Frost Badges

Its nice to be able to accumulate a good amount of frost badges between all nine level 80 characters.  There is a bit of downtime associated with queuing for the daily random on my pure-damage classes (mage, warlock, rogue), but my other classes queue rather quickly with three tanks (paladin, death knight, warrior) and three healers (shaman, priest, druid).  The loot list for cataclysm came out and its a bit disheartening to see item level greens that are higher than premium item levels of currently available epic loot drops.  But, thats how the game is played.

UI Evolution

When I first started playing World of Warcraft, I was actually quite thrilled to be using the default user interface.  The following components are standard in any game of this genre.

• Player and Party Icons
• As seen in the upper left corner, these display the class, level, health and mana/energy of your character.
• Maps
• The upper right mini-map can be expanded to show the world-view of where your character is located.
• Chat and Combat Log Windows
• The bottom left and right display the various chat channels (world, party, trade, guild, etc) and the combat log.
• Spell Bars/Buttons
• The bars on the bottom and right hand side of the screen can be configured with various spells and abilities that you use frequently.  These buttons can be bound to certain key combinations.
• Cast Bars
• These are not shown in the picture above, these bars display the length of various casting abilities.
• Player/NPC Health Bars
• The bars shown on top of the other players, in the picture above, display their health and mana and are useful to help target specific enemies while in battle.

Over the course of leveling each class to 60, back in 'Vanilla' World of Warcraft (WoW), I was quite content with this default UI.  However at some point I realized that there is a huge world of 'add-ons' that have been (and continue to be) developed in the LUA programming language.  Various sites hosting these add-ons cropped up and I began cobbling together my own assemblage of add-ons to aid my adventures.
These add-ons required constant tweaking and each one of my ten characters had to be configured individually.  When these add-ons updated, there were often conflicts which required me to remove certain conflicting modules.  When I installed a new operating system or moved to a new computer, I had to spend hourse reconfiguring these all over again.  It was a mess.
At some point I realized that it would be easier to take a pre-configured suite of working add-ons that is well maintained and used by other players.  So I reviewed certain suites of user-interface add-on compilations and settled upon MazzleUI.

 This worked well and provided a ton of extra functionality.  But at some point in 2007, Mazzle stopped playing and the UI add-ons continued to get updated but conflicts arose and it was too much of a hassle to continue using an abandoned compilation. 
So I went back to the default UI and a few essential add-ons that I had to maintain and configure on my own.  A few months went by and I continued my search for the best compilation that worked for my style of gameplay and best suited the conveniences I enjoyed.  At some point I found ArkiveUI.  Arkive picked up where Mazzle left off and designed a user interface based upon the same design principles.
I was thrilled to discover the large user base, the support forums, the updated add-ons and in-game setup wizard that made this compilation so successful.

 The design was well-thought out and provided the right focus, in the center of the screen.  Using a heads-up-display addon and other elements.  I was hooked and I was very happy to use this on each of my characters. 
With the ArkiveUI I came, saw and conquered bosss after boss throught the Burning Crusade edition (Magtheridon, Gruul, Serpeantshire Cavern, Black Temple, Sunwell) and well into the next expansion (Naxxramus and Ulduar) and even most recently into the Wrath of the Lich King (Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel).

 The UI made sense and played well.  I enjoyed the welcome and convenient placement of the party/raid frames, the HUD, threat and dps meters, the tank frames, chat frames, centered mini-map and the button bars.
However, I found that no matter what I tried, when I was in a large raid (25+) I could not get good frame rates.  I upgraded my computer's graphics card, CPU, hard drive and still was stuck at 10 frames per second when at 1920x1280 resolution, regardless of the graphics quality and anti-aliaising.
I followed multiple threads on the ArkiveUI Forums and found a few tips, mostly dealing with disabling certain add-ons and reloading the UI.  While this worked, I had to then re-enable those addons after the raid and it was quite a hassle.  Even with half of the add-ons disabled, my frame rates did not improve substantially and never went above 20 fps in a big raid with lots of UI elements (e.g. Onyxia whelps).  I even tried throwing the latest and greatest hardware at the problem and built my own uber-gaming-pc with the latest and greatest CPU, GPU, memory and SSD, to no avail.  Finally, with head hung low in sorrow, I went in search of a new compilation that would boost my frame rates and allow me to do more in raids (more dps, fraps while raiding, stream the UI online, etc).

