Archive for October, 2009

Epic Failures

I’ve been a bit quiet on the mage-front lately, probably owing to the fact that I haven’t raided on mine in several days — I’ve been spending more time leveling up my paladin and helping some guildies with Uld10 achievements on my warrior. And since I’m on the sit list for this week’s raids, it may be a while yet before I see some more arcane action.

I was talking to a guildmate about the truly epic failures we’ve witnessed in our time raiding: he mentioned the mage who blew an Immortal Naxx run by taking a hateful on Patchwerk (and I’ll just let that sink in for a minute); I joked about how our Raid Leader spent so much time talking about our heroic Anub strat that his character ended up drowning. (I guess he didn’t bother bringing his character above surface.) But in our joking, I wasn’t entirely fair: I didn’t mention my own ridiculously silly mistakes.

I’ll rectify that now… › Continue reading

Thursday, October 29th, 2009 Thoughts 12 Comments

Character Racial Changes Now Live – Pay Good Money for a New You

Blizzard finally rolled out the character racial change service today they’ve been promising for a while, and I know there’s a couple people out there rejoicing. Whether you want to take advantage of a racial you’ve had your eye on as a mage (Berserking? Hit aura? Diplomacy?), or just want a new butt to stare at while casting Frostbolt, you now can do it for the low, low price of $25USD.  No word of when it is coming to EU realms, but it should be shortly.

And with a 3-day cooldown, no change is ever permanent (my boyfriend is threatening to change me into a draenei).

Will the ladies of Empowered Fire be race changing? In short:

(1:46:53 PM) Meta: race changes up
(1:47:39 PM) Aislinana!: yay…not doing anythign >_>
(1:47:43 PM) Aislinana!: coz I broke
(1:47:44 PM) Meta: me neither
(1:47:47 PM) Meta: also humans rule
(1:47:48 PM) Aislinana!: also gnomes rule
(1:47:50 PM) Aislinana!: hahahahahahah
(1:47:53 PM) Meta: /highfive
(1:47:56 PM) ***Aislinana! highfives

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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 Neat Stuff 1 Comment

Hot and Bothered – Gearscore

Let’s get something straight here – Gearscore sucks.

Both the mod and the whole gearscore “trend” are frankly the two biggest blights on servers that I’ve seen recently. I will not mince words because I feel that they really are a huge detriment to the pool of PUG/casual PVE groups that exist in a server’s community.

I didn’t even know what gearscoring was until a couple weeks ago when I ventured into trade for a little bit to try and look for some deals. People all over the place were asking “Need tank for Heroic TOC, must have gearscore +2300″ and “DPS for Ulduar 10, 2500 gearscore.” And then the wails arose from Elitist Jerks IRC about how horrifically stupid this whole thing was that was infecting other people’s trade chats as well. If my little roleplaying server was having this bad, I couldn’t imagine what it was like on giant PVP servers like Mal’ganis.

Hint: If gearscores piss off elitist raiders, you might be doing something wrong.

› Continue reading

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Saturday, October 24th, 2009 Rant 23 Comments

Mage Leveling Guide

- Updated for 3.3! Changes were made to sections addressing levels 1 through 20 and level 50.
Welcome, new mages!

Welcome, new mages!

So you’ve decided to level a mage, huh? Good for you: mages are awesome. Here’s an outline of how to level your newbie mage to 80 quickly and efficiently.

Table of Contents:

› Continue reading

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Friday, October 23rd, 2009 Guides 24 Comments

This is Hallow's End

Yes, it is that time of year again in Azeroth – full of tricks AND treats. Spooky monsters and shenanigans are around every corner, and sweets are bursting from the seams! I love this in-game holiday more than almost every other holiday in-game mostly because autumn and the REAL Halloween is so fun to me. Having it in Warcraft is just as good.

Achievements have damaged some of the really pure fun that Hallow’s End has brought earlier years, but I am not sweating it too hard, unlike some other religious achievement-doers I know. I’m one pet away from the Hallowed title on both my mage and my priest, and this is just from last year. Blizzard really likes making RNG factor heavily into this stuff, but this is no reason not to enjoy the spirit. Many guilds hold costume parties, and I always have an RP event or two to attend in this vein.

What I most like about Hallow’s Eve is the delicious, delicious vanity – I love wands, pumpkinheads, and candy that changes you into stuff! I’m a freak when it comes to carrying around vanity items in my bags so I can change into something different on a moment’s notice. My favorite thing right now is the Hallow’s End candy that turns you orange and huge. I love running around terrorizing people as a gnome on my Amani Warbear, Colbert, when we’re both giant and orange. Pair this with some Winterfall Firewater, and you have an amazingly scary gnome (or three!) on your hands.

However, this entry is not just all about me! Here are some (helpful) Tricks and Treats from this year’s Hallow’s Eve Event, for all you veteran and nooby mages regarding some of the festivities:
› Continue reading

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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 Holidays, Neat Stuff 4 Comments

Create Your Own Voodoo Gnome Army

omg gnomes!

