Edit 1/17/11: Here you all go, modified the previous macro to make better use of LUA logic. This one should be somewhat shorter than the one posted a week or so ago, allow for more random mounts  to be added before reaching the 255 character cap. Actually, I should have just searched WoWpedia before bothering to do all of this. I reinvented the wheel!

Anyway, I had trouble re-finding a smart mount macro that actually works in Vashj'ir. So as of 4.0.3a, this one will summon the appropriate mount type in all of the Vashj zones as well as everywhere else. The following macro will automatically summon a random mount of your choice depending n the zone that you are in. The number of mounts that you are able to randomly select is limited by the 255 character limit.

/run if not IsMounted() then g,f,s={g,g},{f,f},{s,s} t=(strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s or IsFlyableArea() and f or g CallCompanion("MOUNT",t[random(#t)]) end
/dismount

The bolded variables within the curly brackets need to be replaced with the numbers corresponding to your mounts; You will need to open up your mounts tab to find that. 'g' is for ground, 'f' is for flying and 's' is for swimming. Keep in mind that they are counted from left to right, top to bottom. Whenever you obtain a new mount, you will most likely need to update the maro since everything is going to be shifted over by one.

• If you are swimming in Vashj'ir your swimming mount will be summoned. You must be swimming and not standing on the ocean floor.
• If you are in Vashj'ir and NOT swimming (on the sandy beach for example), your flying mount will be summoned.
• If you are in a flyable zone, your flying mount will be selected, if not you will summon your ground mount.
• Pressing the macro while mounted will dismount you.

For example

/run if not IsMounted() then g,f,s={14},{31,8},{1} t=(strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s or IsFlyableArea() and f or g CallCompanion("MOUNT",t[random(#t)]) end
/dismount

The ground mount that I want to use, the Fossilized Raptor is located at position 14 (second mount on the second page of my mount tab). Since there are two flying mounts that I like, I want the macro to randomly choose one to summon when I am in a flyable zone. These mounts are the ugly purple drake and the bronze drake at positions 31 and 8 respectively. Additional mounts can be added with a comma separation.

Full explanation
For anyone who is interested in how things work, here is a somewhat verbose explanation as to how the macro and its individual parts work:

/run if not IsMounted() then g,f,s={g,g},{f,f},{s,s}
Only run this line if you are not mounted. If you are mounted, skip to the last nine and dismount. We are declaring three arrays: g, f and s for ground, flying and swimming respectively.

t=(strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s or IsFlyableArea() and f or g
This is the main logic chunk for the macro. If you look at the last line of the macro (well second to last), 't' is being used to randomly summon a mount. The entire purpose of this line of code is to assign the correct array ('g', 'f' or 's') to 't' depending on where you are in the world.

LUA handles binary operators (AND, OR) a little differently. For AND operators: Instead of just returning a binary value (true/falso, 1/0) to an expression, WoW LUA will return the first argument if the first value is false and the second argument if the first argument is true. So for example let's evaluate this statement: false and pie. Since the first argument is false (literally and figuratively), false is returned. Now evaluate this statement: true and cake. Since the first argument is true, cake is returned.

OR operators are handled in the opposite manner. If the first argument is true, the first argument is returned. If the first argument is false, the second argument is returned. So for example: false or pie. The first argument is false so pie is returned. Second example: true or cakes. Since the first argument is true, true is returned. So breaking this line down further:

(strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s
First argument: (strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming())
Second argument: s
Operator: AND

If you are swimming in a zone starting with the string "Vashj", the first argument is true. Given what I have stated above regarding the AND operator, the value 's' would be returned and your swimming mount would be summoned. If the first argument is false (you are not in Vashj'ir or not swimming), false would be returned and we would move on to the next statement below

(strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s or IsFlyableArea() and f
First argument: (strfind(GetMapInfo(),"Vashj") and IsSwimming()) and s
Second argument: IsFlyableArea() and f
Operator: OR

If 's' was returned we are done; your swimming mount has been summoned. If the first argument however is false, we move on to the second argument. If you are in a flyable area, 'f' is returned and your flying mount is summoned. If not your ground mount is summoned.

Hope that was clear enough.

Continued from PuG Herding Part 1, as posted on Monday. Okay, most of this is probably pretty overkill unless you truly have a group of people who have no clue what to do and are deprived of all common sense. Most of the time, just outlining your general fight strategy so that people know which one you are using and telling the newbies not to stand in fires is good enough. I'm a fairly verbal person when I lead raids, but that's just me and my love of gabbing over vent. Find a style that works for you. 

