When I ran the blog, I was quite obsessed with statistics for views, referals, time spent on the site and the like. And it’s no surprise that this is a major source of motivation to continue doing what I do. After all, anyone posting anything on the internet does this with the intent of having it seen. Preferrably by a lot of people.

Now, Youtube is an odd sort. There are some of the very big channels that post relatively few videos, who gets massive amounts of views. And there are small channels that post way too much content to ever be seen. Of course, over saturating your channel with crappy videos isn’t excactly going to put you on the front page.

As an LPer, I post at least a video a day, which is fine for the kind of content I do. With some series running up to 30-50 episodes, it translates into 1-2 months of solid uploading, and if I slacked on that, it would take even longer to finish a series. Viewers might lose interest in the content, or at best they would get lost in the storyline.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how to approach my Youtube statistics. There are three factors with hard numbers that one could look at: Subscribers, comments and views.

Most people, especially the small channels I suppose, focus a lot on subscribers. There are all these sub4sub channels with no real content or personality, and these box4box dudes that aren’t really getting their moneys worth, because none of them are getting any traffic anyways.

Comments gives a bit better representation of your traffic and a good insight in your viewers thoughts and feedback. Unfortunately, very few viewers actually choose to comment on a video, so it is in no way any sort of measure of success.

In my book, the figure that really counts are views. These are the people who are, in one way or the other, choosing to watch your content for any period of time. Some are the die hard fans, some just happened to click a related video, and some find your videos because they were looking for that kind of content and your video might result in them checking out your other stuff.

Until now, I used to evaluate my videos based on how many views they got after the first 24 hours. I simply assumed that after 24 hours, my videos was probably pushed away from peoples subscription boxes, and I would upload the next episode anyways. I had sort of accepted that I would get around 10% of my subscribers worth of views on my videos after a day or so. But then one day, just a couple of days ago, I was fooling around with Youtube’s Insight tool, and while new videos were getting 2-300 views, it turns out that my entire channel, all 400+ videos, were accumulating over 80.000 views.

What? WHAT? Where the hell does 80.000 views come from all of a sudden? Sure, I looked back a couple of days, and some of the videos from a couple of days ago may have reached 4-500 views, but that did not in any way account for 80.000 video views. As I looked deeper into the statistics, I realise that a lot of the views are coming on old, completed LPs. Obviously, one of the biggest magnets for views are coming from the Portal 2 videos – my first Portal 2 video is at the top of page 1 if you search for “Let’s Play Portal 2″. But even looking back at other series – Alice, Amnesia and so forth, they are pulling in quite a lot of views still. Enough, apparently, to mount up to over 80.000 views per month.

As a blogger, I was very proud of my site getting some 30.000 views per month during its peak. I thought that was immensely well considering its short lifespan of 1½ years and the relatively small community of moonkin players out there. Getting 80.000 video views per month on Youtube trumps that more than twice, but there is a lot more work time put into making the content. After all, there’s a huge difference between typing for 30 minutes and running a spell-check, and recording for an hour, editing and cutting for half an hour and then leaving the computer to render for another four hours.

I expect views to fall as Portal becomes less attractive, and I expect them to rise as new games spring to life. Such is the nature of the internet. I am still a bit puzzled at how I am coming up at the top on certain Youtube searched – that might just be good SEO, or it could be the beginning of becoming search engine friendly. If more people are finding good content on my channel, I’ll move up on searches, even as partners and 100.000k subscriber channels are doing the same. Quality over quantity, I suppose

Still, I’ve been doing LPs for just about 10 months. It’s quite a nice start so far

My stop was up next, and I stood waiting for the bus to come to a halt. Out of the window of the bus, I noticed a very old man. He was struggling to get his Walker over the curb to the sidewalk. The Walker was filled to the brim with the old mans groceries and bags were hanging off the sides. His whole upper body was nearly horizontal, and it looked like the Walker was doing everything it could to help his legs keep him standing.

I got off the bus, walked over to the man, and asked him if he needed any help. He asked me if I could help get the Walker away from the bike-path, and we quickly got him to safety. I bid him farewell and walked in the other direction, towards my home. I turned around and felt a stab in my heart. He was still struggling to push the Walker, even as it was on the sidewalk. I walked a little further and looked again, and to my relief he was moving at a slightly faster pace now. I often put on a hard exterior, but in reality, I’m rather soft on the inside, and I feel a strong urge to help people who can’t help themselves.

