Jame's Game Guides

It looks like my interview with GameSpy is having side effects.

Wowinsider just published a news article about my guides ;)

You can find the article here: WoW Insider Article

I appreciate getting more coverage, really. Because the only weakness of my guides is that they aren't known enough. People tend to overlook them because they are free, thinking that because it's free, it's probably crap.

However, there are a few inaccuracies in this article, sadly. I wish the guys at wow-insider would have contacted me and I'd gladly have provided them with more accurate information.

Anyway, I'll list the inaccuracies here:

• My guides do not turn the game into a "to-do" list. It does not ruin the content, it actually makes it more enjoyable. Every single person who tried my guide said so. The reason is simple: while following my guide, you're doing as many quests as possible, in the shortest time possible, with as little running around as possible. So basically, you will probably do more quests than if you were not following my guide (because I make sure to include even the most hidden quest chains in the game when they are worth it). You will effectively enjoy more content than if you were on your own. Moreover, what my guide does is cut a huge chunk of "running back and forth", by smartly optimizing the quest routes (and if you thought QuestHelper's route optimization tool was smart, you'll think my circuits are genius). So yes, my point is simple, my guides WILL make you enjoy the game more, while also making you level faster, I guarantee it.
• While following my guide, nothing is preventing you from reading the quests descriptions. Moreoever, you can read it in a more relaxed way, you don't have to focus on sorting out what part of the information is important to complete the quest, you can simply enjoy the lore instead.
  
• My wife didn't "need help" leveling ^^. As I said in the GameSpy interview, we were both leveling our alts together, and she was simply following me because I already had those "optimized quest circuits" in my head, and she was just enjoying the ride. But she would have been fine leveling on her own, even though I wish I could be that superhero taking a damsel in distress through the mazes of Stranglethorn Vale. But it just wasn't like that :P
  

Luckily, I see that a few of my loyal wow-pro members are already posting there under the article to correct those discrepancies. So it's all good, and I'm really happy to have such a supportive community.

In any case, I'd like to thank wow insider for bringing my guides to the attention of their readers. Because that's really what I care about the most: people trying my guides. A lot of effort was spent on writing them and improving them (and not only my effort, an army of wow-pro members also helped testing them and gave me feedback), so it always pains me to see people totally ignore my guides and jump on the "paying" guides, simply because they think "FREE" cannot be as good "Paying". Well, this is true in most cases, but not in this case. And to change that mindset, all we can do is spread the word about it, and that's exactly what wow insider and gamespy are doing at the moment. So cheers to them!

ps: I'd gladly give an interview to wow insider, should they be interested in more infos about my addons, guides or future projects.

Hey guys, sorry I'm not done with the next addon chapter as I had planned. You'll have to wait a little more for the next adventures of Holyjame the retadin.

However I've got some interesting reading for you instead. I had an interview with GameSpy today and they wrote a nice news article about it.

You probably know part of what we discussed already if you follow my blog, but there is also some new stuff I never talked about before, so I recommend checking it out, it's very nicely written.

You can find the article here: GameSpy Interview.

Feel free to comment and discuss!

Hey guys. Just a quick post to inform you that I tomorrow I should be done with the second chapter of Maw's Human Leveling Guide (12-20).

And that means that you'll be able to see Holyjame in action again! :P

Meanwhile, I've also been playing Urban Rivals a little. It's a free online card game and it's pretty fun.

I created a guild there for WoW-Pro members, we've got about 20 members already ;)

My blog followers are of course more than welcome, check this forum post I made for more info about joining.

Come join and the fun, and stay tuned for the next chapter of the adventures of Holyjame!

"Hey m8, how much /played you need to finish your guide?? From 30 to 60?? From 37 to 38???? Do you like ponies?!"

I get this question a lot (no, not the one about ponies). So I've decided to finally answer it once and for all.

I'll be using this blog entry to keep track of the leveling speed of each of the wow-pro leveling guide in addon format.

Everytime a section is 100% complete, tested and perfected, I'll run through it with a normal character, with no rested bonus and with no help from other characters (no twinking, powerlevel or anything).

For now, the only section which I consider 100% complete (by my standards) is the one I just released, for Maw's 1-12 Human Leveling Guide. See previous blog entry for more info.

I just coded my very first addon chapter into an addon format. I've put a lot of effort into it and I can proudly say that it's near perfect.

As a starter, I decided to pick Maw's Human Starter Guide (1-12). It's the best human starter guide we have, and I thought it would be a great way to let everyone test it and see what kind of quality the wow-pro leveling addons are aiming for.

