Shamantics

To Cataclysm!

2010-11-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

Next week Cataclysm will launch, and - as millions of others have done - I've already pre-ordered the digital download and will join the throngs of pixelated avatars exploring and fighting their way through new virtual challenges. (Deathwing, I'm lookin' at you, kid.)

For this return to Azeroth, I will continue to play Elemental with a Resto offspec, and will likely become enchanted with an alt or two, just as in prior expansions.

However, due to the realities of my current (real) life, I'm simply not finding the time to write & research as much I had done in years past. As such, I'll be officially shutting down this blog until further notice.

Happy hunting!

~Exelus the Kingslayer

On Deforestation

2010-04-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Back in The Burning Crusade, while my main was busy cracking skulls with both fists, my main alt was teaching me how to heal.

Ciribrus, a Druid, was initially a Dreamstate healer, spending all his time in Night Elf form. For a while this was a semi-viable way to heal (especially for leveling up as a healer), but as his gear improved it quickly became obvious that I needed to take the plunge and go Tree in order to flourish. Remember that back then, there was a significant trade-off to being stuck in wooden form: I hated the speed decrease, limited selection of spells, etc. But the efficiency and HoT-tastic power of Tree Form was awesome, and I learned to love it.

The recent announcement to relegate Tree of Life to a cooldown ability in Cataclysm was rather surprising (and dismaying) to me. Even though I no longer play my Druid actively, I still think of Tree form as the iconic healing form for Druids. The internets and forums seem to be up-in-arms about it, and I'd like to propose some options beyond just breaking out the chain saw:

Empowered Tree

Allow our leafy friends to stay in normal mobile Tree of Life form, but give them an additional Empowered Tree of Life form to invoke during cooldown phases. This new temporary form would buff healing, in exchange for reduced mobility (maybe even rooted) and perhaps limit/change their spell selection for the duration. This form could visually resemble the large Ent-type creatures you see hanging around with the Cenarion folk. (Bonus ability: serves as a very slow mount for two Hobbits Gnomes...)

Two Healing Styles

The Feral talent tree offers two roles: Bear tank or Kitty DPS. I realize this is something Blizzard is trying to get away from (removing tanking from Frost and Unholy Death Knights, for example), but why not offer healing Druids the option to spec into a permanent Tree of Life form? Caster Druids could be tooled more towards single-target healing (using Tree Form as a healing buff cooldown), while Perma-Trees could be more focused on raid healing and lose some of their single-target oomph. Almost like Discipline vs. Holy Priests.

Now obviously Cataclysm is still in development and there are Betas and play-testing to get through before we settle into normalcy, but I for one am certainly not in favor of deforestation.

Save the trees!

And now for something completely different...

2010-03-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

While we battle through the latter half of Icecrown Citadel and daydream about rolling Worgen Warlocks in Cataclysm, somewhere in the back of my head I'm boggled at the possibilities for Blizzard's next-gen MMO. The project is claimed to be well underway, and is said to feature an all-new IP (intellectual property: in this case meaning the game world and it's lore). So... what could this new World of Whatcraft look like?

Medieval Fantasy

We can probably surmise that Blizzard's next MMO won't be filled with knights, wizards, elves and goblins. Warcraft is arguably the most prolific representation of this genre we've seen so far, and Diablo's slightly-darker take is about to be re-introduced as Diablo III. Since Blizzard has already been-there-done-that, it's hard to imagine they'd do another high-fantasy MMO. Verdict: NOT LIKELY.

Sci-fi Fantasy

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to play World of Starcraft and would play the shit outta that game. Roll a Terran Firebat or Protoss Zealot? Hell yeah! (I'm still sore about the loss of Starcraft: Ghost, btw) However, the claim of an "all new IP" throws us off the trail for WoS. It's always possible they'll do a variation on a sci-fi fantasy theme (as they did with Diablo), but if it's not going to be Starcraft, I'd have to go with NOT LIKELY.

Super Heroes (a.k.a. Men in Tights)

We already have games like City of Heroes, and I'm just going with a gut instinct that Blizzard will stay away from this genre. There would be too many class/spec balance issues to contend with (especially with open-ended character designs), and even legal/copyright issues from comic book franchises. And frankly, a modern day real-world setting is just too boring/familiar. Verdict: NOT LIKELY.

Near Future/Post-Apocalypse

One of my all-time favorite games was Wasteland - a post-nuclear game world featuring mutated bunnies, machine guns, religious survivalists, and robotic invaders. I would love to see what Blizzard could do here. We already have games like Fallen Earth, but that doesn't mean Blizzard can't tackle the genre and exceed expectations. World of Warcraft was developed in a time when Everquest was king, after all. And the apocalyptic theme isn't limited to nuclear war - it could be biological/medical/environmental disaster, alien-invasion, or some horrific combination. Verdict: POSSIBLE.

Middle East/Far East Fantasy

Some of my favorite Diablo II zones centered around Middle Eastern lore (think arabian knights, mummies, animal-headed gods and camel mounts!). There's also a far-east possibility: who wouldn't want to roll a samurai, ninja, or monk? Both genres have a strong historical base to draw from (in the same way medieval history inspired Tolkien), and I think Blizzard could do wonders with these genres. Verdict: POSSIBLE.

Horror Fantasy

Vampires, werewolves, zombies, hunters, oh my! Think Underworld, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Call of Cthulu, where evil lurks in dark corners and you never want to be without a silver bullet. This could also be a great setting to incorporate steampunk elements, given horror fantasy's 1800's roots. Verdict: POSSIBLE.

Something Else Entirely

There's always the chance that Blue has conceived something else entirely. Perhaps some hybrid of themes listed above? Aliens have landed on Earth and we've been forced to scatter across the universe. We've formed a hodgepodge caravan of spaceships, traveling together in order to survive and carry on the human race. Oh wait, I've just described Battlestar Galactica. But you get the idea here - the trick for Blizzard will be to come up with a setting that is familiar enough to be immediately immersed in, but with enough unique twists to make it their own.

I just hope they do away with Trade Chat...

To my three readers: what other genres would make a great MMO setting?

Gaming can make a better world?

2010-03-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's a little early for an April Fool's post, right? Well, naturally the title of this recent TED Talk intrigued the radical thinker (not really) and gamer in me, and I had to share.

For those unfamiliar, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. They host video lectures on a variety of topics (social, economic, philosophical, whimsical, musical), and I always come away feeling smarter after watching one of their lectures than say, some steaming pile of brain-bandwidth-wasting crap you see on YouTube. (Onyxia Wipe Animation excluded, of course!)

In this talk, Jane McGonigal offers some interesting insight into the traits of gamers and how we're uniquely equipped to solve real-world problems:

Some of my other TED favorites:

Tier 10!

2010-03-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

After a long Frost Emblem grind, this past weekend I finally amassed the 310 needed to finish-out the four-piece Tier 10 Elemental set. /phew! Along with a slew of other purchased items (made out like a bandit using alts to sell Primordial Saronites), I've managed to push my gear score up to 2954. For now I'll avoid the tired gear score topic altogether, and instead focus on something I feel Blizzard has done right this expansion: tiered gearing.

