As you may have noticed, I'm making an attempt to make my blog prettier. Or at least, not so "default". Unfortunately, HTML and I are not great friends, so this might be as far as this one gets. So for the next while, there may be some cosmetic changes (hopefully improvements).
In-game, I haven't been doing much. Went on a trip to visit my parents, so I had a week of IRL time that happened to start the Wednesday after patch day. So, consequently I'm more than I week behind on Argent Tournament (I have 12 Valiant Seals for Exodar, not a Champion of anything yet), and I missed a week and a half of Ulduar raiding (UPDATE 05/02: successfully Championed Exodar last night!).
I caved and bought dual specs, since my roommate decided that she was going to teach me how to PVP. I am terrible at PVP, and if I'm being ganked I'll just stand there and take it. The sooner I die, the sooner I can rez and get back to questing, right? However, Frost is, uh, more survivable, and having some extra health from (crappy) PVP gear kinda helps. I only managed to beat Burstãngel twice, in what seems like dozens of duels, but what else can you expect when you're dueling one of the best ret pallies on the server >.>
So right after I've become comfortable with my Frost spec, I log on to find... talent point bug! Both of my trees had 63 of their points refunded (???). All the points where still accessible, but it was as if I had specced into the first tier of my tree, then stopped. All of my abilities were unlearned, and my points waiting to be spent. I respecced my Arcane tree, but since I, uh, don't know my Frost tree off by heart, it still needs to be fixed.
Hopefully, someday, I'll turn this into a productive blog. For now, I'll make it pretty.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
OHAI, there's a Mage! and Other Stuff
As I suspected, I got lazy at this whole blog thing. It's exam season, so I've been working on last-minute end of school projects and studying, so my time's pretty limited.
I've also, in my "well, crap, engame is on farm" boredom, started leveling a few alts. Most notably, my Death Knight Chaostí, who I'm leveling in tandem with my boyfriend's shaman Lampyridae. I also (guiltily) started a mini-druid, Siuan.
Druids are a lot of fun. Things... die. Really fast. I guess this is a characteristic of melee classes, since my OP Death Knight (in the true nature of the class) whacks things to death faster than my mage can cast at them. I watch my roommate (Burstãngel) destroy things on her retadin, and I get jealous. Not to mention, not being squishy helps a lot too.
When I was in high school, a group of friend and I started a, um, "club" called G.E.E.K. Stood for Gifted English Enrichment Klub, but really we were playing Dungeons and Dragons. With our grade 11 English teacher. Yes, I played a spellcaster (a wizard, if I recall, but sorcerers are more fun) and wandered around in my cloth armor, carrying my greatstaff and hoping that I didn't die.
In WoW, you're restricted to only certain armor proficiencies. A mage cannot don mail shaman gear. However, armor works differently in D&D. Rather than outright restrict you, they penalize you.
Here's how it works. If a caster that's a cloth wearer wants to wear a Leather Jerkin of +1 Asskick, rather than be locked out from it, they gain an additional chance that their spell will fail. I like this mechanic. Many leather and mail pieces are simply superior to cloth, and the added armor and less-squishiness is nice, too.
If this mechanic were to translate into WoW, I assume it would simply decrease our hit chance. For some classes (poor rogues and paladins), hit cap is merely something they'd like, but will never, ever see. Rogue hit cap is something along the lines of 800+ hit rating, and ret pallies actually lose overall DPS by striving for hit capping. However, for us lucky mages (Arcane mages even more so), hit cap is actually too easy to obtain.
For example, up until Monday (when I grabbed a few new hit rating-less pieces) I was over hit cap, self buffed, by 0.90%. Not even with an SPriest or Boomchicken. A lot of our item budget is wasted on excess hit. If you were to wear what is largely considered best in slot, a mage would have over 400 hit rating, which would translate into something around 25% hit. Excessive.
Now, I'd gladly take a hit chance penalty to wear, say, Unravelling Strands of Sanity. I'm always reading over loot and wishing I wasn't locked from the remaining 3 armor classes. Shaman grab cloth boots and bracers, Druids like some cloth pants, ret Pallies have leather items that are almost best in slot. I'm stuck with lousy cloth, with no other options.
A Warlock in my guild suggested a lore-friendly reason why he should be able to wear leather: due to their mastery of demonkind, Warlocks have learned to craft leather armor from their hides. If only mages could, say, "control the elements of earth and space, and gain proficiency with mail".