Getting Started
Unless you are doing something easy like Onyxia or VoA, use Ventrilo, Teamspeak or some other form of VOIP communication; It really does help. Someone will always need the long explanation and dictating an entire boss fight with your fingers gets old really fast. Besides, it's fun placing a voice behind an avatar. I used to be pretty obstinate about Vent not being a hard requirement for guild raids way back in the day, but in retrospect, it's a great tool and has brought people closer together.

If you do use a voice server, enforce general etiquette guidelines for the sake of raid sanity. Mainly, make sure that everyone shuts the hell up when fights are being explained, both in Ventrilo and in raid chat. Back seat drivers are a no-no. If someone is wasted, they probably shouldn't have a microphone...

Always ask if someone needs an explanation before you pull. Don't cry and ragequit when the raid wipes because you didn't ask if anyone needed an explanation. And yes, you do have to ask most of the time. Many people won't volunteer that information out of fear of being replaced, particularly in a 25-man raid where they can just follow people and generally do okay most of the time.

Even if everyone supposedly knows the encounter, always give a quick strategy rundown because every guild has their own way of doing things. It is better to spent a minute explaining something than to wipe. When you assign specific tasks to people, make sure that you get personal confirmation from them to make sure that they understand and were paying attention. It also helps to make sure everyone knows who the tanks are, who the CCers are and stuff like that.

Effectively Explaining Encounters
Don't read off a wall of text when you are explaining strategies. It's boring and hard to comprehend. I guarantee that people will zone out and not know what the hell to do. There are two important factors to learning: Repetition and Chunking. Generally, the average human brain is able to store 7 chunks of information into short-term memory. You can successfully explain long and complicated fights to new people within reason, if you break up the encounter by role and stage, repeatedly emphasizing important points.

Explain the encounter as well as you need to give the raid's experience level (if you need to at all), but be concise. A 10 minute dissertation is beyond too long. Most people are either visual or tactile learners anyway, who just need to experience the fight before it clicks. I like giving top down explanations. That is, explaining the general picture and then drilling down to more specific bits. Everyone has their own way of explaining things, but this is typically what I usually do:

1. Give a very general rundown of each step of the fight. I am mainly explaining positioning, what to watch out for and what abilities the boss will be using.
2. Break the fight up by player roles. Let the healers know what they need to do, let the tanks know what they need to do, let the DPS know what they need to do. In a guild raid, this is where role channels and role leaders come in handy.
3. I will usually close the explanation with a brief bullet point style summary of what I just covered as well as a reminder of the three most important points of the fight for emphasis (ie, DONT STAND IN THE FIRE, CLEANSE THE DEBUFFS, etc).

Use the raid icons to mark targets and important players. Skull is usually the universal symbol for "kill this first," X usually means "kill this second" and the yellow star is usually primary CC or any other important role, since it is the easiest symbol to see (it doesn't blend in with the background or spell effects). Everyone has their own marking system, just make sure that everyone knows the kill order and what each of the symbols mean. Make sure to be consistent about marking. It also helps to mark the tanks in movement heavy encounters.

Once the encounter is underway, dictate the fight and direct people to do things. Communication is key. Make sure that you have Deadly Boss Mods or Big Wigs working so that you can keep an eye on the timers and verbally warn the raid when an important event will occur a couple of seconds ahead of time.

It's your job to gauge to and not to direct people. Experienced raiders will know how things go, but newbies won't. Some people need you to tell them where to go next, what boss we're doing next, when is okay to proceed to a new area and when it is okay to pull.

Other Tips
Provide enough structure for your raid to function smoothly, but be open to new options. Sometimes things don't always go your way and sometimes PuGs have some pretty damn good ideas. The ability to listen to other people and remain open to advice is an important leadership skill. It always shows that you have confidence and respect for your raid members.

Balanced Personalities Make Good Raid Leaders. Be assertive about your role as raid leader without being a cock. People need to know that you're the boss, but they don't need an ego trip or verbal abuse. Be humble, respect is mutual. If someone is clearly not working out, don't be afraid to boot them. It's better to brave LFG for a replacement than to have one person drag the entire run down the crapper.