Back during The Burning Crusade (my first experience with "endgame"), I remember drooling over the Enhancement Tier 4 and hoping that someday, I'd be able to get Exelus outfitted with a full set. However our beloved guild was (and still is) primarily a 10-man guild, so I only had practical access to the first pieces in Karazhan. We never made it all the way through Zul'Aman, and Magtheridon and Gruul's were just out of reach. (Certainly Serpentshire Cavern and Tempest Keep was out of the question.) If only I had L2resto'd in pugs back then, I might have chain-heal-spammed my way to the Enhancement set I wanted?

Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King, where at each raiding tier I was able to gather them appropriate gear set while collecting off-set/non-set items from raiding and heroic emblems.

[Blizzard] has earned the achievement: Getting it right this time around.

We can now access gear in logical stages: with current raiding level gear just within reach (but still requiring dedication and focus to earn), and previous raiding level gear very easy to get via emblems (great for gearing up offspecs and alts). Kudos, blue.

Now, on to the tasty stuff: the Tier 10 bonuses!

Elemental Tier 10

2p: LB and CL reduce Elemental Matery's cooldown by 2 sec. Kinda meh, since EM has a longish 3 minute cooldown, but I'll take it. I have EM macro'd to everything so it's always popping on cooldown.
4p: your Lava Burst increases Flame Shock duration on the target by 6 sec. At first glance it may appear that you could indefinitely refresh FS by casting LvBs, but with global cooldowns, flight-time and lag, the real-world use appears to allow casting ~5 LvBs (depending on your haste level) for each application of FS. The 2p Tier 9 bonus allowed us to cast ~3 LvBs, so we can definitely call this a worthwhile upgrade. (UPDATE: apparently this is due to change in 3.3.3, so stay tuned!)

Enhancement Tier 10

2p: Shamanistic Rage adds 12% damage for 15 secs. Previously SR would have been used for mana regen or damage mitigation phases, but with this tasty bonus, its hard to imagine not using SR on every single cooldown. Macro that sucka.
4p: Maelstrom Weapon x5 has a 15% chance to proc 20% AP for 10 secs. Enhancers are already well-versed in saving their MW stacks to 5, so this is essentially a passive AP proc that scales with gear. Hott.

Restoration Tier 10

2p: Riptide grants 20% haste on next spell w/in 10 secs. The Riptide + Healing Wave combo is already common use for applying a massive, Pally-like single target heal (Healing Way and IHW ftw), so another 20% off brings HW to sub-global cooldown speed. Great for 10-man tank healing, where your attention is split between the tanks and the raid.
4p: Chain Heal crits leave a 25% HoT over 9 secs. This is like Earthliving Weapon on steroids! Great for the 10-man healer and fantastic for the 25-man raid healer.

So what's next?

I'll admit that with Tier 10 under my belt (literally), I'm starting to think more about the next expansion and how to position my main and alts to tackle the new shattered world. I used WotLK to experiment with the Elemental playstyle, which I've grown to love, but I still miss the dual-fisted pew-pew. I may spend the next few months casually working on my Enhancement gear. :)

In the meantime, I hope to get at least 2-piece Tier 10 for the Resto set for that awesome Riptide bonus. And of course I'd love to get my Elemental set "sanctified" too, which means upgrading your existing Tier 10 using tokens from ICC bosses in 25-man and 10-man hard modes. That may or may not come with time, but I'm OK with that.

I mean, I already have fricken shoveltusks sticking out of mah shoulders!

Open Fire!

2010-03-02T15:25:00.001-08:00

In this day and age of gogogo speed heroics, DPS players sometimes have a hard time knowing when it's safe to open fire on a group of mobs - or rather, most don't seem to care at all, opening up with full bore AOE as soon as soon as they're in range.

You could argue that a "good" tank is already aware of this impatient mindset and knows to adjust their opening rotations accordingly. The reality, though, is that tanks come in all flavors and levels of experience, so blasting away is just more likely to cause needless chaos and repair bills.

Remember that when your tank has to taunt off you or reposition, they're wasting time which they could be using to build more threat. So once one mob gets loose, it becomes much easier for others to get loose, too.

In order to do your part as a DPS Pro, there are certain audio/visual cues that can help you do your thing without pulling off the tank:

Death Knight

Death & Decay is what you want to watch for, which is a reddish-colored ground-effect AOE accompanied by a woosh sound. However, with many specs, it has a long-ish cooldown and can't always be used every pull - so they'll also use Pestilence (dark/smokey lines that shoot between mobs), Howling Blast, and/or Blood Boil (both sound like mid-rangey explosions).

TLDR: wait for some combination of red ground, dark smoke between mobs, and/or explosion sounds.

Druid

Contrary to popular belief, our furry friends can make excellent AOE tanks, as they come equipped with a spammable Swipe ability (no target limit, 360 degree radius!). This has a red claw/scratch-like graphic and a cut/bleed sound. They also have an AOE threat roar, that sounds like... y'know... a roar. And has a cute standing-bear effect, which apparently terrifies mobs.

TLDR: wait for a few scratch sounds and until all mobs are in melee range of your bear.

Paladin

Most folks are familiar with Consecration, the yellow glowing ground around your friendly neighborhood Tankadin, which nicely distributes AOE threat to mobs around him. However, it's not always the first ability to be used, as they also have two great multi-mob abilities that are often used first: Avenger's Shield and Hammer of the Righteous. The shield is a ranged ability that flies out of the Pally, leaving a bright trail behind it. The hammer can hit up to four (glyphed) nearby targets and has a signature brrrrang sound.

TLDR: wait for clangy sounds and yellow ground before going nuts.

Warrior

Much like the druid, some incorrectly assume that warriors have a hard time establishing AOE threat, but I've seen some very talented wartanks handle large packs with style: you'll see them Charge into a pack, lay down a Thunder Clap, maneuver for position, then blow Shockwave, stunning all the mobs. When executed well, it's very impressive to see! The clap sounds like an electrical explosion, and causes cracks to form under the warrior. The shockwave sounds like a low-range boom, and has the visual smokey wave-like effect.

TLDR: wait for thunder and lightning sounds before pulling the trigger.

