2008-02-28

Understanding High Level Enchanting

In case you've been wondering why I haven't posted anything for a few days, keep reading, you'll soon find out.

Leveling Enchanting

I dropped my leveling profession (Skinning) a while back, and started leveling Enchanting. Rather quickly I was up to 300 and soon I was up to 350 already. How did I level it? I used "power-leveling" guide: Enchanting 1-300 & Enchanting 300-375 from WoW Forums. These guides provide the formulas/enchants that are the most economical to level your skill.

I've had 300 Enchanting Alt for a while, but I've never had this a skill higher than that in Enchanting. Up to 300 you can just keep enchanting with the mats you get from disenchanting (and "waste money" if you have plenty). To some degree you can continue a bit after 300, but soon you will have to start finding people with their own materials as the enchants get so expensive, you'd have to be Scrooge McDuck to pay for all that. (This is why you see all the "free with your mats" in the trade channel, as players are trying to level their skills).

High Level Enchanting

For leveling, you can use the guides. But when you hit 300 and especially 350, you notice that the good'ol Enchanting Trainer doesn't have any more enchants for you. Bummer. You have to buy the formulas: from AH, normal vendor or reputation vendors. And for the most rare (and thus, most potential profit), you have to get the formula yourself, as the formulas are Bind on Pickup and only drops for enchanters. Here's the list for Enchanting BoP Recipes.

And now we get to the part why I've been a bit quiet blogwise. I've been grinding for the static enchanting formula drops in Blade's Edge and Netherstorm. And let me tell you, I don't want to see another Bloodmaul Geomancer ever again! Geomancers can be found from Blade's Edge Mountains, and has rare drop: Formula: Enchant Bracer - Spellpower. The problem with these fellows is that they share spawn points with Bloodmaul Skirmishers. So to get Geomancers, one has to grind endlessly on Skirmishers and wish that Geomancer would spawn in their place.

And while running around killing Skirmishers and hoping to see Geomancer, someone else might run in and down "your" Geomancer in front of your eyes. And the drop being rather rare, it can take a while or you might get lucky.

I didn't get lucky.

It took three days, maybe 10 hours of playing and hundreds of slayed Ogre's (I stopped counting after day 1). This morning I logged in to continue the grind, and BOOM, second Geomancer popped up the lovely "Looting this item will bind it to you" dialog. I've never been happier to click YES on that :)

Luckily, with Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower and Formula: Enchant Bracer - Major Defense I was very lucky, as I got those from second and maybe 10th mob.

Making Money with Enchanting

So, to make money with enchanting you have two choices/options: disenchanting and high-level enchants. The Disenchanting option I covered to in earlier post "How We Make Our Gold (with Auctioneer)".

With High Level Enchants I'm not experienced enough to tell how much profit there is, but I do know that you have to do your share of instances, heroics, raiding and grinding - and get lucky while at it - to get that recipes to drop and then win a roll on it if other enchanters are around.

But one thing is certain: remember to tip your enchanter when getting the high level enchants or don't be suprised if the enchanter actually asks for gold to do the enchant.

Chances are she has grinded her eyes out to get that enchant.

2008-02-22

Leveling a Priest as Shadow, but Gearing to be Healer at Level 70

So you level your priest as shadow (you should, it's just way faster), but you want to heal when you hit 70. What to do? How to get gear?

Leveling a Priest as Shadow, but Gearing to be Healer at Level 70

Tailoring is not needed, but the tailored sets are soo good that it's recommended.
The sets are better than T4, maybe even T5 in some uses.

Primal Mooncloth Set
Whitemend Wisdom Set

Here's what I would suggest (what I did):

Plan your gear ahead. Use the resources, for example:
Kaliban's WoW-Loot List (Priest)
Best Casual PvE Healing Gear by A Dwarf Priest

1) At around lvl65 (or whenever you hit Nagrand), start taking healing gear as quest rewards over the dps gear.

2) And start going to outland instances as healer (you can very well as shadow) and pick up gear there. Or if you go in instance as dps, ask if you can roll for healer gear if such would show up.

3) Work on the reputation for certain factions to get healer gear from rewards (Like Watcher's Cowl from Cenarion Expedition, Lower City Prayerbook, etc.)

4) And if you like, level tailoring, and work on the PMC set while doing the above

This way I had couple of pieces of PMC done when I hit 70 and I had healer gear from normal instances and some quest rewards. When I finished last piece of PMC, I respecced holy, and started doing heroics for even more healer gear.

