As you can see from the screenshot of their home page, this is not a pretty site, it’s a functional site. Interestingly, [...]]]> Hi folks! Today we’re going to explore a wonderful site that aims to be the first stop for any player who wants to learn how to play their class in a raid: Raider 101.

As you can see from the screenshot of their home page, this is not a pretty site, it’s a functional site. Interestingly, it’s also a wiki style site- many of the contributions are from regular folks who have something to add. I checked through the hunter guides, and if I had had access to a site like this when I first started, I could have avoided hours of research and googling about trying to learn what precisely I should be doing.

So hop on over and take a look around! If you are interested in learning how to raid, changing raiding classes, or just want to get a better idea of what all your team-mates are doing while you do your thing, this is a good comprehensive resource.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com and the Hunting Party Podcast, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Elitist Group is an unfortunately named addon that gives you information about the members of your group. Specifically, it gives you a short summary of various character metrics, as well as lets you write yourself notes about [...]]]> Hi folks! Today, I’m going to spotlight an addon recently profiled by the always effervescent Nibuca, of Mystic Chicanery.

Elitist Group is an unfortunately named addon that gives you information about the members of your group. Specifically, it gives you a short summary of various character metrics, as well as lets you write yourself notes about people.

Here is an image (originally from Nibs’ site) showing a summary people in a group:

Note that there’s an easy to understand check or X beside various entries for each character. You can earn an X by doing things like mis-enchanting your gear or rocking your resilience set in a heroic.

While I am not a huge fan of automated character judgment, I find that there is some value in knowing what you are working with before you start. It may change your play-style.

That said, the fact that a group of 80s in holiday garb and pvp weapons would probably be able to (eventually) finish a heroic makes this addon’s automated assessments of slightly less value, however the ability to write yourself notes and rate your group-mates (without using up a precious friend slot) is the real killer feature:

This would automate something I think a lot of people do already- keeping a list of people so terrible (attitude, skill, whatever) you aren’t interested in playing with them, but not so terrible that you’re willing to add them to your ignore list. It would also add something I think we should all do- keep a list of awesome people.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com and the Hunting Party Podcast, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Boss Tactics is an a phenomenal tool to make your raid run more smoothly. What it does is allows synchronized graphical walk through of boss encounters. “Huh” I hear you ask? Boss Tactics let’s you and everyone in your raid to [...]]]> Note: This is a repost of a column written by the OutDPS addon guru, Faeghleis.

Boss Tactics is an a phenomenal tool to make your raid run more smoothly. What it does is allows synchronized graphical walk through of boss encounters. “Huh” I hear you ask? Boss Tactics let’s you and everyone in your raid to see the same thing at the same time for the strategy for the encounter. The addon is laid out in a very clear and concise manner: instance selection and bosses are at the top followed by custom text options and details about trash. Looking down to the left is where the heart if the addon lies, in a screenshot section where movable pins are located. The raid leader (or raid assistants) have control of these pins. But that’s just the beginning, not only is every pin move broadcasted to the raid keeping everyone in sync, you can also ping and draw on this screenshot section. If you need to illustrate a complex maneuver it’s extremely simple and intuitive to do.

Continuing down from the tactics space is the raid management tools. These are both for integral functions of the addon itself, as well as more generic raid functions such as automatic promotion of raid assistants. Other buttons in this section are for starting and synchronizing the boss tactics sessions and the tactics mode- more on this later.

The right hand half of the addon is dominated by the text description of the encounter, again the text is customizable. If the text has changed on the raid leaders version, the addon will send the appropriate changes to the raid.

For raid assistants there is also a raid leader’s chat channel built into the addon on the right hand side. The addon also automatically generates chat channels for your heals, dps and tanks, although these are accessed via slash commands.

There is also has a special “Tactics Mode” to allow raid leaders to prepare and modify the default strategies that come as standard without having to be in a raid to prepare. All in all Boss Tactics is a great little tool to help you wipe less.

Below are two walk though videos that the BossTactics  author Sorontur made for raid leaders.

You can download Boss Tactics here but make sure you download the individual instance modules.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Hi folks, today I’m highlighting a really useful tool that lets you know how competitive the guild or realm is you’re considering switching to. Wow Progress is a site that keeps track of all the raiding guilds is knows about (and it knows about most of them), and rated them based on how quickly they [...]]]>

Hi folks, today I’m highlighting a really useful tool that lets you know how competitive the guild or realm is you’re considering switching to. Wow Progress is a site that keeps track of all the raiding guilds is knows about (and it knows about most of them), and rated them based on how quickly they get through content. Here’s an example of a guild page:

Note how they have the ranking for all the achievements on the bottom.

