World of Logs Tutorial (With Pictures!)

Really, World of Logs can be an amazing tool, before you start this tutorial, you should make sure that 1) you have applied to a guild (If it already exists) or create your own WoL account, and 2) if you've applied to a guild owned by someone else on WoL that you've at least been promoted from "Initiate" to "Member" within the WoL site.

The first thing that you'll want to do is go to the "Logs" folder in World of Warcraft and delete the WoWCombatLog.txt  This will clear out any information that you may have had in there before, and help to not cause issues with the WoL Uploader

Next, In game, you'll need to tell WoW to start recording all of the combat logs. This is a fairly simple slash command (it's also a toggle) /combatlog will turn off and on the ability of World of Warcraft to record your combatlogs.

I created a handy-dandy macro for mine, and I keep it on my bars so that I remember to use it :)

Now, the most fun part of the adventure, fighting the bosses! Wow turns off combat logging whenever you log out, so if you are recording fights, and get disconnected, please remember to turn it back on!

After you've finished for the night, you'll want to go to the WorldOfLogs website and click the "Client" button. I usually just "open" the Java app, instead of saving it.

If you've never logged in to the client before, this screen should show up, if not, you'll want to go to Edit > Preferences, type your username and password in, then test the connection. Also make sure that the box on the bottom has the correct path for your "Logs" folder within World of Warcraft.

After you've made sure that all of the correct information is in the boxes, you can close out of the Preferences box, and click the large square in the middle of the client. This will take you to the page where you'll be making sure that the information is correct before you send it off to the WoL Website. 

Here, just make sure that the Times are correct for your raid, if you feel that you have some extra at the beginning or the end, you can drag the blue highlighted section at the bottom  over the areas that you want to be included in your report.

Next, click upload, give it a few moments, then go check the website to see if it's there! I'm certainly not an expert with World of Logs, but I promise that it's a fantastic tool for seeing what's happening in your raid. If, after you upload the report, you still don't know where to start, I recommend http://raidbots.com/comparebot/ All you have to do is paste in the dashboard URL of that nights fight, and let it run. You'll be able to see where potential flaws were made, as well as some of the significant class skills that each person used!

Good luck everyone!

Apparently this is not my expansion

So I'm having a terrible time with Guilds this expansion! I can't seem to really find a place where I "Fit in". I thought I had it made for a few weeks. I was in a guild with a bunch of friends who had split from another big guild. There were like 7 guildies that raided, and it felt like Memento Mori from WotLK. (A guild my friends and I had created and governed).

This guild pugged people for the last few spots, and had cleared Ragnaros and was working on some hardmodes. I got to see what it was like to heal Heroic Shannox and Majordomo Staghelm. The guys welcomed me in, and I was enjoying myself. I got to heal, I got to DPS, It was fun all around.

Until last week. I logged on, and one of the members that was newer than me, mentioned that the gold in the Guild Bank was looking awfully low. Now the guild I was in was brand new, only been around for about 3 weeks, so It's not like 250K gold went missing. This guildie looked at the tab, and noted that one officer pulled out 20K and another officer pulled out 17.5K spread out on about 4 of his toons. I thought "This might not be a big deal, they could be using it for crafting epics or something."

A day or two passed, and I hadn't seen either of the two Officers, or the GM, so I looked at the guild Info to see if the two officers left with the gold. Nope. The only thing that Happened was that the GM had transferred ownership from one of his toons to another. The next day rolls around and I see in the Info that the GM and 3 of our officers have server transferred.

4 of the 7 people that regularly got on to raid had server transferred without even saying a word to me, or the other people in the guild. I was blindsided. I know they were talking about how they were unhappy with our server (our server is pretty far back in terms of progression), but I never expected them to just leave without saying anything. The worst part is, when any of those officers logged on to their alts, I tried to talk to them in chat, and I just got ignored.

So I left. I whined about being homeless (only Guildwise, but my poor Asherrylie felt like she was homeless) for a while on Twitter (I'm sure a few of you heard it). I was stuck. I didn't PUG raids. I really didn't do anything but Loremaster for a while.

Eventually I joined the guild that Askevar and her husband Venoym had joined, under the understanding that their progression raid team was full, and that I would be allowed to raid in the Alt raids if I chose to do so.

I've only been there for a few days, so it'll take a while to get to know people, I'm sure I'll have some fun (I always manage to). The thing is I felt like I *needed* to be in a guild, because I don't like doing things solo without someone to at least chat with.

Hopefully I'll have some better news for you in the next post.