2008-02-21

Forum Watch: Most Viewed Topic in WoW-EU Priest Forums

In WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Priest, the most viewed thread is the most unlikely one.

The Most Viewed Post is an innocent "Hi, it's me" post, which wind picked up. It has most replies too. See for yourself: Steve

The stickied Complete Priest FAQ is something to look into if you're new to playing a priest or to the forums.

Oh, and you might want to know that I'm happy with (planned) 2.4, I posted as a countermeasure for all the whining / rioting going on in the forums (but it will most likely pick up more whiners than happy faces, which is just sad).

For you in the US, look into US-side Priest Discussion for similar and remember to contribute if you feel like it.

Blog Watch: The Best Priest DPS Guide Ever!

If A Dwarf Priest didn't have Exalted reputation inside the Priest Community already, she more than deserves it now.

She brings us Priest DPS Guide, the most important information you ever wanted and need to know about Priest DPS:

The Best Priest DPS Guide Ever! Period. Exclamation mark!

I'm amazed. Just amazed. Such a great guide with detailed information, flowcharts and all.

What are you still doing here? Read A Dwarf Priests' DPS Guide, Now!

2008-02-19

Blog Watch: Get That Alt Moving

Love is in the Air is over already but Lunar Festival is still on-going.

I never realized to exploit the "teleportation service" Lunar Festival offers until I read the WoW Insider post on How to use the Lunar Festival for easy lowbie travel.

In short, you can gather the flights points and go train your weapons skill in all the major cities in Azeroth for your lowbie Alt. By doing this, for example if you're Alliance, you can skip that dangerous run to Ironforge from Wetlands with your Night Elf / Draenei.

So if you have lowbie Alt or you're planning to have one, or even brand new character, I recommend you use the Lunar Festival to it's fullest as it won't be back until last year.

For female characters, get that beautiful festival dress as a bonus (the male "pyjamas" I don't recommend for anyone, not even gnomes).

Additional tip: Remember that as a Druid you can move around quickly during Lunar Festival with the Moonglade Teleport spell.

Blog Watch: Pants of 100 Badges

I think everyone reads WoW Insider, but I still pinpoint their post today about New Patch 2.4 Badge of Justice Gear. They previously posted about the badge prices of the new gear and now they continue on the subject.

Of course the original source is the good'ol mmo-champion where patch 2.4 PTR news have been covered almost live. So that's the real place to go and check the new Sunwell badge loot.

The new healing cloth items have so much spirit one might get drunk just by looking at them, just look at this chest piece. I know that these are still in PTR, and prices/stats can change or they might even cancel the whole thing (unlikely thou), but I just wanted to say: mmm, Pants!

Now excuse me, I gotta go back and get some more Badges of Justice. You should too.

2008-02-16

Forum Watch: How not to make an application

This time on Forum Watch: Something less serious.

I have to warn you this is not for the faint of heart, innocent looking guild application turns into quite legendary thread with plenty of plain weird activity like raiding with broken nose and.. A Fist!

Some say we now have our own Leeroy at Eu-Aggramar! I'm not sure about that, but I can say that this is very hilarious stuff indeed.

Our Realm Forum (Aggramar) thread "Crazy world, Special people and Russian Mafia" links you to the forum of a guild called 'Rising' and a topic called "How not to make an application - Warlock 70" there.

I think this quote from the topic really sum it up!

"Please create a 'Hall of Fame' section and insert this thread"

2008-02-15

The Most Important Info About Patch 2.4

There's a shipload of news pouring from the test realms.

But there's really just one thing you have to know when the patch comes out and I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a lot of information on the subject.

There are all kinds of news about The Kaliri have learned to fly up in Skettis, all kinds of new items and constantly updated news from PTR.

But there is only one thing I need to know about patch 2.4.

And this is the question you will see the most in Trade Chat when patch goes live.

How Do I Get To Sunwell Isle?

Yes, that is all you *have* to know about patch 2.4.

(true, if you don't want to see the new content, you don't even have know this)

Here's what I found:

* You can swim north of Silvermoon City.
* There is a flightpoint in Sunwell Isle (connected to EPL, Ghostlands and Silvermoon City).
* There might be a boat ride, but it's not confirmed.
* At some point, there will probably be a portal to Sunwell Isle from Shattrath.

Luckily, this information can be found from WoWWiki, but it's not near complete yet. However, WoWWiki is very likely to be updated with the latest information when it comes out.

Shared Topic: How did you come up with your character names?