So there you have it - the handy guide to improving pull stability! So stop staring at Recount, learn the abilities of your tanks, and everyone goes home happy - as quickly and efficiently as possible. :)

Healer Survey

2009-11-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

A healer survey from Miss Medicina has been circulating the blogosphere as of late, and I thought I'd throw my Resto musings into the ring:

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Exelus, an Elemental (57/14/0) and sometimes Restoration Shaman (0/13/58)

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Most of my healing time is spent in 5-mans or 10-mans, with the occasional 25-man and rare foray into PvP (battlegrounds). As Elemental, I'm usually assigned to our 10-man raids as "heal-capable-DPS," meaning I spend the bulk of my time DPS'ing while spot-healing and backing-up our two main heals.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

No, it's not Chain Heal, even though it runs a close second behind my favorite: Riptide. I'm a big fan of damage-mitigation and passive healing (especially on a tank), so Riptide's trailing HoT is an important part of my style. I love the fire-and-forget nature of Riptide, and it also triggers the essential Tidal Waves ability which I try to keep up at all times.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Even though I'm spec'ed for it and consider it an essential part of my toolkit, Healing Wave seems to get the least amount of action. I think this is because in most cases, a critting LHW or Chain Heal will do the job. Still, with Tidal Waves up, I can go for an extremely powerful 1.5 second bomb-heal when needed, which is a really great option. I also have a Nature's Swiftness + Healing Wave macro for those "tank's gonna die now" moments.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

The obvious answer here is "raid healing," but I actually feel that a Resto Shaman's strength is versatility. While our healing kit is very basic (one instant, one AoE, two direct heals with the same effective cast time), with glyphs and spec tweaks I feel that Resto Shaman are very well setup to handle any healing role (tank, raid, 5-man content).

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

This is much less of an issues these days, but the lack of a threat dump or "keep 'em off me!" button has always been a sore spot. Priests have Fade, Night Elves have Shadowmeld, Druids have Barkskin/Cyclone/Roots, and Paladins have a bubble. Shaman do have Nature's Guardian, but it's a five-talent point expenditure that most avoid. I've used Earth Elemental before to taunt mobs away from me, but it's so situational and drastic that I don't really count it as a worthwhile panic button.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

The ever-predictable raid healing role is best for Resto Shaman in 25+ content: preferably the melee group so folks are clumped-together for Chain Heal love.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Duo-healing 10-mans with another Resto Shaman is great for totem farms and the criss-crossing Chain Heals (ooh! purty!). I also enjoy pairing-up with Holy Paladins or Disc Priests, because I know their single-target forte is a great compliment to my raid-healing abilities.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Our guild has a mix of all classes/specs which participate in our 10-man raids, and I can't say there's any one class/spec that I enjoy healing with less than others. As a Resto Shaman, I can adjust my healing style based on who I'm teamed-up with, so team makeup has never been an issue.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Aiming heals (usually Chain Heal) at the person with the lowest health: often times they'll die during the cast anyway, so I'm forced to spend the next few seconds re-casting and playing catchup with the others who could've been saved more easily. Along those same lines, I probably don't use Nature's Swiftness enough - I tend to save it for those oh-shit moments, but they are (by nature) harder to predict so it's harder for me to make that snap-decision sometimes.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Avoidable raid damage or over-anxious DPS who divert my healing attention away from the tank. People who ask for rez's after the fight. People who openly question my decision to heal myself and the tank over them. Luckily, these peeves happen outside the guild on PUG runs, which is why I usually refuse to heal PUG raids anyway. :)

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Yes, absolutely. Just a few tweaks here and there (glyphs and spec) and we're well suited for almost anything, and have great synergy with other healing classes.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Recount, WoW Web Stats, and in general, the number of deaths balanced against the successful completion (or wipe) of an encounter. I try not to worry too much about overhealing, but if I find myself going OOM on an encounter I will definitely check those numbers. In PUG raids, I sometimes do a quick healing meter check just to have a look at my performance relative to the other healers.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

Contrary to popular belief, only half our keyboard is bound to Chain Heal. We also keep track of Earth Shield charges, Riptide durations, single-target heal with LHW/HW, Cleanse, drop specific totems for specific encounters, etc.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

Learning when/how to use Chain Heal vs. our other heals. CH has a long cast time, and certainly isn't the best heal in all situations.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

They would probably see more overheal than necessary, as I tend to pre-spam Chain Heal when I anticipate incoming raid damage and/or am trying to keep Tidal Waves up. Hopefully they'd see decent healing output, and very few healer-preventable deaths. (I refuse to take responsibility for those standing in the fire!) :)

Haste or Crit and why?

Haste FTW. I may have downplayed Chain Heal in some of the answers above, but in reality I do use it fairly often and since it starts with a talented cast time of 2.5 seconds, anything I can do to get that time down is helpful. I think currently I have it down to 2.1 seconds or so. Haste finishes your current cast faster, so you can get on to other things sooner. Over the course of a long fight, all that extra haste will add up to several more spell casts if your mana can handle it. Also, healing in faster bursts allows for longer regen periods.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Paladins. The single-target nature of them was a complete paradigm shift from playing a Resto Shaman and very difficult for me to get used to in a 5-man setting, so I eventually dumped my alt's Holy spec for Prot. In The Burning Crusade I raided as a Resto Druid, and one of my original mains was a Priest, so I feel like I understand them better than their plate-wearing brethren.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Grid and Clique are essential for me, as I wouldn't be able to (nor want to) heal without them. I feel like one of the biggest problems with WoW right now is the lack of healing support in the default UI. I hope they'll address this next expansion when they announce the Arch Druid hero healing class. :) For macros, nothing too fancy other than auto-popping trinkets and alternate mouse-clicks set up for Nature's Swiftness + Chain Heal or Healing Wave.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I tend to balance between spell power, haste and MP5 - with a bias towards spell power. I know it's not typical for Resto Shaman to go with MP5, but for the content I heal in and the style in which I do it, I prefer the extra longevity. I may experiment more with stacking Intellect at some point, but I'm fairly satisfied with the setup now.

It's a bird, it's a plane...

2009-10-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

...it's a flying human dwarf!

As widely reported, the race change feature finally went live yesterday, and I jumped at the chance to convert Lightus the Paladin over to a more nobler, if shorter, race.

Not that I'm too much into the arpee, but from a role-playing perspective, I saw my human as more of a Holy-type - so when he transitioned over to a Protection/Retribution dual spec, I started to think of him more as a stronger and tougher fellow.

I debated a bit over the Draenei racials (+hit and insta-heal) vs. the Dwarven ones (mace expertise and Stoneform), but I decided that I liked the look of his current gear on the stouter race better, and Stoneform provides a nice mini-tanking cooldown.

Pictured: I celebrated the successful transformation with epic flight skill and a "need" roll on the Culling of Stratholme drake. :)

A Look Back

2009-10-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite writers over at WoW.com wrote today's Breakfast Topic: Back To Where You Once Belonged, where he talks about his journey over the last year. From tanking in The Burning Crusade, through the current Wrath expansion as DPS, to his recent return to tanking. At the end of the article he asks the readers, "where are we now?" Are we doing what we thought we'd be doing? Hmm... I'm a sucker for nostalgia, let's rewind...

The Burning Crusade

From level 10 through 70, Exelus was Enhancement through-and-through. We were plowing our way through Karazhan, and I spent a lot of time staring at Omen, riding the tank's threat wave and praying I didn't get a lucky string of Stormstrike/Windfury crits. It was an art, maximizing DPS while staying under threat. I still remember my first raid invite like it was yesterday: I was totally freaked out, but the exhilaration of it all sucked me in for good. I also remember doing ~600 DPS and marveling at our Warlock doing 1,000 DPS!