“So what, do you want a medal?”

No no, of course not. That’s not the point of this post. I helped an old man, just like anybody would. Right?

WRONG! While I was walking the mere 300 meters from my bus stop to the old man, no less than 11 bikers drove straight past him. Young and old, but all in a perfectly fit condition to stop for 20 seconds to help out the poor fellow. But by god, wouldn’t it be terrible if they had to delay their rush to the park, the beach or the bar? And what an ungodly strain it would put on them to drag an aluminium frame half a meter over a 5 cm curb. Godness no, please, go on ahead, I’m sure survival of the fittest will take care of him!

I was relieved to find that my sympathy for the old man was quickly replaced by fuming rage, hotter than the burning sun above me. What kind of self-centred universe do you live in, if you can’t take out a few seconds to help an old man who is left to his own devices? Is it really the kind of world we live in?

FUCK, that pisses me off!

From clues hidden in indie games, to poweing up GlaDOS with potatoes and CPU’s in order to release the game sooner, there has been such a massive hype about the game. And for good reason!

The game released around 6.30 in my timezone – the time I usually get up for work. I was hoping that I could sleep a little bit longer, but because of the ARG, and all of the work a lot of people have put into it, it meant an early release in Denmark.

Thankfully, I had a day off, not because I TOOK the day off, but because I’m working over Easter and my work place decided that it was probably unhealthy if I worked 7 days straight. So it was a happy chance that I just happened to have my day off on the release of Portal 2!

And what a game it was. Man, it has been absolutely amazing to play Portal 2. The writing is brilliant, the puzzles are genius, and the whole experience is just awesome.

Naturally, I’ve started a Let’s Play of the game, and this is where you come in. Oh, of course, I want you to watch it, but I’d also love it if you could help spread the word a bit. I feel like I’m at a point where I’m making pretty good content, and I want to spread the word about my channel a bit more. At the time of writing, my video comes up on page 2 when searching on Youtube. You can help out by viewing, commenting, liking and/or favoriting the video on Youtube. Share it with some friends too, perhaps. Go on. That’s the spirit!

Meat Boy was intent on saving his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, who had been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fetus who is, incidently, a fetus in an air tight suit covered suit. Dr. Fetus is a real ass, and time and time again he steals away Bandage Girl and sets up tons of traps to kill off Meat Boy.

Meat Boy, the flash game, was a brilliant playthrough, although not overly difficult. Years later, actually last year, Team Meat, the creators of Meat Boy, finally released Super Meat Boy! It took me a few months to actually pick it up, because I figured “I would probably be too frustrated to enjoy it”. Eventually, I did pick it up, and as it turns out, I do get very frustrated about it, but I am enjoying every step of the way.

Super Meat Boy is an insanely challenging game. You get three levels with tutorials, which explain running, jumping and wall jumping, and then you’re left on your own for the remaining 300+ levels. The learning curve is steep, starting off at “difficult” and ending somewhere around “OH MY GOD I WANT TO DIE!”, and that’s when you complete the light world, and realise that there is a dark world counterpart for every single level you’ve just completed.

Super Meat Boy is probably one of the best games released in 2010 for a number of reasons – it has an amazing atmosphere despite the simple graphics, it has challenging gameplay despite using just the movement keys and two more buttons, and it has some of the most awesome soundtracks ever made.

I’ve been doing my LP of Super Meat Boy for a couple of weeks, and recorded most of my failures for your pleasure. But by no means, don’t take my word for it. The game is cheap, only 14 EUR (and I believe there is a 50% discount on it on Steam right now!) and it will give you hours and hours of enjoyment. It will probably also shorten your life a bit.

- QQ

The comments that I got after I announced my leaving WoW, on the blog, on Twitter and on e-mail, surely warmed my heart a lot. Naturally, I’ve been following the progress and visits on my site, but a lot of my readers has been silent throughout the years, and while I’ve had a clear idea of the direction I wanted to take the site, it’s been difficult to gauge if I had any sort of success with it. But judging from the comments I’ve seen in the past week, I think the end result was fairly good.