It also compiles this info by realm so it can tell you which realms are most active in PvE:

This can be a really useful tool if you’re interested in finding a new guild, choosing your first realm for a character you plan on raiding with, or just generally keeping up with the Joneses.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

This week, I’ll be highlighting an addon that helps you run a GDKP raid called GoldRaidManager. In case you’re wondering, GDKP is a style of raid loot distribution popularized by people on Korean MMO servers. Essentially, the way it works is that all drops are auctioned off to the highest bidder, and all the money [...]]]>

This week, I’ll be highlighting an addon that helps you run a GDKP raid called GoldRaidManager. In case you’re wondering, GDKP is a style of raid loot distribution popularized by people on Korean MMO servers. Essentially, the way it works is that all drops are auctioned off to the highest bidder, and all the money gained this way gets split among all raid members at the end of the instance. Here’s the thread about it on EJ.

The manual for this addon is a “convenient” mile long JPG with screenshots. Basically, this addon is used every time an epic or something of value drops. People in raid bid gold for drops by typing a number into raid chat. Note- during an auction would be a bad time to link the DPS meters. The winner trades their bid amount to the raid leader, who will divide the gold into 25 equal shares at the end of the raid:

Now GDKP itself is not for everyone, but if your server has enough players who are geared to the teeth and farming ToC while working on ToGC, some of them might well be interested in going back into Naxx or Ulduar again if they could get 2700G from it.

One FAQ I needed answered before I would even consider posting this is about ninjas with master loot- however, this blue post assuaged my fears. Basically, as long as the rules are stated in game chat (not vent), the GMs will consider any loot ninja a scammer, and make sure everyone gets their share.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Today, I’ll be highlighting a forum for warcraft economics. The JMTC forums are hosted by Marco, from the Just My Two Copper blog, and is a place for people to talk about making money on the WOW auction house. It’s one of the larger such communities, and as such has a wealth of information to [...]]]>

Today, I’ll be highlighting a forum for warcraft economics. The JMTC forums are hosted by Marco, from the Just My Two Copper blog, and is a place for people to talk about making money on the WOW auction house. It’s one of the larger such communities, and as such has a wealth of information to get people started on using the auction house to make gold.

Please note- some of the ads on the site are for services that break the game’s terms of service, and I have to say that the TNB does not suggest you do anything that would break the game rules, but the info in the forums themselves are all fair game.

They have quite a few guides for different professions, so if you’re trying to figure out how to make money with, say, leatherworking and enchanting, go take a look!

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Epicadvice.com is a place to ask and answer questions. Picture the official forums, only community moderated and without blue posts. Or picture stackoverflow.com only about warcraft.

It was just launched, and they’re always working on tweaks and features, however it is already a very useful tool. If you have an openID, you can just use that [...]]]>

Epicadvice.com is a place to ask and answer questions. Picture the official forums, only community moderated and without blue posts. Or picture stackoverflow.com only about warcraft.

It was just launched, and they’re always working on tweaks and features, however it is already a very useful tool. If you have an openID, you can just use that to log on (yay, no more passwords!), and can get started right away. As a new user, you’ll have no reputation and not be able to do some basic things, however you will be able to ask and answer questions.

As you use the site more, assuming you’re not a mouth-breathing, key-turning, gold selling troll/spammer, you’ll start to gain reputation as people vote your answers and questions up. This gives you access to other features like adding tags and down voting. Nothing paramount to the basic usefulness of the site, but the kind of thing that you need to hang around a bit to earn.

You can also earn “badges” which are like achievements in warcraft. Fill in your profile, get a badge. Ask a question, get a badge. Etc. These are more cosmetic, in my opinion

Anyways, I’m just getting started in there and it’s all fairly new to me. Go ahead, give it a shot. Assuming this place continues to work the way it does now, the quality of the answers you get will be higher than many other Q&A places on the web.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Today’s resource site spotlight will be going over a site that does a lot of work for raiders. Gear Wishlist is deceptively simple web app that tells you what you want. Seriously! Just give it your character and realm, and it will pull your gear and spec from the armory, and put together a list [...]]]>

Today’s resource site spotlight will be going over a site that does a lot of work for raiders. Gear Wishlist is deceptively simple web app that tells you what you want. Seriously! Just give it your character and realm, and it will pull your gear and spec from the armory, and put together a list of upgrades based on the wowhead preset stat weights.

