Noble on Medivh, my ultimate egg spawn point spot

And that is it for me, noblegarden is as good as over. I have braved many ignoble people, but at long last I have my eggs and meta-achievement.

As is customary, here is my top secret hunting location that I now share with you.



Yep, 5 spawn points, literally right next to each other. You don't even have to move a single yard. Also, the grass patch and alcove nearby will also have 3 spawn points each.

If you can find a quiet time, you can probably round up 7 eggs per minute, its almost like fishing. If there is really no one around, its pretty helpful to read a book or newspaper/blog as you wait for it to spawn. Even on busy times, a lot of people will miss quite a bit of the spots you can see above.

That is my easter gift to you!
The ultimate noblegarden egg spawn point spot.

I'll have one or two more posts up soon on my thoughts about this week, as well as a gold related post (yes, finally). Check back soon!

For those who wish to see my previous post on how to deal with noblegarden jerks, here are the 6 ways to kick their ass.

Flame Leviathan Hard mode reduxed, upgraded and updated: Towers, Loot, and resets

Update:
I'm currently trying to compile a list of the Emblems of Conquests that you can obtain per week, if you would like to help out, please click here

I'm typing out this update so as to more pertinently and directly address certain questions which result in people arriving at my previous post on how to kick flame lev butt with towers up. As well as to answer certain questions that I did not have or provide answers for before.

We'll begin with one I was severely amiss to have neglected:

How do I activate Hard mode???
Yep, I wrote the whole previous article without talking about this.

Well, the way to do EASY mode is to simply talk to Brann Bronzebeard, who will automatically transfer you to EASY mode, following which you just steamroll a path to Flame Leviathan and face roll :D or if you're pugging it, wince in frustration

If you're looking to pay some repair costs, the HARD mode is activated by talking to the Lore keeper of Norgannon, he will then activate all 4 towers. There are now 4 towers in the clear path to Flame Leviathan, simply DESTROY the towers you DO NOT want to see Flame Lev use, and leave the towers you want up.

If you intend to do hard mode, and it just so happens that THAT person in your guild just had to talk to brann, having everyone exiting the instance, and forming a new raid group with a new instance id or doing a reset, should theoretically work.

Why should my guild do hard mode?
You don't really have to, but here are the benefits

If you're doing 10 man, you should really do at least 1 tower up, because that will give you TWO emblems of CONQUEST instead of 1 emblem of valor, yes there is no typo, you read that right. You get a ilvl 226 emblem like a 25 man raid instead of the ilvl 213 valor emblem.

If you're doing 25 man here is where it gets really interesting!

(?) stands for unconfirmed, if you have a screenshot, or loot data, please feel free to update me
I'm compiling these data from what I've heard from friends and other guilds

Towers up | no. of 226 items | Emblems of Conquest
0 up | 2 items(?) | 1 EoC
1 up | 3 items | 2 EoC [Confirmed]
2 up | 4 items(?) | 2 EoC
3 up | 4 items(?) | 3 EoC (?)
4 up | 3 ilvl 226, 1 ilvl 239 | 3 EoC (?)

Take note that while Titanguard is ilvl 232, it drops from all modes of Leviathan as all Ulduar weapons will begin from ilvl 232.
Also, while not confirmed but highly likely, each tower up will increase significantly the chance of a fragment of val'anyr. It is possible that runed orb will replace this in 10 man.

!0 man tentative loot tables: (by popular request)
0 up | 2 items | 1 Eov [Confirmed]
1 up | 2 items | 2 EOC* [Confirmed]
-
4 up | 2 items + 1 232/226(?) | ? EOC
Would also appreciate further data, thanks anonymous!

