da blog

I first started WOTLK with the aim of changing classes from warlock to rogue. I started leveling my rogue first and got my first and last raid in Naxx 25. I was last on the DPS meters and packed it in, not just the rogue class but raiding and the lock class and i quit wow for a few months. Then i played on another realm with my priest when dual spec hit and was both a Damage maker and healer in a small casual guild. It was good fun but after a while the guild fell apart after people started to leave to join better raid guilds and then i quit wow for about a year.

Since i returned in december Blizzard (account got hacked stuff returned) have done alot to make gearing up a bit easier (i must note specially for casualy players like myself).

From the weekly raid and daily random dungeon you can collect badges if your dedicated enough.  Recently i took the task on of trying to gear up my rogue and its not been easy.

Starting out is the worst and seeing your damage at the bottom of the damage meter is at times very humiliating and very off-putting. So to avoid this i went the PVP route and used all my Stone shards to buy PVP gear so i eventually had the full PVP set. Of course this isnt much good for Dungeons but it was a good start.  I then started random heroics and have had no hassle from anyone about my damage even though it wasnt good or at least didnt look like it was right for the gear i had.

I started out as subtlety spec as i only used to PVP with my rogue and well my DPS was rubbish

Im still working on on it and well as they say, things can only get better.

Rogue Guides:

Here are some of the great guides ive found and been reading as i try to  improve my rogue. My goal here to try and get DPS to where it should for the gear i have.

Rogue Rotation:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10023044366&sid=1

Weapon Enchants:
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59621

Newbie Rogue WOTLK:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14133213611&sid=1

Gems:

Wow Popular:Gems (find out what Gems others are using)
http://www.wowpopular.com/Gems

Gem Guide:
http://www.wow-gem.com/gems.aspx/blues/cr/njc

Its been a while since i played wow and i returned before xmas due to having my account being hacked. Luckily Blizzard gave me everything back on every toon which was awesome. Logging and seeing your toons naked with 13 silver is not something you ever want to happen.

I still dont understand how i got hacked, i know it was a virus designed to steal popular MMO login details but i dont know how thats possable when my account was inactive. Its something i still dont know how your account cant be hacked with your subscription being stopped.

Patch 3.3 Random dungeon Tool

The latest wow patch has added a lot for the casual player like myself and the random cross-realm heroics are so great until once in every few groups you meet complete assholes who will take great pleasure  in pointing out your DPS is lower than the tanks etc. Now ive had a quite a few bad experiences in that matter as i tried to gear up my warlock and you woulndt believe how nasty people can get in a P.U.G printing out DPS meters at you and then calling you a “noob”. When you dont have the gear to be able to do the dam damage you want too.

In every case ive played its been a Druid that was either tanking or healing that was being a complete asshole in this matter. Its not like i stood there afk with follow on and didnt try to do good damage. In almost every case i was polite bit my tongue and tried not to get nasty about it in telling the idiot to “fuck off”. The temptation to say this was unbearable at times but today came a new low. In most cases youll find yourself up against players with better gear and a better “Gear Score” but somehow the assholes in question doesnt even want to know.

While i was on  my alt shadow priest which is dual-specced as  healer and my gear is not great i met yet again another druid tank who commented during a boss fight that i was a noob. When i asked what the heck he/she meant i was told i wasnt targetting the “souls” in the first boss fight in the Ice Crown Citadel Heroic – Forge of Souls. Now i had a good day at college and was just home and was looking forward to getting some badges from the heroic runs using the “random Dungeon Tool”. I replied to the druid tank that;

“Yes i was idiot” – which i was

Now ive had this kinda crap before in heroics as i said above it seems druids think they are much better than every other class and person in the game. The group seemed to pause on the way to the next boss and i said “Come on”. I was there for the two badges you get each day and maybe some loot of it dropped but its no big deal its my alt. When the tank started up again he/she was killing a group of mobs that didnt need to be killed to progress to the next boss. I said;

me: “Why are you killing those we dont need too?”

Druid: “You ever heard of the battered hilt” – (yes of course i have i have it on my warlock (Epic Weapon Quest))

To which i got an answer from the guild mate of the tank;

“If you dont like it you can leave.”

Of course i said nothing and continued to DPS the mobs.

Then things got more and more nasty with both guild members calling me a “Noob”.

Wanting to tell them to go fuck themselves i said calmly;

“Your not in my guild, your opinions dont matter”

Then i put one of the party members on ignore and in 10 seconds i was kicked from the group. So just for talking back to the tank i got booted out and had to re-queue. This sadly is the type of asshole that plays wow, there are many people like this and if a druid is tanking your group watch your back. The number of times this has happened is where my “Gear Score” was at least 600-1000 below the group average is staggering and almost everytime it was a druid being a complete asshole. If theres a lesson to be learned its stand up for yourself and if you see a druid in your group watch yourself if your trying to gear up.