Bunnyfer at Blog Azeroth suggested this Shared Topic:

How did you come up with your character names?

Most of my character names come from some mythology/history (e.g. Viking, Kalevala), but Zemalf is a different story.

A thread with similar question came up at WoW Eu Priest Forums couple of months ago, so I kinda had the answer prepared for this topic:

I was playing very old rpg called Nahlakh (1995). For those who don't know the game (I assume most), Nahlakh was a classic Gold Box style RPG with innovative combat system. And a lot of combat there was - if you like grinding in WoW, you would've loved Naklakh.

Anyway, my party of 8 in the game were called: Drazzilb, Zemalf, Relaeh, Feiht, Regnar, Knat & Kresreb and one I don't remember. See if you can crack the code and figure how the names were formed.

Zemalf stuck with me since, no connection to playing a priest on World of Warcraft thou, it's just "my name".

With the gamertag, I can also be found from Twitter as @Zemalf and FriendFeed. Even on my website, this name stayed with me, as I took the name and domain Zemalf.com for it.

I've seen couple of other "Zemalf's" out there, but usually it's me :)

In YouTube, "zemalf" was taken the time I got around to it, so my channel and username is TheZemalf. (also TheZemalf on Steam).

Forum Watch: Crafting or raiding for gear?

I'm checking up on forums from time to time, here's some I picked up today.

Welcome to the first edition of Zemalf's Forum Watch :)

crafting or raiding for gear? for healing (WoW EU Priest Forums)

My answer (posted at thread as well):

I have 6 tailored epics (PMC Set, Whitemend Set, Boots of the Long Road) + 1 blue (White Remedy Cape) not yet replaced.

This is what I pretty much had before Kara, or shortly after starting it. With these I'm pretty much overgeared for most of Kara, but there's still upgrades and items for different slots there.

I've complemented my gear with drops from heroics and badges of justice items. And I continue to do so.

So, at least if you have gold, the fastest way to gear-up is tailoring. You can almost gear yourself all the way with tailoring, which makes you ready for heroics, which you can do to gear up more, all without raiding.

I don't see raiding as a method to gear up, gear comes as a added bonus, which enables you to raid more efficiently or in more difficult raids. And as I can speed/ease this process by crafting, I did.

Continued, Other professions

Of course, there are other crafting professions than Tailoring, but there's not much in them for Priests. Engineering has Goggles with +Healing, but those are more +dmg oriented and they're not actually very good either (unlike Mail/Plate goggles).

Enchanting is great compelement to Tailoring, even just for the +Healing Ring Enchant that you can only do them yourself on your own rings.

2008-02-14

The "right" way to Mechanar

Why no-one told me that you can go left in Mechanar, and you don't have to go right?

I bumped into Eternalone's post in WoW EU Forums: Heroic Mechanar: TEH way to do it

Unless you're doing a rep run, you most likely want to go through Mechanar as fast as possible (e.g. the Heroic Daily) - if so, read on.

To summarize the way to do Mechanar the fastest, I quote original poster from the thread at forums:

I always considered that the fastest way to clear mech is to go left, pull the mini boss, go down the stairs, clear up until the first boss, pull the second mini boss straight after him


Malleus goes a bit further in the thread, and offers the reasoning behind "left is right, right is wrong" in Mechanar, by analyzing why the left side is faster, but the quote above summarizes it.

I don't think I'll go right (in Mechanar) ever again :)

A Dwarf Priest Goes Comic

I've gotten my share of comments about wearing robes (being a male dwarf priest). I do wear pants underneath (most of the time). And yes, replacing words with "pants" never gets old. If you want to know what the heck I'm talking about, read on.

A Dwarf Priest shows that she has exceptional talents outside blogging and WoW: Bow before excellent web comic! Superb job, I suggest everyone check the comic out now.

2008-02-13

Downrank that Heal

I mostly use Greater Heal Rank 1 as my "main-heal". And throw Greater Heal Rank 7 only if max heal is needed. With Renew+Prayer of Mending and occasional emergency Flash Heal, I'm set.

There's no point to overheal if downranked spell does the job.

This saves mana, and thus, might be the edge you need to conquer some battles.

Especially as a Priest, you will still need to dance in-out of the 5 Second Rule (Mana Regen at WoWWiki), but don't overlook downranking.

