Bipsi’s Bobbing Berg: this berg is for you, mages

A funny thing happened during raid last night. See, I haven’t finished leveling Anglers rep yet. I know, I’m really far behind. I just got so burned out on dailies. I’m doing it now. But I don’t have the waterstrider mount. When our raid gets to the part of Siege of Orgrimmar where Jaina gets all portal-happy, they all jump off the boat and run for shore instead of waiting for her.

I get it – nobody likes to wait for a mage’s portal. Ingrates! You’d think that because Voss plays a death knight I’d be assured of getting Path of Frost – nope. He never waits. So yesterday I jump off along with them, hoping I’ll be in time, only to land sadly and flounder in the water.

“No one ever waits for me!” I cried piteously. Our shaman turned around, came back and cast water walking on me. He is my only friend.

But Rhidach said, “Don’t you have that MAGE thing? That ice berg?”

“The what now?”

“You don’t KNOW about it?”

“Know about what?!”

“It’s an iceberg like the fishing raft. The one you shout at to make it go faster.”

“Get out of town, that does not exist!”

“I WILL BET YOU FIVE GOLD THAT IT DOES.”

And he was right. If you are Revered with the Anglers, you can purchase Bipsi’s Bobbing Berg for a mere 777 gold. “Save a tree, conjure a raft!”

Important to note: If you are not a mage, you cannot conjure the ice to make this raft. You won’t see it as a purchasable option from the quartermaster. You must use the more pedestrian wooden option.

AHH iceberg raft!

I can’t even be annoyed at Rhidach for costing me 5 gold, since if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a way to go across the water as well as a really cool new mage only trick. I guess it costs 782 gold if your profiteering guild mate has to tell you about it first!

Brawler’s Guild

Back when there was a great furor about the availability of Brawler’s Guild invites, I didn’t really get involved. It sounded interesting in passing but not something I would really get into (I said at the time). As far as the invites themselves went, I could afford to buy one on the BMAH if I wanted to get one, but I figured “Why would I bother?” I had friends who were really into soloing PvE stuff and I knew that they would be all over it but it didn’t seem like my cup of tea.

I did end up buying an invite when they were available and then I sat on it for weeks. (Sorry folks, I really meant to use it, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk). I could never quite work up the nerve to actually go and do one single fight, though. Something about the idea of it just freaked me out, and it didn’t help that the first night I’d gone (the night I had the invite) I saw a lot of heckling and chatter. I didn’t want to be the focus of that potentially negative attention. Then I saw that Vosskah was brawling the other day and he was having a blast. I was quietly intrigued. I asked if he’d go and do the Brawler’s Guild stuff with me in case there were any hecklers or people being jerks. So we dropped by the tram on Sunday morning and I watched a few matches to see what the whole thing was about, and then put my name in line for a fight.

I didn’t know anything about each fight before it began, which I think adds to the fun of it. A few fights I had seen previewed as other people had done them which gave me some insight into how they operated. Most of the fights are similar to your average boss fight, especially the ones at early difficulty levels. This guy does this one thing that you get out of, or you have to to interrupt this other thing, etc.

The PvE stuff was fun, but on top of that I particularly enjoyed the little community that had sprung up around the brawlers gathered there. I was invited quite early on to a “buff group,” a raid that people hang out in and buff each other before their fights. They will also rez you if you lose a match (I don’t think it’s far from the graveyard but this is still a nice touch). Far from being hecklers, all the people I encountered that day were super nice and encouraging to each other. People would tell each other “Good luck!” and commiserate after a lost match or offer encouragement or strats to people who were struggling. Other random stranger situations in Warcraft could take a lesson from these Brawler’s Guild folks – this is not your regular LFG or LFR group. I did have one random guy, and I’m not entirely sure why – he /cheered at me (you get an achievement) after I had won a match, and then he /spit on me. I guess he wanted to make it clear he wasn’t ACTUALLY cheering for me, but had just wanted the achievement. Whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy! I gave him the proverbial WoW finger /rude and he didn’t bother me or say anything else after that. I don’t know why he did it and I don’t really care. He was the one dark spot on an afternoon spent with largely encouraging and nice people.

I had to stop for lunch somewhere around the middle of Rank 2 (I think). The last fight I did was a big dinosaur; think like the devilsaurs of old! He took a few chunks out of me but I emerged victorious. This was the first fight that had me yelping and hollering at my screen as I’m inclined to do. “Oh man! Whoa! Okay. AH!” (Gaming time gets exuberant around here. Mostly I only do this when I’ve pulled aggro from a tank). All of the other fights up until this point were reasonably easily kited, but this dinosaur was all RAWR and then CHOMP and he actually damaged me. From what I can tell, the difficulty level of the fights ramps up sharply by the time you hit Rank 7-8. A rogue in our little group was trying to do a fight where you’re facing a tiny robot and there are two sweeps of laser beams coming across the room the entire time.

This part is actually interesting because as a melee you need to jump the laser beams, DPS the little robot, and also avoid the tiny light balls that are swirling around. I had seen other people attempt this fight after having a priest give them levitate, and after the fourth time or so that the rogue died to it I asked him about levitate. His answer was very unequivocal; “I will not use levitate. I think it’s cheating.” That’s fair, and I completely respect that. Unfortunately this fight is seriously hard if you don’t use levitate and especially as a melee. Towards the end of our brawling time he wasn’t getting as far into the fight and I think he was starting to tire. He also pointed out that it’s tough to progress when you have such a long break in-between attempts – by that time the brawling line stretched into 10+ people and you’d only fight about once every half hour or so. I really hope he got the fight down, whether that day or a little bit later! I respected his commitment to doing it “properly.” (Confession, I may well use levitate when I have to do the fight myself. I think if they didn’t want you to use it at all, they’d have made some kind of ambient damage that breaks it. If you can bend the laws of physics, hey…!)

The Brawler’s Guild is probably the most entertaining thing to be added to the game recently (for me personally). It gripped me in a way that pet battles haven’t, which is nothing at all against pet battles. I like being able to face off against a big bad using my magely wiles and with nothing between me and the monster but some fireballs. I look forward to the next time I get a chance to drop by and move up in the ranks somewhat. If I can get to rank 7, I get an invite to give to a friend!

