I was going to write an actual post about numbers and the top 5 specs for each class from data mined from the top 20 PvE guilds in the world, but instead, I’m going to just put this all down so I don’t have to type it over and over and over again.

But I have to hand out my email!

Once. From the Real ID FAQ, yes, you have to hand out your email to someone you know in order for them to real-ID-friend you. (There really needs to be a convenient way to verb that.) Furthermore, it’s not automatic friending, so if you see a name you don’t recognize trying to friend you? Deny the request. The other person is never notified of that. Got an asshole ex trying to friend you on Real ID? Deny the request. Got someone trying to friend you that you just plain don’t want to know the identity of all your alts? Deny the request. If someone puts in an incorrect email address, or their request is declined, the requester is never notified. If you have a friend who constantly has keyloggers or has been hacked or what-have-you, don’t give that person your email address to begin with. Or make them give you their email address. It’s common sense. Why don’t more people have it?

But then my email address is saved in their client forever and ever!

Incorrect. From the Real ID FAQ, mutual Real ID friends (and their Real ID friends) will see your first and last name, as well as what character you’re on, what zone you’re in, and the special Real ID stuff like status messages and presence. It explicitly states in the FAQ that your Battle.net email address is not displayed in the Real ID friends list.

But you said friends of friends! HAX OMG

Shut the hell up. From the Real ID FAQ (do you see a trend yet?), yes, when you click on a friend, you can see the names of their friends, so if you have mutual acquaintances, you can quickly friend them. However, since your battle.net email is never displayed in the Real ID friends list, you don’t know your friend-of-friend’s email, and they don’t know yours. You don’t have to hand out your email, they don’t get to know your email, and it’s easy to make friends. If you don’t know who this person is who’s trying to friend you? Deny the request.

But what if they harass me?!

I bet you see where this is going. From the Real ID FAQ, not only can you contact a GM – just like if any other player was harassing you – you can block individuals from communicating with you anywhere on battle.net.

But even after you assuaged all my fears, I still don’t want to use it!

Fine.

Don’t.

What, do you think there’s more to it than that? If you don’t want to use Real ID, don’t approve any Real ID friend requests. If you opt in then later decide you want to opt out, remove all Real ID friends from your lists. Friendship is a two-way street on Real ID (unlike WoW in general), and if you remove someone, they don’t see you anymore.

Guess where I got that information?

If all else fails, you can turn on Parental Controls. They’ll be updated to disallow Real ID.

The TL;DR Version

• People you are Real ID friends with do see your first and last name (the ones set up as your primary contact in battle.net).
• People you are Real ID friends with do see your character, realm, and zone.
• People you are Real ID friends with do see what game you are playing – WoW and Starcraft II support Real ID right now. You can safely assume Diablo III will as well.
• People who you would like to be Real ID friends do need your email address once, or you will need theirs once.
• People you are Real ID friends with do not see your email address in their friends list, nor do you see theirs.
• Friends of people you are Real ID friends with do not see your email address in their friends-of-friends list, nor do you see theirs.
• Read the FAQ before you start freaking out next time, internet.

Worst case scenario: someone finds out your real name, and it turns out it’s your boss, and he notices both of you are signed on during work. Whoops!

Let’s stop the pointless panic and the rumormongering, folks. Let’s save the panic for actual crisis scenarios, when things are actually wrong, and stop the "ZOMG HORRIBLE IDEA" righteous indignation over Real ID.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Real ID: here’s some info, now stop with the righteous indignation

However, on phase 2, I finally perfected a little dance that I do with the professor that seems to keep things in line. I’ll even throw in some MS Paint directions for you on how we do phases 1 and 2. This does operate on an assumption that may be fairly big: that you get the professor to phase 2 during or shortly after the first Gas Cloud (orange add) spawns. (At one point, we got him to phase 2 almost before it spawned…)  If this is not the case – if the Volatile Ooze (green add) was the most recent spawn – then flip all the directions. None of this is perfect, but if your tanks are flailing their arms wildly during the Putricide fight, maybe this will help give them a place to start, then you can adjust it to fit your raid’s needs.

As always, click to embiggen.

Phase 0: Understand the Layout

The black square at the bottom is the entrance. The gray circle is the circle that is on the floor of Putricide’s room – it actually has four little spike-like "corners" near each of the ooze nozzles, and two more closer to the entrance of the room. The brown rectangle is Putricide’s table; when you enter the room, he’s just south of it. The orange circle and green circle represent the ooze nozzles.