 I came upon FinalFLO UI, which had a very similar look and feel to ArkiveUI, so I tried it out to see if the frame rate issue would be resolved. I enjoyed the large user-base, multi-resolution support, in-game setup.  There are even vidoes to help configure the add-ons.  Nonetheless I struggled with the configuration of a number of key add-ons (Macaroon in particular) which I found to be quite convoluted and over-complicated, even for me.  So I was left frustrated and still searching.  I kept looking over the list of compilations at the WowIterface website.  I downloaded a number of attractive user interfaces to play around with and see if they suited my  play style and contained the bulk of the addons that I had grown accustomed to in my gaming adventures.

 I finally found the BodaUI suite and in my testing I was getting over 60 frames per second in 25 man raids, even with full UI elements (e.g. Sindragosa).  This allowed me to fraps or stream my game without any impact to my game response time.  I did not have the time to descern which add-on (which existed in the other UI compilations and was missing from Boda) was the culprit in the fps issue.  I was happy to discover a UI which was well thought out and served my needs.  There were however a few issues I needed to change.  Firstly, the UI was only configured, off-the-shelf, to support 1920x1080 and I play with a few extra pixels at the bottom of my screen, with my 24" display supporting a native resolution of 1920x1280.  So I had to adjust the placement of the kgPanels, SBF, Bartender, Omen, Recount, StatusWindow, MBF, Chinchilla and the chat windows.  I also added Grid2 for usage in 10/25 man raids and left Pitbull for 5 mans.  I increased the size of the chat window, because I read and chat a lot and like to follow more lengthy discussions.  Also when watching the trade chat channel, often I trolls can consume much of the chat real-estate.

 Here i the UI I use, BodaUI, showing 81 frames per second at Sindragosa (in combat this lowers to 60 fps), using 60mb of memory, half of which is Recount, Autobar and IceHUD.
I have added other add-ons here and there as needed to make life easier.  I have a back-burner TO-DO, to get it all zipped up and generalized so that I can share this with others, but in all honesty, the as-is BodaUI is very straightforward and can be tweaked easily for ones own liking.
I encourage others to check this out.  Boda wrote this primarily for Protection specced Warriors, this is seen most readily in the out-of-the-box configuration of the SBF filters.  However, these serve as a great guide for how to best configure this addon and others to benefit the other classes you play.  I have added filters to support the various roles I serve in my adventures and I found it to make my gameplay better.

Good Guild Hunting

Over the course of my WoW career (did I just call my online gaming habit a career?), I have been fortunate to have been in a few very good raiding guilds that have garnered quite a few server firsts and been very good places to hang out, make friends and gear up alts.  How did I find these guilds?  Well, some of them I sort of stumbled into during the course of casual play.  Others, I have tracked down using a few methods that I will detail herein.

1) Realm Type

Each realm can be either Normal, RP/RP-PvP or PvP.  I have never tried an RP server, so I cannot speak to that but in terms of the difference between a Normal server and a PvP server there are quite a few differences and more similarities than you would think.  First of all, I must admit that my view into this topic is strictly from the standpoint of a PvE oriented raider.  While I enjoy winning in duals, arenas and battlegrounds, for some reason I get too tense and stressed during player-vs-player encounters, that afterwards I wonder why on earth I play this game (to relax?) in the first place.

Normal realms, you typically find people very focused on progression, raiding and pugs, you would think.  This is the case, of course, but once you experience a PvP server, it really takes all of that to a whole'nother level.  I recall early in my raiding experience looking at the top guilds that would get world firsts, and most of them were on PvP servers.  I figured that if players were so accustomed to playing their characters that even when not in a raid, they had to be alert and deal with the PvP aspect of the game, with no real 'at-rest' time, then these types of full-time players would be better, in-general, in comparison with players who only raid and do not PvP.  This is also typical of the raider who is serious about arenas and battlegrounds, not just simply raiding.  The added situational awareness required for constant realm-wide pvp offers more of a possibility that players will become better, of course this is a generality and not always the case.

