Arena or Kara weapon?

The day has finally arrived. I have enough arena points to buy the Merciless Gladiator's Maul, but I'm not that excited. Why, do you ask? Well, it's because I'm not sure what to do.

Here are my choices: 1) I can choose to spend all my arena points on this one fabulous weapon; or 2) I can spend all my arena points to purchase a season 2 helm and chestpiece, and wait/pray that the Stranglestaff from Karazhan drops.

I've done some calculations and comparisons of what boosts/upgrades I would receive. Basically, if I equip the helm and chest, I'll receive tons of more stam (55 more), intellect, +healing bonuses, and some more resilience. However, I will lose some agility (and therefore a little crit), and attack power. All in all, these boosts are all of a defensive quality--they won't help me kill any better.

Stats wise, the Stranglestaff is slightly inferior to the Merciless Gladiator's Maul. It has about 100 less attack power, less crit, and less stam. However, the Stranglestaff is free if it drops, which would allow me to use my points to buy the arena gear. My guildie thinks that it's an acceptable trade for all the bonus in stats I would gain if I waited for the staff and equipped the arena chest and helm in the meanwhile.

My only beef with this is that our guild is somewhat noobish. In fact, they've only downed Terestian once, and the staff didn't drop. The following week we tried him again, but we were gimped with an undergeared druid...giving us an outcome in which we wiped when Terestian was at 1% health. Needless to say, that was terrible. Therefore, my fears are that we may not down Terestian in the near future; even if we do, there's no guarantee that the staff will drop.

If I equip the arena mace, I'll gain 393 more attack power, about 3% crit, and a smidgen of stam (13). This is pretty much the best feral druid weapon I can obtain outside of Black Temple and what-not. Although the mace won't really help me survive any better, I'm hoping that an extra 400ish attack power will help me kill my opponents faster.

The people I've asked have given varying opinions as to what I should do. Two people have said to pick the mace because my main objective in arena matches and raids is usually to dps quickly. This is especially pertinent in arena matches, because my burst damage when killing someone might be good enough that the enemy dies before receiving a heal. There have been plenty of times when an opponent has escaped my grasp around 1-10% hp, and they would then receive a huge heal. Having more attack power could help me avoid those irritating situations better.

It all comes back to the fact that the Karazhan staff is free...if it drops. What on earth do I do?

Transformers, more than meets the eye

Today's quote: It's a robot. You know, like a super advanced robot. It's probably Japanese.

I didn't do much this July 4th. I just pretty much stayed home and relaxed. The only thing I did do was go see Transformers. I wasn't expecting much, so it was a nice surprise. The graphics of the Transformers looked so cool that the movie is just fine without being "more than meets the eye." A very cool feature is the fact that the voice actor for Optimus Prime is the original from the cartoon.

It was pretty funny, although some of the jokes were a bit corny. Still, Shia LeBeouf was a great main character. I didn't really think much of his female costar, other than the fact that she was obviously very pretty. Keep in mind that this movie is obviously meant for the general population, so it's not going to win any awards for the screenplay etc. Overall, expect the cartoon coming to life with very nice graphics and some humorous dialogue sprinkled throughout.