OMG! Gnomes!

Step one: Roll a mage, level her to 80.

Step two: Run Zul’Aman until Tiny Voodoo Mask drops.

Step three: Get a stack of pygmy oil.

Step four: Drink the pygmy oil until you turn into a gnome. Pop Mirror Images. Pop the trinket.

Step five: Enjoy your very own voodoo gnome entourage.

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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Neat Stuff 6 Comments

Full Mage Tier 10 Colors Available – Still Ugly!

What is this, I dont even

What is this, I don't even

MMO-Champion posted a full mage and warlock set preview this morning, in a variety of rainbow colors. While warlocks manage to skate by with sets that feature a single tonal palette, we’re stuck with color combinations that strike me as more “acid trip” than “color harmony.” Full video of the mage set is found here.

Mage armor designers need to go back to art school as far as I’m concerned. If our tier set is like the orange-y one I posted up there, I’ll be happy. But if I’m stuck with magenta or green, I might just hide in RP gear out of shame until it is time to raid every week.

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Saturday, October 17th, 2009 PTR 6 Comments

Mage T10 is Powerful Ugly, No One Surprised

What is this?

What is this?

MMO-Champion just released some addition PTR info for 3.3, including tier set models for warlock and mage tier 10. Right now I’m rather flabbergasted at how ugly this is. I know that Icecrown is supposedly emulating some of the things we’d be fighting up on the glacier and indicate some level of camouflage, but this is just silly. We look like beat up a bunch reject Blood Princes and stole their clothes. It’s also is the same color palette as death knights. I’m hoping that other set colors get released because it’s a double insult to not only have a horrible set AND have the same horrible colors as another class. Least it isn’t purple, but knowing Blizzard, it won’t even be a cool purple like warlocks get if they do get around to updating the set colors.

The bone boots and mouth on the hat are making me boggle as well. Someone at Blizzard needs to just be taken out back and shot. Half of what’s wrong with this set is the hat design. The one saving feature of this tier are that the set bonuses are decent.

In other PTR notes, some updates for fire talents were included but seemingly are for PVP-oriented abilities:

  • Burning Determination: The duration of interrupt immunity granted by this talent is now 20 seconds.
  • Dragon’s Breath: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.
  • Firestarter: When this talent is triggered, it makes the next Flamestrike cost no mana in addition to being instant.
  • Blast Wave: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.

Finally, I really want a flying pony. Ghostcrawler promised me one.

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Friday, October 16th, 2009 PTR 1 Comment

Mm, Crunchy Blogroll and Contact Goodness!

Hey kids, I finally figured out how to add links to our sidebar for the blogroll while Metaneira was off picking flowers and singing. If you are a frequent commenter/blogger and would like some link-age, or have Empowered Fire on YOUR blogroll and want a link back, pop a comment here and we’ll totes add you. Do you know a blog that deals with gaming, or females in gaming, or magecraft? Shoot us a comment.

We also have several ways of contacting us for questions/suggestions/news, we will answer or maybe feature you on our blog.

Email: empoweredfire AT gmail DOT com

Twitter: @empoweredfire

Happy sheeping!

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Friday, October 16th, 2009 Uncategorized 4 Comments

Mr. Chilly Is Too Cool

Blizzard announced last week that coming on November 11th, all WoW accounts would have to be merged into Battle.net accounts, but that WoW players who had already done so would be getting a new penguin pet for their troubles later this week. I logged in happily today to find an Unhatched Mr. Chilly Egg in my mail.

Hello!

Please give a warm welcome to your new cool penguin pal!

I’m so happy you could give this sassy little spheniscidae a home.

–Breanni

I’m quite the unrepentant pet collector and my Pengu has been a steadfast companion of mine in raids and while out doing things, so having another penguin-y friend courtesy of Blizzard tickles me pink. I got to see this pet back when it was being tested in the WOTLK beta for the account merge feature they were using and I’m glad that it wasn’t just something they were fiddling with. Of course I had to grab a screenshot for all you folks not logged in yet:

Chilly and I hanging out in front of the Eventide Bank, natch.

Chilly and I hanging out in front of the Eventide Bank, natch.

The only thing I’m sad about all this is that they are changing Pengu’s eyes to not be evil and red in 3.3. That was the best part of him!

Hopefully that Blizzard implements a 100-pet achievement soon, I’m very close to getting it. Woo!

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 Neat Stuff 5 Comments
  • Aislinana: That’s actually an add-on I’ve been looking for for a long time. I’ve been using...
  • Apple: @Brenlog – The problem with that is that some offensive/bad words are parts of other words. So, you ban...
  • Apple: I have an addon called TinyPad that lets you toggle a little text-window that saves your text from session to...
  • Tami: Hey there :) We’d love to repost this on the Border House! Can you email me at tami at borderhouseblog...
  • Alyxx: Thank you! I’ve noticed an upswing of racist language in tradechat on my server recently. I’ve...