PvP servers also require the added commitment to the game to have the extra where-with-all awareness and willingness to be under constant threat of attack, often against uneven odds, even to the point, dare I say, of enjoying such an environment.  Another aspect of PvP servers is the added sense of reality to the genre and story line of the game.  After all, its World of WAR craft, not World of My Little Pony, or World of CareBearCraft.  True to this notion, I have found, generally speaking, more committed players on PvP servers.  Also, generally speaking, I have found more situationally-aware players on PvP realms.

2) Faction

Of the two possible factions (Horde, consisting of Orcs, Trolls, Blood Elves, Undead and Tauren, and the Alliance Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves and Draenei), the story line is very different than the reality.  The reality is that typically you find more polite and politically correct chat and vent amongst the Alliance, often termed the good-two-shoes faction.  While amongst the Horde players (viewed as the evil races) you find more cajoling, more off-beat humore, more questionable characters and not-so-politically correct vent and guild chat.

3) Timezone

Amongst the USA servers, despite the timezone of the server, you can find guilds with raid times all over the map.  It is not at all unusual to find EST servers with PST raid times, or vice-a-versa.

4) Server Population and Guild Size

Guild size is important only as so far as the raiding roster goes.  I like to feel needed and a 'part-of' hence when I log on to raid I like to know, not only do I have a spot, but that my spot is needed and if I do not show up for raids, another will be recruited to take my spot, but if I demonstrate 100% attendance I will be granted 100% attendance as far as raid composition goes.  Some guilds keep tight raiding rosters, while others abide by a regular bench rotation, where raiders regularly sit in order to support a larger list of raiding members.

Server Population is another matter, www.warcraftrealms.com lists the current census of USA and EU relams, as well as the ration between Alliance and Horde on each server.  Often times, a high population server means better LFG and BG queues, while it could also mean more lag on patch day as well as logon screen queue time.  A low population server may benefit from less lag but also may have less pugs.  Strive for a medium population server closer to the top, but not in the top three.  Another facet of population is to make sure that the population is representative of the faction you will be playing.  If you are Horde and transferring to a 23,000 population server, where only 8,000 Horde are playing, you may be better off transferring to a lower overall population server with a better Horde-to-Alliance ratio.

5) Policies

Every guild has a set of policies that they list as a charter to govern the way that all of the officers and raid members try to conduct raids, administration, the social atmosphere and general continuity of the guild.  Guilds that have given this more thought are typically worth investing time in.

6) Applying

Often the wording of the quiestionnaire, which one is required to fill out as part of the application, can be so inspiring and can speak more clearly as to the policies and goals of the guild than the charter.  Case in point, look at some of the leading guilds on any server and read through their questionnaire.  If it is not comprehensive, then the guild either makes use of extensive (often time wasting) vent interviews in order to weed out the crap from the good raiders.  To really guarantee the best chance of getting into the guild, demonstrate in the application the level of seriousness that you would put into a progression raid encounter with the quality of the answers that you provide.  Do not lie, do not embelish, do not show off, as any of what you put down can be quickly and easily verified either via a quick vent chat with your former guild, or via www.warcraftrealms.com character history tracker, via wowjutsu.com guild transfer tracking, or via the wowarmory.com list of achievements.

7) Achievements and Progress

Besides listing the killshots on the guild website, there are multiple sites that record a guilds progress in both 10 and 25 man instances.  Guildox, Wowprogress, Wowjutsu and others can display not only the rank of the guild, ascertained by daily scans of the armory, each member's gear a sign of the guilds progress as well as each members achievement a sign of the guilds acheivement.  Naturally multiple members are scanned to remove the possibility of it being a pug.

So, in looking for a guild, I recommend looking for one that is not simply ranked on boss kills in 25 and 10 man, but that is ranked high on achievements.  This shows that the guild is willing to go the extra mile and enjoys raiding not simply to get the badges and gear and get out, but to get the mounts, titles and prestige which simbolizes complete success of all that Blizzard has thrown into each and every encounter.

8) Needs

Its important that a guild has a need for your class.  Naturally, most guilds will take any exceptional player, however this is often hard to prove, due to the nature of each fight and random number generators (RNG) as well as latency and a whether you get into the right raid.  So I recommend, that even if you are a superstar, best to apply to a guild which lists even a low to medium need for your class and spec.

Another way to confirm the needs of the guild is to open the guild armory (www.wowarmory.com) and look at the members who are of the popular higher rank (raiders), check for the members of your class and spec who have higher numbers of achievement points (not alts).  Check their gear and compare to yours.  Does the guild have other members of your class that you can compete with?