Back then, PvP was the shortcut to gearing-up ("welfare epics"), so I begrudgingly spent a lot of time in BGs L2PvP. Sadly, that intense grind turned me off to PvP, even to this day. I still get the heeby-geebies when I think about Eye of the Storm. /shudder

At some point, the guild wound up short on healers... and due to a horrifyingly bad Hellfire Ramparts experience trying to offspec heal with Ex's "resto" gear, I decided to raid-gear my tree rather than respec. Ciribrus became a Resto Druid, and a whole new world of gameplay opened up to me: standing in the back, keeping my party-mates alive. These were crazy times... remember the concept of "heal aggro?" When a single early heal could literally send an entire mob pack running right towards you, with no way to dump threat (this was before Shadowmeld worked in combat!). The Hypnotist's Watch and Sporeggar cloak became staples of my heroic healing kit.

Wrath and the Transition

We were finally clearing KZ with regularity, and taking our first pokes into Zul Aman when Wrath was released, and we all set off to level from 70 to 80. We marvelled at the new zones, and bemoaned our loss of level 70 epics. I swear I lost a little bit of my soul when I replaced the PvP epics I had previously worked so hard at. Lesson learned, gear is just a temporary tool, nothing to get attached to!

Then, as I was losing my epic Enhancement gear to quest greens, something strange happened. I started noticing (/gasp) caster gear. At some point, it dawned on me that if I collected caster gear, I could possibly be more effective in a dual role someday. So sometime in the 70s, I respec'ed Elemental for the first time, and started lolbolting.

It was weird. I stood in the back, and resisted the urge to run into the fray. It was, admittedly, easier. And more in-line with my aging reflexes, too. :P

Early Raiding in Wrath

As guildies started arriving at level 80, the new meta game of gearing up for raiding began, and I struggled to reach hit cap with blues and random low-level epics. Elemental was borked (couldn't get past 1,500 dps!), but I stuck with it and Blizzard eventually fixed us. :)

By the time we had enough critical mass to start Naxxramas, we found ourselves predictably short on healers, but this time I resolved to stick with Exelus, thus beginning his healing career. By now, Resto shaman tools had grown more sophisticated, too (more powerful Earth Shield, Riptide, supporting glyphs), and therefore more interesting to play.

These days, Exelus splits his time between DPS and healing heroics/Ulduar/Colosiem/etc., which suits both needs to blow stuff up and lend a hand when called upon. It's yin-yang thang, and it's a ton of fun.

The Recap

So a year ago, did I ever imagine Exelus would become a caster DPS with a healing offspec? Certainly not. Did I expect my Boomkin/Resto Druid would languish at 72 with no real incentive to level? Nope. (/sad) Leveling a Retribution Paladin all the way to 80 (toying with both Holy and Prot offspecs) ever cross my mind? Never!

But that's part of the fun of this game, it evolves, just like real life. :)

Viva la journey.

Tiered Gear, Set Bonuses, and Abandoning T7

2009-09-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

With so much gear flying around these days, it can be rather confusing trying to interpret tier levels, what level of content they're intended for, and what they mean for your toon. Let's take a look at the current state of tiered gear (Patch 3.2):

Overview

Tier 7: entry-level raiding sets (Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, Archavon). Comes in T7 (10-man) and T7.5 (25-man) versions. Purchasable with deprecated Emblems of Heroism. Since Patch 3.2, there's generally better gear to be had for Emblems of Conquest, so I wouldn't worry about farming this gear if you're a new 80.
Tier 8: Ulduar-level raiding sets (Ulduar, Emalon). Comes in T8 and T8.5 flavors. Helm and chest pieces are purchasable with Emblems of Conquest, which drop in heroics and most raids. New 80s will usually want to pick up these two tiered pieces first. There's also a plethora of non-set gear in this range that's quite good.
Tier 9: Icecrown-level raiding sets (yet-to-be-seen Icecrown Citadel, Trial of the Crusader, Koralon). Comes in three levels (T9, T9.33 and T9.66):

T9 pieces are purchasable with Emblems of Triumph (daily heroic dungeon quest, Trial of the Crusader, Koralon).

T9.33 are purchasable with EoTs plus special tokens that drop from 25-man TotC.

T9.66 tokens drop from heroic 25-man TotC (and presumably Icecrown when it's released).

Most level 80 characters - newbies and hardcore raiders alike - will want to save their EoTs to buy a few T9 bits, if not the whole kit - although generally only top-end raiders will have access to T9.33 and T9.66. Also, there's some very good non-set gear available in this range: like the currently best-in-slot Totem of Electrifying Wind for Elemental (and some say Enhancement) Shaman.

Note that you can mix/match gear from the same tier level in order to gain the set bonus. For example, a T8.5 helm with T8 gloves will still activate the two-piece bonus.

Bub-Bye Tier 7

Until yesterday, I had been running around with four-piece Tier 7.5 because of the set bonus (10% bonus to Lava Burst's critical strike damage). So even though I had already bought the two Tier 8.5 pieces (helm and chest), I found a net loss of DPS when initially abandoning the 4p T7 bonus. The Elemental 2p T8 bonus just happens to be rather weak (periodic damage from Flame Shock can now become critical strikes). /yawn

However, with the purchase of the Tier 9 Elemental shoulders and some other recent random upgrades, the question became: will this new mash-up of T8+9 finally overtake the 4p T7 bonus? After some testing, the answer seems to be yes - due mostly to improved Haste (1.5 sec Lolbolts ftw!). I'm also expecting another slight DPS bump when I add the T9 gloves for the 2p bonus (increased duration of Flame Shock by 9 seconds, allowing us another Lava Burst cycle without having to refresh the FS DoT). /cheer

Now, it's important to note that not all classes/specs are equal when it comes to deciding whether or not to abandon your 4p bonus. For example, mages have an excellent 2p T8 bonus (chance for 350 spell power when casting nukes), so it may make sense for them to abandon 4p T7 earlier than I did. I suggest a combination of research (Elitist Jerks) and personal testing to get the right answer for your class/spec.

Shaman Lore Corner: Nobundo and Thrall

In case you're wondering who Nobundo is, here's his story. Although I admit I'd much rather be wearing Thrall's namesake gear (the Horde version of Shaman T9), since he was my favorite character from my Warcraft 2 and 3 days. :)

Get a job, Shaman!

2009-08-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

A recent article on the lost art of crowd control got me thinking about all the cool tools a Shaman is equipped with, and the specialized jobs we can perform using these tools.

Sure, it's easy enough to faceroll Lightning Bolts or Chain Heals, but any player worth their salt not only performs their primary role well, but is always ready to bring something extra to an encounter.

Crowd Control

For years Shaman have bemoaned the lack of a crowd control ability, and the arrival of Hex at level 80 happened right as we entered the age of "AoE everything in sight." Still, there are definitely situations where we need to get our froggy-style on.