Millya of Pandaria

We’ve been in Pandaria for three weeks now! Time sure flies when you have 50 dailies to do every night, doesn’t it? Sorry, I’m being a bit tongue in cheek, I’d better begin at the beginning.

I love Pandaria. I really do. In fact, I probably owe a big ole public apology to Rades because I made such a stink about pandas and now I am eating crow. (Although actually, it’s crow/birds of prey that are eating me – have you ever gone AFK anywhere in Valley of the Four Winds?) I think that so many things are right with Pandaria. Perhaps I wasn’t captivated exactly from the first moment:

Because this happened.

But after I gave up on the idea of leveling Millya right away, I really got lost in the landscape. You see, two of my guildies, Fsob and Supplicium, were aiming to be server first Mage and Warlock, respectively (as well as server first level 90s, period). There is a trinket for alchemists with a 4000 int proc or something similar that Fsob could only get by turning in three Golden Lotus. So I’d promised to help him get them using my herbalist druid. I ended up logging her in and just jumping off the airship into Pandaria and herbing and mining my way all through the Jade Forest. I was on Mumble with other guildies and friends who were leveling so it was far from lonely. I admit that I started to lose steam long before I’d actually found any Lotus for Fsob but I wanted to help however I could so I pressed on. He did pay for me for the lotus too, so it’s not entirely altruistic. It took about four hours to get my herbalism up to the right spot and find the lotus. I was looking mistakenly in the wrong place, assuming lotus would be more plentiful in the later zones. It was Walks who pointed out that he’d seen them mostly in the starting zone, which makes total sense. Because GL are a rare spawn on a random herb node, they would be most plentiful in a place where the herb turnover was high. In Jade Forest, lots of people were picking herbs but very few had the skill to pick the lotus itself. When I doubled back and started combing the Jade Forest for them, I found Fsob’s three within about an hour. Success!

Fsob and Supplicium achieved their server first goals as well, so congratulations to them! I think they had a fair lead on everyone so the lotus was probably extraneous but as Fsob put it, “I like to be sure about things,” which is a good trait to have. Every little bit helps! So that was my first night in Pandaria, and I actually love that my first experience was mostly as an explorer and gatherer. Running through the forest, jumping off cliffs and dodging angry orcs and shadowmelding and using travel form to escape gave me a real sense of immersing myself in the new continent. That sense of danger and wonder only deepened as I ventured into Valley of the Four Winds. I kept exclaiming aloud – giant carrots! Giant turnips! A MOB OF ANGRY BUNNIES COMING STRAIGHT FOR ME RUN AWAYYY!

Pandaria was perfectly and cleverly designed to be seen from the ground. The scope feels epic and vast, there are so many hidden things and little nooks and crannies, corners and waterfalls. It is luscious and beautiful. Once you hit 90 and can take to the air, it’s just as perfect because it’s not too big. You can easily fly most places in Pandaria in a few minutes without it feeling onerous. It even still maintains that sense of danger because of aforementioned birds and other hostiles. I recently went AFK in Vale of Eternal Blossoms and returned to my screen to find myself dead. I have no idea what happened, but it’s definitely an environment that will punish you for inattention.

The Good

Pandaria is beautiful, and there really is so much to do. I’ve spent hours just relaxing and fishing, seeing the scenery, questing through it with Voss, tending to my farm and yes, doing dailies. I’ve also really enjoyed most of the instances so far. A few of them feel a little bland – whichever one has you dropping buckets of goo on advancing bugs, and the one where you fight a boss that blows you backwards with wind – these are encounter designs that probably sounded better on paper than they are in reality – but overall I enjoy them. My favourite is probably Shado-Pan Monastery, much to the chagrin of all healers everywhere because I understand it’s toughest for them. I like the fights and the trash and the length of it.

What I’ve seen so far of the raids has been excellent as well. The first three bosses of Mogu’shan Vaults are all interesting with enough “different” stuff to keep your attention and no mechanics that are really annoying. I have a secret love of fights where I get to go to another “world” as it were, so Gara’jal might be my favourite so far. We’re going back in tonight, so we’ll see!

Farming deserves its own paragraph, I think. I can’t express how much I love my farm. Not just because planting and harvesting useful things is fun and completely self-directed, but because it’s a private space that is entirely mine. I’m not usually one to make a big fuss about player housing (although I’ve missed having my own “place” since my Ultima Online days). Honestly, I often get lost in my own world and forget about the people around me but occasionally you are jarred back to reality that other people can see you or are watching you. Someone who has you targeted in a public place, random whispers, or my guild mates making fun of how I fly – we’re very much in a crowd. Sometimes I do things that are embarrassing. It varies from character to character – because of where I’d put my heroism button, inevitably on my shaman alt I hit heroism as I’m standing at the mailbox. I can only imagine how this looks to other people. Random /CROWD CHEERS and then a giant draenei standing and checking her mail. On my shadow priest banker I keep hitting dispersion as I go into the auction house, and it makes such an obnoxious sound. Hey guys, giant purple cloud come to do some auctioning, don’t mind me! So anyway, my point is, your farm is a place where you can do really whatever you want. If I want to just stand there among my veggies for a few minutes chatting with guildies, I can do that, and there’s nobody else around, period. That tiny solace and reprieve from a dangerous world is much welcome and I think it’s a big part of why I personally love the farming. I’m sure the fact that my virtual veggies are much more successful than my real life ones ever were doesn’t hurt, either!

The other thing I’ve enjoyed so far, and I think everyone should do at some point, is making a Pandaren character to play through the starting experience. It’s head and shoulders above the starting experience for either Worgen or Goblin. It also gives some insight into the inherent conflict between the Horde and the Alliance and why we have such a hard time seeing eye to eye. If you haven’t had time to make a Pandaren yet and you want a break from your “regular” stuff, I highly recommend it. I won’t say more than that, although I’d love to talk about it with you once you’ve done it. I think it is a better setup for Mists as an expansion than the entry quests as a level 85 character, but I’d be interested to know what other people think.

Other things I love include the questing, the grummles, yak washing, air balloons, and fishing. At the start before I could actually fly, I got overexcited and jumped down into the reservoir between Jade Forest and Valley of the Four Winds to fish the Jade Lungfish pools, not realizing there was actually no way for me to get out of the reservoir again. I was doomed to swim in the reservoir forever like a Sim and die of exhaustion. (Well, I’m a mage so I just ported myself out, but it was still pretty funny).