Here’s me: http://gear-wishlist.appspot.com/wishlist?character=euripides&realm=drenden&region=us

Now since the survival hunter presets on wowhead are actually based on calculations done on my character, this is a very good tool for me. However, for everyone else, bear in mind that your situation is not always going to be typical. When in doubt, double check with your existing tools. Still, aside from minor variants where the difference between you and the wowhead presets is enough to reorder your list a bit, this is a very nice quick wish list!

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Today’s resource site spotlight will be going over the theory-crafting den that we all love, elitistjerks.com.

It is a few things, but publicly, and most importantly, it is a forum for theorycrafters to share and develop information about how the game works. This site is the de-facto standard for information, however it’s not for the faint [...]]]>

Today’s resource site spotlight will be going over the theory-crafting den that we all love, elitistjerks.com.

It is a few things, but publicly, and most importantly, it is a forum for theorycrafters to share and develop information about how the game works. This site is the de-facto standard for information, however it’s not for the faint of heart. The site is moderated by a group of players who have a very strict set of rules designed to prevent the place from looking too much like the official forums and keep the signal to noise ratio very high.

Every time you break a rule, someone will report your post to the mods, and they will give you an “infraction”, which prevents you from posting. If you get enough of these infraction points, you will be permanently banned.

To participate, click on the forums link on the top of the page. Find the forum that concerns you, and then get ready to read. Each forum has a wealth of information stored in threads on various topics. New accounts are not allowed to create threads until they have 10 posts that did not earn infractions (and posting something trivial to increase your post count will get you an infraction).

Generally, the first post in a thread is where all the info you need is, however if it is out of date (god knows mine need a bit of update love), you will have to piece together the information you need by reading through the thread. These are often 50+ pages. If you read the last few pages, you’ll have a pretty good idea about how things work, however if the mechanic you want to learn about is not discussed there, work backwards to ensure that you get the most recent information first.

Do not, under any circumstances, post asking a question that has been answered. Even if the answer was 3 months and 20 pages ago, you’re expected to know already. Unfortunately, their search bar is not very intelligent and limits you from searching for short terms, however you can always search a forum by going to google and searching something like “hit cap site:http://elitistjerks.com/f74/” which will give you fairly good search results for the hunter hit cap.

Do not, under any circumstances, start a post by saying “first time poster”, because even if you proceed to write the best post in the history of the site, you will get an infraction.

Once you’re comfortable with the site rules and maybe you’ve taken a look at their list of comments that got infractions to see the type of thing they don’t want, you can start participating.

They value original research more than speculation, and because of this, many of the bits of knowledge floating around the internet that we take for granted were tested on elitist jerks first. Just don’t poke the bear.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Oh my goodness, this is cool! Some frood named Fitzcairn coded an awesome site called macroexplain.com that allows you to paste a macro into it, and then it explains what it does, line by line! Here’s an example of the site at it’s finest: a link to its explanation of a hunter misdirect macro I [...]]]>

Oh my goodness, this is cool! Some frood named Fitzcairn coded an awesome site called macroexplain.com that allows you to paste a macro into it, and then it explains what it does, line by line! Here’s an example of the site at it’s finest: a link to its explanation of a hunter misdirect macro I use. I can add a title, a class, tags, comments, and attribute it to an author if I want.

The tool is dead easy to use. One warning- it doesn’t speak LUA (the wow scripting language) so if you tell it to explain a complex script you use to, say, mail all your greens to another character, it’s explanation will run something along the lines of  “Run LUA” and then the code after the “/run” command. Still, for those complex non-LUA macros, this is a godsend. No more trying to parse the code in your head and remember how conditionals work (wait, will holding shift while pressing this macro shoot or feign death?).

On behalf of the internet, thank you Fitzcairn. Thank you.

The resource site spotlight (aka wiki tiki utility posts) should happen every week, but is written by Euripides from outdps.com, and endeavors to fill your favorites bar with an unmanageably large quantity of WOW resource sites. So much knowledge that it hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Okay, so, I’ve got this idea. What if we combined Facebook’s recent activity feed, Twitter’s ability to tell anyone what you’re doing at any given time and list of followers, and your WoW characters? And then we made it all available in an addon that records all that stuff automatically?