In heroic trash pulls, Hex can be used to temporarily incapacitate a mob as the tank rushes in to establish threat. Certainly the frog will break due to AoE, but the first few seconds of a pull are usually the most critical, where he/she can take a ton of damage all at once. Disabling even one mob for a second or two can mean the difference between a controlled pull and a wipe.

Still, not all trash is AoE fodder - in Ulduar, some pulls still benefit greatly from CC, and I would expect to see this trend continue as we start knocking on Arthas' door in Icecrown Citadel. While Hex cannot be chain-cast like Polymorph (boo cooldown), it can at least be used to tie-up a second-target while the first gets burned-down.

Kiting

This is where I channel Big Red Kitty, who frequently championed the skill of kiting: a job which involves aggro'ing a mob and having it purposely run towards you while you keep it at distance. Frost Shock with it's threat component and Earthbind Totem is a perfect combo for this job, something I've used many times in Naxx's Gluth encounter.

Rooting

Elemental Shaman also gain a very useful tool with a specially-talented Earthbind totem, which applies a Druid-style root to those within range. In the Eye of Eternity, it becomes very easy to root a Power Spark exactly where it needs to drop using this root (and has the benefit of being instant-cast, as opposed to a Druid's 1.5 second root).

In Ulduar on the way to the Crazy Cat Lady, there are pairs of big nasty mobs which also send sparks back and forth, which need to be destroyed before reaching the other. A rooting Earthbind is perfect for this job.

Interrupting

Wind Shear recently got a redesign, and it no longer shares a global cooldown with either Flame or Earth Shock. This was both a buff and a nerf, since we lost one of our two interrupts. Still, having Wind Shear on it's own cooldown means it's easier for a DPS shaman to maintain their rotation while still interrupting. This skill can and should be used almost everywhere: against healers in trash packs, whirlwinding Runeshapers, Kel'Thuzad's frost bolts, chain-lightning Dwarves in Ulduar, etc.

Other Jobs

Shaman also make great debuffers thanks to Purge, provide AoE Fear Wards with Tremor Totem, supply raid-wide steroids with Bloodlust/Heroism, can save the day with backup heals, and even provide an emergency tank while the Druid battle-rez's your tank.

We have a lot of great tricks up our sleeves, so don't be a faceroller, do your job! :)

Patch 3.2 Impressions

2009-08-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

A week ago, patch 3.2 finally hit the live realms after much anticipation. This latest update brought a slew of class tweaks, emblem changes, a new dungeon/raid instance and new battleground. Here are my impressions, gathered during the past week.

Four totems at once

Aside from some very nice buffs to Resto Shaman (facerolling Chain Heal is back!), the largest change to the Shaman class was the addition of a totem bar in the default UI, along with an ability to drop a set of totems from a single spell. This is a fairly significant (and welcome) change, it's every bit as awesome as I had hoped.

Most raiding Shaman by now have used mods or /castsequence macro to drop a "default" set of totems, but until 3.2, dropping all four cost us essentially four global cooldowns. Hence, there were a lot of occassions where only certain totems were deployed... and while I used to do my best to keep all four down, there were definitely situations where it just wasn't practical. Now, there's no excuse to drop all totems, and it's been awesome for heroic speed runs and boss fights where repositioning becomes necessary.

Since we get three different spells to deploy a set of totems, I've built these three default sets:

Call of the Elements - default set: Totem of Wrath (or Flametongue for Resto spec), Strength of Earth, Wrath of Air, and Healing Stream
Call of the Ancestors - default set (as above) with Mana Spring instead
Call of the Spirits - PvP set (Tremor, Cleanse, Grounding and Magma)

Interrupts FTW

Another seemingly small update was the redesign of Earth and Wind Shock, however I feel that it's a pretty huge buff - especially for Elemental Shaman on interrupt duty. Wind Shear replaces the former Shock, and no longer shares the same cooldown timer with other Shocks - meaning the Elemental rotation can now be kept relatively intact, without sacrificing a Flame Shock cooldown. This is huge. /cheer

Heroics are back, baby!

Another very welcome change was the consolidation of the Emblem system to Conquests (Tier 8 level) and Triumphs (Tier 9 level). As a result, heroic speed-farming and random guild runs are back with a vengeance. Once again, casual and hardcore players are getting to play together, and this is undeniably a good thing for guild dynamics.

Thus far I've been able to buy T8.5 helm and chest, although I was dissapointed to find an overall DPS loss with the two-piece bonus (extensive target dummy testing with raid-boss rotation), so for the moment I'm staying with four-piece Tier 7.5. Next up I'll be bolstering my Resto set, also with the T8.5 helm and likely the belt for hybrid use between both specs.

"ToC" rant

So we've got this new colosium up in northern Icecrown, containing a 5-man normal and heroic dungeon, a 10 man normal and heroic raid, and a 25 man normal and heroic raid. The only problem? They ALL have the same initials... so "LFG ToC" could mean any one of six group types! Hopefully some standard will settle out like "ToC5" or "Roic ToC10," but for now, be sure to ask questions before joining a "ToC" group. :)

Trial of the Champion

Despite having to joust in the beginning of this encounter, the new 5-man dungeon is actually quite fun, and yields nice Naxx-level rewards in normal mode (read: new 80s can farm this all day long!) and excellent Ulduar-level rewards in heroic mode. Thus far I've been lucky enough to upgrade my main hand and get this haste trinket, which put me closer to the "sweet spot" in the Elemental rotation (neatly allowing x5 Lightning Bolts in-between Lava Bursts).

Trial of the Crusader

The new raid instance was something many of our raiders were interested in trying out, so we gave it our best effort a few days ago, and managed to best the encounter with only three wipes. :) /cheer

There wasn't a lot of information out there yet, but thankfully Tankspot came through with an excellent video so we could get some research in beforehand. Here are some notes on the Northrend Beasts encounter:

Gormok the Impaler (Magnataur)

Since we had an abundance of ranged DPS, we chose to keep the melee on the boss the whole time, with all ranged assigned to take down the Snowbolds as they appeared on player's backs. Seemed to be fairly healing-intensive with DoTs stacking on the tanks, but we have some very skilled healers who were able to handle the load. :) Also having dual Pally tanks with Hand of Protection to clear the DoTs was a huge help. Other than that, stay out of the fire and have ranged stay at max range FTW.

Acidmaw & Dreadscale (Jormungar Worms)

This was undeniably the trickiest of the three beast sets. There are two worms, one applying a slowing/paralyzing poison, and the other an AoE fire debuff which removes the other worm's paralyzing poison. At first we tried to have people calling out in Vent so folks could run to each other, but due to the significant movement (poison clouds ala Grobbulus) and the confusion it brings, we found it easier to designate the center circle as a rendevous point. Whenever someone got slowed, they made their way to the center ring and the fire-debuffed person would just meet them there. We chose to burn-down Acidmaw first and heal through Dreadmaw's enrage, but after a few more tries, the simultaneous kill achievement should definitely be do-able.