Also the lore in Pandaria is amazing. I would probably pay Blizzard too much money to have similar “gather the story” quests for Burning Crusade or even Wrath. Run around finding scrolls that each contain a part of a story and then be treated to a little re-enactment narrated at the end? Yes please. I want to hear the story of the flight from Argus or other things from Draenor. In a way, it’s a bit like the Muradin story you uncover as part of a questline in Northrend, only there are more stories and it’s an actual faction. The little flying disc reward at the end is just icing on the cake for lore nerds.

Pet Battles are probably something that deserve their own post – the kind of thing I could easily waste days of time doing. I was surprised by the depth of something that was “just” a mini-game (I never played Pokemon, so I have no other frame of reference). I think it’s a fun addition to the game and jokingly teased my guildies who weren’t level 90 yet but getting pet battle achievements. “Hey, I thought you were leveling! BUSTED.”

The Bad

This is where the nitpicky stuff goes. I’d say for me it’s probably an 80/20 split. 80% I love Pandaria. If you’d asked me before I hit level 90 I would’ve had only good things to say. After the fact, I do have some complaints that have already been detailed by other folks. Here’s my big one: putting Valor Point gear behind reputation vendors. I hate this idea, and I don’t use that word lightly.

I can appreciate that they removed reputation tabards because they didn’t want “double dipping” and reputation tabards didn’t necessarily make much sense in the context of a game world. “Oh, you’re killing me AND you like the Tillers? Fair enough.” So that’s fine. It essentially combined two activities into one so that you could just run dungeons and never interact with a faction you wished to impress. And historically, factions have had desirable items since the Burning Crusade. You could grind reputation with the Cenarion Expedition to get their mount, but they also had some epics and rare items to purchase at various levels, and this was also true in Wrath and then Cataclysm. This model is fine. But having to grind out all of these different reps just to spend VP points to get gear? I don’t like it. It seems like a major throwback to a grindier, more time intensive time.

This complaint feeds into the next, one that I know is shared by many. Dailies. So many dailies. I started out, over zealously trying to do them all. I’d do Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Tillers, Cloud Serpents, Anglesr, and the Lorewalkers. It got ridiculous. I started to have to dial it back, and so soon enough I was only doing Golden Lotus, Tillers, Cloud Serpents. Now I’m doing Golden Lotus and Tillers, and that’s it. I want to open up Shado-Pan, I needed Golden Lotus for the tailoring epic recipes. Keep in mind, too, that I am someone who likes dailies. I always have. I have diligently done dailies in many quest hubs since I started playing this game, and even for me it’s too much.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind that the dailies exist. I look forward to diving into Anglers rep (har) and finishing my Cloud Serpent stuff. But that’s the crux of things, there are so many “mandatory” (ie I need the gear behind them) reputations that it hasn’t left me the time to spend on the fun reps I want to work on. Had the VP gear just been on normal vendors like before, with the slow rate of VP acquisition the gear would have still been “gated” plenty. It feels a little bit like they just wanted to force people into or extend the content that was there, and that bugs me because there’s plenty of content and I would like to do it on my own time. I have yet to do more than one scenario. Challenge modes? They sound like a blast, but who has time? I’m in favour of gating SOME things. Like the way raids have been released – I like that. It’s better to slow it down at the beginning than drag it wayyy out at the end (Dragon Soul, I’m looking at you). But that’s the most frustrating thing about all these dailies. Was it really necessary? I’m inclined to think “no,” although of course you may disagree.

Of course, you can always argue about what is or isn’t necessary for individual people and their gaming wishes and expectations. So for some people 300 stat food is absolutely mandatory for their progression. For the average player, it’s probably not the best use of your time. Some people must gain access to the VP gear from various reps as soon as possible, others might say “Forget this.” I’d say we’re somewhat middle of the pack. Personally, a number of us pooled resources to make sure we got Darkmoon Faire cards when the Faire arrived, but we didn’t expect every single person in the guild to do so. I recognize that it basically comes down to this: you suffer what you choose to suffer, but when you want to maximize your performance, sometimes a little less sufferance might be nice.

For example, what’s up with cooking? I love cooking. I like to put on my chef’s hat and cook up some grub. Yesterday I was talking to Voss about this and I exclaimed suddenly, “I’ve made food in REAL LIFE that took less work than this!” I’m not even kidding. With the 300 stat food requiring x amount of vegetables, one fish, one meat, and one Ironpaw token, it’s a little ludicrous. I could actually cook an honest to goodness stir fry in the time it takes to do a daily to get a token and vegetables and everything, and that’s assuming I am just buying the vegetables instead of growing them on my farm. Granted, in real life I don’t have to go kill a chicken to make my stir fry, but the point still stands. I feel like the mats involved in cooking this should make a stack of food, not just five. It pains me to have cooking, one of my favourite WoW pastimes, become arduous. I haven’t become Master of the Ways yet (too busy selling vegetables) which also gives me a pang. Cooking/baking is somewhat integral to Millya’s character, but I’m going to metagame it for the time being and put her wishes on hold.

The Ugly

My biggest complaint about Pandaria is really the time sink stuff. Right now, trying to do Golden Lotus or Tiller dailies is an exercise in patience. People will steal your vegetables out from under a mob that you are fighting, they will try to tag a mob you are almost standing on top of, and just generally all civility and decorum has gone out the window. Quest givers are covered by stupid flying mobs and it brings out the worst in folks that I don’t much care for. The same has been true of some of the pugs I have seen since hitting 90 – just some really incredibly rude people. Two of my guildies have been kicked out of pugs for shenanigans that didn’t even make sense – a tank aggros three of those Shado-Pan packs and when the group wipes, they kick the healer for being a “scrub”? Um, right. We were in a pug where the healer would’ve surely tried to kick our bear tank because he “wasn’t geared for this/was wearing pvp gear.” His ilevel was fine, his tanking was fine, and as far as I could tell the healer didn’t have trouble healing him at all (despite being all in PvP gear himself, something I hear is hardly a cardinal sin these days). So some people are rude and impatient. Also, I don’t know why they re-introduced the “extra benefit for one daily PER DAY” rule. It was great that you could do your weekly heroics on your own time, now we are back to a daily obligation if you want to cap your VP each week most efficiently each week.

