Timeless Coins

For a few gear slots, like the necklace, bracers, boots, rings, and trinkets, Timeless Isle gear can actually serve as an upgrade. Since it is 535 gear, it is decent enough to tide you over until you can get into a flex raid that drops what you need or you get the legendary cloak and start doing Ordos. The key to Timeless Isle is both accumulating Timeless Coins and killing rares that drop a Burden of Eternity.

To that end, I've compiled a few suggestions for minimizing the amount of time you'll have to spend gathering coins and hunting for burdens. 

The timeless chests are the easiest way to accumulate a few thousand coins and, perhaps get a burden or two. The Blazing Chest has the highest chance of dropping a burden, and is usually well worth the travel. However, different types of chests can be looted at different times.  Some can only be looted once per character, while others are once per week.

I found a great guide that details where each treasure chest on the Timeless Isle is at, and what type they are. It can be found by going in the MMO-Champion forums here.  I would recommend looking through it to see what possible chests you might have missed.

Doing the quests on the Timeless Isle should net you 1,000 coins from the daily quest and another 3,000 for the weekly ones, so killing your 20 elites and 5 rares, as well as collecting 50 epoch stones can add up over time. However, once the quests are completed and you still need Timeless Coins it becomes all about the rare hunting.

Rares, particularly the rares with a set health pool (doesn't increase as more people attack it), are the best way to get burdens and coins. However, the more rares you defeat, the less they drop, so its really important to tag the best ones.  I would recommend Evermaw, Vazuvius, Yuolon, and Cinderfall as priority targets.

If you would like to find a detailed guide on where each rare spawns and other possible drops you should take a look at the WoW Rare Spawns Blog, written by Euphyley. It was written to enable people to get the Timeless Champion achievement (achievement for killing all of the Timeless Isle rares) but the locations are useful for those who needs coins and burdens as well.

Finally, there is a addon known as Rare Coordinator which you can use to help identify what rares are currently alive and how long its been since they died by communicating with others on the Timeless Isle with the same addon. It can be downloaded through Curse using the link.

Hard-Core Guides: Elitist Jerks

Some people take World of Warcraft very seriously. I can't say much about that, seeing as how I've dedicated more time that I'd care to admit sitting in front of a computer screen, killing various fantasy creatures for "phat lootz."

So, for those of you looking for every scrap of information you can find to up that DPS or to optimize your tanking rotation, there is a website that was mentioned to me and that I found somewhat interesting.

The name of the site is "Elitist Jerks," so, as you can imagine this is more than just a casual raid discussion website. It seeks to go into the detailed nuances of the game, and can give some very in-depth advice on how a character should be played.

The site itself is not exclusive to World of Warcraft, it also covers a few other games. The content can be pretty good if you know what they're saying. However, I'd caution you that this is high level-content when it comes to raiding. So, I'd urge you to explore your character fully before looking into this website.

The forums, particularly the class discussion forums, can be helpful for getting answers to any questions you might have about your character or his/her rotation. There are also class guides written for some specs that can be found in the World of Warcraft guides. However, these class guides only cover certain specs, so there's no guarantee that there is a guide for your character's class or spec.

If you are interested in checking this website out, you can find it here.

The Gear You Should Shoot For

If you've yet to get into a normal raid or you can't get into good normal runs on a consistent basis you might be confused on where to get the best gear. It can get confusing deciding on where to use your Warforged Seals. So, allow me to give you some advice on what to focus on, for each gear slot.

For starters, if you've unlocked Ordos by completing the Black Prince quest-line and earning a legendary cape, then you should probably use a Warforged Seal on him every week until you've gotten most of the gear he drops. Ordos can drop a helmet, necklace, shoulder-piece, chest-piece, bracers, and belt. If you have gear in these slots that is less than item level 559, then its worth using a Warforged Seal on this boss.

The following list should help you streamline what you should be using Warforged Seals on. Note, this list does not include any Ordos drops. So, if you have unlocked Ordos, any of the gear listed from the previous paragraph would supersede these drops. There are 559 pants that Ordos can drop as well, but I wouldn't recommend spending a Seal for them, because there are slightly lower tier pants available to you.