Phase 1: The Pull, and the Easy Part

Putricide isn’t really dropping anything besides neon green ooze puddles on the floor that your off-tank, in the abomination, will be eating. If you can do so without dragging him too far away from the top part of the room (where he’ll be for most of phase 2), do so. Have your DPS control themselves, and between 83% and 85% (depending on how many dots people have up, how quickly people respond to directions, etc.) have DPS stop on Putricide, burn down any adds that are up, and let the abomination eat ooze puddles that are on the floor. There should be plenty of time to do these things if people are on the ball. During the pull, we have our off-tank charge in to the table, then I pull Putricide off of him, leading to an initial pull where he’s right here:

Then during or after the period where the DPS is burning down the green slime, I’ll typically either try to hold him by a slime pool, or move him to here, which is often roughly the same thing:

I usually hold him here for the rest of phase 1; an orange Gas Cloud will spawn, and your raid should burn it down before continuing into phase 2 – this starts at 80%. Let the abom mop up spare puddles, let the DPS burn down the Gas Cloud, then burn the professor into phase 2.

Phase 2: The Putricide Tango in Earnest

This is where the fun part starts. This is also where I used to run around like a kid high on Pixy Stix, leading to me running out of range for heals sometimes or leaving Choking Gas Clouds in weird spots for the DPS to maneuver around, which is just all kinds of nastiness. This works much better. Step 1 is to pull him near the orange slime container, as close to the alcove where the tables are as possible. Trust me, it makes sense.

Putricide will do these three abilities, and in my experience they always come in approximately the same order: Malleable Goo (very easy to avoid if your DPS is on the ball), then Unstable Experiment, then Choking Gas Flasks. Sometimes the last two get swapped, but they’re always very close together, and they’re your signal to move! Think of them as traffic cones telling you to get the hell out of the way. They are not, in any way, snow cones. Drag Putricide to the opposite side of his alcove, again, as near to the corner as you can manage.

During this time, a green slime will have spawned due to Unstable Experiment, and your DPS will have burned it down and will be back on the Professor. He’ll once again use Malleable Goo, Unstable Experiment, and Choking Gas Flasks, and the original set of gas flasks will have gone away. Once he tosses down the new one (and the orange slime is probably chasing someone), here’s what you do (I bet you’ll never see this coming):

Stunning, I know. However, essentially, you’ll be alternating between those last two dance steps for most of the fight. It’s not a very complex tango. Positioning adjustments will have to be made, of course, if Putricide drops a slime puddle right where you expect to be standing, but most of the time, it won’t be an issue. Enjoy your dance time with the Professor – tanking it is honestly a pretty effortless job, other than paying some attention to what’s going on – and watch his health very carefully.

Stop before 35% (I’d say 38% to 40% is safe, assuming you’re not bumping up against the enrage timer), eat all the slime pools, and burn down any adds that are up, then knock Professor Putricide down to 35%.

Phase 3: ???

I told you we haven’t finished this one yet. I have a pretty good idea of how to do it, though. Truthfully, we need to make that phase transition a little more masterfully – I wasn’t watching Professor Putricide’s health as closely as I should have, and so my warning for the phase transition as a Gas Cloud was spawning went something like this: "sh*t, he’s at 36%, stop and burn that–oh, well, never mind." Then the orange cloud zoomed around at full speed and smacked us all in the face.

Phase 4: Profit!

Collect yer phat lewtz.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

The Putricide tango; or, anecdotal advice on positioning the Professor

1. I wanted to make sure I could get Sigrat’s keybindings set up ahead of time, and
2. It’s easier to pull with a mage, on account of having a ranged attaack with a range of greater than 10 feet, and
3. There have recently been changes that made dual-boxing a melee character … well, possible.

It’s still a touch awkward (namely if you try to attack with the melee character while the monster is still running towards you), but it’s a far sight better than having to run through the mob and flip it around. Here’s the guide. (Thanks to the folks at Dual-Boxing.com for figuring this out well before I ever needed it.)

• Besides the required keystroke passing app (I use Keyclone), you’ll want to have an addon that allows auto-following after combat. I’m currently using Jamba, last time I used TwoBoxToolkit. I can vouch for both; though Jamba’s got features above and beyond TBTK, and makes configuration a lot easier (plus has some graphical niceties like a small window on my "master" character showing how close everyone on my Jamba Team list is to leveling, whether they’re following, etc.), TBTK will get the job done.
• On the character or characters who will just be following you around, turn ON click-to-move (Main Menu > Interface > Mouse > check Click to Move).
• On the same character(s), go into the key bindings and bind something to Interact With Target. As the name implies, this is essentially a keybinding for right clicking. I set mine to the same key that, on all my other characters, makes pets attack. It’s fitting.
• And last but not least, you’ll want a macro you can hit to make this character assist your "master" character. I use a simple macro that says "/assist party1" because my dwarfadin will actually be following two different people. For ease of use I actually worked this into my other macros – I macroed together "/assist party1" and Judgement of Light, for instance.
• On the "master" character, combat goes like so:
• Engage target. For ranged classes, pull, for other classes, wade into combat.
• Once the target’s positioned, hit the keybinding that corresponds to the assist macro on the follower, then the keybinding that corresponds to the Interact With Target keybinding on the follower.
• ???
• Profit!