One comment really struck home. I’ve been harassed on Twitter by @Oestrus for quite a while, and she recently launched a brand new WoW podcast, the Double O Podcast. In the first episode, they dropped a sort of a tribute to the blog, and it’s nice to hear that people saw my blog in the way that I had meant it to be: Low key, accessible and easy to understand, with a bit of humor thrown in there from time to time. I’ve wanted to be a front figure for the fight for moonkins, and I’ve wanted to influence the community in a positive way, especially in the times where everybody has seemed to view moonkins in a very negative light. It’s nice to hear that at least one person thinks I’ve been fairly successful at that.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty good about my choice to quit World of Warcraft. I don’t hold any resentment to the game, as I feel that many does after quitting, and I can’t say with absolute certainty that I’ll never be back in the game, but for now, it feels like it’s time to focus on the things to come, and not what once was.

- QQ

Oh, you should definitely check out the Double O Podcast. Two cute ladies talking about games – what’s not to like?!

But when I started doing LPs of games that I was at least decently good at, such as the random Minecraft videos I put up, it actually turned out alright.

I’ve been doing LPs for a good six months now, and I’ve tweaked the process a lot. Going from recording 15 minutes videos at each sitting, to being able to produce 2 hours worth 6-8 episodes in a single sitting, I’d say I’m well on my way to succes.

At the moment, I am uploading at least a video per day. And despite work and real life, I manage to get ahead on my videos, so I can easely continue to upload at least once per day. Obviously, different peolpe like different games, so some of the series might not cater to the individuals interests. I hope, though, that there is a bit of entertainment in watching my fails and frustration anyways.

I figured I would post the completed LP’s and give you a chance to check them out, if you haven’t already.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia was a very interesting game to play. I am not good with horror. Some might say that I outright hate horror. I’m not good with the movies, and I’m definately not good with the games. At least with a movie, I can cover my eyes like a coward until the danger passes, but in games, I am forced to take action myself.

Amnesia was especially bad for me, because every action and every step had to be done by me. Walking through corridors, peaking around corners, slowly opening the creaking, wooden doors. It was terrible!

But at the same time, it was an incredible experience. The game affected me on so many levels, even after I turned off the computer. After the first week, I was mentally exhausted, and was easely starled. It was only after I completed the game that I got back a measure of self control. And if a horror game can do that to you, then it has been a massive succes.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman was a nice change of pace. It was more of a hack-n-slash with lots of action, and that really suited my wants and needs. I had a rough start in the game, because I generally suck at remembering controls, and take quite a while to get used to combos and skills.

In the end, though, it turned out to be an enjoyable game to play through.

Heart of Darkness

Going back to a game that was so dear to me in my younger days, Heart of Darkness was a rather quick LP. That is, the whole series was rather short, after I cut out most of the massive fails. There were a lot of them, after all.

Still, it was a good game to go back to, and I enjoyed the process a whole lot!

Dead Space 2

I never played Dead Space, so going into Dead Space 2 was to me like going into the womens locker room. – I somewhat knew what to expect, but most of it was in my head. Dead Space 2 was very different from Amnesia, because while both of them are horror-like, Dead Space was more of a BUGGAWUGGA-scare-the-shit-out-of-me.

Never the less, I very much enjoyed playing through the game. It had a lot of character, and a bit of humor, and while I didn’t really enjoy the scares, it was satisfactory to finally complete it.

Those who didn’t make it

I have started a few LPs which I eventually decided to stop again. Either because I never got around to boot up the game again, or because they didn’t really fit the style of LPs. I’m talking about Trine and Darksiders of course, and if you want to check them out, then go ahead – just don’t expect any sort of closure on them.

If you want to follow my current LPs, then you know where to find them!

The other day, however, I started contemplating my relationship to World of Warcraft. Long story short, I decided that I was going to call it quits. I am generally only logging on to raid, and while I really enjoy that, I figured it might be the time to move on after playing the game for over six years.

Seeing as this is a moonkin blog, and that I won’t actually be playing a moonkin anymore, I would be sorely pressed at doing writeups for a class and a game that I no longer play. So as far as that goes, this ends an era in the life of Qieth’s Quips.

As for the moonkin guide, this will obviously not be updated beyond it’s current state, and will – eventually, I guess – be taken down. I’m trying to sort out something with another poster on MMO-Champion to take over the moonkin guide in some form or another, so moonchicks still have a place for a good moonkin resource.

