Horde v. Alliance

Be Forewarned: The following information is coming from a completely biased POV and has absolutely nothing to do with a Mage.


So, one of the comments to my first post was a request for my opinion on the factions and which one I preferred, or I've completely skewed the question and it had nothing to do with that at all, but oh well, you're getting it anyway.


The reason the question was raised was because I mentioned that I had recently switched factions from the Horde to the Alliance per the request of some RL peeps. So, after debating a while in my head and with my partner in Horde-crime,  I decided to go ahead and make the switch. 


I chose my race -- Draenei -- mostly because I'm not really a gnome type of person and I hate how the humans look so much less..graphically developed..


I had to change my name, which disappointed me, but I got over it soon enough. 


I'd like to say that was the end and my only disappointment would have been having to be a Draenei and changing my name, but, sadly, I was disappointed with a lot of things...


1) I had no idea where to go. Granted, when you change factions, Blizz throws in a bonus of having basically every singly flight path available, but it doesn't update the map with the major cities (you still have the Horde ones there) and you still have not discovered any of the areas -- so, you have a ton of flight paths to...brown, undiscovered map area.


2) Orgrimmar was amazing -- Stormwind...not at all amazing. I do like IF, but, it's still not Orgrimmar. It was so much more amazing to look at because it wasn't just a building. Granted, Darnassus is kind of trying to go that way...but...yeah...and don't even get me started on the Exodar -- although, the Undercity still might be a bit more confusing.


3) In the process of switching factions, I also switched servers -- my old server being an RP server -- so playing RP on the Horde side was pretty interesting.


4) I had ZERO rep with anything -- which, was very annoying. All the rep I had worked on while leveling my hordie, vanished. So, starting from scratch on that one -- and yes, it blows about as much as you'd expect.




In my opinion, the Horde cities, landscape, appearance, everything is more interesting and takes you a bit more into a fantasy land than the Alliance. I prefer it completely, but I am happy where I am now. After all, the social aspect of the game is much more exciting than being able to look like a monster.


I would like to you know your thoughts, which faction you like more, etc.


I am now leveling a few toons at the same time on the Alliance side, which will be a first for me. I'll be able to give a better opinion once I experience something other than frustrating rep grinds and empty maps.

Power Infusion...wha..?

Okay, per the request of Miss Medicina, I decided I was going to write about the lovely happy magic that a Disc Priest and an Arcane Mage can create together (although, I'm sure any spell-caster would appreciate the "boom-pow" as well). So anyway, it begins like this:


Havoca prances along, slayin' beasts, when all of a sudden she looks at her buff-o-meter and finds Power Infusion listed there.


Havoca cries out, "WHAT is power infusion and WHY is it sooooooo awesome???"


She doesn't do much research on the subject, rather, she turns her attention towards her rotation and downing some boss in some room somewhere in Ulduar. 


A while later she is asked by lil' Miss Medicina, "Hey, do you like that power infusion I keep putting on you?" 


"Power wha...what's going on...how are you awesome?", Havoca responds with stellar quality.


The end.


I know, I should write suspense novels for a living. 


So anyway, once we finished up our run, I decided to do a bit of research (mostly on WoWWiki, and here's what I found out.

1. To use Power Infusion you need to have an awesome Disc Priest who's willing to give the buff to someone other than themselves.
2. The buff itself gives an increase in spell casting speed by 20% and reduces the mana cost of all spells by 20%.
3. The buff only lasts 15 seconds and has a 2 minute cooldown.
4. The buff does not stack with: Arcane Power, Icy Veins, or Heroism/Bloodlust (from the Shammy) or any other self-only haste increase buffs.
5. Should be able to be stacked with Trinket effects. Cha-Ching--but, if you're like me, I usually use my trinkets when I'm using my other haste buffs.

So, especially as a mage, it's important to see when you've been popped with Power Infusion because we have a lot of spells that can counter it. The best way to prevent any kind of countering is to, obviously, pay attention. Don't cast Arcane Power or Icy Veins if you've just been popped with Power Infusion. 

The end result is that I'd probably have done a lot more DPS if I had been aware of the countering spells that I can cast, because I definitely am haste-cast happy. So next time, I'll be paying a LOT more attention.

Oh, and be sure to reciprocate the generosity of that disc priest with some good ol' Focus Magic. 

Introduction

Greetings Blog Readers:

This is the lame introductory post that's filled with the basics: race, class, spec, etc. I also might pump it full of websites/programs/mods I use (some of which can be found in my links as well).

Okay, so, here it goes:

Character Name: Havoca

Race: Draenei (although, I started as a Blood Elf)

Class: Mage

Spec: Arcane

Yeah, that's enough -- if you want the full nitty gritty on my toon, check me out on the armory.

Now, I should warn EVERYONE reading this that I am in NO way the best mage out there, so if you've come to my blog looking for information on how to be the "best of the best", you might want to look elsewhere. This is not to mean that I can't hold my own, because, I definitely can -- I just wanted to throw out that disclaimer for the haters.

Since this is my introductory post, I plan on being pretty brief and not covering much, if anything, of substance. So, yes, you're going to be disappointed if this is 1) the only post I have up at the moment and 2) you were expecting some sort of "fall-to-your-knees-begging-for-more" blog post greatness.

The things I do want everyone to know:

• I am a sub-par writer. I will be grammatically incorrect a lot of the time (although I'll work to avoid it) and my posts may contain a few (or more) spelling errors. However, focusing on these things will only make you think I'm an idiot -- so, let's focus on the content and not, well, the other stuff.
• The hope of this blog is to contain an eclectic mixture of information -- mostly about Arcane Mages and the occasional information about leveling, raiding, etc (maybe).
• I am not in a raiding guild and raiding is not my life -- I do enjoy raiding, and I do enjoy "pwning noobs", but again, it's not my life -- if you were coming here to find theory-crafting and in-depth analysis of the best way to take down Festergut, you might want to look elsewhere, as...if I decide I want to write about that, it's most likely going to be mediocre advice and will probably just piss you off if you decided that what I say is the golden rule and then you find out you've been suckered into being rank 5 out of 10 (or 14 out of 25, respectively).
• As I work on my alts, I'll probably post information about those as well, because, eh, why not?

Okay, that seems like enough information for my first bulleted list. It was starting to look a little crowded, I think I need another one...

Sites / Programs I use:

• Wow-Heroes
• WoW Armory (obviously)
• WoW-Professions (for...professions)
• WoW-Gems (for finding the perfect Gems)
• WoW-Pro (for leveling, and other stuff)
• Rawr (recent development)

Some Mods I use:

• Recount (DPS Tracker)
• Bartender4 (UI customization)
• Omen (Aggro Meter)
• Auctioneer (for obvious reasons)
• QuestHelper (for even more obvious reasons)

Okay, so, this seems like enough of an introductory to me. Comments are appreciated, especially if you have something you'd like me to post about.