Patch 5.0.4 - Panda Invasion Prep

From Basiok's 5.0.4 Survival Guide  LINK LINK
Warlock:

• Each warlock specialization has a unique secondary resource which allows them temporary surges in power. 
• Affliction warlocks focus more on layering multiple periodic damage effects, and amplifying their effects, and use Soul Shards rotationally for strong damage, or occasionally for utility as before. 
• Demonology warlocks now have a new Demonic Fury resource, instead of Soul Shards, which is built by casting their normal spells. 
• Destruction warlocks now use Unstable Embers as a resource, which is built up slowly through casting their normal spells, and spent in bursts of massive damage. 
• Warlocks no longer use armor spells, instead gaining additional armor and bonus health passively. 
• All demons deal similar damage and are no longer linked to a specific spec. 
• Doomguard, Infernal and Soulstone cooldowns reset upon wiping to a raid or dungeon boss. 

From Wow Insider LINK  
General

• Account-wide Achievements, pets, and mounts
  • In Patch 5.0.4 and beyond, the majority of your character's Achievements, pets, and mounts will be shared with your other characters.
• World Event: Attack on Theramore Isle
  • Warchief Garrosh, obsessed with assuring the Horde's supremacy over Kalimdor, launches an all-out attack against Jaina's island home of Theramore. Though valiant Alliance defenders rush to repel the sudden onslaught, they'll soon find themselves unprepared for the terrible scope of Garrosh's true plans...
  • This Scenario will become available in the weeks leading up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria on September 25.
• AOE Looting
  • Area of effect looting comes to World of Warcraft with this patch. After killing a group of enemies in close proximity, when you loot one of their corpses, the loot window will include items from all of the nearby corpses for which you have loot rights.
• BattleTag support in World of Warcraft
  • Players who have enabled their BattleTag will now be able to:
    • See BattleTag friends in your friends list.
    • Add and remove BattleTag friends.
    • Send BattleTag invites to other players via right-click.
• Cross-Realm Zones
  • In some zones, players are now able to form a group with other players from a select pool of realms.
  • When a player is in a zone that is set as a "cross-realm zone", in addition to seeing other players from their native realm, they'll also seamlessly see (and be able to play with) players from other realms.
  • Players will always be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their native realm.
  • This functionality will be enabled for a limited number of realms at first, and will be granted to additional realms as we near the release of Mists of Pandaria.

Classes: General

• All classes have been updated with a new talent system, improved abilities, and spells (accessible throughout levels 1-85). Your character's talents have been reset.
  • Many old talents have been converted to specialization abilities.
  • Druids now have access to a fourth class specialization: Guardian.
  • New spells are now learned automatically. Class trainers are only needed to change talents, glyphs, class specialization, or to utilize the dual specialization feature.
  • All characters now take 40% less damage from other players.

Currency Conversion

• Valor points have been converted to Justice points, and Conquest points have been converted to Honor points.
• Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) have an enforced hard-cap at this time.
• Players are no longer able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses drop Justice, and arenas are closed).
• Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest are available for Justice/Honor.

Items

• Spell Penetration has been replaced by PvP Power on existing items.
• Head enchants removed
  • Enchants that modify the gear in your head slot have been removed from the game. This includes older head enchants of every type.
• Relics, ranged, and thrown items
  • The slot in which ranged, relics, and thrown items were previously equipped has been removed. All weapons should now be equipped in the weapon slot.
  • Ranged weapons, including wands, have been adjusted to be more powerful.
  • Ranged weapons no longer have a minimum range.

Professions

• The glyph system has been updated. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.
• Prime glyphs have been removed.
• Chef's Award and Dalaran Cooking Award have been removed. Existing awards have been converted to Epicurean's Award.

Quests

• The cap for daily quests has been removed.
• There is no longer a displayed count of daily quests completed.

User Interface

• There is a new user interface for your mounts and pets.
• Character creation screens have been updated.
• Buffs have been consolidated in the UI.
• New roll results frame added. This new feature can be accessed by clicking the word "[Loot]" in chat, or by typing "/loot".
• The PvE queue frames have been unified. You can now queue for dungeons, raids, and other queue-able content in one handy place.
• Vendors now offer item filtering.
• Spellbooks have been updated to reflect changes to core abilities, and now include a brief overview of specializations.
• The Dungeon Journal has been expanded with information on all pre-Cataclysm encounters.
• A new help system has been added to many frames. You can toggle this on and off by clicking the "i" button in the upper left corner of the frame.

