Kitty Swipe: A Week in Review

I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

- – - – -

Well it has been a little over a week now with my new best friend, Kitty Swipe, aka “The Easy Button”. While I had been anxiously awaiting the addition of Swipe (Cat) since I heard rumors of its incoming existence back in December, I didn’t really expect it to be as awesome as it actually is.

Let us review what it does again, shall we? Swipe (Cat): Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 260% weapon damage. Pretty sweet, huh? Well if you, like many a Feral, picked up “Feral Instinct” in your Talent Tree, then you are in for quite an extra boost. Feral Instinct not only reduces the chance that enemies will see you while Prowling, but with all 3 points put into this talent it will increase the damage done by your Swipe ability by 30%! WoW wee!! So if you do the math there, that will put your Swipe damage at 338% weapon damage to all your nearby enemies (which also happens to be what the tooltip says if you have Feral Instinct). Now add in “Naturalist” which increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%, “Tiger’s Fury” a move that increases damage done by 80 for 6 seconds, and “Savage Roar” which will increase your attack power by 40%, and you are really starting to add up  the damage. There is also an Idol worth mentioning that will increase your Swipe damage as well. I will write more about this Idol of Perspicacious Attacks, and other Idols, in a future post.

Of course, if you could exclusively spam Swipe without a care that would be ridiculously OP, so there are some limitations on the ability. Swipe normally costs 50 energy, which is half of our precious 100 energy that we have. There are, however, things that can be done to make this awesome ability a little more friendly to our energy wallets. “Ferocity” will bring down the cost of Swipe by 5 points to a total of 45 energy. Berserk will reduce the cost of all Cat Form abilities by 50%, leaving Swipe to cost only a mere 22 or 23 energy (I am not sure if it gets rounded up or down, as it is 22.5) for a full 15 seconds. With points put into the Restoration Tree, you can pick up “Omen of Clarity” (which every druid should have, feral or not) which gives a chance for any damage, healing spells, and auto attacks to cause the caster to enter a “Clearcasting” state, which essentially gives you a free move.

So what does this all mean? I could sit here and do math all night, but really the results speak for themselves. In Naxxramas, with Savage Roar, Tiger’s Fury, and Berserk active while attacking a group of mobs I can hit 12K DPS. Yes, that is 12,000 Damage Per Second. And I have hit that 12K DPS on both trash pulls and Boss Fights, like Grand Widow Faerlina 25 with all adds up. This is rather on the high side of things, but on groups of mobs when I have extra energy through Berserk or Tiger’s Fury I am usually on par with Mage AoE DPS. For the record, the only time I have seen anyone else get near my insane 12K DPS in a similar situation is a Rogue using Fan of Knives. Its so much DPS that people make funny faces in Raid chat, and say all sorts of “Huh?”s in vent. Which really just makes me giggle about my love affair with my newest of abilities. I am in no way saying that this is 12k DPS sustained, it is merely just very high burst DPS (oxymoron?).

Saying all this, you would expect me to say that I am having a litter of Swipe-Kittens after we get married and head off on our honeymoon. While we are clearly in love, and I do not regret my addition of Swipe at all in the least, I feel a bit of sadness. This ability can just be mashed throughout just about all of instances and raids on trash mobs and bosses with adds. Yes, my DPS is through the roof with it on trash, but Swipe makes it too easy. Before there was thought and strategy put towards how to optimize DPS on trash pulls or bosses with adds. Now I can just lazily drift my eyes to my other monitor and read twitter while raiding.

I both love and loathe Swipe.

But knowing Blizzard and how they deal with all things OP, I’m sure we can expect some sort of nerf to this in the future. I know that the other 24 people in my raid group would be thrilled that the silly Girl who plays a cat wouldn’t be kicking their bums in DPS (temporarily) anymore.

- – - – -

I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

Site Update

I figured it was about time to do some work on the site. I made the best of a sick day and changed the WordPress theme, as well as created a new Blog Header for the site with some art I have been working on for a new Twitter theme.

I hope the site is more easily navigated now that I have added categories to all my old stories.

Hope you like!

Getting to know your Elders, Part 2

Now onto the “fun” part!

I just loving watching the fireworks, don’t you?!

The Elders of the Dungeons

These are the Elders you really have to work for. There are 13 of them, and many are solo-able, especially as a Night Elf Druid.