So I'll be off to enjoy my non-squishy alts until Ulduar, and try to get Lampy raid-worthy (crossing my fingers, we could always use another shaman). Until then, my Arcane-wielding, world-shattering Mage will take the back burner.
I've also, in my "well, crap, engame is on farm" boredom, started leveling a few alts. Most notably, my Death Knight Chaostí, who I'm leveling in tandem with my boyfriend's shaman Lampyridae. I also (guiltily) started a mini-druid, Siuan.
Druids are a lot of fun. Things... die. Really fast. I guess this is a characteristic of melee classes, since my OP Death Knight (in the true nature of the class) whacks things to death faster than my mage can cast at them. I watch my roommate (Burstãngel) destroy things on her retadin, and I get jealous. Not to mention, not being squishy helps a lot too.
When I was in high school, a group of friend and I started a, um, "club" called G.E.E.K. Stood for Gifted English Enrichment Klub, but really we were playing Dungeons and Dragons. With our grade 11 English teacher. Yes, I played a spellcaster (a wizard, if I recall, but sorcerers are more fun) and wandered around in my cloth armor, carrying my greatstaff and hoping that I didn't die.
In WoW, you're restricted to only certain armor proficiencies. A mage cannot don mail shaman gear. However, armor works differently in D&D. Rather than outright restrict you, they penalize you.
Here's how it works. If a caster that's a cloth wearer wants to wear a Leather Jerkin of +1 Asskick, rather than be locked out from it, they gain an additional chance that their spell will fail. I like this mechanic. Many leather and mail pieces are simply superior to cloth, and the added armor and less-squishiness is nice, too.
If this mechanic were to translate into WoW, I assume it would simply decrease our hit chance. For some classes (poor rogues and paladins), hit cap is merely something they'd like, but will never, ever see. Rogue hit cap is something along the lines of 800+ hit rating, and ret pallies actually lose overall DPS by striving for hit capping. However, for us lucky mages (Arcane mages even more so), hit cap is actually too easy to obtain.
For example, up until Monday (when I grabbed a few new hit rating-less pieces) I was over hit cap, self buffed, by 0.90%. Not even with an SPriest or Boomchicken. A lot of our item budget is wasted on excess hit. If you were to wear what is largely considered best in slot, a mage would have over 400 hit rating, which would translate into something around 25% hit. Excessive.
Now, I'd gladly take a hit chance penalty to wear, say, Unravelling Strands of Sanity. I'm always reading over loot and wishing I wasn't locked from the remaining 3 armor classes. Shaman grab cloth boots and bracers, Druids like some cloth pants, ret Pallies have leather items that are almost best in slot. I'm stuck with lousy cloth, with no other options.
A Warlock in my guild suggested a lore-friendly reason why he should be able to wear leather: due to their mastery of demonkind, Warlocks have learned to craft leather armor from their hides. If only mages could, say, "control the elements of earth and space, and gain proficiency with mail".
So I'll be off to enjoy my non-squishy alts until Ulduar, and try to get Lampy raid-worthy (crossing my fingers, we could always use another shaman). Until then, my Arcane-wielding, world-shattering Mage will take the back burner.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A Little Burnination
Edit (04/10): It has been brought to my attention that Ignite may, in fact, have become a smart spell. I'll have to spend some time looking into this, so, uh, the following post exists so you can mock my terrible math ^.^
Ignite is a Fire talent in the second tier that causes your critical strikes from Fire (and Frostfire) spells to burn the target for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds. It ticks for 20% each tick, 2 seconds apart. This is a sizable contribution to overall damage and dps, since it essentially adds an additional 40% crit strike damage bonus (if it ticks for the full 4 seconds).
However, here is the issue. Ignite isn't a smart spell. If you crit with one spell, and then within 4 seconds crit with another spell, the ignite from the second spell will overwrite the first ignite even if the first ignite was greater. I think we could all agree that this would cost dps, but let's explore this a bit further.
Now, a disclaimer: these numbers are all based on older WWS logs, since I respecced Arcane last week. I went back to our last one-night, full clear for the data. This WWS report I'm using is from 3 weeks ago, so the numbers are lower than they are now, owing to different gear and a superior spec now.
Here's what my damage table looked like for all boss fights (no trash):
Ignite is a huge part of my overall damage. It outdid Living Bomb, which is usually considered the key dps component of Frostfire and Fire specs. While the overall damage is a bit inflated by Thaddius (I can't really crit for 26k) looking back to other runs where we didn't get to Thaddius, the breakdown is about the same.