9) Loot Distribution System

Dragon Kill Points (DKP) are points that are tracked and awarded to members for each boss kill.  There are various DKP systems, each should be understood and one must be comfortable joining a guild with such a system.  Another popular loot system is Loot Council, wherein the officers decide.  Regardless of the system it should be one you are ready to accept and under no circumstance create any drama if you do not get what you want, after all you signed up and you understood the loot system.  

So I compiled a spreadsheet to track all of these, based upon my research and to aid my research.

The spreadsheet tracks:

• Realm
• Online
• Type
• Language
• Alliance
• Horde
• Ratio
• Overall
• Guild Name
• Tier 10 10m Achievement Ranking (from wowprogress)
• Tier 10 25m Achievement Ranking (from wowprogress)
• Website Link
• Class/Spec Needed
• Loot System

I hope this helps others in their search.

Finding a Raiding Guild

Best in Slot

Helm
Current - Turalyon's Helm of Triumph (Item) (+815d)
BiS - Sanctified Lightsworn Helmet (Item) [H] (+1530d)
Upgrade 1 - Sanctified Lightsworn Helmet (Item) (+1313d)
Upgrade 2 - Discarded Bag of Entrails (Item) [10] (+1015d)

Neck
Current - Ahn'kahar Onyx Neckguard (Item) (+429d)
BiS - Ahn'kahar Onyx Neckguard (Item) [H] (+555d)
Upgrade 1 - N/A

Shoulders
Current - Turalyon's Shoulderplates of Triumph (Item) (+619d)
BiS - Cultist's Bloodsoaked Spaulders (Item) [H] [Non-Plate] (+732d)
Upgrade 1 - Sanctified Lightsworn Shoulderplates (Item) [H] (+709d)
Upgrade 2 - Sanctified Lightsworn Shoulderplates (Item)

Cloak
Current - Shadowvault Slayer's Cloak (Item) (+416d)
BiS - Shadowvault Slayer's Cloak (Item) [H] (+535d)
Upgrade 1 - Winding Sheet (Item) [H] (+520d)
Upgrade 2 - N/A

Chest
Current - Sanctified Lightsworn Battleplate (Item) (+661d)
BiS - Sanctified Lightsworn Battleplate (Item) [H] (+1518d)
Upgrade 1 - N/A

Bracers
Current - Titanium Spikeguards (Item) (+351d)
BiS - Polar Bear Claw Bracers (Item) [H] (+599d)
Upgrade 1 - Polar Bear Claw Bracers (Item) (+555d)
Upgrade 2 - Bracers of Dark Determination (Item) [HToTC] (+563d)
Upgrade 3 - Icecrown Rampart Bracers (Item) [10] (+543d)

Gloves
Current - Sanctified Lightsworn Gauntlets (Item) (+623d)
BiS - Sanctified Lightsworn Gauntlets (Item) [H] (+1195d)
Upgrade 1 - N/A

Belt
Current - Bloodbath Belt (Item) (+463d)
BiS - Astrylian's Sutured Cinch (Item) [Non-Plate] [H] (+675d)
Upgrade 1 - Coldwraith Links (Item) [H] (+649d)
Upgrade 2 - Coldwraith Links (Item) (+649d)
Upgrade 3 - Nerub'ar Stalker's Cord (Item) [Non-Plate] [H]   (+648d)
Upgrade 4 - Vengeful Noose (Item) [Badges] [Non-Plate] (+609d)
Upgrade 5 - Astrylian's Sutured Cinch (Item) [Non-Plate] (+ _)
Upgrade 6 - Blood-Drinker's Girdle (Item) [10] [Non-Plate] (+594d)
Upgrade 7 - Soulthief's Braided Belt (Item) [10] [Non-Plate] (+593d)
Upgrade 8 - Etched Dragonbone Girdle [10] (+584d)

Legs
Current - Legplates of Painful Death (Item) (+682d)
BiS - Sanctified Lightsworn Legplates (Item) [H] (+1452d)
Upgrade 1 - Sanctified Lightsworn Legplates (Item) (+1188d)
Upgrade 2 - Scourge Reaver's Legplates (Item) [H] (+902d)
Upgrade 3 - Scourge Reaver's Legplates (Item)  (+_)
Upgrade 4 - Battle-Maiden's Legguards (Item) [10] (+875d)