BRD and LBRS – Soloable. Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire are easy, and even easier with a group. Since you can still use the BRD summoning stone, you might as well and bring a few friends along with you. In BRD just head straight, avoiding the bad guys, until you get in to the Ring of Law. The Elder is right in the middle, so you have to start the event to get to him. Move quickly, because you should be able to get the Elder and get back out before the gate closes and locks you in. InBRS, head up the chain to enter the instance up there, and once inside make a right and then a left and you will be in Hordemar city. Go straight and after you cross the first wooden bridge he will be on the left.

Stratholme -  Soloable. It will be easiest to do this if you have the key, someone in your group has the key, or if you bring a Rogue along. The elder is easiest to reach if you go in the back door. Make a left, then a right and you will see the Elder. You should be able to solo this withoutaggroing any mobs, but if you do they are just a few kitty swipes from their final resting place.

Sunken Temple - Soloable. You will have to encounter a few mobs, but at 80 you will have no problem. Go to the left once you enter the instance, and up the long spiral staircase. Make a left at the top of the staircase, and then head to your left around the circle. The elder is in the first nook.

Zul’Farrak – Soloable. This elder is in the same room as where you would use the Mallet of ZF to summon Gahz’Rilla. So if you head to your left once you enter the instance you will reach that room fastest. Don’t forget that ZF is one of the few instances where you can ride your mount to your destination.

Maraudon – Soloable. If you are like me, you have never been to this place before. It is in the lonely area of Desolace, north of the Horde city in the Valley of Spears. Once you head into the instance, continue along the tunnel until you get to a room with three different tunnels to choose from. Take the middle one, with two statues on either side, and head down and take the portal. It will put you in a place that will make you say, “WTF! HOW IS THIS AN INSTANCE!!” and be all confused, as I was when I was trying to figure this place out last night. Head south whenever you can, and you will work your way to the Elder. I used this Map to help me out a lot.

The Nexus – Soloable with cloaking, and can be done on Normal. You will need to be very careful about some of the mobs in here, as they can see through stealth. If you do accidentally aggro one though, you can always run away and Shadowmeld, or fight them. I could kill one with minimal difficultly as feral. Head into Keristraza’z room, and make a right. The Elder is in the same room as Ormorok the Tree Shaper, and I could walk there stealthed with little problems. You just have to be very careful as there are tons of those little flowery mobs around.

Drak’Tharon Keep – Soloable with cloaking, and can be done on Normal. The Elder is in the same room as King Dred, the big T-Rex. There aren’t any mobs that can see through stealth, so all you have to worry about is not stepping on anyone’s toes. The only place that is tricky is the room with the spiders, because the babies run around at a very fast pace. Just take you time and figure out their path, and go when the coast is clear. You can get into the corner by the Elder and not aggro anything even when out of stealth.

Halls of Stone – Soloable with cloaking, and can be done on Normal. Make a right, and then a right again towards Krystallus. Again this is another one where you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing your stealth, but there are little rock dudes who run around haphazardly to watch out for. You can unstealth without being seen if you back is up against the wall by the Elder.

Utgarde Keep – Soloable with cloaking, and can be done on Normal. This one takes a bit more than just cloaking to get through. You will need to have your Shadowmeld ready to go if you want to solo this. In order to move through the room with the flame walls you will need to aggro the Forge Masters. You can either root them, or simply faerie fire them so that they open up the flame walls. Do both in a row and run into the next hallway and Shadowmeld to leave combat. Once you are safe, pop back into kitty form and cloak your way to the Elder.

Utgarde Pinnacle – Need group but can be done on Normal. The Elder is after the boss with the harpoons, Skadi the Ruthless. He is down underneath a staircase. You need a group because you need to kill Skadi in order to open the door to get to the staircase.

Azjol-Nerub – Need group but can be done on Normal. The Elder is located between the second and last boss. You need a group because you have to kill the first and second bosses in order ot clear the way, but because it is a level 70 instance you do not need a full 5 people. After you drop down into the water after the second boss, you will see the Elder off to the side of the lake you land in.

Gundrak – Need group and has to be done on Heroic! This is the only one that has to be done on Heroic, so get your best friends together and go grab some badges. The reason this needs to be done on heroic is because the Elder is in the room with Eck, the big tongue dude. You can only get to Eck on Heroic mode.

Getting to know your Elders, Part 1

Now that my “research” has been done on the Lunar Festival, it’s time for me to spread the wealth of knowledge onto you.