What I do is this:

I have macroes for max and min rank for each spell (and some middle ranks too, like GH Rank 6).
I cast different ranks of spells on myself several times, and count the "average heal" for each rank.
I then update the macro names like:
"2000 GH1" - for Greater Heal Rank 1 which heals 2000hp on average
"3800 GH7" - for Greater Heal Rank 7 which heals 3800hp on average
.
.
etc.

I update the macroes/buttons every now and then when gear has upgraded.

So when I place the buttons on my action bar, I can easily see what I need to cast if I need to heal, let's say, 2500hp or 1200hp = I can throw big or small heal depending on what is needed.

I use Clique for heals, but the buttons are there to remind me that Greater Heal Rank 6 heals this much and Flash Heal Rank 1 heals this much and so on.

In most cases you do fine by spamming the max rank, it saves mana and makes you more efficient healer.

For theorycrafters, it's about Heal / Mana. Use the Priest Healing Calculator to see the differences of the ranks.

Evaluating Gear Upgrades

It's very useful to plan out your next gear upgrades, and different loot lists help, but you can do it yourself too with several available loot / gear evaluators.

A Dwarf Priest was kind enough to notify me that she found out about gear/loot evaluator which counts spell haste too: Loot Rank

Here's link for Loot Rank PvE Search up to T5.

Lootzor.com shows heroic badges cost right the report page, so don't abandon it either.

Dwarf Priestress' "Best Casual PvE List" was also updated with Voodoo Shaker (which was not showing in lootzor.com - but shows in Loot Rank!)

Now if only someone would enlighten me if some of these evaluators notices set bonuses too :)

2008-02-12

Spirit, Int, Patch 2.4 & You

The formula for regen based on spirit is going to change in next patch (at least it has on PTR). In short, the amount of mana regenerated based on spirit will increase based on Intelligence. It's too good to be true, but still worth dreaming.

Take a look at HealerLFG for superbly visualized info about the subject: News from the PTR : Intellect > Spirit Regen
(I love spreadsheets and graphs, such a great post!)

Some additional number crunching:

Source: Richelieu's post at Elitist Jerks:

MP5 | Outside 5SR MP5 | Inside 5SR
Live: 361 195
PTR: 480 237
Net Gain: 119 42

These values are for a holy priest with 3 points in Meditation and the PMC set, with no buffs, with identical gear and talents, Spirit of 359, and Intellect of 501:

Source: New Regen model (PTR) post at WoW EU PriestForums:
mp5 = 683.4 mp5
instead of :
mp5 = 406.25 mp5

Numbers with 600 int and 600 spi

Additional Info about Patch 2.4:
2.4 Test realm patch notes at mmo-champion
Patch 2.4 in WoWWiki

Reputation Grind & Calculator

We all need reputation, in WoW for Heroic Dungeon keys, reputation rewards, cool mounts, etc.

To see where you are, and what to do next, look here:
WoW Reputation Calculator

If you want more detailed information, click on the links under spesific faction.

or if you want more, look no further than WoWWiki for the best resources on how to get high reputation (the fastest, easiest, etc): WoWWiki Reputation

EDIT: I just found a post in WoW EU Forums about this: WoWJuju RepCalculator. Same thing as the WoW Reputation Calculator, but with a bit more extended interface.

Healing Priest Badge Gear

Gearing through badges of justice is great way to upgrade and get ready for raiding (and heroics are fun, at least for me)

While patch 2.4 might bring some new goodness in badge rewards, here's where we (healing priest) are now...

I Posted this on EU WoW Priest Forums and decided to add it here as well:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2843524572&postId=28432089831&sid=1#5

I don't know about you, but I want to use badges on gear that last for as long as possible
e.g. items that are not immediately replaced, or if they are replaced, it's lucky/rare drop from hard boss

Of course, one has to consider what to replace with badge reward and what not.

Here's a list of heroic badge healing priest rewards.
The number being how high the item ranks compared to other low raid items
(Karazhan, Gruul’s, Mag’s Lair, Zul’Aman)

Wrist:
1 Wristguards of Tranquil Thought 35 Heroic Badges

Hand:
1 Light-Blessed Bonds 60 Heroic Badges

Legs:
1 Achromic Trousers of the Naaru 75 Heroic Badges

Off-Hand:
! Voodoo Shaker 35 Heroic Badges
2 Tears of Heaven 25 Heroic Badges

Wand:
2 Carved Witch Doctor’s Stick 25 Heroic Badges

Trinkets:
1 Essence of the Martyr 41 Heroic Badges
14 Icon of the Silver Crescent 41 Heroic Badges

Back:
3 Kharmaa’s Shroud of Hope 60 Heroic Badges
5 Bishop’s Cloak 25 Heroic Badges

Neck:
5 Necklace of Eternal Hope 25 Heroic Badges

Head:
6 Cowl of Naaru Blessings 50 Heroic Badges

Finger:
6 Band of Halos 25 Heroic Badges

Items ranked using a formula (stats weights: .15 stam / .2 int / .35 spirit / 1 mp5 / .03 spell crit / .25 heal / .1 spell haste). Bonuses, unique effects, and trinkets are all rated on a conversion system to the aforementioned stats, and then ranked.


