What's In Kita's Bag?

In my endeavors to help our guildies as they discover WoW and all of it's loveliness, it occurred to me that when I was just starting out, I wanted to hoard EVERYTHING.  I had no idea what to keep on me, what to put in my bank, and it took me a while to figure out exactly where to put everything.  Then again, I'm a natural pack-rat, and when combined with mild OCD, it makes for very organized gaming.  But in any case, I thought I would give you glimpse inside my main character's bag to let you know what an end-game character is toting around.

Rainbow-colored bags!  :D

The top of my bags have at least 40 free slots for items that I pick up, and that seems to be a pretty good number for what I do in-game.  I'm a big fan of cleaning out my bags frequently and repairing my gear just as frequently!

I'll start from the lower right hand side.  The square that is not highlighted at all in the corner, of course, is my hearthstone.  Gets you back to wherever you choose to bind yourself at, and I never leave home without it!

Next, the yellow squares.  These are squares that pertain to my professions.  Akane is a blacksmith and engineer, so she has her tools that help her do that.  The vertical yellow section contains my fishing gear and cooking hat!  Gotta love items that increase your secondary professions' skill level and speed.  The cooking hat makes you cook like you are an Iron Chef, no joke.  o.o

The other couple unhighlighted squares are quest items for the Darkmoon Faire.  If you haven't been there yet, you must.  Even if you are a lowbie, you MUST go there.  Fun faire games, heirloom items, achievements, fishing...  Oh yesh.  Go there.

The light blue squares are items that enable me to teleport to different locations (other than where my hearthstone is bound).  These are immensely handy when trying to get somewhere fast, or when my hearthstone is on cooldown.

The large section in red is actually my secondary spec gear and my PvP gear.  Some people will leave their extra sets of gear in their bank, but if they don't have a way to quickly pull it out of their bank when needed, it really defeats the purpose of being able to quickly fulfill a role.  Plus, when a Night Elf is camping your favorite fishing spot, you're gonna want to bust out your PvP gear quickly and destroy him before he even realizes you're there!

The green items are my playthings!  WoW has all sorts of fun items to play with, whether you're waiting for a dungeon queue to pop, or just hanging around with friends in-game, everyone has at least one item like these in your bags.  My personal favorite?  The Bones of Transformation.  I <3 being a naga.

The dark blueish-purple items are a MUST: raid food.  Now, in my bags, there are several different foods that I carry because of my diverse abilities.  There are also feasts in there; items that will feed more than just myself are handy when tackling a particularly tough situation and you need everyone in your group to be on point!

And finally, the pink section is the flask/potion/first aid section.  Flasks are a MUST for raiding, and again, I keep several different flasks on me for my different roles.  Same thing goes for potions (which I appear to have run out of ^.^').  Always be prepared and bring health/mana potions, as well as bandages.  You never know when those can come in handy, especially if used in conjunction with a macro.

Well, that's that.  I hope I have given you a helpful little glimpse into what my characters normally run around with, and what you can throw in your bank to make things easier when questing, raiding, or whatever else you may want to do in WoW.

This post features the addon "OneBag," which makes organizing and searching in your bags an easy and stress-free experience.  ^.^

C'mon, FOCUS!

Recently, I was healing a random dungeon with my guildies when I noticed that one of my DPSers seemed to be having trouble hitting the same mob as our tank was.  I asked him if he was using a focus macro, since I use them as a Retribution Paladin.  When he asked "what's a focus macro?" I decided I should probably do a quick walk through of these invaluable tools at some point!

Focus macros can make a huge difference in anyone's game play.  Whether you are a tank wanting to keep an eye on your healer or off-tank, or a DPS who wants to make sure you are attacking the right mob, focus macros can be quite handy.  So let's take this step-by-step and I will give you a little leg up on your next fight, be it dungeon or raid!

Okay, first off, what is a focus? How do you set a focus?  A focus is a specific person or mob that you set so that you can keep an eye on them.  You can set your focus a few ways, but the most commonly used ways are to either target the person you want to be your focus and type "/focus" or make a key bind.  I use a key bind, which is found under "Targeting Functions" in your Key Bindings section of the Game Menu (press ESC).

This way, all I have to so to set my focus is to click on the person and press "F."  Simple!