The Lunar Festival is an event held every year by the Alliance and Horde Druids of Moonglade, wherein they celebrate the city’s triumph over ancient evils. During the Lunar Festival, they welcome all races and classes of Azeroth into Moonglade to join in the celebrations and honor their Elders; seeking out and celebrating in their wisdom, and everyone’s favorite: fireworks.

There is, of course, the great beast Omen to defeat. A quest is given in Moonglade to seek out, summon, and defeat him. This has to be done in a raid group, as he is a level 80 Elite boss. And there are fireworks to launch! And some beautiful clothes to buy, too!

But the real draw to this event, and to its accompanying achievement, is to seek out all the Elders of Azeroth and honor them with your presence and a few mouse clicks. They are scattered across capital cities of both Alliance and Horde, all of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, to the great north in Northrend, and into many dungeons across Azeroth (but luckily, not Outland). Finding out where they are is only half the battle – actually getting to where some of these Elders have decided to hang out for the next few weeks is really the hardest part of all.

Just a warning, this took me about 14 hours from start to finish all in one sitting to get the title. Of course I took breaks to eat and what not, but this seemingly easy achievement is very time consuming. So get your Mountain Dew and your Gamer Grub ready: here we go!!!

Elders Elders Everywhere!

There are way too many Elders for me to talk about every single one, especially when it has been done so well by many other people. Here are some links to help you find Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Northrend Elders.

WoWWiki is a very good resource and has maps of where each of the Elders are.

WoWHead also has a very nice guide put together on the Lunar Festival.

Elders of the Alliance & Elders of the Horde

(Written from an Alliance Druid point of view.) Yes, you have to visit both factions Elders. Darnassus, Ironforge, and Stormwind are home to the three Alliance Elders. You can use the special portals from Moonglade, or regular portals from Dalaran or Shattrath to get to the cities. Or you could always rely on a Mage for ports. As for the Horde Elders, I went to the cities when I was near them while visiting other Elders. They are located in Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity.

Orgrimmar was the hardest of the three for me, and also where I went first. From the Azshara flight path area I swam down the river south to where the bridge into Org is located. I stealthed in kitty form into the city, carefully hugging walls and avoiding guards to avoid being seen. The Elder is located right by Thrall’s house in The Valley of Wisdom, so if you have raided on Org before you will know the location. Unfortunately you have to un-stealth to talk to the elder, but luckily as a Night Elf I have shadowmeld! As soon as you are done talking to an elder, run a little bit away, make sure no guards or players are too close, and use Shadowmeld. Wait a few seconds then pop back into kitty form and stealth once again. If you are working towards your “Salty” title, make sure you head over to The Valley of Spirits or Valley of Honor and do a little fishing. For the Fishing Diplomat achievement, all you need is to fish up one thing and then you are good to stealth or hearth out. I chose to die and then spirit rez which put me right next to another Elder I needed.

Thunder Bluff should be easy for anyone, whether you can stealth or not. It is not a very popular city so as long as you can dodge the guards you will be fine. This Elder is located in the (duh!) Elder Rise. This Elder is new this year, and you may recognize his name: Ezra Wheathoof. Ezra was a brain cancer sufferer who through Make-A-Wish got to spend some time at Blizzard and influenced the creation of the Pheonix mount. He sadly passed away last year, and this is yet another tribute to him in game. I spent some extra time with him while in Thunder Bluff this year.

The Undercity is probably the easiest of the three Horde cities for an Alliance to visit. If you go in the front entrance the Elder is above ground before the elevators. You should be able to run in on your mount, talk to him quickly, and mount back up and run away.

Don’t forget that there are starting level towns by each of the major cities that you need to visit: Brill, Dolonaar, Goldshire, etc.

In the next post I will cover all the Elders of the Dungeons!

Happy Lunar Festival!

Happy Lunar Festival! I will elaborate much more on the event in a coming post, but I have been busy doing “research” on the festival.

See!

Happy Lunar Festival to all, but for now, goodnight!

Patch 3.0.8 is here!

After many a Tuesday spend waiting, Patch 3.0.8 is finally here! The servers are still down as of writing this, so log on and get that patch downloading before everyone else!

For full patch notes, head over to the World of Warcraft site here.

Patch 3.0.8 Overview for Feral Druids

General

• Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped. (Like Faerie Fire)
• Shield Wall, Barkskin, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Protection are now off the Global Cooldown.
• The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at a bonus 75% speed.

Druids

• Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
• Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
• King of the Jungle – The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
• Polearms: Now trainable by Druids.
• Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
• Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
• Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
• Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
• Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.

