Posts Tagged ‘guide’

There is no dragon mode

// September 17th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Guides, Non-hunters, Roleplay

Or How to Roleplay a Dragon

Anyone who’s had any experience roleplaying in WoW have seen them. As labeled by my guild, they are the werewolf vampire dragon blood elf shaman warlocks who always seem to be hanging around in Silvermoon or Goldshire in skimpy outfits.

Sadly, it’s these people who give the real roleplayers a bad name, which in turn frustrates us. Because not only do we have to deal with these people, but also the RP griefers, the god moders, and the out-in-the-open ERPs. (I have no problem with erotic roleplayers in general but for pete sake, keep it to whispers. There are little children playing this game too.)

Having said that, I should tell you that I roleplay Saraku as a dragon. As mentioned above, this is generally a big no-no. However, I seemed to have pulled it off successfully, at least according to the people I have asked.

The biggest rule to remember when roleplaying in WoW is: Keep within the confines of the game. Let me go into more detail of how I did it with Saraku.

He’s a netherdrake.

Netherdrakes are seen most often in the game as mounts, working in close association with adventurers to fly them to remote places. It’s gotten to the point where it’s not even unusual to see them. They are not above getting down and dirty to get the job done. I’m not saying that other dragons are uppity, but in general they are more worried about the larger picture. I believe it’s still possible to roleplay another type of dragon but if I had to choose one that would make the most sense as an adventurer, it would be netherdrakes.

He’s not a dragon of uber pwnage.

When Saraku is in human form, he’s confined to the same restrictions that any other player character would be. He can’t breathe fire or tear a man apart with his bare hands or shoot lasers from his eyes. For fighting purposes, he is just another blood elf. He can be bruised, beaten, slashed, and killed just like anyone else of his class and level.

Saraku is also a young dragon who’s very naive. Having been raised as a slave, with all his needs taken care of by his slavers, all he really needed to know was how to fly them around when needed. Once he became Niqora’s charge, she took over feeding and taking care of him. In dragon form, he wouldn’t even know how to hunt, much less how to fight anything.

He can’t change on a whim.

At this point, he can’t change in while in Azeroth at all. To neatly explain away why, I decided that he needs certain energies in order to be a dragon. In this case, he needs either the nether energies in the Outlands, or the auroras in Northrend. Of course once Cataclysm comes out, I’ll most likely have to find a reason for him to now be able to fly in Azeroth.

He also can’t change into a dragon to rip things to shreds. For one thing, the change between the two forms leaves him vulnerable so it would not be a good idea to shift in the middle of a fight. Also, by the time he got to the Outlands, his blood elf form was stronger and more experienced at fighting than his dragon form. At this point in his life, he is comfortable in the blood elf skin and will probably not attempt to change back for a while.

He has a reason to be in humanoid form.

Why take the form of a less powerful species when you can just scorch your enemies in one pass? Saraku has two reasons. For one, he greatly admires Niqora, who freed him from slavery in Shadowmoon Valley. She has been the only real friend he has had, and his inspiration to see what it’s like to be a humanoid. In addition, he became intensely curious about life as a humanoid and what Azeroth was like. He has a wanderlust just as she does and since the only way he could see Azeroth was to become a humanoid…well, the result is obvious.

More recently, he has also thought of returning to his birthplace in the Netherwing Ledge and freeing some of his kind who are still slaves there. He could not accomplish this as a dragon, as I doubt the Dragonmaw orc disguise would work that well. Hence just another reason to be a blood elf.

He’s no one important.

There are other dragons in the game who can change into humanoids so Saraku is not an unusual case. And he is not the Commander of the Netherwing flight, or the bastard son of Alexstrasza and the Lich King (I don’t know how that would be possible even, nevermind make him a netherdrake). In essence, he’s merely another adventurer on a mission to help fix some problems in the world. He has realized, through Niqora and his own work, that you don’t have to be someone special to make a difference.

I did research before creating him.

You don’t have to be a lore nerd in order to come up with a decent background for your character but you do have to know something about where they come from. For example, when deciding his name, I did some searching and discovered that netherdrakes often end their names in “-aku” or “-us”. After some playing around with different letters and sounds, I came up with Saraku, which I think rolls nicely off the tongue and sounds natural. If I had went with a red dragon-type name, the character wouldn’t have made any sense.

I have to admit that I’m not the one who came up with the basic idea in the first place. While I was playing Niqo, I would imagine Saraku’s personality and the conversations the two of them would have as they flew around the Outlands. I had wanted to roleplay him in dragon form as a companion of Niqo’s (like how I roleplay with my pets) but I never seemed to find the opportunity to. Then one day a guild mate mentioned how an alt they had rolled was a nether drake in disguise and I said “BRILLIANT!” and then asked if I could steal the idea for Saraku.