Icehowl (Yeti)

After we got the two worms strategy down, the Yeti proved to be relatively easy. Simply note who the boss is targeting for his charge, and run out of the way (and be sure not to cross his path even if you're not targeted). Use Bloodlust/Heroism while he's stunned against a wall, keep your healers spread out so they don't all get frozen at the same time, and it's a fairly simple tank/spank.

It's worth noting the quality of the gear drops here, even in normal mode - item level 232! This alone makes it a worthwile destination for even the most casual guilds.

So tonight we venture back into Ulduar, somewhat better geared and with a raid lockout extension option - hopefully we'll be poking sharp objects at Yogg-Saron before too long. :)

Intro to Tanking

2009-07-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

I realize it's rather presumptuous for a Shaman to be writing an article on tanking, but it's my blog and I can write what I want to I've learned a few things in the past few months with my frosty Death Knight tank, and hopefully some of this info will help those taking a look at the noble art of meat-shielding.

Basic Stats
So you've dinged level-cap with your new tank and are ready to tackle some heroics and perhaps even dive into raiding. Congrats! Now there are lots of talent-selection and gear-list websites out there on the interwebs, so I'll avoid going into specifics there - but let's take a look at the basic tank stats: your defense, health, and offense.

Defense rating is what keeps you from getting critically hit, which is hugely important for survivability. At level 80, you need 535 minimum for heroics and 540 for raids. There is benefit to stacking defense beyond 540 as it affects other damage mitigation stats like dodge, etc., but generally after 540 you'll also want to look at your overall health:

Stamina translates to your health pool of course, and the rule of thumb here is the more, the better. Each class has a varying number of health needed (for example, Bears need more than Prot Warriors since they have fur rather than shields), but as a rule of thumb, somewhere in the mid-20k's is a decent number to start running heroic dungeons at level 80. I believe my DK started heroics around 23k (unbuffed) and after seeing all of Naxx, is just shy of 30k.

Threat - they say "the best defense is a strong offense," and tanks are no exception here, as being able to output a healthy amount of damage helps to ensure the bad guys are focused on you, and not your party-mates. Offensive stats like Strength, Hit and Expertise are important in this regard - but again, YMMV according to class so be aware of which stats are needed to generate the most threat.

Don't be shy to enchant your blue (or even green) quality gear - both Enchanting and Jewelcrafting offer "budget" versions of endgame buffs that can help push your stats to a better place. My rule of thumb: everything enchanted and gemmed, always. There's really no excuse to slack here, as everyone in your party/raid are depending on your survivability.

So now you're all geared-up and ready to go. Let's take a look at a few classic encounters and how your tanking abilities come into play:

Marking
In this day and age of "burning everything in sight" with AoE, painstakingly marking each and every mob for kill order and CC assignments may not be as necessary as it once was, but it's still a good idea to at least mark the first and second targets so everyone starts off on the same page. Skull and X are most typically used, and I recommend making keybindings for all the marks - I use the function keys, so I can hit F1, F2, then pull.

Typically, you'll want to mark healers and casters as first targets, but if you're not sure who's who, look for clues in their names like "Spiritualist" or "Cleric." Mana bars are also a good clue.

Line of Sight
Doorways and Hallways are a tank's second best friend. (First are our healers, of course!) For tricky pulls involving ranged or caster mobs, instruct your group to stand behind the corner so you can make an attack then retreat to where they are. If done right, you can reliably pull an entire group, casters and all, right to you. Have an AoE threat ability ready-to-go when they all reach you.

The Big Picture
So you've executed the pull and the angry mobs are all happily beating on you - great job! But wait, half a second later one of the baddies makes a beeline for your healer! What to do?!

First, let's back up a second and understand that it's important for the tank to be aware of The Big Picture at all times. This means putting your toon, camera zoom and angle in a position such that you can actually see what's going on around you at all times. Pro tip: type this into your chat window to increase the zoom-out distance: /script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",50)

Taunt
So now back to our pull and the loose mob... which by now has started wailing on your healer - it's time to use one of your most important tank tools: the taunt. Each class has a few ways to do this (some single-target, some are multi-target), so be familiar with each method, and when to use which. You'll also want them hotkeyed for quick action! /cast [Insert Your Taunt Here] and phew, that loose mob is back on you.

Cooldowns
After burning through a few packs of trash, you've finally arrived at the boss. This big intimidating creature is really nothing but a loot piñata, so it's time to go collect your lootz. Let's assume that we're in Nexus, and we're staring up at the dragon Keristrasza. /gulp

This particular dragon has a very common ability known as a "soft enrage," where at low health the boss actually gets tougher. (Life's not fair, even in WoW!) Your healer's doing their best, pumping out heals, keeping the party alive and whatnot, but yikes the boss just turned red and hitting faster/harder now. To make things worse, your healer gets knocked out of range and is scrambling to get back to you. Oh noes!

Luckily, you don't just have to stand there and take it ("thank you sir may I have another?!"), you have defensive cooldowns! Every tank class has 'em: some way to mitigate damage for a short period of time. Shield Wall, Icebound Fortitude, Bubble, etc. As a tank you'll also likely have trinkets with handy on-use abilities, like increased dodge or whatnot - so keep all these emergency buttons close, and be prepared to use them often (albeit judiciously). These abilities can and will save your life, so use them!

Practice Makes Perfect
Putting all this stuff together really takes some practice, so don't get discouraged - everyone has a messy pull every now and again. :) Also realize that tanking is highly reliant on the other roles in your group doing the right things, so group with guildies/friends before diving into the highly unpredicatble world of PUGs. Try running dungeons in normal mode first to get a sense of the encounters and pulls before going in heroic mode.

Further Research
I can't recommend Tankspot enough for their highly informative forums and videos on YouTube. As usual, Elitist Jerks have a wealth of information surrounding gear, specs, etc. While learning boss encounters, Wowwiki and Wowhead are great tools.

Happy tanking!

Gnome Appreciation Day

2009-07-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

For those unaware, today is officially Gnome Appreciation Day. Wasn't sure if I was going to post anything about it until I saw the photo at right. :P

So to my Gnomish homies Pyxia, Mazek, Ereigelu, Gnomesrus, anyone else whom I've forgotten, and to my own little alt Gnomagus, /salute - for your impact is far greater than your height.

/cheers

New Wings

2009-06-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

My first foray into World of Warcraft was way back in 2005, when a co-worker convinced me to pickup a copy and join the guild they had formed in the office.

Naturally, I rolled a Night Elf Hunter (so predictable...), bumbled my way through Teldrassil, got tricked by that Satyr on the way to Dolanaar, found my way through the impossibly-large Darnassus, and finally out to Rutheran Village, where Araes took an incredible flight to Darkshore.

I remember that first flight quite well: being amazed by the speed, altitude and distance! Equally amazing was the winged steed I was precariously perched on, with it's motion-sickness-inducing bob and zany color scheme. I loved it, and took lots of rides back and forth just to marvel at the beast.