Boots
Current - Footpads of Impending Death (Item) [Crafted] (+574d)
BiS - Frostbitten Fur Boots (Item) [Non-Plate] [H] (+659d)
Upgrade 1 - Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers (Item) [H] (+636d)
Upgrade 2 - Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers (Item)  (+_)
Upgrade 3 - Treads of the Wasteland (Item) [Non-Plate] [H] (+602d)
Upgrade 4 - Frostbitten Fur Boots (Item) [Non-Plate] (+591d)
Upgrade 5 - Taldaram's Soft Slippers (Item) [10] [Non-Plate] (+595d)

Ring 1
Current - Ring of Rotting Sinew (Item) (+431d)
BiS - Frostbrood Sapphire Ring (Item) (+459d)
Upgrade 1 - Seal of the Twilight Queen (Item) (+456d)
Upgrade 2 - Seal of Many Mouths (Item) (+454d)
Upgrade 3 - Might of Blight (Item) (+451d)
Upgrade 4 - Skeleton Lord's Circle (Item) (443d)
Upgrade 5 - Thrice Fanged Signet (Item) [10man] (+436d)
Upgrade 6 - Band of the Bone Colossus (Item) (+435d)
Upgrade 7 - Saurfang's Cold-Forged Band (Item) [10man] (+428d)

Ring 2
Current - Ashen Band of Greater Vengeance (Item) (+435d)
BiS - Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance (Item) (+602d)
Upgrade 1 - Band of the Bone Colossus (Item) [i277/i264] (+570d)
Upgrade 2 - Ring of Rotting Sinew (Item) (+485d)

Trinket 1
Current - Herkuml War Token (Item) (+442d)
BiS - Death's Verdict (Item) (+643d)
Upgrade 1 - Whispering Fanged Skull (Item) (+594d)
Upgrade 2 - N/A

Trinket 2
Current - Deathbringer's Will (Item) (+396d)
BiS - Whispering Fanged Skull (Item) (+643d)
Upgrade 1 - N/A

Weapon
Current - Justicebringer (Item) (+1974)
BiS - Shadowmourne (Item) (+2985d)
Upgrade 1 - Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter (Item) (+2698d)
Upgrade 2 - Bloodfall (Item) (+2630d)
Upgrade 3 - Cryptmaker (Item) (+2559d)

Ranged / Relic
Current -  BiS - Libram of Three Truths (Item) (+496d)
Upgrade 1 - N/A.

Target DPS: 11,986

Based upon Ret BiS EJ Thread.

A Whole New World

While I have always considered myself fairly competitive, especially against other Retribution (Ret) Paladins, due to certain circumstances, the details of which I am not at liberty to describe, the importance of DPS performance vs. other classes has come to the forefront. Although I have been assured that the aforementioned circumstances were outside of the norm and I have every reason to belive they will not occur again, nonetheless I am eager to push my DPS to the maximum even in comparison to other classes. In reading the main posts associated with Ret, from Elitist Jerks:

• Retribution: Updated for 3.3
• Rawr Retribution Model
• Retribution BiS Lists for 3.3
• Ret FCFS Rotation Helper
• Retribution UI: The key to successful facerolling
• Redcape's Ret Spreadsheet v4.1 - Now with User Friendly!
• Pawn Values for all Specs: Updated to 3.3

Looking at the thread on the Retribution UI, I noticed there are three or four Rotation Helpers mentioned.

1. S.H.I.T.: Seriousl Help in Timing
2. Faceroller
3. CLCRet
4. Event Horizon
5. Face Shooter

In the Rotation Helper thread, two are discussed by their authors and users, CLCRet and S.H.I.T. It seems the former is a bit more recent. On pg 15, there is a step by step tutorial with screenshots on how to set up the Internal Cooldown (ICD) tracking.
For Deathbringer's Will, I believe those to be as follows:

• Aim of the Iron Dwarves (Spell ID: 71491)
• Strength of the Taunka (Spell ID: 71484)
• Speed of the Vrykul (Spell ID: 71492)

On pg 10, there is a description of how to use the CLCRet Mod within a macro, using either presets or the full rotation.