• 99% of the steps auto-complete when the objective is reached. When they don't auto-complete, a note in the step tells you to simply close the step after reading it.
• 99% of the steps have a TomTom arrow guiding you to the next location. When there's no arrow, it means it's totally unecessary.
• There's even an arrow pointing you to the nearest NPC to sell junk and repair.
  
• Information has been adapted to the addon format so that very few reading is needed. The aim is to really not waste any second and level as fast as possible.
• Class Quests are included
• Optional quests are also included
• Easy item use: whenever you need to use an item, a little icon pops up next to the tourguide bar. All you have to do is click it and it will use the item. You won't have to look through your bags.
• WARNING windows pop-up if you sell an item by mistake
  
• The guide has already been thoroughly tested

All it needs now is people using it and giving feedback! So go install the latest version of the addon, log in, scroll down the list and choose "Elwynn Forest (WoW-Pro | Maw's Human 1-12)".

Follow this link to learn how to install the addon: WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Alliance

Please note that the other guides have not been coded by me and have not been thoroughly tested. But they are still very good and they WILL become perfect at one point, with the help of the wow-pro community.

Now go create a human and have fun!

ps: I recommend creating a paladin, they really are easy to level from 1 to 12.

In case you don't know what "Karma Rankings" are, it's basically a user contribution ranking system for wow-pro. Everytime someone posts a guide or a useful comment, he gets Karma Points. The more Karma Points, the higher the rank on the site, from simple Member to Moderator.

I already made a long post a while ago explaining how the system works and what priviledges can be acquired, I suggest you read it before continuing with this blog post if you haven't already:

How to gain ranks on wow-pro - The Karma system

So here's what's new about the karma system:

• The system is now fully integrated in the site. You can check how many points you have in your user profile. To access your profile, you can either click on your own avatar in a comment/guide you made, or simply click on "My Account" on the right-side menu.
• The best part: the rankings are now updated instantly whenever you gain points. Follow this link to see the current Karma Rankings.
• Moderators will be able to award points as well, and we should soon get a few moderators, since we have a couple of members closing in on 200 Karma points ;)

What's next?

• In the future, top ranked members will get rewarded for their efforts. Like for example, the TOP 5 Members will get a beta key for the next WoW expansion. Top 20 Members will receive a cool custom WoW-Pro T-shirt. Things like that ;)
• An XP bar will appear under the user's avatar to see how close he is to attain the next rank.
• The user's rank will be displayed next to his avatar as well.

There will be much more, but for now, that's all I'm going to reveal. Stay tuned and keep contributing ;)

I was asked a while ago what were my thoughts on Death Knights DW. My answer was that I couldn't fathom how someone would even want to Dual-Wield two poke sticks instead of one big shiny 2-Hander. Just from an aesthetics point of view.

Moreover, since most DK abilities are instant and based on weapon damage, it was quite natural to think that 2-Handers were the logical choice for maximum DPS.

Well, things have changed, and my asumptions were crushed by a few parses posted on the Elitist Jerks boards:


Ariastrasza is a Death Knight specced 0/33/38

His DPS is actually not 5751, but 6558. Because WWS doesn't take into account Ghoul and Army of the Dead damage.

This fight is not a fluke, he actually gets numbers just as impressive on pretty much any fight and even on trash clearing. And yes, he dual wields.

Gear needed

1. Reach 8% hit rating (or close to that).
   
2. Go for STR. As much as you can. All your gems should be STR, besides the two blue gems you need for the meta gem activation. Your meta gem should be Chaotic Skyflare Diamond.
   
3. Weapons: go for two fast weapons. Below 2.00 speed if possible. The faster the better. Something like 2x Fang of Truth is a great way to start and easy to acquire.
   
4. Sigil: Use Sigil of the Dark Rider
5. Glyphs: Use Glyph of Icy Touch, Glyph of the Ghoul, Glyph of Bone Shield.

How to play this spec

1. Use Blood Presence. Don't let anyone tell you that Unholy Presence is better for DPS. It's not.
2. Summon Gargoyle AFTER your +STR/AP boosts proc. (Unholy Strength, Mirror of Truth if you have it). You get the point, your gargoyle's power is determined the moment it is summoned, according to your stats at THAT moment, that's why you have to try to summon it when all your procs are active.
   
3. DPS Rotations:

• IT > PS> Howling Blast> Bloodstrike> Bloodstrike> Death Coil
• IT > PS> Howling Blast> Icy Touch> Icy Touch> Death Coil
• Try to use Howling Blast whenever you get a Killing Machine proc.
• Try to squish in additional Death Coils whenever possible.