About a month later I decided to put WoW on a shelf (not to revisit the game until 2007), and Araes' magical Hippogryph ride faded from memory...

Fast-forward to last night, and the picture says it all:

Cenarion War Hippogryph

All Red

2009-06-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to dive into another zany Heroic Naxxramas PUG, prepared for the usual endless wipes, random afk'ing, finger-pointing and loot drama, but came away pleasantly surprised after a totally pro-style full clear.

The addition of Ulduar-level gear has definitely made it's impact on the PUG scene, as we were able to steamroll the place quite easily, picking up these two achievements along the way.

Typically, I try not to set any expectations for winning gear when I do these things, as the random number generator always seems to be in cahoots with Murphy. Instead, I like to focus on having fun, improving my own performance and collecting badges along the way.

In fact, I had been saving EoV's in order to convert my remaining Elemental-flavored blue T.7 pieces into their red T7.5 counterparts: shoulders and legs. (Something about having mismatched gear really brings out the OCD in me, I guess.) But as luck would have it, I managed to pickup both pieces during the run, and didn't have to out-roll anyone else to do it! Good karma FTW.

So now what to do with those EoV's? Oh wait... there's news on the emblem front!

3.2 Emblem Changes
Apparently in the next patch, EoH's and EoV's will cease to drop from heroics and raids, to be replaced by EoC's! There will still be trade-downs available to buy things like gems/orbs, heirloom items, and PvP gear, but overall I'm very excited that raiders will have additional incentive to run heroics again. As I stated before, it's good mojo for guilds to have better-geared toons mixing-in with new 80's and alts.

So currently, Ex has a few EoH, 60-ish EoV and a handful of EoC. With the new system coming, I'll be zeroing-out my EoH's for an orb, and the EoV's can now buy a nice upgrade for my DK's wrists, which will solidify his ability to backup-tank for the guild. Woot! (as long as I remember to enable the right spec...)

And apparently, the new Icecrown instance/raid thingy and daily heroic quests will bring us Emblem's of Triumph - looking forward to seeing what they're all about.

The Alt Report

Neverus - the obligatory 80 DK alt now has 2/5 T7 and has tanked most of Naxx10 up through Kel'Thuzad. WTB moar hit rating and expertise, though.
Lightus - with improved regular flight speeds incoming (150% up from 60%!), I've stalled his leveling at 78. Just don't have the patience to putter around, nor do I want to drop yet another 5k on an alt! For now, he's sitting in IF, happily disenchanting random greens.
Haelus - also stalled at 77, but have been considering a Shadow spec revisit. I've been routinely impressed by their DPS output, and they're always in demand for Naxx25 (uhh bring the player, not the class?). Plus, Nev can craft this shiny new knife for him!
Ciribrus - still sightseeing in Howling Fjord at level 71.

Horrifying Thought of the Day

2009-06-17T18:05:00.001-07:00

The next WoW expansion may bring another hero class, and has been speculated to be a DPS/healer hybrid - perhaps some sort of leather-clad chiropractic monk?

If Blizzard follows the Death Knight example and allows all races to participate, then a certain branch of the Alliance will finally have all four roles covered: tanking, melee/ranged dps... and now heals.

Do you see where I'm going with this...?

All. Gnome. Raids.

On Shaman Tanking

2009-06-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

Recently I found this neat Q&A between Ghostcrawler and the development team at Blizzard. One of the things that stood out to me was the comment on Shaman tanking, which got me thinkin':

"Once upon a time there was a potential tanking role for shamans as well, but we have pretty much phased that out."

I knew it was a longshot that they'd ever return to the idea of Shaman tanks, but it's still a little disappointing to hear. I understand class balance (and spec balance, since Enhancement is really the only practical place for these talents to go) is always a challenge, but I think some tweaks could really go a long way to making this a reality:

Stoneskin Totem could increase mail armor to plate-levels and also dramatically increase a Shaman's overall threat
Frost Shock could have it's threat increased and a talented effect to "force the target to attack the caster," for use as a single-target taunt
Magma Totem (specially talented or glyphed) could be used for establishing AoE threat, like Consecration
Rockbiter Weapon could add defense rating, similar to the DK's Rune of Stonesking Gargoyle
Additionally, since there's no defense rating on hunter mail, some talent would be needed to convert existing gear into tanking gear (perhaps converting Agility into Defense)
In order to make the use of a shield required, add a new type of imbue: Stone Barrier, which dramatically increases stamina (and maybe defense, too) when applied to the Shaman's shield. This shield imbue idea could be extended to Elemental and Restoration as well, with something like Air Barrier (haste), Molten Barrier (spellpower) or Ice Barrier (mp5 with a slowing effect, like Frost Armor).

Of course there's also the issue of PvP balance, as the ideas have the potential of making Enhancement OP in battlegrounds and arena, but maybe buffing survivability isn't such a bad idea? :)

Notes to Self: DK Tanking

2009-06-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

When tanking Sartharion and Emalon, do not attempt do so while in DPS spec.

My sincerest of apologies to our guild healers.

>.<

Dual Wielding and Hit

2009-05-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Dual-wielding has been on the brain lately, both with a new guildmate leveling Enhancement as well as my DK acquiring his second spec, a Dual-Wield Frost DPS spec (0/53/18). The contrast between the two dual-wielding classes is pretty striking - the melee Shaman relies heavily on spell damage for DPS these days, and much of Lolknight DPS relies on abilities that scale with physical damage and actually making contact with your target.

Hit Rating
When it comes to "not missing skull-level bosses," caster DPS have straightforward goal: reach hit cap, then focus on other stats. For my Draenei Elemental Shaman, this magic number is 342. (source)

For dual-wielders, the hit cap idea is less straightforward. Since there's a huge to-hit penalty imposed on dual-wielding (24% instead of 5%), the actual hit cap for DWers (untalented) is in the 800s (source). Of course, the sheer number of hits-per-minute exceeds those of say a Mage, who's large nukes take several seconds to cast. So at some point, the DW's misses become acceptable, assuming other stats like AP are in good shape.

Thanks to math junkies and spreadsheet jockies (/salute Elitist Jerks), "soft caps" and other hit rating milestones have already been figured out for us. :)

Special Attacks (Yellow Hits)
The first hit milestone relates to special attacks like Stormstrike. This number is very low and attainable almost without trying: 66 for Shaman (33 for Draenei Shaman). (source)

Spell Hit
Since Wrath, spell damage has become a much larger part of Enhancement DPS - so much so that even Magma Totem is considered part of the "rotation," even against single targets. The conventional wisdom now seems to be the actual soft cap for Enhancement is the same as the hard cap for Elemental: 368 (or 342 for Draenei). (source) Melee hits will still miss at this number, but as long as your specials and spells are hitting, you should be free to buff your other stats (AP, crit, haste) - any hit rating beyond that number is bonus.