Waaaait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I’m not done!

So what’s going to happen to qieths-quips.com? What am I going to do from here on out? Well, don’t worry, I’ve got some things planned. I wanted to take this time and let you know what’s going to happen around here, so you can decide if you want to abandon me forever, or if you have a reason to ever check back.

This blog is going to magically turn into a sort of gaming/personal blog. For the last ~6 months, I’ve been publishing a lot of videos on Youtube, sometimes several videos each day. I have been doing commentated playthroughs of various games, and this is a project I would like to continue. And while I haven’t completely decided which direction I’ll take the blog, I reckon it will be a mix between talking about games and posting my Lets Play’s, while throwing in a few personal posts from time to time.

You can expect some changes as time goes by, and hopefully you will enjoy the content here and on my Youtube channel. Who knows, you might like it. For good measure, seeing as a lot of things are going to go down on my Youtube channel, it would be prudent to post a link here – go ahead and subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/qieth.

I would like to thank each and all of you for sticking with me during these 18 months. All your comments, feedback and support. It has been really enjoyable to blog for you and talk with you, and part of me will really miss that.

Best regards,
Dan Poulsen

If your Russian is strong, you can read the original article here. What, you can’t read Russian? Well, you could try and see if this Google translate makes it easier for you. It doesn’t, I know, but it lets you somewhat see the comments people are posting.

I’ve gone ahead and posted the original transcript of the interview here. A few bits and pieces was cut out of the article posted on noob-club.ru, but this seemed like the easiest way to do it.

Whats your WoW story, friend? What classes have you played? When was your famous moonkin born?

I started playing WoW in the beta back in the days, where I had made a female night elf hunter. When the game launched, I realised that 90% of the population were female night elf hunters, and instead made a gnome warlock. This warlock made it to level 55 before I got a bit tired of it. In hind sight, I realise I was probably a massive noob back then – I didn’t know what I was doing, but at the time it wasn’t a big deal, cause I was just having a bit of fun. I remember looking at the warlock tier pieces and deciding that “I wanted this instead of that, because it looked cooler”, without realising that it would probably require a lot of effort on my part to actually get epics back then.

I decided to ditch my gnome warlock, and made an undead priest instead, and when I got to level 60, I started raiding with it. I raided up to AQ40 back in the days and then TBC came out. My priest made it to level 70, and I did a few Karazan runs with it, but decided that I didn’t like playing priest anymore. Instead I made a hunter, which I raided on all the way through TBC. At some point during Sunwell Plateau, I quit the game for a few weeks. When I came back, I started raiding very casually on my druid, that had somehow managed to get to level 70. I did some 10 man runs in Karazan as a tank, and slowly took over raid leading and eventually the guild.

In Wrath of the Lich King I continued as a bear and tanked my way through Ulduar. During this time, I had managed to pick up quite a lot of caster items, and I once in a while got the chance to raid as a moonkin. I slowly got lured into the fuzzyness of being a giant chicken, and when I finally left my guild to go back to serious raiding again, I took on moonkin full time. I haven’t changed away from moonkin ever since, and I still haven’t managed to get another character to level 85.

Whats you favourite thing is WoW currently? What activity you like the most?

I love to raid. This is probably what I do most of the time in WoW. I do like to level up when new content comes out, and I enjoy doing quests with a good storyline in it. But raiding is where I get my excitement from. Raiding is fun because it requires you to not only master your class, but also master each specific encounter, and as an expansion comes along, fights get harder and harder.

You won’t often see me do PvP, because I’m generally not very good at it. I seem to die really quickly, or at least not as quickly as everybody else. I could probably get into it, but BG queues on my server are generally quite long, which takes a bit of the fun out of it. I do go for some achievements, but I only really care about the achievements that add a nice reward, like a mount or a title or a weird little item.

Is there any WoW achievement you are proud of? Some PvE boss or arena rating actually?

I am extremely proud of my heroic Lich King 25 achievement. We spent a long time learning that encounter, and it is the hardest thing I have ever experienced in WoW. I remember how my heart was beating when I saw his health at 15% with a good minute to spare on the enrage timer, and almost everybody alive. When we finally managed to iron out all of the issues with our tactic, and was in top 400 to kill Arthas on heroic, the whole guild cheered on Ventrilo as we watched the final roleplaying.