Because of the way that assist, click-to-move and the Interact with Target keybinding work, your follower will target your target, then "right-click" it – i.e., pull out their weapon and run into melee. This way you’re not strictly limited to having a ranged follower or healbot follower for ease of use. I was actually considering having him level up holy and using my rogue to do all the damage, but it’s just more fun this way.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Dualboxing melee

This is a short example video of how I joust. It may not be the greatest demonstration in the world, but it should give you an idea what I do. Barring the few times I’ve mysteriously gotten 2500ms+ ping, or down in Icecrown when I accidentally tagged 3 Commanders at once (ouch…), I boast a 100% success rate.

Jousting? Yeah, I got that.

I’ll add this note for Nibuca‘s sake: a few people have told me they don’t “get” strafing. It’s also probably true that what I do isn’t strictly strafing – it’s a combination of strafing and mouse movement. Anyhow, for those of you who still have your movement bound to the default keys, Q strafes left and E strafes right – moving you left and right without actually turning. It’s great for getting at range from someone.

For those of you using the n52 or n52te, with movement bound to either the keys or the joystick, you can simulate the leftward movement I do in the beginning of the video by moving the joystick/keys left while mouse-moving to the right – it ends up with a pseudo-strafe rotation that still leaves you facing your opponent (even if it doesn’t look like you are). The right movement is exactly the reverse – joystick/keys right, mouse move left.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

How I joust

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

In which Randall Munroe preaches it like it is

• 6-second channel, totally unlike any other DK spell. Each second summons an Army of the Dead Ghoul. They like to arrange themselves in a half-moon around you; it kinda looks like Thriller.
• It has a 20-minute cooldown, halved to 10 with 2/2 Night of the Dead. Unholy DKs will have this roughly every boss fight in a raid; others might have it every other boss fight (or every fight if you wipe a couple times.)
• While channeling, the DK takes 50% less damage from all sources. All of them.
• Once summoned, Army of the Dead Ghouls behave a lot like the unnamed ghouls summoned when an non-Unholy DK casts Raise Dead, leaping straight into combat with a delightful “eeeeaugh!” – but with one important difference: Army of the Dead Ghouls will taunt enemies. They will taunt anything not marked as a raid boss. This includes trash, instance bosses, adds of raid bosses, you name it. On the other hand, they will not taunt anything whose level is ?? (Boss).
• From my personal experience, they don’t like to change targets once they’re on a given target, but their given target at the beginning will be slightly random if there’s multiple choices because they’re summoned in a wide circle around you. However, sometimes they do seem to change targets, and I can’t find any rhyme or reason why.

As you can imagine, the Taunt feature is both a lifesaver and a total pain in the ass. For example, I once saved a Heroic UP run after the tank was wiped at 5% on Ymiron by letting my Army tank the boss. Sure, he only has to hit them once or twice to smush them, but that’s 6-12 hits that I or someone else doesn’t have to take. But at the same time, you’ve probably been in a group with a DK who’s summoned zombies that bring Gluth’s dinner to him like they have invisible maitre’d outfits on.

Make no mistake, the ghouls are a DPS boost – a pretty significant one. Not quite the most damaging thing you can do with 5 seconds of your time, but on fights where you can use them, it’s worth it. That said, where should you go for it? Here’s what I’ve found, in the places I’ve been.

