Given the summer raiding lull (although tonight there is a Lich King attempt), Kam has been smashing up various heroics for some easy to get achievements.
Zombiefest was the most fun, being that a single Fire Nova pulse from a Magma totem can kill any zombie easily.
During said instances I noticed my DPS was not really hitting the heights of ICC, especially with a 25% buff. Instead of almost getting 10k I was only managing 4k. Now some of this might be due to the mobs not living more than 2 seconds, some of it is definitely the lack of raid buffs and flasks. A lot will be no 25% buff, which I guess would put my DPS down to 7.5k if we had no ICC buff. What is interesting to me is that the Rogue in the party was managing 6k on the same fights, and he had very similar levels of gear. Sigh.
Only a few achievements to go and another mount is mine. No prizes for guessing which unloved instance these achievements are in.
So some details of Cataclysm guild rewards have come to light. As I am in a guild and am not a hugely active member, I read the announcements with great interest.
Dark Phoenix mount (video courtesy of MMO Champion).
This thing is pretty awesome, being the same model as the SWP Phoenix you see certain people posing around Dalaran on. Blizzard have said that you will need some guild achievement to unlock it, maybe something really hard so I am thinking clearing a hard mode raid rather than the collect all legendaries they gave as an example. That or pay some money in the Blizzard store for like a sparkle Phoenix. Then you need personal guild reputation which is likely to be exalted or revered, even though my guild already revere me tyvm. Finally the mount will cost some gold and it will probably be quite steep, the mammoth cost 20k so I can see this easily costing 20k as well (no vendors and not 3 people but accounting for gold inflation in Cataclysm).
So maybe this will be a hard mount to get. However the first requirement of some guild achievement can be done by your hardcore guildies while you are sleeping, or outside, or something like that. Providing it is within the capabilities of your guild, all you need do is wait a while and the guild achievement will get done without your involvement. I say within the capability of the guild, because something like Champion of the Frozen Wastes got done in EB within a month or so of Wrath launching, whereas we only managed The Undying once rocking full item level 232 gear, Kingslayer is only owned by 10 of the guild, and the only heroic LK boss we've done is Gunship.
Beyond that, its personal guild reputation and gold that is needed. Gold can be gotten now before Cataclysm, we don't know quite how much guild reputation can be gotten, however:
Any quest that rewards experience to you will also reward guild experience. The amount of guild reputation earned is based on the amount of guild experience rewarded. Note that daily quests will also reward guild experience.
All guild reputation is gained as a factor of guild experience. source
Given I'll be doing quests and maybe dailies at 85, it depends on what reputation level I get at 85 from purely doing quests, as to how much of a grind guild rep leveling will be. Maybe a lot, maybe not a lot.
Pity the instance tabard system won't work for guild reputation, not that they have said it won't, but they also didn't say it would.
Guild Heirlooms
The heirlooms on the guild vendor are just like other heirlooms in the game except that these must be unlocked via a guild achievement and you must have the required guild faction to purchase them. After that, you can use them just like normal heirloom items. source
Now this is quite interesting. Given that currently we think the heirlooms will be a helm and cloak, giving a total of +15% experience (see mmo champion for details), it might be awfully tempting to immediately buy them for my main as soon as I have the required guild reputation during leveling to 85, providing an XP boost. If the guild achievement isn't too serious (like Frozen Wastes) and is done by the guild while I am still grinding out levels, all I would need is the right rep which I should have some of because I'll be doing quests to level. Of course these could turn out to need a heroic kill of the first raid and exalted, so it's a matter of how the heirlooms are tuned. I am hoping I can use them to catch up a little while the rest of the guild is off raiding and running heroics.
Guild leveling
Guild experience can be earned in any of four ways:
1. Completing quests / daily quests that reward experience 2. Killing any dungeon / raid boss with a guild group/raid 3. Winning a rated battleground with a guild group/raid 4. Earning a guild achievement (these are nice, fat chunks of experience so they feel great when you get em)
A guild group/raid is 4/5, 8/10, 12/15 or 20/25 members of the group/raid being guild members.source
Now this pretty much describes the activities the guild will be getting up to in Cataclysm - leveling and grinding dungeons and raids for loots. As such by the time most mains are at 85 we should have a decent amount of guild XP. Once again it depends on Blizzard's balancing as to how much more we need to unlock heirlooms and stuff like the mount and the neat raid and personal buffs.
In conclusion this stuff is pretty promising, but could either be awesome or utterly messed up, depending on how "hard" Blizzard are going to make it to get guild XP and unlock rewards.
The last WWI was in 2008 and was pretty cool by all accounts, being a sort of mini-Blizzcon for us unfortunates who live too far away to attend the real thing (or can't justify/afford the plane tickets to go). Attendees even got the same sort of sweet loot from Blizzcon - a mini pet, beta code, etc.
Thanks to Sephrenia who pointed out its August 7th and 8th in Cologne, Germany. I think the law of sod has won here as it's not in the UK. Still... Paris, Cologne, only 41 other countries left to go then it will be our turn.
Enhance does fine on stationary fights like Saurfang and Festergut, but drops behind on heavy movement fights, and unfortunately the fight that counts the most has a lot of movement.
But that's not a totem problem. That's because so much of Enhancement's dps is tied up in getting procs on quick attacks. If a warrior has to move, it may not hurt them as much because their abilities are on longer cooldowns anyway and they can even store up on the rage. For energy classes it's even better because they can just unload when they do get back in range. But Enhancement just lost out on those procs, and they aren't coming back.
We're okay with some specs doing better on some fights than others, but we think Enhancement suffers a little too much when they have to move (and they aren't the only ones - Balance druids and even Elementals are in a similar bucket). We're trying to address this in Cataclysm without removing what it is that players like about Enhance.
Yes yes, movement fights can be a bit of a sod and lead to some serious DPS losses. Saurfang is an awesome fight, Blood Prince Council not so. Hopefully this means the Ancestral Swiftness talent will remain and maybe some of the buffs will see a tweak.
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Given the summer raiding lull (although tonight there is a Lich King attempt), Kam has been smashing up various heroics for some easy to get achievements. 