Is there any feature, ability or mechanic in the game you would like to change?

I have this neat idea that I would like to make a radical change to target dummies. They are fine for learning your rotation on a stationary target, or to compare specs, but they don’t teach you the essensials of a boss fight: Tactics. I want a room, an instance of your own, where you have a wide arena (like the Crusaders Coliseum) with a target dummy in the middle. You can set it to different modes, which will force you to move from fire, react to special events, even click on buttons or the like. You would be fully raid buffed inside the room, and even have an item that you can activate to get bloodlust. Then, you could simply have an achievement that states the highest DPS you have managed in this room, set over a 5-10 minute duration, and people could suddenly much better use the target dummies for real practice, and prepare for raiding.

Back to your moonkin, what thing amuses you the most of him?

I think it’s the general look and feel of the moonkin. Every other class looks really badass with their spiky gear and sinister shading. But moonkins are giant, fat chickens with soft feathers, who will once in a while stare around for no particular reason, as if they aren’t really sure what they are supposed to do. I giggle a little bit inside everytime I swap into moonkin form and hear the HURRRR coming from my druid

Given only 3 words, how would you call current state of moonkins in PvE?

Pretty freaking sweet!

If a blizzard developer asked you to add only one feature to your beloved spec, what it would be?

One? Just one?! Well, it would probably be a glyph that allows us to have one (just one) treant active all the time, much like mage’s water elemental. And if this feature could be super cool, I want to be able to set this treant to be either healing or damage orientated.

Time for some blog questions, Qieth! When have you started to write Qieth’s Quips?

Qieth’s Quips saw the dawn of light on November 3rd 2009, so it has been going on for a good 1½ years now.

What were the reasons for you to start a moonkin blog?

I’m pretty active on a number of forums, most noticeably on MMO-Champion’s druid forums (where I am also a moderator). I have always thought that answers given on the forums should be really exhaustive and explain everything to the person asking. Too many people simply reply with “Do this, do that” – I always wanted to reply with “Do this, because..”. I think it’s important that people know why they should do one thing over another, so that they are empowered to make their own decisions in the future.

I have a habit of posting really long answers in every single thread, and I realised that all the effort I put into making a good post would soon be forgotten – the next week, the thread would be replaced with another, and soon my post would be forgotten by myself and everybody else. Since a lot of my blog posts were already much like articles, where I focused on answering one aspect of the class – whatever people asked – it didn’t take much to rewrite some of them into a real blog post. So I figured I would make a blog for these posts, and those that came after it, so that I could always go back and find my earlier posts.

For a long time, I have sought something that could be my creative outlet. When I started writing, I realised that this was probably the way to go. I can’t draw or paint, I don’t sing very well and I can’t play any instruments – but damn it, I can write! I hope that some day, I’ll be a good enough writer to actually publish a book of sorts.

Does your blog improve your playstyle and WoW statistics?

A big part about being a blogger is to do your research. I couldn’t very well go out and tell people to stack agility to increase their DPS, so in order for me to be able to provide useful information to my readers, I have to do a lot of work to keep me up to date. Of course, playing the game is one thing, but I sometimes lack the mathematical skills to do massive theorycrafting, so I rely on the smart people of Elitist Jerks to do that. I take their information, let it soak in for a bit, add my own experience and thoughts, and post it in a more humane fashion – a lot of people are scared away by the sciency tone of Elitist Jerks.

Not only that, but I get a lot of comments on my blog posts, or even as private messages sent to my mail, from the people who read my blogs. They often have tips of their own, or come up with brilliant arguments – or they might actually prove me wrong on some points. So while I give a lot to the community, the community gives a lot back to me as well.

What drives you crazy about it?

I think every writer has the same problem: Writers block. Sometimes there is not so much to write about, and I feel that I owe it to all the people who visit my blog to keep it updated. But there are times when there is just nothing to write about.At other times, there might be a topic that I want to discuss, where I simply can’t get the right words out of my mind. Every writer struggles with this from time to time, and I’m no different.

What thing you want to improve in your blog?