Mac

• Mac OS X 10.5 is no longer supported.
• Added full support for Retina displays.
• Added support for game resolutions that match Mac screen aspect ratios.
• Switching between Windowed and Fullscreen display modes should be faster.
• A "Help" menu has been added, so that players can quickly navigate to support pages.
• A menu item that allows players to copy system information to the Clipboard has been added.
• A menu item that reveals various game files and folders in Finder has been added.

Still Raiding

I have been running Dragon Soul regularly and podcasting more often then that. Balancing RL, which includes sleep, with Warcraft, has been fun in a way. I had to realize what is the most important part of the game for me. Then had to look at what I had time to actually do in game.

All in all I am happy with my game time in Cata. Each level of content I was able to play a little more. So not really attending any of the initial raids to almost weekly for Dragon Soul.

I have a great guild to make that happen.

I joke that I was the third alt for our 10 man. If everyone showed up there would still be 2 more people to be alted in before I was. It all worked out though. Because we are a casual guild we swap out a lot more and it gave some people a chance to rest or do other things.

The group got heroic Dragon Soul 8/8 a few weeks ago. Last we we were to do H Spine and Deathwing for the few who were not there. Well while doing other achievements for people we found out the hard way you need H Boat to get H Spine. We were all pissed. We would have never done the Boat achievement if we realized it beforehand. So it is on the plate for this week.

With 5.0.4 loaded yesterday ... I became frustrated. All my addons broke. And where Husband was able to load some workable updates, they didn't work for me.

I will have to see if I can get it together for raid tonight. I want to attend for H Spine and Deathwing.

I'm excited by the new content but hate the addon shuffle that comes with it. I love my addon writers to much to chagrin the time they need to get it done. /waits impatiently

Rogue Legendary Notes Part 1

Husband started the journey. Fangs of the Father is the rogue legendary weapon, which gives you the blades Golad, Twilight of Aspects and Tiriosh, Nightmare of Ages It will take him (aka us) some time to finish it. Here are some links and notes we found helpful.

• Blizzard with video of animation LINK
• Wowhead Item LINK
• Wowhead Guide LINK

• Flying to Wyrmrest Tower in Dragonblight will not get you the quest. I repeat the NPC will not have a quest for you in Northrend.
• The quest starts with Lord Afrasastrasz in the raid. Make sure you are in the Dragon Soul raid instance to get the quest. 
• You cannot pickpocket Hagara, the 4th boss, for the quest while doing LFG.
• You can pickpocket Hagara after killing the second third boss in your own raid.
• The ring will charge while you are LOGGED OFF. It is not 12 hours ingame.
• While stealthing through Ravenholdt Manor make use of Sap.
• Shadowstep is helpful when trying to get through the Manor.
• Assassinate Creed quest can be a pain. Make sure you interrupt Blackhowl's Will. If you don't it sucks up all your energy. 
• Get something to tell you when he is casting Blackhowl's Will. Power Auras would be really good. But I am sure there are other options. You can even make the target cast bar really big. ... Or you can do as Husband did... get the Hydra WoW Addon who stands over your shoulder to /YELL KICK 'EM!!!!

Patch 4.3 - CHANGES WARLOCK EVERYTHING

Our Shadow Bolt got a new graphic. NO NOES!!! WHAT EVER ARE WE GOING TO DO!!!

/dramatically shakes fist at Blizzard. (Realizes no one thinks she is funny.)

This is a really good sign. This tells me that the balance is good with the 3 different specs. Beyond that the developers are able to spend more time on getting MoP out to us next year.

One raid came out and three new heroics are now available. It will be fun to see what the encounters designers are going to give us. This is the last major patch before an expansion. So take small bites of the new content.

IMPORTANT!!
With the new gear released they converted the points. If your Valor points + Justice Points was more then 4000 you may have lost some. BUT then make sure you go spend some points before doing any dungeons.

I don't feel like regurgitating the sparce patch notes for warlocks here today. I will give you some links if you are intching for more info. If it is really important for me to do that in to future you are going to have to let me know.

Fulguralis LINK
The Warlock's Den Patch 4.3 post LINK
Wowwiki Patch 4.3 notes LINK
Blizzard's Notes LINK

More about Sleeping

The Spawn slept in a small bassinet next to me for the first 4.5 months. During that time I could reach over as soon as she fussed.

After that I moved her into her own room, right next to ours. I was more of a mess then she was.

Everything woke me up.

Things that never woke me up did.