Towers to leave up, Recommendations and Advice

All towers will summon moving beams of certain colors that will AT LEAST do a 15k damage AOE, so its a case of DO NOT STAND IN THE FIRE :D. Furthermore, each tower up will add 50% HP AND DAMAGE to Flame Lev

I'll first explain what the towers do:
Towers | Beam Color
Thor, Storms | Yellow
This is the easiest tower by far, and has no special effect, however I *think* it 1-shots passengers who are flung through a beam into the giant yellow fire truck leviathan.
Hodir, Frost | Blue
One of the tougher towers by skill, but easiest on gear. All movement speed is reduced by 20%, only siege engines should be worried by this, and the beams gain the ability to iceblock in its aoe. Iceblock can and MUST be removed by tarring + ignition.
Freya, Life | Green
This tower summon lasher adds, simply ask your demolishers to focus fire on them. They add a bit of extra damage to the raid, and that is about it.
Mimiron, Flames | Red
Pretty much the killer, the beams leave a flame path that deals 15k damage per second. If you're unlucky the flame beams will route into your Fire Truck Kite path, and then your siege engines die, horribly. If not, your raid might be stuck with a fire wall blocking their way, or have one popped right behind them as Fire Truck closes in.

How should you go about them? i.e. What towers should you start leaving up in order of difficulty.

Y, G, B, R
Thorim, Freya, Hodir, Mimiron

Any tips on Preparation?
Do Eye of eternity 25 man first, followed by Vault of Archavon both 10 and 25 man if it is up. This way you get ilvl 219 to ilvl 232 (pvp) gear that you can use to Pimp your cars. Ignore all set bonuses and whatsoever before boarding your vehicles! Only ilvl is considered in the creation of your car. You can be a plate warrior and wear cloth healing gear. (Not that you should roll on blanketing robes of snow if your healers need it, they will scream! and rightly so)

And that's it, GL in pwning Fire Truck's engines!

6 types of Noblegarden Griefers and how to deal with the cheap tricks they employ

For those of you who need a egg spawn spot, the link right there will show you the one I used. It'll get you your spring rabbit in a jiffy.

With noblegarden on the servers, jerks have been finding new ways to annoy the rest of the rabbit loving populace. They are out to get you, but never fear, I present some of the greatest ways to take terrifying terrifying vengeance back on them...

In order of frustration:

6) The Mailbox Camper

You know this person, he's the Tauren on his Kodo humped over the mailbox, or the Draenei on his elekk blocking a quest-giver, or anyone with a mammoth and an Napolean Complex. He's been griefing since you were a level 1, blocking your access to anything that ever needs you to right click.

Now, he has plonked his big fat kodo butt over your egg spawn point, and he's not going to budge.

Here's how to resolve this overgrown monstrosity:
BABY SPICE

It has wiped raids from thaddius to kologarn, it shall now wipe the floor off of mammoths, I present

Before

After


This particular mammoth was innocent, but was unfortunately the only one I could find in Dalaran.

5) The wannabe cat druid

He's a disgrace to the tauren and night elf druid community everywhere. This is the druid that shapeshifts to flight form just to nab that herb node from under your nose when you're clearing the mob, or that particular water hyacinth that you're trying to get when there are 12 other hyacinth right in the area for him to go to.



This is the cat that whizzes around the starter zone and hovers about until you start seeing an egg and moving towards it, then he sprints up, takes it, and /spit on you. Following that he tails you for another 10 minutes, blowing his sprint cooldown whenever he can just to aggravate you.

Here's how to give him a tight smack:
your 100% mount
mount up, ride to the other edge of the zone, loot your egg.
/laugh



thanks for the rabbit on dreadsteed picture!

If that didn't work, you might want to take a stick out of his book, and turn the following griefer style back on him:

4) The AFK-Looter

Yep, another person you know. Its THAT person, THAT person who jumps at Alexstraza's Cache in Eye of Eternity and refuses to budge. THAT person who clicks-clicks-clicks on the 4 Horseman Chest and then goes off to the toilet for 15 minutes. He does this for everything that can be opened, from quest chests to loot chests, he's the bane of questers and masterlooters everywhere.

You will see this guy run towards the egg, and start opening it, and...
and...
and...
stand there for the next half an hour.

Well, its actually not that harmful, as even though he takes up an egg spawn point, there are still plenty more to go around. Its a good counter-measure against the no. 5 griefer however.

3) Your zone has a sudden infestation of all three griefer types mentioned above

Ouch, it happens. You'll need to break out the big guns for this one.

Misdirection:
Remember the Elune stones, the moonstones, Archmage Valganoth summoning staff, BRD drill machine, Crashing Thrashing Racer? Take them all out of your bank and go crazy. If your class has flashy aoe, go all out with that too. With all the flash and bang from that, maybe they'll think twice about coming near you if you make it hard for them to see the eggs too.