Pandaria is beautiful and overall I love it. Honestly, even the bad is not SO bad because I know it has an ending. We’ll reach a point where none of the gear from those vendors matters. We’ll either have gotten what we need from finishing the reps or from raids or similar. Right now, I’ve just had to make some hard decisions about pursuing fun things or pursuing chores. Millya has more errands to run than I do.

“Okay, I have to reseed the farm, cook some fish cakes for the Cloud Serpents, fish up some Golden Minnows, kill some Mogu in the Vale, free some Pandaren spirits, stomp on some fires, kill some pixies, kill some spiders, kill a big spider, fish up some fish for supper…”

It’s a good thing we are superheroes, because all of these chores won’t do themselves! That’s what I need – the next guild perk should be an assistant hired to take care of all these things! He/she can pick up my dry cleaning, too.

Mists of Pandaria Pre-Raid Gear List For Mages

Continuing a Manalicious tradition, I present to you the following: A list of gear to get your mage (or other cloth-wearing caster) ready for raiding! The conventions of the list are described in the following paragraphs.

I haven’t listed any gear from normal dungeons because normal and heroic dungeon gear has the same name and is just a lesser version of heroic gear. This is a ready for raiding list, so of course you’d prefer to have the heroic version. Use common sense; where normal dungeon gear is an upgrade for you, equip it!

In the past, I’ve included one quest item per slot just in case you really had trouble finding gear; unfortunately the database at Wowhead hasn’t had time to catch up with all that info yet. So there were many pieces of gear as I was searching that look like good gear, but I have no idea where it comes from. It could be a quest, it could be tailoring, I don’t know. I included quest rewards for the first few slots but eventually gave up. I assume everyone will quest their way to 90 to some extent, keep your eyes peeled for obvious quest rewards. You will likely replace them with gear from this list in any case.

This is not an absolutely comprehensive list although I’ve tried to make it as complete as possible. I still don’t know exactly what’s crafted from Tailoring or where there might be some juicy quest items. I have not included any PvP gear and this list is specifically for PvE purposes. The newest addition to gearing options is the Raid Finder, and Raid Finder items are listed under their own header. You still have to technically get a high enough ilevel to do Raid Finder, though – are you getting ready for pre-raiding raiding? Anyway, this is not a Best in Slot list, this is a list aimed at helping you to zero in on the best upgrades for your character from reputation, crafting, heroic dungeons and eventually RF. You can ignore the RF upgrades if you don’t intend to do it. I wouldn’t call it a reliable method of obtaining loot in any case because your odds of getting actual gear from it are pretty slim, at least in the Raid Finder’s current incarnation.

One major change worth noting to the gearing process is that items formerly purchased with Valor or Justice Points now also require reputation in Mists. So the heading “VP/JP” items also includes a reputation along with each item. The VP cost of items was available for some things on Wowhead, for the vast majority it was not, and so I used current conventions for items of that type. (i.e. a cloak is 1250, hands are 1650, pants/chest are 2200, and so on). These may be inaccurate but hopefully they are close. Blues are purchased with JP and epic purples with VP, as is expected.

Gear is organized first by slot. Each item has a Wowhead link, followed by the location or source (if known), and then the secondary stats. Int is assumed, none of the items have spirit (a pox on your spirit) and all weapons have spellpower etc. Items are coloured with their respective rarity; only blues and purples are listed. Trinkets have a brief description of their effect or use. This time around I’ve added a nifty Table of Contents so you can click any link to go straight to a particular section of interest! It’s beyond the scope of this list to provide appropriate enchants for each slot, I may do a post about gems/enchants a bit later on.

Table of Contents
Head
Neck
Shoulder
Back
Chest
Wrist
Hands
Waist
Legs
Feet
Fingers
Trinkets
Two-Hand Weapon
One-Hand Weapon
Off-Hand

Disclaimer: As I said above, I’ve endeavored to be as comprehensive as possible with this list but inevitably there may be items I’ve missed or that were added after the fact. This information is compiled for my personal use, and I share it with you so that you have an easy reference, but it’s not my fault if you buy pants when you should’ve bought a helm!

Head

Quest
Mistborne Hood – The Sha of Hatred, Townlong Steppes (Haste/Mastery)

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Hood of Alchemical Vapors – BoE Zone Drop Vale of Eternal Blossoms (Haste/Mastery/Meta Socket)

Dungeon Drop
Barovian Ritual Hood – Jandice Barov, Scholomance (Hit/Mastery/Meta Socket)
Whitemane’s Embroidered Chapeau – Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Haste/Meta Socket)
Breezeswept Hood – Wing Leader Ner’onok, H Siege of Niuzao Temple (Haste/Mastery/Meta Socket)

Raid Finder
Hood of the Burning Scroll – Mogu’shan Vaults (Crit/Mastery/Tier Set)
Xaril’s Hood of Intoxicating Vapors – Garalon, Heart of Fear (Haste/Mastery/Meta Socket)

Neck

Quest
Burning Necklace of the Golden Lotus, The Final Power, Vale of Eternal Blossoms – (Hit/Crit)

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Dorian’s Necklace of Burgeoning Dreams – BoE (Haste/Mastery)
Skymage Circle – Jewelcrafting (Haste/Mastery)

VP/JP
Wire of the Wakener – The Klaxxi, Revered, 1250 VP (Hit/Mastery)
Necklace of Jade Pearls – Golden Lotus, Honored, 1250 JP (Hit/Crit)

Dungeon Drop
Mindbreaker Pendant – Sha of Doubt, Temple of the Jade Serpent (Crit/Haste)
Temperature-Sensing Necklace – Flameweaver Koegler, Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Mastery)
Anarchist’s Pendant – Instructor Chillheart, Scholomance (Hit/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Worldwaker Cachobon – Will of the Emperor, Mogu’Shan Vaults (Crit/Haste)
Amulet of Seven Curses – Feng The Accursed, Mogu’Shan Vaults (Hit/Crit)

Shoulder

Quest
Dreadspinner Amice – On The Crab, Dread Wastes (Crit/Mastery)

VP/JP
Mantle of the Golden Sun – Golden Crane, Revered, 1750 VP (Hit/Crit)