I do love playing him though. He’s so naive and literal minded that I can usually make my guildmates laugh with his antics. So far I’ve had no one grieve me over the fact that he’s a dragon. So I’m assuming that I’ve successfully created a character that side-steps the whole “werewolf vampire dragon blood elf shaman warlocks” taboo.

And no, he does not turn back into a dragon to do the nasty. Anyone on a RP server will know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, read this from Rotten Apples (NSFW).

Does anyone have any comments/tips/rants about this post? Please post them, I want to hear your views.

Argent Tournament Jousting Strategy

// July 25th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Guides

I try to do the Argent Tournament dailies every day (before for the titles and now just for the seals). My guildies and other friends do them as well but I always hear them complaining about how difficult the jousting ones are.

I’ve tried to explain the strategy that I use (and I can’t remember exactly where I found it) but it appears to be a bit confusing since I can’t show them what I mean.

So my solution was to create a video of Niqora using the technique on two different opponents. Of course you don’t have to watch the whole thing to get the jist of what I’m doing but it’s there just in case you do.

Here’s an explanation of the technique:

  1. Get your shields (Defend) up to 3 stacks right before you challenge the opponent.
  2. Once he takes off, spam Charge. You’ll automatically charge him when he’s far enough away. This will remove one of his shields.
  3. You’ll keep charging past him and what you want to do is to make a loop back around so you end up standing right in front of him. While you make the loop, spam Shield Breaker. This may take a couple tries to get right and sometimes it doesn’t even work. But if it does work, your opponent will lose another shield and he won’t be able to get a Charge/Shield Breaker off on you.
  4. Once you are within melee range again after completeing the loop, spam Thrust while making sure that you have 3 shields up. I always press Defend once during the melee part even if I still have 3 stacks of shields up. This way I know they won’t expire unexpectedly.
  5. Once your opponent starts to walk away from you again, start spamming Charge and repeat the process over again.

A higher quality version of this video is available on Xfire.

Here are two other explanations of the same strategy in case mine isn’t clear enough:

And of course questions/comments are always welcome. I hope this helps some people out when they’re doing their jousting. :)

Warp Stalker Soloing Talent Build

// October 16th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // Guides, Hunters and Pets

I’m still downloading patches for WoW (sigh) so I decided to try my hand at some theory-crafting. Keep in mind that I’m not an expert or number cruncher unlike some people. I’m just doing what I think feels right so please give any comments, suggestions, or complaints you may have on this. It’s just a little test, nothing set in concrete.

I was playing around with the pet talent calculator and ended up with a build for Niqora’s warp stalker Grakoth. If I had to pick one great thing about Grakoth (and warp stalkers in general) is his Warp ability. It instantly teleports him to the mob, costs no focus and has a 15 second cooldown. It’s up for practically every fight and saves me having to wait for him to run over to the mob. It’s perfect for someone like me who does a lot of farming, soloing, dailies, etc.

So about the talent build. When I created it, I kept Warp in mind, as well as wanting Grakoth to keep aggro, stay alive, and maybe do a little DPS on the side. I used Big Red Rhino’s talent review and builds as a guide, making some adjustments for a warp stalker and the fact that Grakoth is only level 70.

Tier 1: The first 3 points went into Great Stamina for the health boost. I ignored Charge because of Warp and Natural Armor was put on the backburner due to it being useful but I think the points are better spent elsewhere. The next 2 points were put in Cobra Reflexes. Previous theory-crafting (not mine, I can’t remember where I saw it) concluded that Cobra Reflexes increased DPS because more attacks means more crits.

Tier 2: 3 points into Spiked Collar because hey, more damage is good. Boar’s Speed was ignored because again…Warp. I put 2 points into Blood of the Rhino for the extra boost it will give to Mend Pet. When I’m doing dailies, I sometimes find that Mend Pet does just a little less healing than I need to negate the damage Grakoth is taking.

Tier 3: More threat helps him keep aggro, hence the 2 points in Guard Dog. Intervene was ignored because I solo mostly and ahem…he’s got Warp. :) Lionhearted would probably be more useful in PvP so I passed on it. 3 points were put in Avoidance because of the reduced AOE damage and it leads to Last Stand.

Tier 4: No points here. Great Resistance is more for instances and PvP. I was considering Grace of the Mantis but somehow it didn’t seem worth it. A small percentage to reduce the mob’s melee crits…I believe the points could be better spent elsewhere.

Tier 5: Taunt was taking to help Grakoth keep aggro. Last Stand is good for some temporary hit points, say for taking on 3 or 4 mobs at a time.