List shamelessly ripped from A Dwarf Priest: http://dwarfpriest.com/2007/09/30/best-casual-pve-healing-gear/trackback/

Additional Gear Ranking Resource (for your own ranking for example): http://www.lootzor.com/

2008-02-11

St. Valentines day in WoW

A Dwarf Priest did super job covering The Lunar Festival, and now she continues doing great job when revealing the secrets of "Love is in the Air" , an event surrounding Valentine's day.

As I started playing WoW last October, this is the first Love is in the Air for me, and I've been waiting for it to get my Lovely Black Dress.

Let's see if I can get lucky and get this very rare reward of the event.

Oh, and I'm not wearing it on my main, Zemalf the Dwarf Priest :) But it will look, oh so sweet, on my female Auction House Alts.

I'm also looking forward to giving presents to some of the in-game friends. So awkward situations might be ahead when I'll be handing Heart Candy to a female toon, and the player behind the other screen turns out to be teenage guy.

2008-02-10

Regular Half-PUG Heroic Runs

Heroic Dungeon runs can be pain with bad PUG. Solution: Run with people you know - guild mates, in-game or real-life friends.

Doing Heroic Badge Farming is just so much easier when everyone knows what they're doing and know what the others in the group are doing without telling and keeping an eye on them. Same marks, crowd controls fly without asking, looting goes without drama.

I've been lucky enough to find heroic-loving-Warrior-Tank and equally-heroic-loving-Hunter who seem to do heroics together, and they occasionally ask me to join them for heroic - I guess my healing has been good enough :)

I've known them and we've been running heroics together longer than I've known any of my guildies and I could say I've become friends with them (in the game), especially with the Warrior Tank.

Playing with guildies and helping them is one thing I enjoy, but I would go to the world's end with these two.

Why?

Because I trust them.

With the three of us, we PUG the rest of the group (usually Mage and Lock), or are lucky enough when our A-List friends are online.

So most of the time we are group of 4 who have run that instance several times, or sometimes all 5 know each other. Even "the worst case" of us three with two "randoms", it's always a blast.

And after time, some inside jokes start to form (not the ones causing hah-hah-wipes, but just making comments only possible when played with someone for some time).

Like Auctioneering & Raiding, these heroic runs with in-game friends are the things that keep me coming back to the game.

2008-02-09

Tailoring - Is There Profit?

Insider Trader at WoW Insider covered Tailoring today.

This got me thinking, again, is there profit in Tailoring? Or is it just for gearing your cloth caster (in which, it *is* that great)?

I only picked Tailoring for gearing, and I'm still wearing my Primal Mooncloth and Whitemend Sets, in addition to the Boots of the Long Road which recipe I ripped cheaply from AH. With just Tailoring I outgeared Kara in the respective slots before I even went it. So that's a no brainer.

Profit I make with Tailoring, comes of making occasional Whitemend Hood or other recipe requiring Primal Nether. I guess making Bags would give some gold, but I never got into it.

Have you made pouch-breaking profits of Tailoring? Please share your knowledge :)

2008-02-07

Don't Break My Shackle!

Especially in Karazhan Shacking is Priest's bread and butter. Dwarf Priest intro/guide to the Priest Crowd Control is good place to start.

Set up your focus macro for both shackling and emergency re-shackle using netherweb net (if you're tailor) and your set to go.

But I just wish there would be some way to make people not to break my shackle :) That's the one reason, I always hit BINGO in Karazhan.

I'm now using CCBreaker (attaches to Fubarnicely) to both get one more way to get warning about shackles breaking and get history who keeps breaking my shackles - so I can try to educate them to not to do it in the future (Paladin Consecration is the hardest as they don't have to target the shackled foe). Just reminding "don't break my shackle" usually works, but when it doesn't it causes so much irritation (and wipes, when things go bad).

I guess I could also use Tattle addon or similar addon to rant about the breakage "live".