Dungeon Drop
Whisperwind Spaulders – Wingleader Ner’onok, Siege of Niuzao Temple (Haste/Mastery)
Forgotten Bloodmage Mantle – Thal’nos the Soulrender, H Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Mastery)
Shoulders of Engulfing Winds – Raigonn, Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Haste)

Raid Finder
Mantle of the Burning Scroll – Raid Finder Bosses (Hit/Mastery/Tier Bonus)
Shadowsummoner Spaulders – Raid Finder Bosses (Crit/Haste)

Back

VP/JP
Cloak of Snow Blossoms – Shado-Pan, Revered, 1250 VP (Hit/Mastery)
Cloak of Ancient Curses – August Celestials, Honored, 1250 JP (Hit/Haste)

Dungeon Drop
Cloak of Cleansing Flame – Gekkan, Mogu’shan Palace (Crit/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Mindshard Drape – (Crit/Mastery)
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption – (Haste/Mastery)
Stormwake Mistcloak – (Hit/Crit)

Chest

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Spelltwister’s Grand Robe – Tailoring (Haste/Mastery)
Darkened Robe – BoE (Hit/Mastery)

VP/JP
Vestments of Thundering Skies – Golden Lotus, 2250 VP – Revered (Hit/Haste)
Robe of Eternal Dynasty – Shado-Pan, Honored – 2250 JP (Hit/Mastery)
Robe of Quiet Meditation – Shado-Pan, Honored – 2250 JP (Haste/Mastery)

Dungeon Drop
Robes of Koegler – Scarlet Halls (Hit/Crit, Yellow Socket)
Burning Robes of the Golden Lotus – Unknown, (Hit/Haste)
Robes of Fevered Dreams – Shado-Pan Monastery (Crit/Haste)

Raid Finder
Imperial Ghostbinder’s Robes – Mogu’shan Vaults (Crit/Mastery)
Robes of the Unknown Fear – Terrace of Endless Spring (Hit/Mastery)
Robes of the Burning Scroll (Tier) – Raid Finder Bosses (Crit/Haste)

Wrist

VP/JP
Minh’s Beaten Bracers – Shado-Pan, Revered, 1250 VP (Hit/Mastery)
Tranquility Bindings – Golden Lotus, Honored, 1250 JP (Crit/Haste)

Dungeon Drop
Bracers of Displaced Air – Ook-Ook, Stormstout Brewery (Haste/Mastery)
Deadwalker Bracers – Rattlegore, Scholomance (Hit/Crit)

Raid Finder
Attenuating Bracers – Imperial Vizier Zor’lok, Heart of Fear (Haste/Mastery)
Twisting Wind Bracers – Blade Lord Tay’ak, Heart of Fear (Hit/Haste)
Shining Cicada Bracers – Unknown (Hit/Crit)
Gleaming Moth Cuffs – Unknown (Crit/Haste)

Hands

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Spelltwister’s Gloves – Tailoring (Hit/Mastery)

VP/JP
Sunspeaker’s Flared Gloves – The August Celestials, Revered, 1650 VP (Hit/Crit)
Krompf’s Fine-Tuning Gloves – The Klaxxi, Honored, 1650 JP (Hit/Haste)

Dungeon Drop
Conflagrating Gloves – Trial of the King, Mogu’shan Palace (Hit/Haste)
Bomber’s Precision Gloves – Striker Ga’Dok, Gate of the Setting Sun (Crit/Haste)
Gloves of Enraged Slaughter – Sha of Violence, Shado-Pan Monastery (Haste/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Gloves of the Burning Scroll (Tier) – (Hit/Haste)
Claws of Amethyst – Zone Drop, Mogu’shan Vaults (Crit/Mastery)
Undying Shadow Grips – The Spirit Kings, Mogu’shan Vaults (Haste/Mastery)

Waist

VP/JP
Klaxxi Lash of the Orator – The Klaxxi, Revered, 1650 VP (Hit/Crit)

Dungeon Drop
Girdle of Endemic Anger – Lorewalker Stonestep, Temple of the Jade Serpent (Hit/Crit)
Incineration Belt – Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance (Hit/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Ruby-Linked Girdle – Mogu’shan Vaults (Hit/Mastery)
Orbital Belt – Elegon, Mogu’shan Vaults (Haste/Mastery)
Sorcerer’s Belt of Final Winter – Terrace of Endless Spring (Crit/Haste)
Invoker’s Belt of Final Winter – Terrace of Endless Spring (Hit/Mastery)
Belt of Malleable Amber – Heart of Fear (Hit/Haste)

Legs

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Courinth Water-Strider’s Silken Finery – BoE drop from Courinth Waterstrider, Krasarang Wilds rare (Hit/Crit)

VP/JP
Leggings of the Poisoned Soul – The Klaxxi, Revered, 2200 VP (Hit/Crit)
Leggings of Unfinished Conquest – The August Celestials, Honored, 2200 JP – (Hit/Crit)

Dungeon Drop
Leggings of Unleashed Anguish – Lilian Voss, Scholomance (Crit/Haste)
Leggings of the Frenzy – Commander Ri’mok, Gate of the Setting Sun (Haste/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Leggings of Shadow Infestation – Heart of Fear (Crit/Mastery)
Leggings of the Burning Scroll (Tier) – Terrace of Endless Spring (Haste/Mastery)
Dreadwoven Leggings of Failure – Terrace of Endless Spring (Hit/Haste)

Feet

VP/JP
Void Flame Slippers – The August Celestials, Revered, 1650 JP (Hit/Crit)

Dungeon Drop
Scarlet Sandals – Armsmaster Harlan, Scarlet Halls (Hit/Crit)
Soulbinder Treads – Xin the Weaponmaster, Mogu’shan Palace (Crit/Haste)

Raid Finder
Sandals of the Unbidden – Garalon, Heart of Fear (Hit/Mastery)
Sandals of the Blackest Night – Tsulong, Terrace of Endless Spring (Haste/Mastery)

Fingers

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Lionsfall Ring – Jewelcrafting (Hit/Crit)

VP/JP
Simple Harmonius Ring – 1250 VP, Golden Lotus – Revered (Hit/Haste)