Handle consistent under performers privately before deciding to give them the boot. Making a public example of someone serves little purpose other than to cause drama. If you chastise someone over Vent, they will get defensive. Besides, if someone is bad to the point where they need a raid kick, it's likely that most people have already noticed.

Learn to pace instances appropriately. Keep the raid rolling by minimizing downtime between trash pulls. It's irritating when the raid constantly pauses for no good reason. Don't rush the instance though: Your guild healers might be used to insane lolzerg pulls, but the PuGs might freak out. If it's a long run, give people a small bio break every once in a while whenever there's a natural break to reduce random AFK's at odd moments.

Be patient about wiping, but know when it's time to call it. No one likes a quitter, but no one likes spending two hours at a boss with little progress.

I don't really know why, but I have been in the mood to PuG raid lately. Could it be the realization that PuGs aren't all that bad? Antsyness in lieu of much anticipated Fall game releases just around the corner? Elevated boredom? Who knows. It's hard to find a group unless you are a healer. Sometimes the best way to find a PuG is to just start one.

If you are going to lead a PuG raid, know the encounters. Know what each of the boss abilities does in practical terms, know where everyone needs to stand, know what the tanks healers and DPS need to do, if there are any special roles and when key events occur. If you're forming a raid for new content, just wing it and let people know that. Who knows, someone in the raid might have PTR experience. You should also be familiar with the other classes and specs and what sort of utility they bring to the raid.  

Anyway, it's probably more constructive for me to offer friendly advice to new PuG leaders than to be an ass and talk about them in the pseudo-privacy of guild chat. Leading a raid seems like a daunting task, but it's pretty routine once you get the hang of it. If you are generally unfamiliar with how a raid operates, join a few more PuGs and observe. I'll break this article up into two parts, it got kind of long.

LFM: Finding People
There are two general options for finding PuGs: The LFG tool and the Trade/LookingForGroup channels. The LFG tool isn't too hard to figure out if you have never used it before. Before you start the raid, you might want to check to see if there are any other raids for your instance before forming a new one. If you aren't familiar with recruiting via the global channels, hang out in them to get a feel for how raid advertising is done. It's not really that hard...

If you are going for a speed run or hard mode, ask for stats and achievement links. Know what is considered minimally acceptable for each role, but be reasonable about expectations. The pickier you are about people, the smaller your invite pool is going to be. If you take too long to recruit, people will start to leave.

Oh also, people do lie about their character, so check them out online if you are unfamiliar with them or their guild. Armory sniffers will let you know how geared or experienced a player is, but it says little about actual skill. Don't automatically discount people just because they are a little under-geared. Here are a few tools that I use: The WoW Armory, Be Imba!, WoW Heroes and PuG Checker.

It helps immensely to track who the healers and tanks are upon raid invite by either moving all people of a certain role to a specific group or jotting their names down somewhere. It's hard to recruit for a balanced raid when you yourself don't know how many healers and tanks you currently have. The whole, "press 1 if ur healz" bit is kind of dumb anyways (pet peeve).

Oh also: Everyone if course knows that people of your same class and spec instantly go to the bottom of the invite list, unless the raid really does need them. After all, one of the most important benefits to being raid leader is making sure that there aren't 5 other ret paladins drooling over your tier drops :P  

Loot: Fighting the Purple Haze!
USE MASTERLOOT! If you have a buddy in the raid whom you can trust with ML duty, that's great. It takes a fair bit of pressure off of your shoulders. If not, raid leading and masterlooting is totally doable. Most people set loot to ML Rare so that green drops don't incur a pop-up window. Make sure that everyone in the raid knows the loot rules before the run begins. Raid leaders who reserve drops for themselves in a full on PuG can go burn in hell. But, if for whatever reason you do reserve an item, make especially sure that everyone is aware of it before the run begins.

Be somewhat knowledgeable about general stat distribution and what is good for who. For example: A cloth piece with spell power and spell hit has DPS caster priority over any healers because of the hit (healers don't really miss). It's mostly common sense, but people will role on just about anything that they can use. These are the PuG looting rules that folks generally expect:

• Need /roll 100. 1 item per person until everyone in that loot pool has received an item.
• Anyone in raid who can benefit from the drop has the right to roll for it.
• Priority goes to primary specs over off-specs, the exception being people who were forced to off-spec for raid viability. Whatever role you were invited into the raid as is generally considered to be your main spec for all intents and purposes.
• BoP patterns are rolled off to people who are able to craft and benefit from the item. Ask them for a profession link before distributing the loot.
• Shards, BoE patterns and stuff like that get rolled out at the end of the raid to people who have not received any loot for the run.