Naxxramas

• Arachnid Quarter
• Anub’rekhan: Yes! On one condition: do it once the Crypt Guards are down, and make sure Anub’rekhan is being tanked away from where the new guards will pop out before you summon them.
• Grand Widow Faerlina: Maybe! If you are fighting Faerlina in Momma Said Knock You Out style, wait till all the adds are down and let ‘er rip. Otherwise, you risk them interfering with the adds that you have to MC or kill at the appropriate time to keep her from enraging.
• Maexxna: Yes! Just be sure and do it when spiderlings aren’t up. Though really, if a ghoul occupies itself with one spiderling, it generally won’t be a bad thing. I like to save mine for that final push after 30% when Maexxna enrages.
• Plague Quarter
• Noth the Plaguebringer: Maybe! If people die to the adds during the phases where Noth is on the floor, definitely. But if you do summon the Army here, accept the fact that one or two of them are going to ignore Noth and start punching skeletons instead. I generally don’t both, Noth’s a loot pinata anyway.
• Heigan the Unclean: No! It’s a waste of your time, and you’re probably going to get hit by the fire. They don’t have enough sense to not stand in the fire, and as far as I can tell, they don’t seem to get the 70% AOE resistance from Night of the Dead, so on phase 2 they run towards the platform and just die.
• Loatheb: Yes! They do bunches of damage on Loatheb. Just don’t do it when there’s a spore right behind the tank, please.
• Military Quarter
• Instructor Razuvious: 10-man Only! Let your designated crystal people take control of their students, then summon the army onto Raz. One might leap onto a student when the crystal person drops/reacquires mind control, but it’ll leap off after control is re-established. On 25, they end up taunting the students that are being off-tanked and not mind-controlled, which is just a pain in the butt.
• Gothik the Harvester: Yes! Save them till Gothik comes down, ‘nuff said.
• The Four Horsemen: Yes! Especially if you’re fighting Thane Kor’thazz. AotD ghouls count as extra targets to soak up meteor damage. They do appreciable damage to everyone, though they’re not smart enough to get out of Blaumeux’s void zones.
• Construct Quarter
• Patchwerk: Yes! Patchwerk is the ideal fight to summon Armies on.
• Grobbulus: Yes! Do it before he has slimes up, though. Be warned, though, that they’ll probably die in a slime cloud if your tank is slow to move Grobby.
• Gluth: No! I cannot stress this enough: do not summon your Army here. For one thing, in the same vein as not using Rain of Fire on Faerlina, your fellow raiders don’t need the panic that comes with 6 ghouls suddenly appearing at Gluth’s feet. Secondly, and I have seen this with my own eyes, this is the one fight where sometimes a zombie will peel itself off of Gluth, find a nearby zombie, taunt it, and – I shit you not – carry it back to Gluth. Army is a giant liability. Do not use Army of the Dead on Gluth.
• Thaddius: Yes! Army of the Dead Ghouls are like pets in that they don’t count for purposes of charges, so while they don’t get a charge, they won’t zap everyone around them. They won’t do as significant a portion of your damage as they do on other fights due to not getting charges, though. Such is life.
• The Heart of Naxxramas
• Sapphiron: No! Don’t waste your time. They die during the summoning animation.
• Kel’thuzad: Phase 2 Only! During phase 1, they will go taunt undead. This is bad. During phase 3, they will peel the Guardians of Icecrown off of their designated offtank. This is also bad. Phase 2 is the safe time to summon them here. Summon them right as KT becomes active, and hope they don’t die to an unlucky ice blocking of the melee.
• Vault of Archavon
• Archavon: Yes! Archavon’s such a pinata that you may not need to, though.
• Emalon: No! You want to keep those adds tightly grouped up, and unfortunately they’re all there from the beginning so there’s no add-free phase. Don’t bother.
• Obsidian Sanctum
• Sarth+0, +1: Yes! If summoned while the elementals are down, or far, far away, they’ll stick to Sarth or the drake or like glue. They will not, however, dodge fire walls.
• Sarth +2, +3: Untested. One of my readers is welcome to leave a comment if they’ve got some experience summoning AotD here.
• Eye of Eternity
• Malygos: Yes! There’s two places to go for it here: pop them on phase 1, after you come down from the first vortex, or pop them immediately on phase 2, and hope your tank can steal enough hate to pull the Nexus Lords into the bubble despite the ghouls’ best efforts. The phase 1 summon is less risky, as they seem to utterly ignore Power Sparks, so they won’t be dragging any to Maly.
• Ulduar
• The Siege of Ulduar
• Razorscale: Yes! After she’s grounded, go for it.
• Ignis: No! Proper placement of adds is key for this fight. You don’t want the ghouls screwing it up, trust me.
• XT-002 Deconstructor: Yes! You don’t know how much it pains me that I cannot recommend summoning them during the Heart phase. I tried this once and single-handedly wiped us, as two ghouls went to go get a pummeler apiece (leaving our off-tank scrambling to gather pummelers) and the third grabbed a bomb-bot, blowing up everyone around it. Summon them between add phases, when all the adds are down, or at the very beginning. They’ll probably live at least up until the first Tympanic Tantrum.
• The Antechamber of Ulduar
• Kologarn: No! Since you can’t pile them onto a single target, they’ll gladly target either arm, or the body, or the rubbles when those are up, which makes them ineffective overall. Plus, a Shockwave will knock them out. OBLIVIOOOOOOOOOOON, indeed.
• Iron Council: Yes! The Iron Council is another great fight for the Army of the Dead. They might get wiped quick by AOEs near the end, but the beginning of the fight works great.
• Auriaya: Yes! This is actually a change from my previous recommendations that I’ve given to people, because I noticed something new: the Feral Defender and the Sanctum Sentries are level ??, not level 80. They won’t get taunted by the ghouls! Let ‘er rip. I like to summon them while Auriaya is summoning the Feral Defender, but that’s because usually I’m tanking one of the Sanctum Sentries and given my raid’s stellar DPS, I can’t afford to not generate threat for a second because to be honest I’m a bit undergeared in my tank mode.
• The Keepers of Ulduar
• Hodir: Maybe! They die quicker than usual, but not as quick as they do against Sapphiron. However, if your raid members are having problems remembering to break out the NPCs, you may want to consider the Army – they’ll target random Flash Freezes nearby, in addition, to Hodir himself.
• Freya: No! The adds are all level 81, not level ??, so the ghouls will taunt them like mad – but good add control is the whole point of the Freya fight. Don’t do this. Your raid will thank you.
• Thorim, Mimiron: Untested. Please let me know of your experiences with Army of the Dead on these two keepers!
• The Descent into Madness
• General Vezax, Yogg-Saron: Untested. Please let me know how the Old God of Death likes being pummeled by ghouls!