Dungeon Drop
Alemental Seal – Yan-Zhu the Uncasked, Stormstout Brewery (Crit/Haste)
Eye of the Tornado – Master Snowdrift, Shado-Pan Monastery (Hit/Mastery)
Ring of Malice – Taran Zhu, Shado-Pan Monastery (Haste/Mastery)
Signet of the Hidden Door – Thalnos the Soulrender, Scarlet Monastery (Hit/Haste)
Triune Signet – High Inquisitor Whitemane, Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Fragment of Fear Made Flesh – Imperial Vizier Zor’lok, Heart of Fear (Hit/Crit)

Trinkets

Trinkets

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Relic of Yu’lon – Reward from Darkmoon Serpent Deck (Int with an Int proc on spell damage)
Zen Alchemist Stone – ALCHEMIST ONLY (Mastery with an Int Proc)
Ghost Iron Dragonling – Crafted by Engineers but not limited to Engineers (Three empty cogwheel sockets for +1800 in the secondary state of your choice, e.g. 1800 Crit or 1800 Haste)

VP/JP
Blossom of Pure Snow – Shado-Pan, Revered, 1650 VP (Int with Increased Crit on use)
Mogu Rune of Paralysis – Golden Lotus, Honored, 1650 JP (Mastery and a placed paralysis effect on a 1 min CD)

Dungeon Drop
Flashfrozen Resin Globule – Vizier Jin’Bak, Siege of Niuzao Temple (Hit with Int on use effect)
Vision of the Predator – Striker Gadok, Gate of the Setting Sun (Int with a Crit proc)
Mithril Wristwatch – Coren Direbrew, Brewfest only (Critical strike with a Spellpower proc)

Raid Finder
Jade Magistrate Figurine – [Unknown] (Int with Crit on use effect)
Light of the Cosmos – Elegon, Mogu’shan Vaults (Haste with an Int proc on periodic damage)
Essence of Terror – Sha of Fear, Terrace of Endless Spring (Int with Haste proc on spell hit)

Two-Hand Weapon

Quest
Liuyang’s Lovely Staff – The Arena of Annihilation, (Scenario)

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Inscribed Serpent Staff – Inscription crafted BoA staff, some BoP materials involved so may not be feasible to have lower level scribes craft for your main. Cannot be traded or sold on the AH.

VP/JP
Amber Scythe of Klaxxi’vess – The Klaxxi, Exalted, (Cost Unknown) (Haste/Mastery)

Dungeon Drop
Greatstaff of Righteousness – High Inquisitor Whitemane, Scarlet Monastery (Crit/Mastery)
Wort Stirring Rod – Yan’zhu the Uncasked, Stormstout Brewery (Hit/Mastery)
Staff of Trembling Will – Sha of Doubt, Temple of the Jade Serpent (Crit/Haste)
Headmaster’s Will – Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance (Hit/Crit)

Raid Finder
Jin’ya, Orb of the Waterspeaker – Lei Shi, Terrace of Endless Spring (Crit/Haste)* Special: Can be socketed with a legendary gem

One-Hand Weapon

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Blade of the Poisoned Mind – Unknown (Crit/Mastery)

VP/JP
Amber Saber of Klaxi’vess – The Klaxxi, Exalted (Haste/Mastery)

Dungeon Drop
Melted Hypnotic Blade – Flameweaver Koegler, Scarlet Halls (Crit/Mastery)
Necromantic Wand – Rattlegore, Scholomance (Haste/Mastery)
Firescribe Dagger – Xin the Weaponmaster, Mogu’shan Palace (Crit/Haste)

Raid Finder
Torch of the Celestial Spark – Elegon, Mogu’shan Vaults (Crit/Haste)
Regail’s Crackling Dagger – Terrace of Endless Spring (Crit/Mastery)
Loshan, Terror Incarnate – Tsulong, Terrace of Endless Spring (Crit/Haste)* Special: Can be socketed with a legendary gem

Off-Hand

Purchased/Crafted/BoE
Umbrella of Chi-Ji – Archaeology, Pandaren (Haste/Mastery)
Inscribed Jade Fan – Inscription (Hit/Mastery)

Dungeon Drop
Bottle of Potent Potables – Hopotallus, Stormstout Brewery (Haste/Mastery)

Raid Finder
Tornado-Summoning Censer – Blade Lord Ta’yak, Heart of Fear (Hit/Crit)

Conclusion

I hope that this list helps you to locate some worthy upgrades as we dive into a new expansion. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments, please feel free to post them here! I’ve gone over this thing until my eyes bleed checking for formatting or other errors. I hope nothing has escaped my notice but it’s possible it has. If you see anything, I’d appreciate your letting me know.

Cinematic Retrospective: A Look At Warcraft Trailers

As most people have probably heard, the Mists trailer is out this morning! I watched it eagerly and I really enjoyed it. I saw some comments going around where people were comparing their “favourite” trailers or rating and numbering them. It seemed like a good opportunity to go back in time a little bit and reflect on the trailers for the previous expansions. It’s interesting to see the evolution in both aim and tone.

Vanilla

For me what really stands out about the classic “World of Warcraft” trailer is that it’s quite ambitious for the time. Keep in mind, I didn’t play the original Warcraft RTS games nor did I watch this trailer when it was current. Based on the way it’s put together, it feels to me as if they really wanted to highlight and showcase the various races that would feature in the game that people knew and loved from the originals. So it’s very, “Look, it’s a dwarf! Look, it’s a night elf! Look now she’s a panther OMG you guys!” That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either!

Something interesting to note for later (if you’re watching the cinematics along with me) is the characterization of the orc versus later orcs. The orc in this cinematic is very much “ROAR” and look there is fire and I am big and scary. To my ears he even sounds more bestial/brutish; if watching this trailer were my only experience with any Warcraft stuff I might think he was a monster rather than a playable, sentient race. This cinematic sets out to get people excited about what they will see in the online version of Warcraft, and is obviously aimed mostly at fans of the Warcraft universe.

The Burning Crusade

This is a trailer I watched closer to when it was actually released. I didn’t have any idea of the backstory of Illidan (Tyrande, Malfurion etc) at the time so I had no idea who the scary guy with the voice was. Watching it now with different eyes, I can appreciate the impact of the Illidan voiceover. You know it had a lasting effect, because how many times did you hear someone make a joke or quote, “I/You/Your Dog was not prepared”?

The blood elves and the draenei are characterized; they did a particularly good job with the female blood elf, in my opinion. Especially the first time you watch this trailer, you’re surprised by her sudden shift in attitude from seemingly innocent to sinister. There is a need in her that’s frightening, which is exactly the story of the Sin’dorei in the Burning Crusade.