Last but not least: STICK TO YOUR LOOT RULES. Be consistent! If there is one thing that will cause drama and resentment, it's loot. Continued in Part 2....

The screenshot: While we were raiding in Ulduar this weekend, WoW did one of those complete graphical freak outs for a bit. Reloading my interface fixed most of it, but there was a still a bit of residual weirdness. For some reason several of the spell graphics were being replaced with my bank inventory screen, freaky. Did you know that the giant thing above Mimiron is a huge can opener? I didn't, and I've been there how many times? lol.

I have been working on the Loremaster achievement once again bits at a time. I finally completed the 40 or so odd Eastern Kingdom quests that I was missing. Turns out that Keiya never did Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes. You see, the problem with alts is that I will frequently forget who did what, where and when. Up next? The 356 quests that I am missing in Kalimdor, QQ.

Brewfest is here and if you are anything like me, it is the very last holiday achievement set needed in order to obtain the much coveted Violet Proto-Drake. A couple of things that I've noticed:

1. Unless Blizzard changed this: The Brewfest regalia is under the same two hour return policy as every other piece of token gear. So buy your items, do the achievement in Dalaran, then return them for a full refund. This way, it should be very easy to obtain enough tickets to get the pets or Brew of the Month Club membership if you didn't do that last year.
2. An addition apple bucket was added to the Ram Racing route this year. There are 4 buckets: The 1st one is in the tent, the 2nd one is near the fence, the 3rd (new) one is inbetween the hills and the 4th one is in the NPC camp past the keg tosser. Use the 2nd and 3rd buckets.
3. The keg thrower has a huge range so you don't actually need to run up to him. What I usually do is do a 180 jump spin when I'm getting close, it will shave a few seconds off of your run. You can do the same thing with the turnin NPC, though I think his range is quite a bit shorter. Jump spinning is faster than manually turning.
4. Per usual, once you complete all 4 locations for the Brewfest barking daily, you are free to dismount and run back to the quest NPC using your own mount without any penalty.
5. As mentioned before, don't worry about farming the mounts from Coren Direbrew for the achievement. Buy the Fresh Brewfest Hops from the token redeemer for two tickets.

The barking quest yields 15 tickets, the invasion yields 10, and 35 tickets are easily obtainable from Ram Racing. That's around 60 per day. What is the keg run theoretical max? I got 19 turn-ins on my hunter earlier and I am pretty sure that I can squeeze out 20 by cutting a few more corners but I don't imagine being able to run it too much more than that. Oh well, I'm sure there's a YouTube video of some dude doing 30. Anyway, here is a macro that I've been using for the sake of not having to drag several things onto my button bar every day:

/tar dark iron guzzler
/use Complimentary Brewfest Sampler
/use [mounted] Ram Racing Reins

Assuming that you have a Complimentary Brewfest Sampler, it will automatically target a Dark Iron Guzzler and toss a mug during the invasion. It will also spank your goat during the keg race. It should be fairly easy to add in the other non-daily quest items if you so wish.

Before I babble: I'm not sure if the contact forms on this site or any of my domain emails are functioning properly, I switched them over Google apps and haven't really tested them. Sooo if anyone's email has bounced back within the last week, whoops sorry. Also, yay I tweaked the theme so that it's a little prettier.

I'm majorly slacking on the WoW posts lately. Kind of behind on everything related to patch 3.2. In fact, I haven't even read all of the patch notes or class changes as I am busyish attending to other things. WoW lull period! I am also sadly slacking off on all of the Argent Tournament dailies. I have a total of 50 at the moment QQ, not enough to buy the new mount when 3.2 goes live. I could have totally had a ginormous stack if I had bothered spending a half hour doing them every day. Shame on me!

Our raid was called off last night because half of our guild was unable to login for most of the evening. It turns out that the authentication problems were only affecting people who have not yet converted their account over to battle.net. So if anyone is still having issues, it might be time to do so. I have a feeling that at some point in the future, folks will probably be forced to convert their accounts anways.

I feel compelled to post something useful and have been meaning to update my macro list. So, here is a small list of macros that I use frequently on my paladin. You know, I'm certain that one or two of these were copypasta'd and modified from WoWWiki or something, so apologies...