The pyroblasts are purely from Hot Streak procs. I'd never waste time on the 5 second cast. And I apparently crit a lot with pyroblast, which means I cast Ignite a lot from pyroblast. Let's do some number crunching:
Hot Streak procs from Fireball, Fireblast, Living Bomb (the bomb part, not the dot), Frostfire Bolt and Scorch. For these spells, I had a total of 433 spell hits, of which 255 were crits - about a 59% overall crit rate. I procced Hot Streak 188 times through the whole instance - but bear in mind several factors, not the least of which is Lotheb. Compare the proc rate - 188 - with the hit rate - 79. I wasted a lot of Hot Streaks.
Normally, if I proc a Hot Streak, I hold on to it. If Living Bomb is about to go off, I prioritize letting LB finishing before I toss of the Pyroblast. Why? Ignite munching!
I assume a spell is going to crit. If Living Bomb goes off and crits, as per the above WWS, it will do a (slightly inflated) average of 2085, with an average crit of 3656. The Ignite from this Living Bomb would be 1462 damage over 4 seconds - and extra 365.5 dps while that Ignite is active.
Pyroblast hits for an average crit of 9399, which would make the Ignite bonus 3760 over 4 seconds, or an extra 940 dps. That is a huge increase over the Ignite bonus from Living Bomb.
All of this assumes that both the Pyroblast and the Living Bomb will crit, but nonetheless, this would result in a 574.5 dps loss if the Ignite from Living Bomb overwrites the Pyroblast. As such, I usually hold on to my Hot Streak procs until after Living Bomb ticks (unless it's way early in the Living Bomb duration).
Sometimes, I proc a Hot Streak before I've cast the first Hot Streak. This is also a massive loss in dps. Not only are we losing the Ingite (if it crits), I've also lost the 4888 average hit of the Pyroblast. I never ever intend to do this, but sometimes I proc twice in a row, or I lose it waiting for Living Bomb. I rarely cast the Hot Streaks when I should have - I cast barely half of the procs I got (I got 157 procs on bosses that weren't Loatheb). I was a terrible Frostfire mage :D
All in all, I figure it's best to hold on to that Hot Streak until LB is up, but I absolutely welcome feedback.
Ignite is a Fire talent in the second tier that causes your critical strikes from Fire (and Frostfire) spells to burn the target for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds. It ticks for 20% each tick, 2 seconds apart. This is a sizable contribution to overall damage and dps, since it essentially adds an additional 40% crit strike damage bonus (if it ticks for the full 4 seconds).
However, here is the issue. Ignite isn't a smart spell. If you crit with one spell, and then within 4 seconds crit with another spell, the ignite from the second spell will overwrite the first ignite even if the first ignite was greater. I think we could all agree that this would cost dps, but let's explore this a bit further.
Now, a disclaimer: these numbers are all based on older WWS logs, since I respecced Arcane last week. I went back to our last one-night, full clear for the data. This WWS report I'm using is from 3 weeks ago, so the numbers are lower than they are now, owing to different gear and a superior spec now.
Here's what my damage table looked like for all boss fights (no trash):
Ignite is a huge part of my overall damage. It outdid Living Bomb, which is usually considered the key dps component of Frostfire and Fire specs. While the overall damage is a bit inflated by Thaddius (I can't really crit for 26k) looking back to other runs where we didn't get to Thaddius, the breakdown is about the same.
The pyroblasts are purely from Hot Streak procs. I'd never waste time on the 5 second cast. And I apparently crit a lot with pyroblast, which means I cast Ignite a lot from pyroblast. Let's do some number crunching:
Hot Streak procs from Fireball, Fireblast, Living Bomb (the bomb part, not the dot), Frostfire Bolt and Scorch. For these spells, I had a total of 433 spell hits, of which 255 were crits - about a 59% overall crit rate. I procced Hot Streak 188 times through the whole instance - but bear in mind several factors, not the least of which is Lotheb. Compare the proc rate - 188 - with the hit rate - 79. I wasted a lot of Hot Streaks.
Normally, if I proc a Hot Streak, I hold on to it. If Living Bomb is about to go off, I prioritize letting LB finishing before I toss of the Pyroblast. Why? Ignite munching!