Up until this point with the cinematics, Blizzard has been outdoing themselves each time. I’m not talking about the actual graphics of the cinematics (although they have obviously improved, along with technology) but also the scope and ambition. This one shows the Dark Portal with its swirling door – challenging players, even mocking them. “You are not prepared” became a catchphrase because it was so memorable and it hits right at the heart of gamers. You think I’m not prepared? I’m going to show you how prepared I am!

Wrath of the Lich King

This trailer. (Did you watch it again? You really should.) This trailer gave me chills. It’s so cleverly done. The juxtaposition of Terenas Menethil instructing his son on the responsibility of royalty paired with the dark visuals and the true horror and irony of what his son went on to become are nothing less than masterful. I don’t know if it’s because Blizzard had such a legendary figure from the previous games to build upon, but in terms of cohesiveness and impact this trailer blows all of the others out of the water. I can’t even find something to nitpick about with it. It has awe-inspiring visuals, emotional heft, and it also tells a story. Even the music used for it is phenomenal and it lends much to the story itself as the trailer unfolds. It is a tragic lament, an incredibly sad song – in keeping with what is also a tragic story.

The cinematic leaves you wanting to defeat the horrors that are hinted at here. I look at the legions of undead and I still get twitchy even to this day. I really want to kill the Lich King and everything he stands for. And this is knowing that I’ve already done so! This trailer is successful even when it’s an anachronism. Basically, I love it, and I loved Wrath, so I am clearly biased.

Cataclysm

The trailer for Cataclysm is an interesting case. I would argue (and you’re welcome to disagree) that it is much less successful than any previous trailer, even the Vanilla trailer. Oh sure, it has impressive visuals. You get the lava and the forge and the big dragon. But for me therein lies the problem that we’ve been talking about for all of Cataclysm: the story told in this trailer really boils down to “I am a big dragon destroying your Azeroth rawr.” It’s sad because the character of Neltharion has a lot of meat to it, none of which featured in Cataclysm at all. I found myself struggling to remember whether I even heard his voice when you’re fighting him, or if I only read what he said on the screen? The fact that I can’t remember seems eloquent enough to me.

That’s where this trailer falls down. It has some emotional impact, yes, but all of the weight of the trailer rests upon the locations Deathwing is destroying. It relies on you caring about seeing them destroyed. In that sense, it works. Seeing Thousand Needles awash in a great tidal wave is definitely upsetting. But other parts of the trailer just expose the suspension of disbelief necessary for Deathwing to work as a villain, and why he simply wasn’t that effective in Cataclysm. He was STANDING on Stormwind and he didn’t just raze it to the ground. Yes, it’s distressing to see a dragon with his claws planted at the front gate of Stormwind. But you know that Stormwind wasn’t actually destroyed, and then you have to wonder, why not? It took us an entire expansion to take him down, but for the majority of that he was just flying around randomly breathing fire on some things. Someone on Twitter pointed out (I’m sorry, I can’t remember who to attribute this to) that Deathing is basically a griefer. He waits until you are AFK and then ganks you by setting a zone on fire. I know some people joked that during Wrath we saw Arthas a little too much, but we saw him just enough as far as I’m concerned. I’ll never forget running into him in the “dream world” near Utgarde and how he squashed me like a bug. He was a villain who made things personal.

Other people have delved into this more deeply than I want to get into here, but essentially: Deathwing is just a big dragon (yawn) and that’s basically this trailer to me.

Mists of Pandaria

Now we get to the exciting new shiny that everyone wants to talk about! First of all, I want to talk about the orc  here. (Remember how I mentioned orcs earlier?) Notice what a huge difference there is with this orc versus the first orc featured in the classic WoW trailer! This orc is canny. He doesn’t just come lumbering up to the human, he’s watching him for a moment, gauging his opponent, thinking. Oh, there’s no doubt they are going to end up fighting (hello, orcs and humans) but he doesn’t just charge in blindly. When he accidentally reveals his position with a sound, then he’s lost the advantage and he seizes what he has left to him to try and catch the human off-guard.

I really like the way they chose to portray both the orc and the human here. The human is also a grizzled veteran and someone used to command. He’s not going to back down from a fight with the orc, and it’s a great fight scene. As the trailer goes on, the appearance of Chen Stormstout just makes it better. Of course it has all the kung fu movie type tropes (effortlessly dodging attacks and putting both opponents down repeatedly, etc. Although the human does take a chunk out of his hat!) This is basically just a good, wholesome fight scene and it’s enjoyable to watch. There are moments of subtle humour, too – Chen replaces the pedestal the orc broke and then straightens it (you can almost hear him thinking “HMPH,”) and when the human hands the orc the spear their open-mouthed gaping is priceless.

But what about the story, since I was so down on the Cataclysm trailer and Deathwing for lacking a story? Well, it’s an interesting trailer because unlike the previous three expansions (and as Blizzard themselves have made this clear) it doesn’t have a “big bad.” You don’t see any villains in this cinematic at all, unless the humans and orcs are the villains, and we just might be in this context. But that doesn’t mean it’s lacking a story. Chen’s voice over speaks volumes about that with the more philosophical questions. “Why do we fight?” etc. The moment when the mists dissipate to reveal the rest of Pandaria gave me chills just like the Wrath trailer. Again, it’s a completely different approach and that’s what I like about it. It takes several themes – the conflict between the Horde and the Alliance, the nature of the new race we are meeting – and interweaves them.

We know that Mists doesn’t have one overarching villain the way previous expansions did. That doesn’t mean it lacks conflict. The trailer left me with a strong wish to explore this land and get to know its mysterious inhabitants. That is the best place you could hope for a trailer to leave you – excited, anticipatory, and impressed. If this world is even half as beautiful as the trailer would suggest, I am going to be ridiculously happy wandering around it at the end of September.

This Was A Triumph

Here's a shot of Deathwing before he became too busy tossing people off his back in LFR to burn the world. This was taken moments before I met a fiery end while trying to fish peacefully in Uldum. "Oh, the fire won't extend this far..." Famous last words, DW, but I got my revenge.