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Forced Conscription: when to use Army of the Dead

I see comments like this every day, whether it be in BA chat or Twitter or what-have-you:

Leafy: Anyway, now I am going to drive home and then fail to joust for a while.

It pains me to see so many people having such a hard time with jousting. It doesn’t require any twitchier reflexes or awareness of movement than, say, a typical raid boss – and not even a particularly hard one. If you possess the following skills, you can joust:

1. The ability to reach numbers 1-4 on your numberpad.
2. The ability to strafe in a circle, whether by using the keybound strafe buttons (Q and E by default) or by “fake strafing” (holding your right mouse button down and moving it one way while using A and D or the left & right arrow keys to move in the opposite direction).
3. Two functioning brain cells to rub together.

BIG FAT BOLD DISCLAIMER: Now, I am fully aware that there are multiple strategies for jousting. Everyone has their own strategy. However, I have been using this strategy since day 1, and I have never lost a jousting match except to (1) players or (2) complete disconnects. This works on valiants, this works on champions, and (as long as you drag them away from other enemies) this works on Boneguard Commanders. (Side note: get the Commander at the back near the stairs and drag him up them while fighting. You’ll thank me later.)

ANOTHER BIG FAT BOLD DISCLAIMER: This is going to be very hard to do correctly if you still click your skills. I have nothing against keyboard turners – you can keyboard turn and do this, probably – but if you still click skills to activate them, this more than likely will not work for you. Caveat emptor.

If you have your own thing that works for you, fine – DO IT. This guide is for the completely hopeless, for the totally-given-up, for the people who pitch hissy fits at the thought of having to joust again. Read on.

1. Mount up. Doesn’t matter what mount. Keep pressing using your Defend ability (4) until there are 3 little green shields circling your mount. Now you’re ready.
2. Walk up to your enemy of choice. Stand behind and a little to the side of them. Open the dialog box. Accept, and:
3. IMMEDIATELY STRAFE LEFT. Even better if you do so in a partial circle. While strafing, as soon as you can do so, launch a Shield Breaker (2) and keep strafing.
• SIDE NOTE: A lot of people recommend meleeing here: this is worthless on Champions, in my opinion. Remember, Champions start off with three shields, and Valiants with two, so you’re only doing 10% of a melee hit to a champion. Regardless, if you can launch one as soon as you speak to someone, do it on Valiants. For Champions, start strafing instead.
• For the rest of the match, strafe in a circle around your opponent. They will usually try to move away: pursue them, then keep moving in a circle. This keeps you from being an easy target, and keeps you in range to do Shield Breakers and Charges.
4. As soon as the cooldown is up, launch a second Shield Breaker. Champions will now be at one shield; Valiants will be at 0.
5. Charge! Valiants will take the full brunt of your charge, Champions will take most of it and lose their shield.
6. While you are charging, start hammering the Thrust button (1). You’ll get one melee hit during the charge.
7. The charge is going to carry you a ways past your opponent. Wheel around to face your opponent, press Defend (4) and when you reach your opponent, press Thrust again. Thrust is on a separate cooldown from the rest of the mount abilities, so you’re able to Defend and Thrust literally at the same time.
8. Return to step 3, and continue until your opponent is defeated. Circle-strafe, shield-breaker, charge, thrust, circle, defend, thrust, repeat.
9. Rejoice in your victory.

Once the fight is over, heal up and get three layers of Defend again. Repeat the process until your dailies are over. That’s all there is to it.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

L2joust the Stoppable Force Way

(3:37:17 PM) Nibuca: Lesson learned: make sure to delete your wow combat log more often than once every 4 months

For those of you who log, for use with WoW Web Stats or one of its ilk, you may not have noticed but there are a couple interesting facts about the WoW combat log:

1. It’s super-verbose, meaning it grows really quickly as a result, and
2. WoW never deletes it, archives it, or starts a new one – when you turn off then turn on logging, WoW will gleefully keep appending to the same file.