Wait, what do you mean it’s [...]]]>

Okay, so, I’ve got this idea. What if we combined Facebook’s recent activity feed, Twitter’s ability to tell anyone what you’re doing at any given time and list of followers, and your WoW characters? And then we made it all available in an addon that records all that stuff automatically?

Wait, what do you mean it’s already been done? Oh yeah, it has – it’s this week’s Wiki Tiki Utility, WoW.com Profiles!

Formerly known as WoW Insider, the new WoW.com brought with it an unexpected feature besides the usual rebranding and redesign – social networking! WoW.com Profiles are sort of like Twitter, Facebook, and a blog all wrapped up in one. You can sign up with your AIM or AOL username (WoW.com is owned by AOL, after all) and get started right away.

Taking full advantage of WoW.com Profiles also requires you to install their addon and associated application. These two work together – the addon collects data, keyed to a unique key in your profile settings, and the application parses them and turns them into activity posts. WoW.com has a pretty thorough guide to getting started!

Here’s a whirlwind tour of available features (and feel free to browse my profile while you’re at it):

• Feed Notes and In-Game Blog Posts: Available both outside the game (from the “Post a Feed Note” box on your profile) and inside it (using the /note command or the WoW.com Addon minimap button), this is basically Twitter for WoW, without the character limit. If you’re about to head out for a raid, want to share ongoing activity with your loyal profile followers, or simply want to say “urgh Death Knights are so OP why are we losing this AB????” then the Feed Notes are there for you! Feed Notes can also be filtered to show posts from your friends or your guild – how cool would it be to have your whole guild on here, chattering away even when you’re not inside the game?
• Blogging: That’s right, your WoW.com Profile can also double as your own blog! Granted, I haven’t done a whole ton of it (only a few posts here and there), but if you wanted a blog with basically zero setup, WoW.com Profiles has you covered. No RSS feeds for blogs yet, unfortunately, but keep in mind this is basically just an impressive first draft – that feature could always be coming down the road! The editor’s easy to use, and basically covers what you need – text formatting, pics, links, the foundations of an actual blog posting tool.
• Photo Gallery: Yep, you can add photos too! It’s got an upload limit of four at a time, and is what feels like the least stable part of the site at the moment (I got lots of out-of-memory errors trying to upload all four screenshots at once, and one of my screenshots seems to have a perpetually broken thumbnail), but it’s there and it’s at least mostly functional. It does automatically create a nice slideshow-type feature for you in your galleries.
• Followers: No social networking site would be complete without a list of people who think you’re actually interesting, and WoW.com Profiles are no different. Granted, I only managed to accrue 3 followers (one of whom was Alex Ziebart – hi Alex!), but if you wanted to, this could easily be your main “home” for WoW players!
• Individual Character Pages: While your profile does contain info about all your characters, it turns out each of your characters gets their own pages too! As you can see, my warrior’s been pretty busy.

There’s probably even more that I missed, but that’s probably enough to get you started with your WoW.com Profile. Go on over and check it our for yourself – and follow me. I totally need friends!

Mondays are Wiki Tiki Utility days here at TNB! Stop from The Stoppable Force highlights a resource from the Twisted Nether Wiki’s Big List of WoW Utilities, hopefully giving you a nice boost to your Intellect – or at least your skill at World of Warcraft. If you’ve got a utility you’d like to see listed on the wiki, or one you’d like to nominate for the Wiki Tiki Utility post, please send an email to stop AT twistednether DOT net with the subject “Wiki Tiki Utility”!

A day late, but never a dollar short, the Wiki Tiki Utility has arrived to distract you from the fact that Fim’s still editing the podcast entertain, inform, and enlighten you. This week we’re focusing on a site that’s so easy to use that a caveman could use it (after, of course, he got [...]]]>

A day late, but never a dollar short, the Wiki Tiki Utility has arrived to distract you from the fact that Fim’s still editing the podcast entertain, inform, and enlighten you. This week we’re focusing on a site that’s so easy to use that a caveman could use it (after, of course, he got over the shock of the modern era and stopped breaking everything in a panic). It’s also so fundamental that it kind of makes you wonder why it hadn’t been done already. And as you no doubt have already figured out, this week’s Wiki Tiki Utility is Pug Checker!