This is not to say that all druids are like this ive met some great druids who just  get on with, this is only my experience and opinion.

If you dont believe the article ive writen check out wow.com for the exact same problems;

http://www.wow.com/2010/01/23/arcane-brilliance-why-i-hate-dps-meters/

The Shit List:

Some of the situations ive been in:

1) The Lootwhore Mage:

The Mage that asked me why i needed on a casters dagger (while on my shadow priest) when it was miles better than the one i had;

Me: “Erm its a casters weapon”

Mage: says nothing

This was after the healer the died and i switched to healing for the second boss in Heroic Pit Of Saron, did anyone thank me or say good job nope. So we get on with the run and get to the end boss who drops a staff which tbh i could have also done with but knowing the mage was another asshole i passed on it only for the mage to need on it when he had better was doing better DPS than me and then to explain when the rogue asked:

Rogue: “lol mage who must be joking”

Mage “Its a casters weapon..”

Of course it didnt matter but it goes to show you who stupid people are.

I got an email this morning before i headed to college saying that wow account password had been changed, well guess what i didnt change it in fact i havnt played since early septemeber and my account is inactive.  I merged my account with battle.net months ago and it worked fine when i logged in.

When i did try to login today i tried evey password combination i can remember and no luck. I tried to reset my password and it wont let me so it seems my account is either hacked or its something else.

Heres the email i got;

Hello xxx,

This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s) made to your Battle.net account: EMAILADDRESS@EMAIL.COM

Your password has recently been modified through the Account Management website.

*** If you made this password change, please disregard this notification.

However, if you did NOT make any changes to your password, we recommend you contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for assistance keeping your account as secure as possible.

For more information, click here for answers to Frequently Asked Questions or to contact the Blizzard Billing & Account Services team.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Sincerely,
The Battle.net Account Team
Online Privacy Policy

The email looks real with the email headers looking correct. Unfortunetly the information you need to fill out to even get help with this from Blizzard support is insane, you need the original game CD key and all sorts off other stuff which i didnt have time to get this morning.

The email header;

Received: from ew1-web-10-blade02.wowadmin.net (ew1-web-10-blade02.wowadmin.net [10.50.53.42])

by smtp06.eu.worldofwarcraft.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id nAA6Odc5027774

for <myemail>; Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:24:40 GMT

Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:24:39 GMT

Message-ID: <29437094.1257834279963.JavaMail.tomcat@ew1-admin-smtp-vip.wowadmin.net>

From: Blizzard Entertainment <noreply@blizzard.com>

It seems my account has been hacked after all as Blizzard have sent this email to me;

Greetings,

We are writing to inform you that we have, unfortunately, had to cancel your World of Warcraft account:

Account Name: ********
Type of Violation: Involvement in online trading activities
Investigation Concluded: 10/11/2009
Consequences for Account: Account Cancellation

It is with regret that we take this type of action, however, it is in the best interest of the World of Warcraft community as a whole, and for the integrity of the game, that your access to the World of Warcraft servers be cancelled.

Online trading refers to the exchange of in-game content for real world money, and includes, but is not limited to, the sale or purchase of gold, the sale or purchase of experience in the form of powerlevelling, and the sale or purchase of honor points, reputation or items.

Account access is the responsibility of the account owner and account sharing is against our Terms of Use (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/legal/termsofuse.html). Therefore, should you believe someone other than yourself (the account owner) has committed this violation of the Terms of Use with your account, these sanctions would still apply, as our action is taken against the account, not the individual.

If you wish to review our current Rules and Polices, they can be found at:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment Europe

Edit Update 13-nov-09:

I still dont know how i was hacked as ive all windows updates, Anti virus and a firewall. Avast said my Windows installation was clean, so did Spybot Search and Destroy. Howeve Lavasofts Adaware came up with a load of different viruses but didnt tell where they were. So in order to be sure i changed passwords to all my email accounts.

Ever since i was aware that Wow accounts would be hacked and cleaned out like this ive been very aware of my wow password and had Anti-Virus and firewall software installed. Bu i never thought this would matter if your wernt playing anymore. Since my account was inactive i dont know how it was hacked and im stilll waiting on Blizzard to contact me. I cant get even get though to them by using there UK number when they have an office in ireland in cork, so thats bloody great.

Edit: 20 – Nov Source of Virus Found – my College
Im after putting in the memory stick that i use for college in the DKIT and my new Anti Virus ESET Security (AVAST didnt even detect it) has picked up the virus on it something called;

“N:\9g86.exe – Win32/PSW.OnLineGames.NNU trojan”

So its clear even from the name that this is the nasty bastard virus that let somebody hack my account, whats even worse is that weeks ago at college the Anti-virus up there reported that some file on the memory stick had a virus but it didnt remove it and i thought nothing of it. Window then must have run the file when i put the Memory stick in. Ill never use Avast Anti-virus again even though ive used it for 5 years.