As a result you can end up with a combat log over 5 million lines long, like Nibs above. Yikes! Well, if you’re a Windows user, I’ve got a solution you can use to automate some of this, to take the tedium out of needing to edit a log or archive it manually. Follow me past the break…

Installing PowerShell and Preparing to Run Scripts

Alright, the first thing you’ll need to do is download and install Windows PowerShell. This was one of the much-touted features of Vista back when Vista was still called Longhorn, but like many of those pie-in-the-sky features it got stripped out. This is unfortunate, because the eventual result – PowerShell – is a nice flexible scripting language for Windows, with some built-in safety mechanisms that things like batch files just don’t have. (In fact, execution of scripts is actually disabled by default. We’ll work around that.)

On the other hand, since it’s not a pack-in with Vista, you’re actually able to install it on Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. Snazzy! Anyway, hit the download page to grab it. The install is fairly straightforward, and you shouldn’t need me to hold your hand to walk you through it.

When you’re done, you should have a Windows PowerShell entry in your Start Menu. Open it up, and you’ll get a window that … looks a hell of a lot like a DOS prompt. In fact, a lot of your familiar DOS commands (like ‘dir’, ‘rename’, etc.) will still work just fine.

What you’ll want to do, in order to run the scripts I’ve got linked later on in this post, is enable your PowerShell installation to run scripts you’ve written yourself without a question, but not those you download from the internet unless they’re from a trusted signer. To do that, at the prompt, type:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

… and press enter. Voila! You’ll actually see… absolutely no feedback. Whoops. That’s intentional. But if you want to make sure it worked, you can type:

Get-ExecutionPolicy

And after you press enter, it will return what the execution policy for your system is. If you see “RemoteSigned", you’re good to go.

Getting and Running the Scripts

First things first, download this zipfile: TSFArchiverScripts.zip. Inside you should see two files, ArchiveCombatLogs.ps1 and ArchiveScreenshots.ps1. Take these out of the zipfile, then open each of these up using your text editor of choice; by default, if you have nothing else, you use Notepad. (I prefer Notepad++. But to be honest, text editors are kind of like religions: everyone has one they like, no one can explain to you why they like the one they like, and if they do try and explain it, the reasons why are totally alien to you.)

At the top of ArchiveCombatLogs.ps1, you’ll see this line:

$default = "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Logs\WoWCombatLog.txt"

Change that to the actual location of your WoW combat log – it may be at C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WoWCombatLog.txt, for example. Be sure and leave the double quotes intact!

Meanwhile, in ArchiveScreenshots.ps1, you’ll see this line:

$default = "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Screenshots"

Again, change this to your actual screenshots directory – it may be C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Screenshots. When you change this one, leave the double quotes intact and do not put a slash after Screenshots!

Save each of these, then close them. That’s all the editing you should have to do. Move them to somewhere that doesn’t have spaces in the name, just to be safe – like C:\Scripts or something like that. (Mine are stored in C:\Users\Public\ .) PowerShell can be as picky about paths with spaces in them as DOS ever was.

Running These Scripts Manually

Now, it’s easy enough to run the scripts manually, assuming you still have your PowerShell script open. In fact, you may want to do just that to give it a shot! For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume you installed them at C:\Scripts like I suggested; if not, replace that with whatever you did use. In your PowerShell window, type each of the following lines, hitting enter after each one:

cd C:\Scripts

.\ArchiveCombatLogs.ps1

.\ArchiveScreenshots.ps1

That’s it! If all went well, you probably … actually didn’t see anything. Maybe some feedback from the screenshots script, but probably not. (You definitely saw feedback in BRIGHT RED from either one if you didn’t have a Screenshots directory or a combat log; if you feel you should, double-check your changes to the scripts from the steps above.)

What actually happened is that your combat log was renamed according to the last time it was written in – so if it had last been written to at 2pm, April 13th, 2009, it will be listed now as 04132009_140000_WoWCombatLog.txt (the date, followed by the hours, minutes, and seconds, followed by – duh – WoWCombatLog.txt.) If your system displays the dates in another format, this may break, but I believe PowerShell is fairly uniform.

As your your screenshots, you should now find subfolders in your Screenshots directory. Let’s say you have screenshots from April 12th, 13th, and 14th. Inside your Screenshots folder, you will now find a 2009 folder, which contains an 04 folder, which in turns contains folders named ‘12′, ‘13′, and ‘14′. And inside those? Your screenshots! Huzzah! (Again, foreign date formats may break this. If so, let me know and I’ll work on an internationalized version of this.)

Scheduling Your Tasks

Now, obviously running these manually all the time would be kind of a pain in the ass. That’s why we’re going to automate it! Automation is beauty, folks. It’s why we like addons like Outfitter. In Windows XP, click Start, then go to Programs or All Programs (depending on whether you’re using the Classic or Damn Fancy start menu), then to Accessories, then System Tools, then Scheduled Tasks. Microsoft has fairly clear directions on how to do this.