2) You have no. 3, and to compound it, you must face the Lag Monster.

You're in Elwynn Forest, or Durotar, and you have the entire server population there with you. There isn't a square pixel without a rabbit or two, and each spawn point is overflowing with rabbits AND their rabbit pets. But wait, all the jerks on your server are also there with you! You see sparks start flying, and Noblegarden is starting to look like a really bad time to log into wow...

It might just be a good time to visit some old places that you've never been to for a long while, like Mulgore for the Horde, and Dolanaar for the Alliance. They look to be 50% to 67% less crowded for the servers I've looked at, and there'll be less jerks anyway!

1) Exasperation

You've come into Noblegarden looking for a good time, either frolicking with cute rabbits, or perhaps one of your pitstops in getting a 310% speed violet proto-drake, but you've had your mood fouled by quite a bit of these jerks in your first few days of the event.

Well, now this is a hard one to combat. Its not easy to fight off endemic greed when its every other person you see in the starting zone who thinks its a dog eat dog world out here in a virtual game world. While we can't do anything directly to them to stop them from polluting our grasslands, (wtb ability to attack own faction) I feel the best way to counter their plague is to:

Do a nice deed as your "daily quest"
Just because so many people are out to screw other people over, doesn't mean you have to let them make someone else's life miserable!

Just a few hours ago, I waved a lvl 58 over to my egg spawn point after watching her being mercilessly beaten to egg spots by a no. 5 cat druid griefer. (lvl 58s still have to use the 60% mount I guess) I simply AFK-Looted the egg until she came over, and then closed my window so she could loot it.

Later on, when I was going to do the hot springs achievement in un'goro, my rabbit disguise got broke because of the devilsaur >_<. It just so happened that the same lvl paladin was around to throw a timely blossoming branch to turn me back into the rabbit and get my achievement!

If your day is being ruined by Ignoble-garden Jerks, try to make someone else's day! Karma will be sure to turn around for you! At the very least, you would be glad having put a smile in another person's heart!

If you missed out on the spawn point at the top, I've updated it and the link is here!

Random thoughts on Noblegarden

After looking at the 4 starting zones, It looks like a good idea to go Silvermoon / Thunderbluff
Following which, if there are still like 29 people in your zone, camping at an egg spawn point might be the best thing to do. I just got a Spring Circlet from an egg!

Flame Leviathan Hard mode guide with towers, for the less hardcore

I've recently made a more updated version and Q&A about this post here so you might want to check it out.

I had a rant about managing my guild and about ulduar, but i thought it would be better if I wait until i had cooled down a bit more before i made any decisions.
To get my mind off that, here's a how to guide from my PoV on how to tackle Flame Leviathan using a mixture of people types in a guild that isn't so hardcore. This doesn't have a lot to deal with gold making though, and more about me leaving my thoughts on how to do flame leviathan down, so bear with me!

Basically, Flame Leviathan with 0 towers up, isn't even really a boss fight, its more like Archavon, but easier. Its a Pinata Train! So skipping that, I'll move straight to 1 tower or 2 towers up.

Here's a breakdown of this long post:
a) Preparation
b) In Combat
c) Recommended Towers to leave up
d) Looting the flame leviathan
e) Leviathan the loot pinata, and how it can make you richer

Preparation:
What I had my guild do, was run 2 25-Eye of Eternity, yep 2.
2 x 20 people, the first run was a skeletal crew of tanks and healers with quite some alts thrown in for good measure. The second round had about 23 people, filled mostly with the remaining people and some family/friend members that had logged on. All in all, it will drop 8 ilvl 226 items. For the people who need it, they got their items. We got off with 5 ilvl 226 items that will be used for the flame leviathan fight that would otherwise be disenchanted.

The reason for this is, while Flame Lev. is gear dependant, it only looks at the ilvl of your gear, not the itemization. So you can be a plate wearer and chock in leather healing gear that is ilvl 226 and your vehicle stats will rise. (yes i wore robes of blanketing snow to tank flame leviathan, all our healers had it, and leather stuff, and mail stuff)

Because of that, and previous gear from OS3 and KT25, i ended up with about 1800k HP on my siege tank. For other vehicles, your HP and DMG will also scale up along with your gear ilvl.