I was actually awake when the NDA for Mists lifted! I could have written a blog post then and been a forerunner in blog news. Instead, it’s a few days later and everyone has had time to pick over and digest all of the new information and so you won’t learn anything new here!

Of course there were some things I am interested in with Mists. One is a new character slot – hallelujah! Of course, I would have preferred a few new character slots (five, maybe?) but I’ll make do with one. The hardest thing for me is looking at my roster of characters and deciding who is going to die. Which one gets the axe? I know there are some folks for whom deleting characters is actually somewhat cathartic or commonplace, but for me it’s a big deal! I’ve only ever deleted one character who was higher level than 40; my ill-fated hunter. I just never “clicked” with her. Actually, I lie – I didn’t even delete that character, I transferred it to Voss’ account. So the highest level character I’ve ever deleted was twenty.

I’m not sure if it’s because of my inherent RP attitude that it’s tough to do – although I did joke that I “killed” my night elf priest when I race-changed her into a draenei. It’s like I’m murdering a person? Anyway, I need at least two new character slots, one to house my draenei monk and another for a pandaren of some persuasion. Characters that are currently on the chopping block:

-Sarika, 32 Draenei warrior: Warriors are pretty fun and all, but I seldom play her and don’t have much interest in tanking generally. My intent was to level her as a tank and blog about it. She doesn’t have much story or background to speak of either so as far as “murders” go it’s pretty low-risk.

-Jun, 16 Night Elf rogue: I finally made a rogue but I only played her for a day. I have to admit, the lowbie rogue experience seems to be lacking in some way? (Or else it’s me that’s the problem). I learned poisons but they didn’t tell me squat about poisons, and the only way I found a poison vendor was looking on Wowhead. If I had been a new player with this rogue I probably wouldn’t have put poisons on my dagger for approximately 50 levels or similar, as it was it’s a miracle I remembered that you could put poisons on EACH dagger. So Jun’s fate is uncertain, at the least I will probably keep her and use the name for my pandaren.

-Mildred, 41 Forsaken priest: Actually, Mildred’s name probably doesn’t belong on this list because I can’t bring myself to delete her because her name is Mildred. Even though I have little interest in playing a priest or a Horde character at this time. I’ve considered deleting her just to remake some other class so I can experience the “new” Forsaken experience everyone is talking about. But Mildred is the perfect foil to my Millya, so she’s probably okay. Plus Voss has adopted her name as a means of referring to someone who is doing something annoying, such as running halfway across a zone to pick a Mageroyal, losing track of every person in your leveling group, then stopping to pick 8000 Peacebloom. He hollers, “MILDREEEDD!” I suppose you have to hear it to appreciate it.

Anyway, one of those characters will need to die so I have sufficient slots. I had intended to level Jun so we could work towards the Classy Night Elves achievement, but I grossly overestimated available time and interest. Maybe Mildred should be a mage instead (because I need another one! No, really!)

Mists sounds like it’s going to be pretty great for pet collectors, clothes horses goats, and folks who have a sick addiction to dailies and rep grinds like I do. I played Farmville for awhile, until the pressure to harvest imaginary vegetables made me ask myself, “Why am I logging in at specific times to plant more blueberries when I could be playing WoW instead?” Now I’ll never have to experience that dilemma again. I’m not even being sarcastic, I’m excited to plant Warcraft vegetables. I think this addition might just tip the scale and get my Mom to play WoW too, which is why I’m not going to mention it to her. I was telling some guildies the other day that I asked my Mom if she wanted to try WoW because I thought her tolerance for repetitive activities would make her the ideal herb-farmer and miner. In her off-time, she would collect pets. I’m informed that considering using my Mom as an herb farmer makes me a horrible person, which is probably true. But she’d be so GOOD at it!

I like the female Pandaren models. I’m interested to see more of their faces, but I think they are much better than they could have been; they are obviously not an afterthought as female worgen were, which shows that Blizzard was listening to those criticisms, which I appreciate. I’ve heard that some bottom dwellers have already come out of the woodwork to complain that they are fat, to which I say, they are PANDA PEOPLE. Get over yourself! She could have been even fatter and I would’ve been happier, but she’s fine the way she is. I’ll be happy to play one, which is pretty different from my initial feelings about the Mists expansion.

Generally, everything I read about Mists made me more excited to play it. I think the story sounds interesting, I think exploring the continent sounds exciting – even the 10,000 waterfalls, which I will no doubt visit because I like a healthy dose of masochism with my gaming. There will be so much content at level 90 that I can’t possibly be bored. Not being a Warcraft III player, I had no basis for the existence of Pandaren but as friends urged me to keep an open mind I put any premature judgements on hold. Even Voss has warmed to the Pandaren and is looking forward to leveling one with me. The only thing that will need addressing before Mists is my serious dearth of bank space. I finally sold my Darkmoon Card: Volcano just the other day in desperation and to free up one more slot. Farewell, old friend. You served me well for three tiers. You will not be missed.

I eagerly await the time when mounts are made account-wide so that I can ride my ridiculous and awesome rooster mount on any character. They’ve said it’s next on their list after pets, now that the tech is in place to make it happen. That’s a feature worth having, as far as I’m concerned! Cory Stockton also said that there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of people who are raiding since LFR was introduced; he had to be a bit sly about specifics, so no percentages or numbers, but that’s pretty neat to hear. LFR obviously has its upsides and downsides, but the ability to queue for it with friends from other servers has made a big difference to me. Plus, I’ve been using loot from it on my main for months now so I should probably not say much!

Last but not least, here are two links to things that caught my eye today.

My fellow Moonrunnerian (Moonrunnerite?) over at Double Protection wrote about a topic near and dear to my heart: Loot! Don’t lie, you love the purples too. Specifically, he’s addressing a problem that our raid group has experienced – loot distribution for tens. We had six weeks of constant Conqueror tokens, I’m not even kidding. We only recently started to get Vanq again, I got my four-piece bonus just a short time ago, and two of my pieces were from LFR. I like some of his ideas.

Alas of Kiss My Alas fame is sadly wishing the Warcraft blogosphere farewell (Kiss this Alas goodbye). Alas’ voice will be missed, also her querulous sheep that never fails to make me guffaw. (Okay, I’m biased, so what). Best wishes, Alas! Mage mage.

And Cynwise did a reading round-up just today, so in a lazy roundabout way you should check out his post if you’re looking for yet more great posts!