So, now that you have a focus, what next?  Hmm.  For the purposes of this article, I'm going to keep to the purposes of DPS, but the principles are the same for healing.  To make sure you are hitting the same mob that your tank is, focus your tank, and then take one of your skills that you use frequently and make a focus macro (for me as Retribution, I use Judgement).  It should look similar to this:

#showtooltip Judgement
/use [@focustarget,exists,nodead]Judgement;Judgement

Now, I can do my regular rotation, and when I throw in my Judgement into the mix, it will make sure that I am on the same mob as my tank is!  Of course, this is not fail proof, and may take some getting used to.  Please feel free to comment with your comments, questions, or concerns.

~Kita  ^.^

Love Thy Character!

I am a paladin. No questions about it, that’s the character I play and I’m proud of what I can do with my paladin.  But how I got to the point where I can get the most out of her involved a lot more work than I originally thought it would take!

I started playing WoW over a year ago now. At the time, I had settled on playing a warlock, which seemed to sit well with me at the time. I had previously played MMOs in which I was a caster/pet type and figured I would start off with something familiar. I also had the Refer-A-Friend bonus then, which ended up being a double-edged sword; I was able to level ridiculously fast, but I also knew nothing about how to really play a warlock. Eventually I switched to the paladin class, found some people who were fantastic paladins who helped me out here and there, and was turned on to how to really get the most out of your characters.

Side Note: If this is your first foray into MMOs, I suggest that you play a bunch of different characters. Start them, take them to level 10 or 15, get a feel for how the mechanics are, and talk to other people who play those classes. Then, chose one character (or two if you’re still really undecided) to continue working on. Don’t neglect any part of them, either. Glyphs, talents, gear, and even professions all go into making a character really shine.The bottom line is this: the amount of work that you put into a character is what you will get out of it. Read up on your class, download addons that will help make things easier, and get ready for a lot of reading.

The first thing that you’re going to want to do is to start poking around for resources. Online, my rule of thumb when googling for information is to always check the date. With the massive changes that happened to WoW with Cataclysm, it’s very easy to find information that is completely outdated. To help weed that kind of stuff out of my search results, I usually put in the current patch numbers along with the topic I’m searching for. Another good notion is to check with several sources before making choices on what to do with your character. I must have consulted a ton of different retribution paladin blogs/websites/message boards before I ended up with my current set of glyphs!

Something any good WoW player worth their stuff should at least know about are the following places on the internet: WoWWiki, Wowhead, MMO Champion, and Elitist Jerks.

• WoWWiki is an encyclopedia for WoW.  It contains entries on damn near everything in the game, and offers a veritable bottomless pit of information.  I especially like this site for the lore aspect of the game.  "Wait, WHO killed Cairne Bloodhoof?!?"
• Wowhead has a permanent place on my internet browser’s bookmark bar. I use it constantly! It’s a great tool to use when you need to find certain NPCs, items, etc.  I find that it is handy due mainly to the ease of navigation and the user comments section.  “Yes, I know that the Mysterious Camel Figurines are found in Uldum, but are they really worth finding?” The user comments often have insightful tips and tricks that may just be exactly what you really are looking for in the first place. 
• MMO-Champion is a great website for looking at upcoming patch details, as well as more in-depth information about a wide variety of things. They also routinely have information direct from Blizzard, so if you’re questioning quality/validity of certain things, look for blue posts here, and you’re golden. The only downside to this place is that they also have information on a bunch of other MMOs, so I occasionally find myself wandering elsewhere in search of more WoW-centralized information.
• Elitist Jerks has long been the think-tank of WoW, where all the most intellectual WoWers go to discuss mechanics that would make casual gamers need a new pair of pants due to the sheer volume and depth that these people go to to understand the game. They have a wealth of information and usually have well-written guides for all sorts of specs, playstyles, and walk-throughs.

Keep in mind that you should not consider any one website or person the gospel truth or totally discount them either.  With each resource, I’ve found a great many handy posts/advice, and I suggest blending together all of the information you find to figure out what works for you!

If you have any other questions, ask around in game! Just don’t do it in trade chat, because half the time you’ll get idiots giving you all sorts of responses that won’t do you much good. Rather, ask your guild; if they are a decent guild they will at least point you in the right direction if they don’t have the information you’re looking for.

And don’t forget to have fun with your characters! This is a game, after all.


~Kita ^.~

P.S.:  Yes, this was originally posted months ago on my guild website (bforged.com), but now that I have my own blog, I'm trying to put everything in a central location.