I am toying with the idea of making a forum on the blog. Actually, I am considering making a forum with a couple of other druid bloggers, where we could all link to our special druid forum. Other than that, I would really like to make a billion rubles!

Ive heard youve made some nice podcasts and posted it on the site. Any plans to continue?

I have indeed participated in a few podcasts, and I have even made a few of my own, although they were more like a vlog or a video guide. I guess that, from time to time, a show comes along that wants me in – I am hoping to one day be on Blue Plz! with TotalBiscuit!

However, while it is not completely related to World of Warcraft, I do actually have something like a podcast. Since September last year, I have been doing “Let’s Play” series on my Youtube channel. A Let’s Play is generally where we play a game, and commentate on it as we play. It is usually quite amusing if you’re into that stuff, and you can get a doze of 15-20 minutes of my voice every single day. I think people especially like it when I play through horror games, or anything that will make me scream with fear… …

My Youtube is this: http://www.youtube.com/qieth

Is there any secret benefits of having a moonkin blog?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Sorry!

What advise can you give to a novice blogger?

The number one advice for all writers is this: Write, write, write. Write every day, and when you’re done, write some more. Get into the habit of writing something – anything – every single day. It doesn’t matter what you write about, only that you write. After a while, you can begin thinking about writing about specific topics, and then you can start posting it on a blog. Obviously, grammar and creative skills are important, but those will usually come along after a while.

Moonkin bloggers a elusive people, dont you agree?

There aren’t that many (good, consistent) moonkin bloggers, but there are a lot of people in the community, on forums like MMO-Champion or Elitist Jerks – or even on noob-club.ru – who helps out other players. They make a huge impact on the community as well.

What can you tell about yourself to our readers?

My real name is Dan Poulsen. I am 24 years old, I live in Denmark, and I currently work do tech support for a danish internet provider. Before this, I was an editor of a large social networking site, and I have done a lot of work with youth organisations and police across the globe. I was also part of a group in the European Commission for a few years, and even did a session in a workshop in Prague, held by the Czech Republic Ministry of Culture. I eventually had to quit that job because the company ran out of money (damn Facebook! ), but I am now building a career with Denmark’s largest internet provider.

Some people say that bloggers are like hardcore raiders – they have no social life, girlfriend, job, friendsetc etc. Do you agree?

Absolutely not. Bloggers are passionate people, just like hardcore raiders are, but we are dependant on a wide community of players and people to give us inspiration and make it worth our while. And after all, it doesn’t take several hours to whip out a decent blog post – there is plenty of time to spare for social activities. This goes for hardcore raiders as well. I am part of a guild that raids three nights a week, but we still managed to be in the top 400 for Lich King heroic kills back in Wrath of the Lich King. Most of us are between 20-40 years old, and many have girlfriends, wives and children.

What music you prefer to listen? During raid-time maybe?

I actually very rarely listen to music during raiding, mainly because it sort of distracts me from the raid and makes it hard to hear Ventrilo and in-game alerts. If I’m not raiding, I am often listening to rock ranging from Red Hot Chili Peppers to John Mayer, or nu-metal such as Disturbed or Deftones. One of my favourite artists is Serj Tankian, the lead singer from System of a Down. Also, I have a secret love for Avril Lavigne…

Some people think we like fresh mices and spiced eggs in real life Is there a favourite moonkin meal you like to eat?

I’m danish, so nothing beats the good old danish classic pork rib steak!

Time is money, friend! As a final word in this interview, what would you say or wish to our russian audience?

I am a huge fan of russian women. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps, one day, I will travel to Russia and seduce your women!

Thanks alot, Qieth, that was an awesome interview!

Thanks for asking, it was great fun!

- QQ

• Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.

Don’t worry, the world ISN’T going to end. I looked up our latest Chimaeron log, and from what I can tell, it sets me back by around 3,3% DPS. That means I would have lost around 675 DPS, which isn’t too bad – I would have been 7th on that fight instead of 6th.

And to be fair, I do think that Starsurge has a little bit too much power. I’m loving the 75k crits, but maybe we could shift a bit of our damage over to starfire and wrath. After all, it will be a long time before the PTR is done, and nothing is set in stone. Even if we do just get a nerf, it’s one that we can live with. Our damage is very good these days, and this won’t really change a thing.