I assume a spell is going to crit. If Living Bomb goes off and crits, as per the above WWS, it will do a (slightly inflated) average of 2085, with an average crit of 3656. The Ignite from this Living Bomb would be 1462 damage over 4 seconds - and extra 365.5 dps while that Ignite is active.
Pyroblast hits for an average crit of 9399, which would make the Ignite bonus 3760 over 4 seconds, or an extra 940 dps. That is a huge increase over the Ignite bonus from Living Bomb.
All of this assumes that both the Pyroblast and the Living Bomb will crit, but nonetheless, this would result in a 574.5 dps loss if the Ignite from Living Bomb overwrites the Pyroblast. As such, I usually hold on to my Hot Streak procs until after Living Bomb ticks (unless it's way early in the Living Bomb duration).
Sometimes, I proc a Hot Streak before I've cast the first Hot Streak. This is also a massive loss in dps. Not only are we losing the Ingite (if it crits), I've also lost the 4888 average hit of the Pyroblast. I never ever intend to do this, but sometimes I proc twice in a row, or I lose it waiting for Living Bomb. I rarely cast the Hot Streaks when I should have - I cast barely half of the procs I got (I got 157 procs on bosses that weren't Loatheb). I was a terrible Frostfire mage :D
All in all, I figure it's best to hold on to that Hot Streak until LB is up, but I absolutely welcome feedback.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Whoops...
So, I've been working on a post about Ignite munching for a week or so now (there's a lot of math...), and it was nearly done when I had to go out of town for the weekend. So, it's still a work in progress. I figured I'd pop in just to assure you (well, whoever reads this) that I am still here.
There's been more changes on the PTR for mages (crap). The only one I actually like is that Mirror Images won't cast polymorph anymore. I don't PvP, ever, so I don't really care that it's a PvP nerf - I consider it a PvE buff. I've had a mirror image polymorph a worshiper on Faerlina - BAD! Not being able to do it anymore is good. The only other change I'd want to see is that they prioritize attacking my target, rather than, say, run across the room on Four Horsemen.
I'm only minorly irritated by the nerf to Improved Scorc/Winter's Chill. I'm not Frostfire anymore; I respeced Arcane last week and have never been happier. So 5% crit doesn't phase me as much as it once would have.
On that note, I am in love with Arcane again. It broke my heart just after 3.0.8 when I couldn't work with it. I needed mana! But now, I've finally reached the point where Arcane is better than Frostfire - by a lot! Like, second highest DPS on Patchwerk (grats Theine on COMPLETELY OWNING MY FACE - hunters are awesome) better. Like, tying Burstãngel for DPS on Thaddius (we both got 8248 - no joke, it was awesome, she's like the best geared player in our guild, let alone an awesome Ret pally). So, hopefully my newly rekindled love for Arcane won't flag any time soon. This is so much fun :D
There's been more changes on the PTR for mages (crap). The only one I actually like is that Mirror Images won't cast polymorph anymore. I don't PvP, ever, so I don't really care that it's a PvP nerf - I consider it a PvE buff. I've had a mirror image polymorph a worshiper on Faerlina - BAD! Not being able to do it anymore is good. The only other change I'd want to see is that they prioritize attacking my target, rather than, say, run across the room on Four Horsemen.
I'm only minorly irritated by the nerf to Improved Scorc/Winter's Chill. I'm not Frostfire anymore; I respeced Arcane last week and have never been happier. So 5% crit doesn't phase me as much as it once would have.
On that note, I am in love with Arcane again. It broke my heart just after 3.0.8 when I couldn't work with it. I needed mana! But now, I've finally reached the point where Arcane is better than Frostfire - by a lot! Like, second highest DPS on Patchwerk (grats Theine on COMPLETELY OWNING MY FACE - hunters are awesome) better. Like, tying Burstãngel for DPS on Thaddius (we both got 8248 - no joke, it was awesome, she's like the best geared player in our guild, let alone an awesome Ret pally). So, hopefully my newly rekindled love for Arcane won't flag any time soon. This is so much fun :D
Sunday, March 1, 2009
ZOMG PTR!!
So, every blog I follow has made a post about something with the PTR. It's the hot topic on our guild forums, WoW Insider is posting every 5 minutes, it seems. Suppose I should put in my two cents.
However, I haven't touched the PTR yet. I have the client, but when I try to update it errors. So I haven't logged on. I've also not had any motivation to do so. A group of fellow guildies and I all copied over with the intent of testing Ulduar, but so far we're still waiting on copies and haven't been able to get in to test it. So, that's out.