Double-click “Add Scheduled Task,” then use the wizard to create a new task. Here’s the relevant portion: when you get to the part where you have to pick a program to schedule, choose “Windows PowerShell” from the list and click next. Choose when you want to run it (it’s entirely up to you – I have it run while I’m not home). When you get to the part where you put in a username and password, you’ll want to put in the username of someone who can make changes to the folders and such where WoW is located. 99% of the time, this will be your own user account; on the off chance you’re not running as an administrator user, put an administrator user’s credentials in here.

On the last screen, check the box that says “Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish.” Then… click Finish. This will pop up a dialog box with the PowerShell job’s info. What you’ll want to do is append the path to your script after the path to PowerShell, like so (here’s a picture, in case that was gibberish):

Save it by hitting OK, and you’re finished! Do the same steps, only replace “ArchiveCombatLogs.ps1″ with “ArchiveScreenshots.ps1″.

In Vista, you’ll want to open up the Task Scheduler by going to the Control Panel, clicking Administrative Tools, and then opening Task Scheduler. On the right side, look for “Create Basic Task” and click it. Enter whatever name you like (I suggest something snappy, like “Archive Combat Logs”), give it a description if you really want to, and hit Next.

Again, just like in XP, choose when you want it to run on the next screen, then hit next again. When you get to the “Action” portion, you can choose from one of three options: we want “Start a program,” so choose that (by default, it should be selected) and hit Next.

In the box for “Program/script,” click Browse and look for the path to PowerShell.exe. Now, below that, add the script’s name in quotes that you wish to run – like “C:\Scripts\ArchiveCombatLogs.ps1″. Here’s mine, for example:

Click next, make sure everything on the next screen looks fine, and click Finish. And that’s it! Enjoy your newly automated organized lifestyle.

Now if we could just get one of those Mac users to figure out how to do this with Automator for us… and those Linux people to whip us up a shell script… we’d have everybody covered. (Hint, hint.)

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Archiving your combat log and screenshots (for Windows)

The Blizzard Authenticator is the best thing we’ve got for now, and it’s a damned far sight better than having no authenticator at all. However, I’ve heard a lot of recent confusion from different sources – how does the Authenticator connect to my account? How does it “know” it’s me? That sort of thing. Well, I’m here to not just tell you, but to show you – I’ll walk you step-by-step through connecting an Authenticator to your Battle.net account or unmerged WoW account, and using it to log into WoW.

Step 0: Get an Authenticator

First things first: get an authenticator. You have two options for doing so.

1. A physical “keyfob” authenticator. Blizzard sells these in the Blizzard Store, but they often sell out about as fast as they arrive, so you have to be really on the ball to catch one. I got lucky and got mine out of the first batch into the store; others still can’t catch one. Blizzard also gives these away, usually with special branding, for their events like Blizzcon.
   
2. The new Battle.net Mobile Authenticator. If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and if you have merged your WoW account into a Battle.net account, you can pick this up in the App Store on your mobile device (just do a search for “blizzard,” you’ll find it pretty easily). Android users can pick a nearly-identical app up from the Android Market. In both cases, it’s free! You only need to be connected to the internet or a cellular network while downloading the app and synchronizing it the first time with Blizzard (more on that below). Otherwise, you can be offline and it’ll work just fine. If you don’t have an iDevice or Android phone, take heart! The Mobile Authenticator is designed for a variety of phones in Korea, so I feel confident it’ll spread to other mobile devices over here in the US as Battle.net usage expands.

Alright, got your authenticator in hand? Let’s get ready to roll! First, log in to your system of choice. I’ll start with adding an authenticator to an unmerged WoW account (remember, these kinds of accounts can only use the keyfob authenticators), since it’s such a short procedure.

Adding a Keyfob Authenticator to an Unmerged WoW Account

First, log in to Account Management on the World of Warcraft site. Scroll down until you see a box that looks something like this – it should tell you the account type, and has a nice obvious “Add Blizzard Authenticator” button on it.

Once you do, you’ll get to a screen that asks you to enter the serial number of your Authenticator. Flip the keyfob over, and type in the unique serial number from the back of your authenticator.

Hit Attach, and you’re done! You now have an Authenticator attached to your World of Warcraft account. You’ll want to skip down to “Logging into WoW With an Authenticator.”

Adding an Authenticator to Your Battle.net Account

First, log into the Battle.net website. Once you’re in, you’ll want to look for “Change Security Options” along the top of your profile. Click that.

Next, you’ll see a screen that lets you pick the kind of Authenticator you want to use. Battle.net accounts have the freedom to use either the keyfob or the mobile phone authenticator, but you can only use one or the other – not both. However, you can freely go back and forth between the two types, as long as you remove any existing ones from your account.