The first few nights I had the baby monitor on. And I think when The Spawn would sneeze it would wake me.

I learned that first week to turn OFF the baby monitor. Never used it since. Mostly because we have a small place.

The Spawn was a sleep talker. She also would fuss sometimes and go back to sleep. I didn't need to hear either.

You can hear the difference in your child's cry. There is a definite difference to “I'm tired and up, but don't want to be” cry versus the “I don't want to be by myself” cry. The first I learned to ignore so she would go back to sleep, the second I would go get her.

Have you heard of night time diapers? These are specially made diapers with extra padding for longer sleep periods. Someone gave us a bag.

They are expensive!

Side note... Diapers are really expensive but I found Baby Cheapskate early on and has bee a money saver.

I started using one size up diapers and got the same results.

That also made me watch prices for the bigger diapers. I could snag them in bulk if a good deal happened.

The bigger diapers definitely helped for a longer nights sleep as she got older.

Commited to Sleep

Greetings to you! I am amazed that you have stuck with me in my time of … blog AFK. I do wish I was able to update you more then I did. The Spawn is very funny. It would have been great to document at least some of the struggles and funnies this last year. I have a moment so I am going to reflect on one thing I learned.

“Sleep when the baby sleeps.”

You hear this all the time. You must commit to the idea. COMMIT TO IT.

Baby sleeps you sleep.

No dishes. No kitchen cleaning. No bottles. No laundry. No vacuuming. No phone calls. No Warcraft. No anything.

You slap your head on the pillow and rest.

No email. No bills. No thank you cards. No blog writing.

Turn off your brain anyway you know how and sleep. The baby may only sleep for one hour and if you can stare at the ceiling for that time at least your body will rest. But maybe if you do it enough you can train your body to sleep.

Now some will say that is just not realistic. Things have to get done. Who is going to do it??

Need to let it go. Sleep.

I know it is hard. You will read everywhere people telling you the same thing. But you have to be committed to the idea and realize your rest is more important than those dishes sitting in the sink.

Sleep for your own sanity.

When you are doing the safety procedures on an airplane they tell you. “First put on your own oxygen mask, then help children or anyone else.” This is a safety procedure. Your sleep should be considered in the same way.

I remember (vaguely) the first week after giving birth. Husband figured out a three hour rotation for us to get sleep. I wish I remember it all. He pretty much gave himself 6 hours of sleep. I would then sleep 2-3 hours he would wake me to feed the baby (breastfeeding) then I would go back to sleep for 2-3 hours. Then I would get up and he would go asleep for 3 hours. Next I would sleep for 2-3 hours. Rotate as needed.

I was so grateful for him those first 72 hours. He figured a schedule out and everyone got sleep in. Even after that we worked house stuff in too.

Make sleep a priority.

When I went to visit my parents. I handed over The Spawn and passed out on a spare bed. I mean really... I was not who they wanted to see. So why should I sit and socialize when sleep was way more important.

Celebrate what sleep you do get.

A nurse told me that a new born is classified as “Sleeping through the night” when they sleep 4-5 hours through. Hold that moment when it happens. At about two months The Spawn started doing that. I was thrilled! I cannot tell you how less tired that made me to know there was a chance I would get 8 hours of sleep eventually.

Commit to the idea and know that your health and the babies health will be better for your commitment.

… then there is showering.

I Had a Double O

Got your attention??!!

In September, I was asked by The Double O Podcast to come on a special episode as a guest.

Episode 8: Parental Guidance Strongly Suggested, the main topic was parenting and playing World of Warcraft. I thought the guest were really insightful. The questions were poignant. I think we got to discuss some really helpful things.

The questions are coming from Oestrus and Ophelie both without children. I think that is a plus. They asked their questions from the point of view of someone outside looking in. The incite the guests gave were nice. Hearing the things the other guests were going through also helped me. You know "It's not only me." idea.

I tried not to talk a lot but Hydra always gets her words in. If you listen there is a point where I can tell Oestrus is really struggling with all the negatives you hear about child raising. I put it in WoW terms.

Paraphrasing...

In Warcraft you earn titles from your achievements: Kingslayer, Loremaster, Arena Master, etc. In life you also earn titles from achievements: Friend, Daughter, Son, Brother, Sister, Graduate, Artist, etc.

When you have a child you get more titles: Mother, Father, Mom, mommy, care taker, poop wiper, drool catcher, etc. But that doesn't make your other life achievements go away, they are just not he newest ones. Like in WoW that changes with time and you have to make an effort to select them.