So everyone - don't break shackles (or any other crowd control for that matter)

How we make our gold

This topic was inspired by discussion thread at Auctioneer Addon Forums : "How we make our gold using Auctioneer"

I play a Dwarf Priest, specced Holy. So I heal, and grinding for money is both hard and boring for me. So how do I finance my raiding, gear and everything in between?

I use Auctioneer addon, or to be more precise, a collection of addons called Auctioneer Advanced Suite. The bundle consists of all kinds of tools to create profit in the virtual economy of World of Warcraft. For example, there are tools to buy items for disenchant and disenchant those items one by one. In short, all the tools are there to find profitable items from Auction House: either for resale, disenchant (to sell the disenchanted materials), prospecting, etc.

So always before and after I log in with my main, I log in to one of my Alts, who sits at one of the main cities (near auction house/bank). I go to Auction House, and start scanning the items there and start buying items that I can make profit from. When done, I go to mail box, get all items out, disenchant the ones I want, head back to Auction House, and place everything on sale (unless prices are very low at that point). This takes about 5-15 minutes per log-in, so I use about half an hour daily for this and make anything from tens to hundreds to thousands of gold weekly with only buying and selling items others have collected/grinded.

Sometimes I find super-bargains, where items worth 1000g is put on sale for 100g or even 50g. But most of my profits come from buying disenchantable items cheaply, disenchanting them and selling the materials. Sometimes I buy materials for crafting professions, like leatherworking or tailoring, create some items either for sale or to be disenchanted.

All this has given me heaps of gold, epic mount, all the materials/recipes/items gearing up I have needed to buy. I don't have to think about "can I afford to buy" potions/elixirs/flasks/other consumables, I just get what I need and want, and I know when to buy'em with good price, as I have data what they usually sell for.

Like said, I don't like to grind for primals/herbs/ore/leather, but I enjoy playing at Auction House so much, that I think I wouldn't play WoW so much if there wasn't well implemented Auction House and so great addon(s) for it.

If you want to join the fun, head to the Auctioneer Addon website, download the latest preview version, check the forums there for latest tips and start learning your way around the addon when you get in the game.

So are you an auction house addict like me?

How do you make your gold?

2008-02-06

What kind of player you are?

Different players have different goals in WoW. Some players don't seem to have any goals, or at least are not methodical about their goals. I always have a list of gear I'm working towards and I do research where/how to get it. This was especially true when I was gearing to be effective healer while transitioning from level 6x Shadow Priest to level 70 Holy. And at level 70 I set my goals on rep gear, heroics, Kara, etc.

Reading Matticus Responding to the “I Play for Personal Advancement and Gear Argument” post on the Raider’s Progress that was seemingly not happy with Warcrafter got me thinking, why do I play World of Warcraft and what kind of player I am (and what kind of players I enjoy playing with).

Playing to outstand from others through gear or other visible achievements is only part of the story (and for some, it's not the story at all). And being a bit academic, I want numeric results (that's just how I am), so I figured that the way to reflect one's play style in this case would be through The Bartle Test.

About The Bartle Test

The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology is a series of questions and an accompanying scoring formula that classifies players of multiplayer online games (including MUDs and MMORPGs) into categories based on their gaming preferences.


The Bartle Test results into "Bartle Quotient" of The Four Categories of Players; Killers, Socializers, Achievers and Explorers. The Bartle Quotient totals 200% across all categories, with no single category exceeding 100%.

I chose the Bartle Test for this post because it's relatively simple, but for example The Daedalus Project used this more expanded model to describe game interests/motivation. Here is the test for it

My Bartle Test

The Bartle Test has also been organized in electronic form, and Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology in GuildCafe was linked in Wikipedia, so I took it.

Results: I'm EASK. Breakdown: Achiever 66.67%, Explorer 73.33%, Killer 13.33%, Socializer 46.67%.

That reflects the reality pretty well. I enjoy exploring new areas and read strategies and guides offline (to gain knowledge), but on the other hand, I love to get new gear and equipment to make myself more effective in what I do (I heal). I don't care that much about having the best gear, so I would be "admired" for it, but to be the acknowledged as "great player", someone who knows how things work and is able to do what's necessary to get the task done.

On the other hand I wouldn't want to be known as "Player with great skills and gear, but not-so-pleasant personality". And all this is also what I respect the most in other players; personality. I take patient, mature & polite person over irritating, hyperactive trashtalker with super-gear any day.

What kind of player you are?