Penetrating Cold

Misc:
- Silence debuff
- Interrupt duration
- Low Health Warning
- Low Mana Warning

Hopefully this has given you a bit more insight into this addon, and you’ll try it out for yourself sometime soon.  There’s a benefit for almost every class/spec in using it!

Interested?  Download it here.