If you choose to add a Blizzard Authenticator, you’ll see a screen that looks a lot like the one above for the unmerged WoW account, and works exactly the same way – you put in the serial # from the back of your keyfob.

However, if you choose to add the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, you’ll get a screen that asks for the serial number from the Mobile Authenticator program instead. SPECIAL WARNING: If you ever remove the Authenticator from your iPhone or iPod touch, BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to remove the Authenticator from your Battle.net account first. Otherwise, you’ll probably have to jump through a lot of hoops with Blizzard’s account people to get it removed from your account. And no, just downloading it again won’t work – each downloaded copy has its own serial number.

So, how do you find the serial number of your Mobile Authenticator? First, look at the home screens of your iPod touch or iPhone (or Android phone – these pics display the iPhone version, but the Android version is more or less identical), and find the Authenticator application. Tap it to open it. It looks a like the Battle.net logo with a small grey key overlaid onto it.

You’ll see a title screen that looks like the following. Tap “Setup.”

The application will show the serial number of your authenticator to you. Remember, this is unique to your authenticator!

I couldn’t think of any ill effects of showing the serial number other than maybe someone tying my authenticator to their account, but I’d rather not have to worry about it. You actually need the authenticator itself to remove it from the account.

Either way, whether you attach a keyfob or a mobile authenticator to your Battle.net account, once you get back to your profile you should see a little info bubble appear next to the security option:

Hooray! You’ve got an authenticator on your account! Now, on to the important part…

Logging into WoW With an Authenticator

It’s actually super-simple to log into WoW once you’ve got an authenticator attached to your account. First, log into WoW like normal…

And after you put in your username and password and hit “Login,” your client talks to the Battle.net or WoW login servers, who respond like some kind of security guard: “Whoa, whoa, hey there buddy! We’re gonna need some more credentials! This is an Authenticator user!” And as a result, your client will then show you a new popup window, which will wait patiently for your Authenticator code:

Now it’s time to generate a code. Special note: you’ll note that in the pics below I show the numeric codes, whereas above I whited everything out. Why? Because these codes are

1. Unique to your authenticator’s serial number, which is tied to your own account, and
2. Only last for one login or 30 seconds, whichever comes first.

Frankly, by the time I started writing this post, even I couldn’t log in with the codes shown below. So I figure it couldn’t hurt to show you the real deal just this once, right? Anyway, generate that code. On the keyfob, that means pressing the button to generate a six-digit code:

While on the Mobile Authenticator, you launch the Authenticator, then click “View Code” from the home screen to show your 8-digit code. (After you’ve done this once, the Authenticator will usually go straight to the code screen when launched.) The Mobile Authenticator has a nice little plus over the keyfob in that it shows you how much longer a code is valid by means of a sliding bar below the number. As you can see, I’ve probably got about 5-6 seconds on the code below, so I’ll probably just wait for a new one.

Then press enter or click “Okay,” and voila! You’re in! Welcome to playing WoW with an authenticator! Like I said above, you’re not completely hackproof – no system is completely hackproof – but you’ve taken a big step towards increasing your personal security where World of Warcraft is concerned.

Removing a Blizzard Authenticator

There might be a time when you need to remove a Blizzard Authenticator from your account – say, to switch from a mobile to a keyfob or vice versa, or some other such situation. I’ll put instructions here for doing so with a Battle.net Mobile Authenticator. Unfortunately, I cannot do the same for a WoW unmerged account, as the screenshots above are actually graciously provided by a friend of mine who does not have an Authenticator. (I know, I know…)

Anyway, you’ll want to log into Battle.net’s website, then click “Change Security Options” like before. Now you’ll see that one of the links has changed to “Remove Authenticator,” while the other is completely unavailable and tells you that you need to remove the first authenticator before enabling that one. For example, here’s mine with a Mobile Authenticator attached:

As you can see, I can remove my mobile authenticator, and would have to do so to switch back to my keyfob. Clicking the Remove Authenticator link takes you to the same page in both cases, however. You’ll need to input two codes in a row (generate one, input it, wait for the next one, generate it, input it too) to confirm removal – in other words, you normally can’t remove the authenticator without the authenticator. You can probably jump through some hoops with Blizzard’s account department in the event you lose yours, but you shouldn’t ordinarily have to do so.

Regardless, after you’re done, you’ll see a little confirmation message, just like when you successfully attached an authenticator. If you’d like to attach a new one, just follow the steps above!

I hope that helps clear up any confusion anyone still had about the Authenticator(s) for your WoW accounts. Happy securing!

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

The Blizzard Authenticator: a journey in pictures

She mentions it briefly, but I can’t emphasize it enough – if you’re leveling Unholy, take On a Pale Horse. Frankly, I still miss the mounted movement buff today, given the sheer size of Northrend.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Leveling unholy