• Head - Tier helmet is dropped off of Thok the Bloodthirsty, in The Underhold.  Run The Underhold on LFR until you are ready to run it on flex.
• Necklace - Look into flex drops or use a Burden of Eternity from the Timeless Isle until you get a flex drop.
• Shoulders - Tier shoulders are dropped off of Paragons of the Klaxxi, in Downfall. Run Downfall on LFR to get the shoulders and then run it on flex when you have the gear and party to do so.
• Chest - The Tier chest-piece is the most accessible to you since it drops off of the Sha of Pride, in the Vale of Eternal Sorrow, therefore, you should probably shoot for the flex version of this piece first, and try for the LFR version as a fall-back.
• Bracers - Look into flex drops or use a Burden of Eternity from the Timeless Isle until you get a flex drop.
• Gloves - Tier gloves are dropped off of the Celestials on the Timeless Isle.
• Belt - The best belts, outside of Ordos, can be made by either a Blacksmith, Leatherworker, or Tailor. So, try to negotiate a price with someone who has these professions or check the Auction House if you don't know any.
• Pants - Tier pants are dropped off of the Celestials on the Timeless Isle.
• Boots -  Look into flex drops or use a Burden of Eternity from the Timeless Isle until you get a flex drop.
• Rings -  Look into flex drops or use a Burden of Eternity from the Timeless Isle until you get a flex drop.
• Trinkets - Flex drops are optimal, but if you find yourself in need of a decent trinket, you can buy one for 50,000 Timeless Coins on the Timeless Isle.
• Weapon(s) - Flex weapons are the premier weapons you can get outside of normal raids. However, LFR weapons can be nice temporary substitutes and if you're really desperate, you can buy a weapon off the Timeless Isle for Timeless Coins.  They cost 10,000 coins for a one-hander and 20,000 for a two-hander.
• Shields - Like weapons, the priority is flex, then LFR, and, finally, there is one available for 10,000 Timeless Coins.

So, in summary, here are your priorities on how to spend your Warforged Seals. You should use them on Ordos first, unless you haven't unlocked him, then you should use them on the Celestials until you've gotten both tier pieces that drop. Once these have been run, you can use Seals on bosses that drop helmet, shoulder, and chest tier pieces and then I would recommend using Seals for trinkets, weapons, and/or shield drops.  If you have any left-over seals you can use them at your discretion for drops.

As for Burdens of Eternity, it is important to note that these should only be used for upgrading necklaces, bracers, boots, and rings. If you accumulate Timeless Coins, you can either purchase a Burden of Eternity or a 535 trinket for 50,000.  You should decide which to purchase based on your needs.

Beneficial Products

Playing World of Warcraft can be about more than just the game. So, I've been looking into possible products that are already on the market that could aid you in playing World of Warcraft or in being a gamer on a general level.

The first product I found is an ebook, entitled "How To Build A Gaming Computer For Under $1,000." As a person who knows only the basics about computer functionality, this was a special topic of interest to me. Learning how to build my own computer is something I have always wanted to learn. Since gaming is obviously an interest of mine, this ebook seems like a nice fusion that can satisfy both of my interests.

If you are anything like me, and are interested in learning about computer building, or if you'd like to find tips or making a relatively cheap gaming computer I'd urge you to check it out and see what you think. If you want to read further about this ebook you can Click Here! for additional information.

Also, for the inner-tyrants, that want to not just play World of Warcraft, but instead, want to dominate it, you should look into the Dynasty Addons and Guides. The "Tycoon" program this website offers can monitor the auction house and give you tips on what items to gather and farm, as well as what to make with your professions to maximize your gold.  In addition, it can identify items that are under priced on the auction house, giving you the opportunity to make huge gains simply by taking advantage.

Other products Dynasty offers include "Impulse" - a program that can optimize your keybindings and maccros, "Booster" - a leveling guide for those who want to reach 90 the quickest, and "Edge" - a program that will give you talent and glyph advice, as well as strategy advice on how best to play your character.

There is also a "Dynasty Suite" that combines all four products into one.  If you're interested in checking this out, you can find it if you Click Here!.