Brought to you by Nance of Alterac Volley, Pug Checker does one simple thing, and it does it well: plug in a server and a character name, and you’ll get back an easy-to-read, simple-to-understand overview of what 5-mans, 10-mans, and 25-mans a character has actually done. For example, here’s Pug Checker’s report on me. As you can see, I skipped a bunch of instances in normal mode (what can I say? I leveled without them), and haven’t completed anything in OS above OS+0.

Now, naturally, take these figures with a grain of salt (or as the site says, “don’t shoot the messenger”) – anything that draws on the Armory will occasionally have issues since the Armory itself has severe issues with kill counts, and Pug Checker is no exception. Using me again as a reference, I’ve supposedly killed the Prophet Tharon’ja in Drak’tharon Keep four times… yet have only been in the instance twice. Still, I’d say roughly 90% of the data there is reliable, so you can use Pug Checker to easily “screen a player, by entering their character name and server, before you invite them to join your group.”

One important thing to keep in mind is that there are some misconceptions around Pug Checker. This utility is not a measure of someone’s worth – i.e., if their screen is filled with red dots, it doesn’t make them a bad player! It does, however, indicate that maybe you should see if they need instructions on the fight. Maybe they’ve never been in that instance, maybe they’ve just been stuck with groups that couldn’t down a particular boss – whatever the case. Pug Checker is a tool to see who’s done what, not a way to see who’s good and who’s not.

So with that little caveat in mind, go forth, load up Pug Checker – and build yourself a good PUG!

Although this week it’s on a Tuesday, Mondays are normally Wiki Tiki Utility days here at TNB! Stop from The Stoppable Force highlights a resource from the Twisted Nether Wiki’s Big List of WoW Utilities, hopefully giving you a nice boost to your Intellect – or at least your skill at World of Warcraft. If you’ve got a utility you’d like to see listed on the wiki, or one you’d like to nominate for the Wiki Tiki Utility post, please send an email to stop AT twistednether DOT net with the subject “Wiki Tiki Utility”!

Does this sound like you? “Oh man, do I want this helmet or that helmet? What’s my best bet for a ranged slot item? Where does that danged polearm even come from, anyway?!” Well, fellow WoW players (at least I hope you’re playing WoW… I don’t think you have a ranged slot in real [...]]]>

Does this sound like you? “Oh man, do I want this helmet or that helmet? What’s my best bet for a ranged slot item? Where does that danged polearm even come from, anyway?!” Well, fellow WoW players (at least I hope you’re playing WoW… I don’t think you have a ranged slot in real life, though I could be wrong), there’s a site out there that can maybe help you.

Sure, there are addons you can get to emulate some features of today’s Wiki Tiki Utility, such as Pawn or RatingBuster, but not all of them offer the flexibility and power of Loot Rank!

Loot Rank, on first glance, might look like a few boxes and checkboxes… okay, a whole lot of boxes and checkboxes… but don’t be alarmed! This is simply your way of attaining maximum flexbility in assembling a veritable shopping list of phat lewtz (as you kids say these days). The folks behind Loot Rank have even gone the extra mile of creating class templates. What’s a class template? Well, rather than trying to figure out exact values for your class to make sure your loot ranking comes out perfect, the class templates provide a great starting place, filling in relevant values with appropriate weights, which you can tinker with from there instead of starting from scratch.

But what’s the point of all this flexibility? Simple, it’s right there in the name: Loot Ranking! Sometimes even after comprehensive tests on a dummy, pummeling a boss in an instance or raid, or comparing numbers and bits and bobs with an addon, it’s just not obvious whether item A is better than item B. Or maybe you’re heading into Ulduar for the first time, and want to know what items you should be looking for as definite upgrades! Loot Rank will help you decide.

So next time you set out to make your gear even better, don’t go without knowledge – let Loot Rank be your guide!

Mondays are Wiki Tiki Utility days here at TNB! Stop from The Stoppable Force highlights a resource from the Twisted Nether Wiki’s Big List of WoW Utilities, hopefully giving you a nice boost to your Intellect – or at least your skill at World of Warcraft. If you’ve got a utility you’d like to see listed on the wiki, or one you’d like to nominate for the Wiki Tiki Utility post, please send an email to stop AT twistednether DOT netwith the subject “Wiki Tiki Utility”!