(if your guild can't take down eoe easily, you might try running ulduar 10 for ilvl 219 gear too)

Actual Fight:

Basically, the fight has 3 phases
1) Siege engines kiting Leviathan around
2) Demolishers launching passengers onto Leviathan in the meantime to take down the 4 turrets
3) Blowing cooldowns on leviathn during shutdown, and picking up people from phase 2, following which you go back to phase 1

For the siege engines kiters:
Kite it like Grobbulus or Anub'rekhan fight, around the entire room, Leviathan will randomly select one of you siege engines (or if you're unlucky a demolisher). Simply use the boost (button3) to clear corners, and get your ass away from leviathan. Those who are not kite targets, press button 2 to interrupt flame jets (its channeling, so activate enemy cast bars). Each kite lasts for about 30 seconds, generally, 5 seconds before kite target change, you would have your siege engines spread a bit, and start running the opposite way.

For Demolishers:
Stay at max range from Leviathan, while waiting for your guild leader to call out for launches. After you launch your passengers, wait till phase 3 starts, and fire away with your saved up pyrite barrels.

For Choppers:
You have the toughest job in this fight, this role is best reserved for people who are good at playing action games, but have horrible gear. You need to spread tar in Leviathan path (generally a good way is to tar the current kite targets actual location, since leviathan will go to that spot anyway) and also to pick up the parachutes in phase 3.

With towers up, whether you succeed or not depends on how many shutdowns you can get on Leviathan before all your siege engines and demolishers die.

You will want your two best (ilvl 226 geared) kiters on the siege engines. And your most agile (in terms of reflexes) player on the choppers. The launchees simply have to be geared enough to take down the turrets while withstanding they heavy and constant incoming damage. Keep your demolishers far away and launch as soon as possible each time. Have choppers tar the area and the shooters in siege engines and demolishers fire on the tar.

With the basic gist of the fight out of the way, here's what happens when you have additional towers:

Mimiron: Flame paths succeeding fireballs
Hodir: Ice beams and iceblocks
Thorim: Lightning bolts
Freya: Lasher Adds

Generally, here's what towers you should leave up depending on your group composition (and i don't mean by class)

Group with people that react quickly, but has terrible gear (because they are alts/just came back/using pvp gear) i.e. skills > gear
Do Hodir first, it slows speed down by 20% and ice beams activate that iceblocks targets. So long as your choppers melt the iceblocks fast enough (just tar and incinerate), it acts as 20% slower movespeed on the fight as a whole. It means you just need 0.2 more shutdowns than as normal.

If however, you have a bunch of tired people filled with ilvl 226 epics, you should opt for leaving thorim up. Thorim basically increases the damage sustained by your raid by incredible amounts , but ilvl 226 equipped players should be able to take the extra incoming damage. Otherwise the fight is equivalent to normal mode.

(Do note that for every tower up, Flame Leviathan gets more HP and does more DMG)

Using those 2 as starting points, the next one you should try leaving up is Freya.
The lasher adds can be resolved by simply having your demolishers burn them down everytime they come up, which is pretty easy for anyone to do.

Once you have successfully done those, lets get ready to loot the pinata train!

Each Additional tower increases the chance of Fragments of Val'anyr dropping.
My guild had the luck of two having dropped so far.

I have never done 0 tower up before however
But on 1 tower up 3 ilvl 226 items drop
I assume that at some point, an extra ilvl 226 item drops and later it will get converted to a ilvl 239 item. Could someone help me confirm this?

(for people doing 10 man, you might be interested to know that 2 Emblems of Conquest drops when you have even just 1 tower up)

And you should try keeping a person with engineering in your raid, they can salvage the train for around 16 random bars (I think my engineer got titanium bars) as well as random eternals. A friend has told me that titansteel bars also drop.
And thats about it, tell me if you find this guide helpful, or have any ideas on how to improve it.



Gold making element:
Flame leviathan with 0 towers can be easily pugged. And it has a chance of dropping Iron Riveted War Helm, pretty much the best dps plate helm you can get from the Auction house at the moment. Which you can probably sell for 8-11k gold depending on your server mileage.