And honestly, what would I comment on? Let's outline the upcoming mage changes:
Frost: Improve Water Elemental changed to Enduring Winter
Enduring Winter is a new talent, which will grant Frostbolt a 33%/66%/100% to provide a Replenishment buff to up to 10 of a mage's party or raid members. It works like every other Replenishment buff (don't we have enough already?) in that you get 0.25% of your total mana back per second while active.
Here's my issue with this talent - it's all an attempt to make Frost mages a valuable contribution to a raid make up. Except that Frost mages can't deal the damage needed to keep up with Arcane or Frostfire mages.
Bear in mind, I've never played a Frost mage. I leveled Arcane, I raided at 70 as Arcane (even when it still sucked), and have played Frostfire since I hit 80. My roommate always played Frost. She hates that she can't play Frost as a raiding mage. She tried once, and did 900 dps. Respecced Arcane and nearly tripled that in the same gear.
So... hurrah, mages get a buff that is already brought to the table by nearly every other class? I know that Ascended will never raid without a Ret pally or two, and we always have at least one Spriest in 25-mans, etc. etc. So, this is useless. Thanks, Blizz.
Well, that was thrilling. Not. I personally take this as a sign that Blizzard likes mages where they are. I don't agree that mages are where they need to be - they've nerfed a 51-point talent because people QQed and even now, they've come out with Glyph of Arcane Barrage. All this means is that Arcane mages need to glyph to make up for Blizzard's attempt at nerfing them.
Armor, Pyromaniac and Arcane Meditation are being buffed to allow 50% of your And yes, as casters we also will experience the mana regen change, and accordingly MageOOC manaregen to continue while casting (up from 30% when fully talented). However, my roommate noted that this makes Glyph of Mage Armor useless, since it would add 20% mana regen, and mana regen is capped at 100%. So that glyph may go by the wayside. As Frostfire, I doubt I'll see much of a difference. I usually finish a long fight with about 80-90% of my mana, and I've got way more than enough (20k raid buffed).
There's tons of glyph changes coming up as well. The only ones I'm even a bit interested in are Glyph of Living Bomb (lets the ticks crit, which might proc Hot Streak) and Glyph of Mirror Image (gives the images' Frostbolts apply Winter's Chill and give an extra 5% crit chance). Most of the other glyphs are geared towards Frost mages and pvp. Not interesting.
But really, here I've gone on for way too long about this, when it's all been done to death by so many other blogs (better written as well). TO SUMMARIZE: I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the upcoming mage changes (but I am excited for Ulduar) except Glyph of Living Bomb. Yay....
/afk (and damn, this post was terrible, sorry guys)
However, I haven't touched the PTR yet. I have the client, but when I try to update it errors. So I haven't logged on. I've also not had any motivation to do so. A group of fellow guildies and I all copied over with the intent of testing Ulduar, but so far we're still waiting on copies and haven't been able to get in to test it. So, that's out.
And honestly, what would I comment on? Let's outline the upcoming mage changes:
Frost: Improve Water Elemental changed to Enduring Winter
Enduring Winter is a new talent, which will grant Frostbolt a 33%/66%/100% to provide a Replenishment buff to up to 10 of a mage's party or raid members. It works like every other Replenishment buff (don't we have enough already?) in that you get 0.25% of your total mana back per second while active.
Here's my issue with this talent - it's all an attempt to make Frost mages a valuable contribution to a raid make up. Except that Frost mages can't deal the damage needed to keep up with Arcane or Frostfire mages.
Bear in mind, I've never played a Frost mage. I leveled Arcane, I raided at 70 as Arcane (even when it still sucked), and have played Frostfire since I hit 80. My roommate always played Frost. She hates that she can't play Frost as a raiding mage. She tried once, and did 900 dps. Respecced Arcane and nearly tripled that in the same gear.
So... hurrah, mages get a buff that is already brought to the table by nearly every other class? I know that Ascended will never raid without a Ret pally or two, and we always have at least one Spriest in 25-mans, etc. etc. So, this is useless. Thanks, Blizz.
Well, that was thrilling. Not. I personally take this as a sign that Blizzard likes mages where they are. I don't agree that mages are where they need to be - they've nerfed a 51-point talent because people QQed and even now, they've come out with Glyph of Arcane Barrage. All this means is that Arcane mages need to glyph to make up for Blizzard's attempt at nerfing them.