One of my options is to take the 3 points of of Spiked Collar and put 2 into Natural Armor and 1 into Pet Barding. But my way of thinking is the faster the enemy goes down, the less damage Grakoth has to take. So for now at least I’m willing to sacrifice some armor for the DPS.

There you have it! My patches are finally getting close to being done and I’m going to head off to download some addon updates so I can get right down to playing once everything’s ready. I welcome any opinions and suggestions on this build.

Edit: I forgot that in a comment, Tzia had asked me if Warp and Charge share a cooldown. As you can see, I didn’t take it here and a web search came up with nothing. Unless someone else knows, I’m going to guess that they don’t, because well…that wouldn’t make sense to me. Of course I could be wrong and the only sure way to know is to test it out in-game…which I may end up doing anyways.

How anyone can tame anywhere

// December 18th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Guides, Hunters and Pets

This is a quick little guide for how a hunter can tame just about anything anywhere. It was inspired by the popularity that I’ve been getting from my Horde taming on Azuremyst post.

Now let’s say you have your pet-to-be already picked out and you’re rarin’ to go. Oh, you actually don’t know what you want? Go to Petopia, now. Really, I mean it, go.

Anyways, so now you’ve chosen your pet. Basically you need to know three things to tame it: where it is, where you are, and how to get from where you are to where it is.

The first one’s pretty easy. On Petopia, Mania’s linked all the pet to Thottbot so you can see where they are found. Or if you wish, you could use WoWHead as well.

The second one’s easy as well. I should hope that you know where your character is but if you don’t, just press ‘M’ in-game to pop up the map and you’ll see the name of area that you’re in.

Now…the tricky part. You have to travel between where you are and where the pet is. Sometimes you don’t even have to leave the zone you’re in. Other times you have to travel across the world and into dangerous and unknown territories.

(more…)

How Horde can tame on Azuremyst Isle

// August 2nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Guides

Update: Want to get some general tips on taming pets?

I wrote a post about my new blood elf hunter that tamed a ravager, a creature that can only be found on Azuremyst Isle at level 10. Here I’ve written a quick guide/summary of how I did it.

  1. Get to Undercity. That involves going into the Sunfury Spire in Silvermoon City and using the Orb of Translocation inside the Inner Sanctum.
  2. Take the zeppelin from Undercity to Orgrimmar. (If this is your first time doing it, it’s is located outside Undercity and the ruins on a hill to the north. It’s hard to miss. And make sure you take the right one.)
  3. From Orgrimmar, you then need to make the long walk to the Crossroads in the Barrens. (I knew the way from my other horde characters.) To do that, go south from Orgrimmar to Razor Hill. Then go west into the Barrens. When you meet a road going north-south, you can either get the flight path at the Crossroads south down the road (and then head north back up the same road), or follow the north directly into Ashenvale. Here’s a map of the Barrens if that’s too confusing.
  4. Then you have to walk north-west through Ashenvale and around the alliance town of Astranaar, following the road up into Darkshore. If you’re like me, you’ve probably already died at this point. No big deal, you’re suppose to anyways. What you are doing is called ghost travelling.
  5. If you haven’t died yet, you will because you need to get to Auberdine, an Alliance town that has a ship dock. So die however you want, don’t resurrect, and then find the dock in Auberdine. The boat going to Azuremyst will be straight down the dock (there’s sign posts if you get confused). Jump on the boat and sail to Azuremyst.
  6. Once you arrive, follow the road straight past the Exodar and keep running. There is a graveyard just off the right side of the road when it gets close to the Stillpine Hold mountains (map). Note: If you walked through the Exodar area, you will be flagged PVP automatically, even if you are on a normal server.
  7. This is the important part of ghost travelling. You must log off and then log back on again. Otherwise you could end up at the closest graveyard to where you died. And that’s bad.
  8. Resurrect at the healer. I find its best to put Tracking Humanoids on to see if anyone is around.
  9. You are now ready to tame. If you’re looking for level 10 ravagers in particular, ravager specimens are located in this area. Once you are done, you can either hearthstone back or ghost travel again.

There are some people who do not want to pay the spirit healer. There is a way around this. While you are still alive, instead of running through Auberdine, you can swim from a far shore out to where the boat docks. Once there, drown yourself and ghost-walk up the dock until you get close to your body. Once the boat comes, jump onto it and resurrect yourself. Then you have a free ticket to Azuremyst without the hefty spirit healer cost.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen, Aithne’s Guide to taming level 10 Ravagers. It’s not hard, just a looooooot of walking.

Of course you can also use this guide if you want to tame other animals that can only be found on Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles at low levels, such as nightstalkers, barber crawlers, greater timberstriders, and so forth. If it needs more information, please tell me by commenting below.