Items

• Druid Feral Tier 7 Set: The 4 piece bonus now also decreases the cooldown on Tiger’s Fury by 3 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Shadowmeld: This ability will now properly restore threat when it is cancelled. In addition, it will correctly remove a player from combat if it is active when that player is the last person left alive that the creature hates. This ability is now also unusable while affected by Faerie Fire.
• Bear Form: This ability will now grant the correct attack power per level for levels 71-80.
• Maim: Tooltip adjusted to match the duration the ability has always had.
• Opening: Opening doors and objects should no longer cause shapeshifted forms to be cancelled.
• Rake: The initial damage from this ability is now properly considered bleed damage, and will be increased by Mangle and Trauma.
• Savage Fury – Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle (Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction. Also fixed a bug with Savage Fury where the Rake bleed effect was not being increased.
• Survival Instincts: The extra health from this ability now persists in all forms, but the ability can only be activated in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form. This prevents the health gain from occurring multiple times if constantly shapeshifting.

Kitty Raiding: Minor Glyphs

In my last post I talked about all the Major Glyphs available to feral druids. In this post, I will talk about all of the Minor Glyphs available to all us druids, feral or not.

Unlike Major Glyphs, which can make-or-break your overall character build, Minor Glyphs are about as important and interchangeable in raids as your current hairstyle. There are certainly ones that are more or less useful, dependent on your spec, but they really are pick and choose to which ever flavor you are feeling at the moment.

Druid Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Aquatic Form – Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.

This glyph will certainly not add to your raid performance in any way, shape or form, but swimming is just downright annoyingly slow. We druids have it better that most, but why not be OP in everything you do, including swimming! Recommended for: Fast Lane Drivers Swimmers.

• Glyph of Challenging Roar – Reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar ability by 30 seconds.

I highly recommend this Glyph to any Bear tank out there, since it is for bear tanks. Hopefully you aren’t in groups where you need to be spamming your challenging roar, but this glyph will give you a whole 30 seconds less to worry about it. Recommended for: Bear Tanks.

• Glyph of Dash – Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 20%.

If you PvP, I recommend this Glyph because it will make you a pro flag carrier. Or, if like me, you have a Mage who likes to try to race you somewhere with his blinks, this will put you at the head of the pack. This will change the cooldown from 3 minutes to 2.4 minutes. Recommended for: Race Runners and PvPers.

• Glyph of the Wild – Mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells reduced by 50%.
  

If you have “Improved Mark of the Wild”, this will improve it even further. And for any raider who finds themselves to be the default druid buffer, this will let you hang on to more of your precious mana. Recommended for: MotW/GotW Raid Buffers or the Mana Conservers.

• Glyph of Thorns – Increases the durations of your Thorns ability by 50 minutes when cast on yourself.

I have always hated buffs that do not last very long. This fixes that with our “Thorns” spell; typically a 10 minute buff, this becomes a 60 minute buff when cast upon yourself with this Glyph. Recommended for: People that hate short buffs.

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth – Your Rebirth spell no longer requires a reagent.

Save yourself from the curse of having to frequently buy reagents! Not only will it save you some Gold, but it will also free up some extra bag space. “Rebirth” is our Battle Rez, and any and all raiding druids should be using their Rebirth spell. Recommended for: All druid raiders.

I am currently using Minor Glyphs Dash, Thorns, and Unburdened Rebirth. I hope this little guide will help you decide which Minor Glyphs you are going to pick!

Kitty Raiding: Major Glyphs

Glyphs don’t really get the attention they deserve. We all talk about specs, and gear, and rotations, but not a whole lot about glyphs. This is probably for a few reasons, but I think it is mainly because we just aren’t used to talking about them yet. They only came into existence a few short months ago with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. You can’t even look up someone’s glyphs on the armory, as far as I can tell.

While I am sure that Blizz has many plans for the future of glyphs, there are only a few ones worth getting if you are pure feral dps. I also included the bear major glyphs. If you do a fair amount of tanking, which several of us kitties do, it may be helpful for you to pick one of these up. In this post I am just going to cover Major Glyphs, since they are more important to actual raid performance, whereas the Minor Glyphs are more for “fun”.

Cat Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Rip – Increases the duration of your rip ability by 4 seconds.

“Rip” is a finishing move that is essential in raiding rotations, because it does a high amount of damage over time. It also does a higher amount of damage than “Ferocious Bite” does with the same amount of combo points used. The standard duration of “Rip” is 12 seconds. This glyph will raise the duration to 16 seconds. The 2 set bonus on Dreamwalker Battlegear (T7 or 7.5) will cause Rip to last an additional 3 seconds as well. These two do stack! With both, you will have a whopping 19 second Rip.