Armor, Pyromaniac and Arcane Meditation are being buffed to allow 50% of your And yes, as casters we also will experience the mana regen change, and accordingly MageOOC manaregen to continue while casting (up from 30% when fully talented). However, my roommate noted that this makes Glyph of Mage Armor useless, since it would add 20% mana regen, and mana regen is capped at 100%. So that glyph may go by the wayside. As Frostfire, I doubt I'll see much of a difference. I usually finish a long fight with about 80-90% of my mana, and I've got way more than enough (20k raid buffed).
There's tons of glyph changes coming up as well. The only ones I'm even a bit interested in are Glyph of Living Bomb (lets the ticks crit, which might proc Hot Streak) and Glyph of Mirror Image (gives the images' Frostbolts apply Winter's Chill and give an extra 5% crit chance). Most of the other glyphs are geared towards Frost mages and pvp. Not interesting.
But really, here I've gone on for way too long about this, when it's all been done to death by so many other blogs (better written as well). TO SUMMARIZE: I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the upcoming mage changes (but I am excited for Ulduar) except Glyph of Living Bomb. Yay....
/afk (and damn, this post was terrible, sorry guys)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Yes, I Can DE
I know there was a post about this on wowinsider a week or so back, but I think it's a valid point. Luthvian is an enchanter, and a miner. To get ore from mining, I go to a node and tap it, no fuss. I can do that anywhere.
To get mats as an enchanter (especially since I still need more levels to get capped) I need to disenchant some high end items (blues and greens). Such items are found in instances. Rarely from quest rewards, especially seeing as the only quests I haven't done are in Howling Fjord and some under-75 zones.
However, every time I go into an instance, it's "oh, we'll roll on these shards". Last night I was with a leather worker in Nexus, who skinned every dragon. Did we roll on his leather? No. What about when we mine in instances? Do we roll on the ore? No! Those mats stay with whoever gathered them, and yet I have to give up my shards every time.
Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if I was capped in the profession, but endgame has made leveling too hard, since I never have mats to use. Either they get rolled on and taken, or dumped in the guild bank (which I agree with, I'd rather see them gbanked than handed out anyways).
The only way I get shards of my own now is to DE my old gear. Which means that right now I have 7 Abyss Crystals and no Large Dream Shards.
Just something to think about.
/afk
To get mats as an enchanter (especially since I still need more levels to get capped) I need to disenchant some high end items (blues and greens). Such items are found in instances. Rarely from quest rewards, especially seeing as the only quests I haven't done are in Howling Fjord and some under-75 zones.
However, every time I go into an instance, it's "oh, we'll roll on these shards". Last night I was with a leather worker in Nexus, who skinned every dragon. Did we roll on his leather? No. What about when we mine in instances? Do we roll on the ore? No! Those mats stay with whoever gathered them, and yet I have to give up my shards every time.
Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if I was capped in the profession, but endgame has made leveling too hard, since I never have mats to use. Either they get rolled on and taken, or dumped in the guild bank (which I agree with, I'd rather see them gbanked than handed out anyways).
The only way I get shards of my own now is to DE my old gear. Which means that right now I have 7 Abyss Crystals and no Large Dream Shards.
Just something to think about.
/afk
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Your Welcome!
One of my pet peeves, and one that I know is shared by many, is bad grammar. It seems that, nowadays, wherever you look, be it general chat, forums, what have you, people are mangling the English language.
Grammar is a subject usually taught at the early elementary school level. So it would be a safe assumption that a given WoW player (even the 12-year-olds) should have a grasp of basic grammatical structure. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case, and so I endeavour to outline a few basic rules of English.
The Basics
The core unit of the English language is the sentence. The most basic sentence structure is the simple sentence. A simple sentence consists of a subject and a verb. There are more complex sentence types, but let's take it in baby steps.
A subject is the person, place or thing that the sentence is about. The subject is a noun or a pronoun. There are three types of pronouns:
1st person: I, me, we (plural)
2nd person: you
3rd person: she, he, they (plural)
Also, there are proper nouns, which are names (ex. Claire, Joseph, Toronto).
A verb is an action word. Verbs describe what the subject is doing. Verbs have tenses, which describe when the action is happening:
Present: walking (I am walking)
Past: walked (I walked)
If you want to express a verb in the future tense, it generally requires a modifier as such:
Future: will walk (I will walk).