The ideal way to do it is, organise a ulduar raid on monday nights for puggers, and invite them only if they accept that you have reserved the BoE helm. Make sure they understand that Iron Riveted War Helm is reserved for you, before they join, so that it is fair and ethical for both you and them. Zone in, kill Leviathan, loot him and run out. People will join because they get an easy 2 runed orbs, as well as a chance of ilvl 226 items that is MUCH easier to get than from Emalon. And it is the last day before reset, and a lot of puggers that have done naxx will be unable to find slots for ulduar simply because they just aren't very good. You can employ the Archavon people to zerg Leviathan and still be able to down him. If you're lucky, you get the helm and you can sell it the next day. If not, you get at least 2 runed orbs on your alt before reset.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45107

Pvp Profiting: Kharmaa's Grace, aka turning stonekeeper shards into gold

Firstly, Yes you can have more than one Kharmaa's Grace, for further information, please continue reading about how to obtain and profit from it!

Now that 3.1 is out, you might also be interested in pvp gear you can buy with honor too!

Perhaps you're reading this as you wait for your wintergrasp to begin, if so, you're just in time. If you have all those stonekeeper shards from wintergrasp and heroics, more at hand than you'll ever want, you've come to the right place. Here, you'll be shown how to get rid of them.

In the entire 7 page inventory of the wintergrasp quartermaster, there is one, and only one, single item that is bind on equip: Kharmaa's Grace. In essence, also the only way you can turn stonekeeper shards into pots of gold is through these epic quality yellow slot gems. And you just heard it first from here!



While people save their shards for the budget mammoth mount or the twink pvp Bind to Account gear, It's your best chance at getting rid of excess shards. Every lvl 80 looking to pvp will need at least one of these gems, a unique-equipped purple quality gem that will give a whooping +20 resilience, also the only wotlk epic gem in the game so far besides the elusive fishing stormjewels.

And if you act fast, you'll be just the one to sell this gem to them! As this is relatively less well known, and there are lots of personal uses other people have for this currency, it's your chance to stockpile them before season 6 starts.

When Season 5 was at its most exciting period, I could sell these gems for 100-150 gold, but more ehave entered the AH over the past few months, increasing the volatility. However, as a result, I have been able to purchase during flood periods at 20 gold and sell it back at select hours for 80 gold, which took less effort on my part than before. (where i used my own shards)

Recently, I've curtailed liquidation, in anticipation of season 6 in a week or so. Now is your chance to do the same!

Do take note, if you do this trick too late, you might be caught in an unlucky tide where people have already spent their stonekeeper shards on everything they could, and start moving into the resilience gem market.

p.s. feel free to do this stockpiling on medivh, i've left the gem market there for more lucrative industries, just dont cut into my other servers :P


For another way to pvp to riches, check out my earlier article on liquidating honor into gems.

Patch Ulduar so far, Day 3.1

As of now, most of the people in wow are either rushing off into Secrets of Ulduar or busy spamming their screen with glyph making. As for me, I've been popping in and out of the raids, watching instance servers crash and login servers going down, and brewing coffee while looking at a perpetual loading screen of blue death.

If you're reading this, I would presume that you're facing a similar server overload on your side and can't get it, or in a scenario where you can access the internet but not wow.

You might then want to have a recap of what I've prepared on this blog for 3.1 so far:

For the level 80s in the new content,
you will probably wish to read up on
What you should look out for when buying and selling epics in 3.1
and if applicable, say if your server has lesser hardcore raiding guilds density, you might wish to check out which items you really need to sell while you still can especially if you are still doubtful about emblem of valor bracers.

If you're level 80, but not raiding at the moment, you might wish to check out:
The last lvl 70 daily you'll ever do
and certain things to look out for when you're exploring icecrown.

As for some of you out there, who might not have reached 80, there are also a few tricks and treats you can employ at lower levels, which even some lvl 80s can use with success.
For those just starting out, here's something you can do even with a level 1.
For level 20s, you might want to check this out if you're a tailor, and this if you're a leatherworker.
ac2
And that would be all for now, do check back regularly for more updates!