--Ashe

The month in which I tackle a Novel

So, I've decided, like many other bloggers (and WoW Players.. and a gazillion other people through the world) that I will be taking the challenge to Write 50K words in 30 days. I know, I'm crazy, just like all these other people, but here's what else I'm going to attempt to do. I'm going to publish, to the internets, everything that I've written, each day. (With the help from the lovely Marariel as my editor) You'll be able to find me at http://writingonaprayer.blogspot.com/

Wish me luck!

--Ashe

Thoughts on Leveling

So I just finished leveling another toon to 85, my dear Holy Paladin, Katilea.
Mostly, Katilea leveled through Dungeoning. I started out as a Protection Paladin, but seeing that the guild she was in had 21545321 Paladin Tanks, I decided to respec to Holy.

It's been a lot of fun, and certainly interesting coming from healing on a Priest, to healing on a Pally. Now, I've leveled every healing class, (My Shaman and Druid are only about level 50) but There is an absolute difference in healing on each of these classes... I've learned that it really sucks to not have a hot to keep rolling on the tank (Even though renew is REALLY BAD for mana during End Game, that doesn't mean I don't use it occasionally anyways)

Since Katilea dungeoned so much, it took me 10 levels (68-78) to get through all of the quests in Howling Fjord. From there, I skipped all of the other zones and went straight to Icecrown, I banged out the last two levels of that expansion very quickly, leaving more to be desired of the 78-80 grind. When I leveled toons throughout Wrath, I enjoyed all of the quests in Icecrown, the different factions, the fantastic storylines, all of it. Katilea didn’t even get to the part where the Arthas quests start. I contemplated staying in Icecrown till I finished, but I decided to move along.

For my 80 questing zone, I started in Vashj’ir. The last time I did Vashj was on Ashe, at the beginning of the expansion… Actually, it was on Day 1. It was gross; there were a thousand people all fighting for the same nodes and quest mobs all in the same place. I’d leveled two toons through Hyjal since then, and there are 4 good pieces of Holy Pally Gear that come from the vendors in Vashj, so that’s where I decided to start. It surprised me how much I’d actually enjoyed leveling there on Katilea. I worked through all the quest lines, finishing the zone about halfway through 83.

By far, my favorite part about Vashj was the Battlemaiden quests. I loved going “back in time” and learning about some of the different things that had been happening. It was a refreshing change of pace from the quests that I had been doing. My other favorite part about Vashj’ir is that all of the questgivers and NPC’s are the same people throughout the zone, making it feel as you’re actually working towards something as a whole. Thank you Capt. Taylor for sticking with me the whole time :)

Next came the time to level in Deepholm. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I knew that it needed to be done so that I could eventually get my shoulder enchant. I got about a bar away from 85 when I’d completed all of the quests out there, and so I jumped in a dungeon to finish up my leveling process. I’d dungeoned enough through the Wrath and Cata Content, that I had enough JP to purchase an item from the Vendors. I’d just picked up a 346 chest piece from Rep, so I decided to get new pants (I’d still been wearing greens at that point, I believe)

I am so lucky to have such good friends! Askevar sent me over the Justice Points boots, while Elennar helped me craft the 346 Relic, and Orvillus helped me craft the 359 Plate belt. By the time all was said and done, I’d dinged 85, put on all of my new shiny gear and walked into Heroics with an average item level of 335.

My “goal” is to get Katilea ready to heal T11 dungeons so that she can join along for VP farming BWD/BoT Runs, So I decided I’d do the Thrall quest line to get the shiny 365 Cloak. Boy, was I mistaken! I’d remembered that it was pretty easy to do on Ashe, but there were probably always 20 other people with me in a zone as I was working on those quests. Katilea got to Uldum to do the Air elementals quest (as ret!), and got her face smashed in. I’d pull one thing, and try to kill it (Stood by Aggra and everything) and I’d suddenly have 3 or 4 more elementals that had decided to gang up on me. I attempted this a few times, not using any AoE abilities, and being very careful to pull only one at a time, but it never did work out. I suppose I’ll go back out there after I have better gear?

From that failure, I went to Hyjal to quest enough to get me to the Molten Front zone, so that I could start out there. The Hyjal quests were easy (as expected), but as soon as I got the quest to go into the Molten Front, and kill the giant elemental dude, I soon realized that I was going to get my face smashed in. There was an elemental with 750K+ Health, and I was the only soul in that Phase, save a few NPC’s. I did manage to complete the quest and kill the elemental, but it probably took me 15 minutes or so!

So that’s where Katilea is now. Able to Start dailies for Molten Front, and able to Heal heroics (but for right now I’ll probably only go with friends). I looked at my screen, and pondered what to do at this particular point, and what did I come up with? Roll another toon.

I’m such an Alt-o-holic.