A Few Simple Rules
Believe it or not, there is a big difference between "its" and "it's"; between "your" and "you're", and so on. "Its" and "your" are possessive. For example, if I were to say "your car", I am saying that the car belongs to you. However, "you're car" makes no sense. Likewise, "its car" means that the car belongs to "it" (where it is an ambiguous third person pronoun).
Apostrophes have three uses:
1. to form possesive of nouns
2. to show the omission of characters
3. to indicate certain plurals
Now, I know I just said that an apostrophe-s is not possessive, but the structure does indicate possessiveness in some cases. For example, it is "the boy's hat", meaning that the hat belongs to the boy.
If an apostrophe is used in a word such as "don't" or "you're", it is showing the omission of letters. If those words are expanded and the apostrophe is removed, you get "do not" and "you are".
Now, using apostrophes to indicate plurals only happens on words ending in "s", because you can't add another s to the end of the word to indicate plural.
When you have a sentence like "Mary and I went to the theatre", there are a few rules that must be followed. First, the third person pronoun (Mary, in this example) must always go first. If you have more than one third person pronoun (if your sentence was "Mary, Jason and I" or "Susan and James"), it doesn't matter who goes first (pick your favourite). Second, you must use the correct first person pronoun. I usually double-check my structure by removing the other subject as such:
"Mary and me went to the theare."
"Me went to the theatre." This sentence is incorrect; the wrong first person pronoun was used.
"Mary and I went to the theatre."
"I went to the theatre." This senctence makes sense on its own, therefore "I" is the correct pronoun.
Now, there is so much more grammar to be learned, but for now I leave you with these basics. If you keep these rules in mind, you will be able to communicate in an intelligent fashion in trade chat. I thank you for respecting the English language. Next week: French!
/afk
Grammar is a subject usually taught at the early elementary school level. So it would be a safe assumption that a given WoW player (even the 12-year-olds) should have a grasp of basic grammatical structure. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case, and so I endeavour to outline a few basic rules of English.
The Basics
The core unit of the English language is the sentence. The most basic sentence structure is the simple sentence. A simple sentence consists of a subject and a verb. There are more complex sentence types, but let's take it in baby steps.
A subject is the person, place or thing that the sentence is about. The subject is a noun or a pronoun. There are three types of pronouns:
1st person: I, me, we (plural)
2nd person: you
3rd person: she, he, they (plural)
Also, there are proper nouns, which are names (ex. Claire, Joseph, Toronto).
A verb is an action word. Verbs describe what the subject is doing. Verbs have tenses, which describe when the action is happening:
Present: walking (I am walking)
Past: walked (I walked)
If you want to express a verb in the future tense, it generally requires a modifier as such:
Future: will walk (I will walk).
A Few Simple Rules
Believe it or not, there is a big difference between "its" and "it's"; between "your" and "you're", and so on. "Its" and "your" are possessive. For example, if I were to say "your car", I am saying that the car belongs to you. However, "you're car" makes no sense. Likewise, "its car" means that the car belongs to "it" (where it is an ambiguous third person pronoun).
Apostrophes have three uses:
1. to form possesive of nouns
2. to show the omission of characters
3. to indicate certain plurals
Now, I know I just said that an apostrophe-s is not possessive, but the structure does indicate possessiveness in some cases. For example, it is "the boy's hat", meaning that the hat belongs to the boy.
If an apostrophe is used in a word such as "don't" or "you're", it is showing the omission of letters. If those words are expanded and the apostrophe is removed, you get "do not" and "you are".
Now, using apostrophes to indicate plurals only happens on words ending in "s", because you can't add another s to the end of the word to indicate plural.
When you have a sentence like "Mary and I went to the theatre", there are a few rules that must be followed. First, the third person pronoun (Mary, in this example) must always go first. If you have more than one third person pronoun (if your sentence was "Mary, Jason and I" or "Susan and James"), it doesn't matter who goes first (pick your favourite). Second, you must use the correct first person pronoun. I usually double-check my structure by removing the other subject as such:
"Mary and me went to the theare."
"Me went to the theatre." This sentence is incorrect; the wrong first person pronoun was used.
"Mary and I went to the theatre."
"I went to the theatre." This senctence makes sense on its own, therefore "I" is the correct pronoun.
Now, there is so much more grammar to be learned, but for now I leave you with these basics. If you keep these rules in mind, you will be able to communicate in an intelligent fashion in trade chat. I thank you for respecting the English language. Next week: French!
/afk
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