Recommended Addon: Deadly Boss Mods

Researching how to play your character and how to run raid fights are both great ways to make yourself more useful in a raid group. However, as I've said before, not everyone has a photographic memory. Some fights just have a lot of things going on, and it can be hard to remember which abilities do what.

To that end, I would highly recommend Deadly Boss Mods. This is an addon program that warns you about what abilities the boss is using now and what abilities it will use in the near future. If you stand in something bad or are targeted by something, this addon will give you text warnings in the middle of your screen and will even flash your screen to get your attention.

Unlike the normal raid warnings that come with the game, this addon will also display boss abilities that are coming off of their cool downs. The cool downs count down in the middle of the screen (you can move this if it gets annoying), giving proactive players plenty of warning to prepare what they're going to do ahead of time. No matter what your skill level, this is an addon that should prove very beneficial.

I only have two words of caution for you. The first is that this routinely needs to be updated, and you must make sure when you download it, that you have the newest version. Running older versions of it decreases how useful it can be in a raid.

The second word of caution is that, in general, running a lot of addons while you're in World of Warcraft can slow your game. To this end, I would recommend deleting addons you don't use much or developing a habit of turning them off when you're not using them.

Not everyone has a gaming computer, so turning off non-essential addons when you're raiding is something you can do to avoid more lag and help keep up with the people playing on gaming machines. You won't be able to match the sheer power of those machines, but you may be able to avoid the needless lag that will put you further behind the curve.

If you would like to download Deadly Boss Mods, you can do so through their website http://www.deadlybossmods.com/ or through Curse.com, at http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods

Whomp's Products

As part of my ever-increasing attempts to branch out, I've started trying my hand at product development. In specific, I've been developing some ideas of products that World of Warcraft players and gamers in general might be interested in glancing at.

Through Cafepress I've been able to design a few logos and display them on various products to see how they would look. So far, I've displayed different designs on laptop sleeves and skins, t-shirts of all sorts, mugs, bottles, glasses, bags, phone cases, and even hats.

I would be greatly honored if you stopped by and took a look at some of these products.  Take a look at the designs and the products and tell me what you think about them. I will start seeing if I can work on a Whomp's Raid Guide logo that I can put on a few things.

The store in which I have begun accumulating these designs is aptly named "The Whomp Shop."  At the moment, the selection is somewhat small, but I intend to expand upon it in the future.  If you have any interest in checking it out, the link to the shop can be found here.

However, I would greatly urge everyone to realize these are only in the rudimentary stage of product design. So far, they mostly just consist of initial ideas that will hopefully lead me to better, more elaborate designs in the future.

I would appreciate any comments on how you think it looks or constructive criticism.  If there's anything you like now or in the future, you can purchase it through The Whomp Shop, which is hosted by the Cafepress website linked above.

A Revisit of Ask Mr Robot

I wanted to reiterate just how useful Ask Mr Robot is to players of all experience levels.  If you haven't checked out my post Product Recommendation: Ask Mr Robot, I would urge you to take a look at it. In that post, I gave some links where you can go to download the addon, and I gave a brief instruction on how to use the program through its parent website.

This is a program that I think will impress you, if you're willing to spend the in-game gold to follow it. The first time I used it on my shaman, I saw a considerable difference in his DPS. I've never been a big user of addons, but this has quickly become one that I like, use, and now recommend to others.

The best part, for me, is the fact that I don't need an account and I don't need to pay to use the addon or the website. I prefer being anonymous, as evidenced by the alias I write everything under.

If you prefer seeking advice for what gear to upgrade, there is a "Valor Upgrades" section on the website. The information is mostly just a general guide of what type of gear you should upgrade first. It is not nearly as personalized as the "Optimize Your Character" section, but if you're seeking some general advice on valor upgrades you might consider giving it a read.

Finally, a word of caution, if you use the website to optimize your character, the gear it lists may be outdated if you just got new pieces. So, check to see if it has your new gear listed.  If it doesn't, press the "Update (from armory)" button and then check again.  If it still hasn't updated, then that means the World of Warcraft Armory hasn't registered your new gear.  You may have to log out of the game to get the Armory to update.