• Glyph of Mangle – Increases the duration of Mangle by 6 seconds.

“Mangle” is every cat’s best friend. Unlike “Shred” you can use this move whether you are behind or in front of your foe, and it does 240% of normal damage plus 761 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects, like Shred, over time. Mangle usually lasts for 12 seconds, but with this glyph will last for a full 18 seconds. Anyone else in your raiding party that does bleed effects will also be happy that your Mangle lasts longer, as it will affect them, too.

• Glyph of Shred – Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

This glyph is not very useful in raids, but is what I consider a must have for soloing and for anyone still questing and leveling. When I am not raiding, I usually “Pounce” -> “Mangle” -> “Shred”x2 -> “Ferocious Bite”. Often I can get a non-elite downed before they are even un-stunned. This glyph certainly adds up the damage.

• Glyph of Rake - Your rake ability prevents targets from fleeing.

I don’t really see a need for this glyph in raids, but could be a big help while leveling. “Infected Wounds” alone makes this pretty much useless at a higher level, since at Rank 3 it makes “Shred”, “Maul”, and “Mangle” reduce the movement speed of the target by 25% and attack speed by 10%, stacking up to two times and lasting 12 seconds. This glyph also does not work in PvP, so don’t think about it for that, either.

Bear Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Maul - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.

This is a great tanking Glyph, and will help you hold aggro much better on a group of mobs, as Maul causes a high amount of threat.

• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration – While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful.

“Frenzied Regeneration” is one of the last stands that a druid tank has before they bite the dust, along with “Survival Instincts”. When I tanked, I tended to only use Frenzied Regen in groups for instances or raids, so if I was going to use this move it would probably be while I was about to die and already getting a ton of heals to keep me up. So,  this glyph would definitely mean more healing at a critical time and hopefully an avoided death.

• Glyph of Growl – Increases the chance for your Growl ability to work successfully by 8%.

Another great tanking glyph. The numbers in this glyph can be a little confusing, but there is a reason that it is set at 8%. “Growl” is technically a spell, which means that its chance to be avoided is 17%. This glyph reduces that to 9%, which is the same as the “hit cap” for melee DPS. If you are at that “hit cap” of 9% and you have this Glyph, then it is impossible for your “Growl” to miss. And for anyone that has ever tanked and had a taunt be missed, you know how horrible that can end up.

I am currently using Major Glyphs of Rip, Mangle, and Shred, as I find these to be the most useful to me since I spend the majority of my time raiding as DPS and very little time tanking. If I were to spend more time tanking, I think I would drop the Glyph of Shred and pick up Glyph of Maul.

I hope you found this little guide helpful when picking out your Glyphs! In my next post I will cover all the Minor Glyphs that are out there for druids.

Patch 3.0.8 Updates, Tiger’s Fury

Once again we are seeing some changes in the patch 3.0.8 notes. (via MMO-Champion)

Upon first glance, there isn’t really anything worth writing home about for us ferals.

Druid

• Celestial Focus (Balance) no longer includes Starfall.

But upon better inspection, we have something for us.

Items

• Druid Feral Tier 7 Set: The 4 piece bonus now also decreases the cooldown on Tiger’s Fury by 3 seconds.

The cooldown on it is currently 30 seconds, so this would drop it to 27 seconds. I’m not sure how big of a deal this will actually be overall, but in longer fights, and certainly in raids, I could see this giving us slightly more DPS. I personally pop Tiger’s Fury whenever it is available.

Why Tiger’s Fury? It is a cat form, instant cast ability that increases damage done by 80 for 6 seconds. Big deal, right. But with the proper Feral build including “King of the Jungle”, this ability becomes much more. With all 3 points put into KotJ: “While using your Enrage ability in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, your damages is increased by 15%, and your Tiger’s Fury ability also instantly restores 60 energy.” Free energy! What kitty doesn’t want that!

Why the change at all, though? Our current 4 piece bonus is not very useful: “Increases the duration of Barkskin by 3 seconds.” Yes, I know it is useful, but not all the time, and will not give us any extra DPS. This new change will give us an edge, albeit a very slight edge, too squeeze out just a bit more DPS.

And who knows, that might be all you need to push ahead above the rest and to the top of those meters!