The second important part I wanted to talk about, is the change to Death Knight’s Raise Ally. It will now function like a combat ress. I guess thats pretty fine, because we have had situations where we have only had two druids in the raid, and we haven’t been able to use combat resses up to the 3-per-try limit.

It’s not so much the fact that DK’s are getting a combat ress, but I want to use this news to transition into talking about the whole combat ress cap situation we’re dealing with.

I understand why it was put in place for the first time. They don’t want guilds to have a bigger advantage over other guilds, by stacking up druids. That being said, I also think it is completely unnessecary. I don’t care if the major guilds are misusing this to get ahead of first kills. It certainly wouldn’t happen in my guild. As far as I’m concerned, the hardcore guilds can do whatever they want, because they are probably filled up with the same roster anyways.

Of course, we can make due with what we have, and we can live with the limitations. But this whole system is an annoying thorn in the eye for us that has to combat ress.

If we soulstone a tank, we don’t know if we will need it or not. If we are going through a fight and our tank dies, and we just happen to have reached the cap with combat resses, this soulstone is absolutely useless. There’s nothing we can do, even though we planned ahead in case the tank died. On the other hand, we could have spent 2 combat resses, and letting people stay dead, and have a situation where the tank never died, but we wipe due to an enrage timer because of the lost DPS.

Reincarnation doesn’t share the limit anymore, so shamans can ress themselves whenever they feel like it. I don’t get this. Why shouldn’t this be included in the limit – or more importantly, if you can remove them from the limit, why not remove soulstones from the limit as well? Heck, why not remove the damn limit altogether?

It seems to me that this whole limit was put into place to hold back the really hardcore guilds, the ones that raid for 12 hours a day to clear content. The part of WoW’s population that is 1% of all raiding guilds and just a fraction of the total WoW player base. The rest of us just want to play the game, and don’t want to be bothered with buggy limitations that was put in to cull the top 100 guilds in the game.

- QQ

Lots of things has changed in Cataclysm, most notibly the fact that Hurricane is terrible for both damage and mana at this point in the game, but also the fact that Typhoon is actually a pretty awesome spell now.

But alas, many people seem to look down on Typhoon and on Gale Winds as a talent. I opt to change that!

Since the change to our eclipse, where we are buffing either nature or arcane spells, rather than just Starfire and Wrath, typhoon has been close to my heart. It’s been an ability that I’ve tried to use as much as possible, whenever it made sense to use it.

Obviously, Typhoon is a highly situational spell, but it’s should not be disregarded as easely anymore as we did before. As it turns out, Typhoon is worth casting instead of a Wrath when you have three targets or more. A typhoon does just around half the damage of a wrath when neither crits, so three targets would be a definite damage increase.

As an added bonus, Typhoon doesn’t generate any eclipse energy, so if you can cast it while in solar eclipse, you can dish out a lot of damage. It should be noted, however, that Typhoon does not gain as much crit % as wrath does, but three targets or more is still a good guideline.

It should be noted, of course, that it’s only worth casting Typhoon if the extra targets has to die. Sure, you can inflate your DPS, but if the adds doesn’t have to die, you are inflating your DPS on the meters, but you are doing less damage to the boss – where it matters.

But there are quite a lot of fights where Typhoon is useful. I’ll write some suggestions here, on the fights that I try to use it as much as possible, to give you a bit of inspiration:

Magmaw: Typhoon is a killer on Parasites, when you do it on normal, or for Constructs when you do it on heroic. There are usually two constructs and a giant worm up on heroic, but you are not doing your raid a favor if you are showering the Parasites if you are just going to kite them.

Omnitron: There are a few uses for the Omnitron encounter, namely when Toxitron spawns his adds. There are enough of them to do Typhoon even if you are in lunar eclipse.

Maloriak: Be it the Abbirations on normal or the Vile Slew on heroic, Typhoon is going to add a massive amount of damage.

Halfus: Do I really have to spell this out? Several dragons, especially on heroic. A ton of damage on the Whelp pack between Wild Mushroom Detonates.

Cho’Gall: The Corrupted Blood and the Tentacles are great targets for Typhoon.

In the end, there are probably a ton more uses for Typhoon. If you haven’t used it yet, now is the time. And since we are swimming in mana, once you are comfortable with your regen, you should have the points to spare for Gale Winds.

- QQ