That's about it. It's a very easy to play spec and it's a lot of fun, especially when you get to do those 8K AoE crits with Howling Blast, and that Howling Blast cost you nothing because you had a Rime proc ;)

There are other Dual-Wield Builds which are just about as effective, but I thought I'd share this one with you, because it's my personal favorite.

Don't expect to reach those kind of numbers easily though. This WWS parse was taken from a player with top notch gear, in a 25-man raid with optimized class buff synergies. But still, try it and you'll love it.

Currently, Dual-Wield builds actually OUTPERFORM 2-Handed builds, believe it or not. However, that probably won't last for long, because blizzard already has plans to nerf it in the next patch. We can't say for sure how hard they will nerf it.

So, enjoy it while you can ;)

Once the patch hits, I'll make a new blog entry with an updated version of this. I believe that Dual Wielding will still be a viable spec, it will just need a few adjustments.

I'll also be covering 2-Hand builds in the future on this blog, for all talent trees.
And finally I'll also share my experiences about Death Knight tanking.

Stay tuned!

Most of you probably already heard about it. Yes, all the wow-pro leveling guides are finally being converted into an addon format.

There will actually be two addon formats and the community will make sure that they both get supported and updated.

Why? Well simply because both addons are very good, but have slight differences, and a poll has shown that people are very divided on which of the two addons they prefer. So we'll keep both of them ;)

Let me introduce them to you in a nutshell:

WoW-Pro Custom

WoW-Pro Addon Info Page

A custom made addon for wow-pro, coded by Jahwo, a wow-pro member.

The advantage of this addon over the other is that it stays closer to the appearance of my guides in terms of text formatting. It uses the same color codes. Basically, it looks more like my guides.



It looks great and it has most cool features you want in a leveling addon: an arrow tells you where to go, steps get automatically completed once you're done with them, etc. More features will be added in the future whenever necessary.

List of finished guides:

Alliance

• Maw's Human Leveling Guide (1-12)

Horde

• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Dragonblight
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Grizzly Hills
  

Please note that these chapters have been coded by the addon creator himself, so they have a very nice quality.

---

TourGuide WoWPro

And then there's the other addon format, TourGuide.

The advantage of this addon is that it takes less space than the other one on your screen, it is very minimalist. It only takes one line of text:


And when there is more information, all you have to do is hover over the window with your mouse pointer and the extra information pops up:


TourGuide uses the very cool TomTom addon to give you directions in game:


It also has the auto-completion step detection feature, as well as another cool feature: when a quest requires you to use a certain item (like a torch for example), an icon automatically appears and clicking it makes you use the item, without having to look for it in your bags.

List of finished guides:

Alliance

• Snowflake's Draenei Guide (1-12)
  
• Boston's Gnome/Dwarf Guide (1-12)
• Boston's Leveling Guide (12-20)
• Boston's Leveling Guide (20-30)
  
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (30-40)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (40-50)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (50-60)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Hellfire Penninsula
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Zangarmarsh
  
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Terokkar
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Nagrand
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Blade's Edge Mountains

Horde

• Snowflake's Ghostlands Guide (13-21)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide (21-31)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Hellfire Peninsula
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Zangarmarsh
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Terokkar Forest
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Nagrand | Black Cat
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Howling Fjord (70-71)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Borean Tundra (71-73)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Dragonblight (73-75)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Grizzly Hills (75-77) {~80% complete}

Please note that many of those chapters haven't yet been tested, so there might be a few glitches here and there. However, I've tried a few of them and so far it's been great.

The wow-pro community is already working hard on more chapters, so expect to see new releases almost every day from now on ;)

Testing the addon

If you want to test either addon, simply follow these links and read the explanations:

WoW-Pro Custom Addon
WoW-Pro Leveling Addon

If you test the addons, please leave some feedback.

Contributing

If you want to help by writing a section for the addon, check these links:

TourGuide Style

• How to Contribute
• List of works in progress
• Forum Discussion

WoW-Pro Custom

• How to Contribute
• List of works in progress
• Forum Discussion
  

Enjoy!

WoW-Pro is down right now, but don't worry it's normal. We're working on some changes on the site and it should be back up within an hour.

Thank you for your patience.

In the meantime, please use the google cache function to view guides.

I just have to share this, it would be a shame if anyone missed it.

I've made a lot of videos, so I know how hard it is to do what that guy did. Actually, I don't even know how hard it is, because I really don't have a clue how he managed to get such an amazing animation in his movie.

Even if you aren't into machinima, this is worth a look. Trust me :)


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.