Tips for dealing with Harassment

Well it seems as though my in-game WoW harassment has stopped, or is at least in a lull for the time being.

Unfortunately for me, this hasn’t been the first time I have had to deal with harassment in the game, although the only other severe incident I have had to deal with bordered more on sexual harassment, and was taken care of when the offender eventually left the server.

I can also assume that, as a lot more people on the server know me, and know that I’m female, that this will certainly not be the last time I have to deal with harassment. Unfortunately for us WoW Ladies, this is something that most of us have to deal with at some point, and on some level, while playing this game we love.

So I have decided to put together some tips on how to deal with these types of incidents.

Get acquainted with Blizzard’s Harassment Policy.

This is probably something good for everyone to look at, whether or not you are being harassed. You may, unknowingly or not, say something that may offend someone, which can result in your account being banned. It covers everything from Racism, Violence, Religious Views, Gay-bashing, Drugs, Spamming, Advertising, and in my case, spreading Real Life Information. It also covers not just things said, but “Zone/Area Disruption”, which covers blocking NPCs and spell spamming, among others.

Screenshot. Everything.

If its questionably, screenshot it. Yes, the GMs of today can look up everything you do, ever, but having some kind of record for yourself is valuable. Especially if you have to remember when something happened. And, unless you have changed it somehow, the screenshots get saved with the date in the name of the file. Also, there are many add-ons that will let you keep track of whispers. I currently use HeyFu for FuBar.

Put them on ignore.

Putting someone on your ignore list should be a first line of defense. Immediately putting someone on ignore will put a stop to the harassment, at least temporarily. A determined harasser will log onto other alts. Immediately put those alts on ignore as well. Do not give in to demands to remove a person from ignore. Your ignore list is no one else’s business.

Tell your Guildies.

If you are in a guild, tell your guildmates that it is happening. Chances are, as guildmates, they will have your back and will do whatever they can to protect you. Ask that in case the harasser contacts them that they let you know, and they screenshot it as well. I wouldn’t recommend that you say it in Guild Chat, but rather one on one with the people you trust most in the guild. Word will spread, but it doesn’t have to be a big deal.

Tell your Guild Officers and Leaders.

If the harassment is happening within your own guild, let an officer or the guild leader know immediately. Their main role as a guild leader is to lead, and to make sure everyone is happy. A lot of Guild Leaders forget this, but it is still a fundamental role to make sure everyone gets along and everyone is treated fairly.

Open a Ticket to a GM.

As soon as something crosses the line of making you uncomfortable, report it to a GM. Every single time something happens, report it to a GM. If you do not report it, nothing will ever happen. Don’t think of it as a last resort. Chances are you are dealing with some teenager who doesn’t truly understand the repercussions of what they are doing, and will not stop on their own. And after all, you are paying these GMs salaries with your monthly fee, so get what you are already paying for!

Keyword: “Ongoing Harassment”

If the harassment doesn’t stop even after being reported to a GM, open another ticket every single time that it happens, using the words “Ongoing Harassment”. This will let the GMs know immediately that this is a more severe and serious issue, and will hopefully stress the importance of this matter.

Change your name.

If someone has you on their friend’s list, you will still show up even if you change your name. But it may be something to consider, especially if someone has been spreading information about you across guilds or the whole server.

Be careful where you blog.

Be careful about where you write, and also about what you write. Harassment is never anyones fault but the harassers, but limiting how much someone knows about you in any one place is something you can do to lower the chances of it happening to you. When you apply to a guild, don’t go into more detail than you have to. If you blog about WoW, only tell your most trusted friends from Azeroth. Keep your profile on forum sites limited. Also remember that you can keep Myspace and Facebook profiles private to friends only.

Call the police.

If harassments become threats, or if personal information is spreading like wildfire, Blizzard GMs may suggest you contact the police. You have a right to safety online and in game, and sometimes you need a higher power than just a GM. There are people out there who will not take no for an answer, no matter how hard you or a GM tries. There is also the threat of your WoW account being compromised if too much information is leaked. Or worse, a credit card. This should only be used as a last resort, but for some, it is the only thing that will stop the harassment.

If you are worried about your account being compromised due to personal information being leaked, purchase an Authenticator from the Blizzard Store. They are unhackable, unless someone physically steals the authenticator from you and knows all your account info. For only $6.50 it will give you peace of mind that is damn near priceless.

If you are being harassed in game, don’t be afraid to do something about it.

- – - – - -

If you have any other tips, please let me know and I will add them!