DK Hit
Death Knights were clearly built around the notion of using large two-handed weapons for DPS and Tanking, so for those of us who "just like the idea" of dual-wielding, we have a large hill to climb. Our DW talent is Nerves of Cold Steel, inferior to a Shaman's Dual Wield Specialization or a Rogue's Precision.

After some Googlin', the DWDK hit numbers I've been able to come up with are upwards of 400-500 (source). Ouch. In my own testing, there does seem to be a significant difference as hit rating is added, but my DKs gear is (at this point) barely passable for heroics, with hit rating in the low 300's and AP only in the upper-2000's. I have a feeling that DW scales better with higher gear levels, so we'll see!

Lots of Other Factors
Whether you're a Titan's Gripper, Enhancement Shaman, Death Knight or Rogue, being a successful dual-wielder ultimately comes down to some combination of things: theorycrafting, talent specs, rotations, weapon imbues, and of course, player skill.

Now if I could buy a third spec, my Shaman could 1) have his cake, 2) eat it and 3) throw frosting at Patchwerk with both hands, too. In the meantime, I'll fulfill my dual-wield fetish with my gimped DWDK. :)

UPDATE
After giving it my best effort of getting my DK to almost 400 hit rating with heroic-level gear (mix of blues and epics), I was averaging maybe 1,700 DPS on a single target. By switching over to a more typical two-hander DPS spec, he can now reliably output 2,200+ in the same gear. Looks like if I really want to get my dual wield on, I have to roll a Gnome Rogue. /sigh

Ulduar First Impressions

2009-05-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

Naxx is pretty fun, but getting to see new raid content with guildies takes the cake. The rumors are true: Ulduar is not easymode, coordination matters, and folks need to stay on their toes. I'm sure over time these encoutners will become more trivial, but for the moment, it's great to have a little challenge in front of us.

Flame Leviathan
The Occulus is my least favorite instance. The Aces High daily bores me to tears. Quests with horses and dangling carrots make me nuts. Sensing a pattern? Yep, I'm not a huge fan of fights where you have to assume the abilities of some other thing.

So I admit I went into Ulduar annoyed that the very first thing to do was climb into a vehicle. Luckily, the vehiclular combat turned out to be surprisingly fun! Ex got to ride shotgun in a Demolisher, blowing stuff up on the ground and shooting stuff out of the sky.

Nothing really Shaman-specific to go over here - but becoming familiar with the various driver/passenger abilities beforehand is recommended so you can cover whatever duties your raid leader assigns you to. Also keep your highest item-level gear equipped here, as your vehicle's stats increase with ilevel rather than your personal stats.

When picking through FL's wreckage we found the Firestrider Chestguard, not a bad piece but unfortunately a downgrade from my T7.5, especially considering the loss of set bonuses and sockets.

XT-002
This brat was our second boss tonight, and we chose to employ the "spread-out" strategy rather than the "clump-up and run-out" one, which seemed best for sustained DPS. Pro tip: use DBMs /range feature to make sure you're 15 yards away from the others (right-click the range window to change radius), and you can stay still to ranged-DPS or heal when infected with the debuffs. Melee enhancers will still need to run away from others, of course.

Add control is one of the keys to this encounter, and since they conveniently make a beeline for the boss, it's easy to lay down Earthbind and Magma totems in their path. One thing to take care with are the robot bomb adds - I'm pretty sure I killed one of our priests by downing one too close to him. Doh!

Even as a DPS shaman, throwing a few spot heals during Tympanic Tantrum can help take some pressure off your healers, as the fight is a little less of a DPS race now that the enrage timer has been nerfed.

Razorscale
There's something especially cool about dragon fights, and Razorscale is no exception. The first half of the fight alternates between taking down waves of adds and working on Razorscale when he's brought down to the ground, and then a kite-n-dps strategy for the second half.

Things can get a little chaotic between multiple adds, fire spots on the ground, fireballs hitting, and Razorscale being close enough to DPS - but keep your focus, stay out of the nasty stuff, and epics shall be yours!

Kologarn
It's been a while since I've had a "whoa" moment in WoW, and the appearance of Kologarn was one of those moments. (I purposely haven't done a lot of previewing fights in Ulduar.) This dude is BIG. So BIG you can target his arms! Craziness.

Lots of nature damage in this fight, so if you don't have a hunter handy consider Nature Resist totem. Avoiding the beams is pretty important, but also don't drag the beams into others. Sometimes I'd find myself boxed into a corner, so some self-healing was useful here, as well as backing-up on raid heals whenever a healer gets gripped.

Was finally able to replace some lame reputation boots with the Greaves of the Earthbinder from Kologarn, which I made into DPS boots using a Glowing Twilight Opal and the Icewalker enchant. The boots do seem to favor Resto, though, with the blue socket and all. Still, a little Mp5 doesn't hurt us Elementals:

Mana Regen
I had noticed the effects of the Great Mana Regen Nerf of 2009 in our recent Naxx runs, but it was especially noticeable in Ulduar. I was finding that liberal use of Thunderstorm was necessary to produce steady DPS over long periods. Also adjusted my rotation on some longer fights, going with FS > LvB > LB spam > repeat, rather than incorporating too many Chain Lightnings and Earth Shocks.

Overall, had a great time, and am looking forward to seeing more of this raid in the coming weeks/months!

The Problem with Emblems

2009-05-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

Then
Back in The Burning Crusade, we had Badges of Justice which dropped in all heroics and raids, and were used to purchase all sorts of "endgame" gear.

The scenario worked out pretty well, allowing new 70s to run a few heroics to help get geared for raiding, and towards the latter stages of TBC, allowed the purchase of some pretty awesome gear, stuff that was close to the same level as Sunwell loot. For us casual raiders, this meant that (some, not all!) close-to-best-in-slot gear was within grasp if we worked hard enough for it. This was a good thing, as it kept raiders involved with random guild heroics as well as raiding.

Nostalgic moment: I remember working for a looong time to get my dual Vanir's fists, 150 badges total. It's a shame they look so ridiculous, because they're badass. Still have 'em in my bank!

Now
In Wrath of the Lich King, we've got multiple levels of badges... err emblems:

Emblems of Heroism from level 80 heroics and Tier 7 regular raids
Emblems of Valor from Tier 7.5 heroic and Tier 8 regular raids
Emblems of Conquest from Tier 8 regular hard modes and heroic raids
...eventually, Emblems of Teh Awezum for Tier 9 raids? (Icecrown)

The Problem
I understand the goal of tiered emblems was to appropriately reward raiders with purchasable gear of matching level, but in practical use, for players in casual raiding guilds (which I believe makes up the vast population of WoW players), it causes several problems:

For one, I've completely lost interest in running heroics with my main, as EoH are basically useless for Exelus, who already has two four-piece sets of T7/T7.5 (healing and DPS). I believe this has a negative effect on casual guilds, as the incentive for geared players to participate in heroics diminishes over time.

Blizzards stated goal is to allow even casual guilds to see all endgame content, which is great, but along the way we'll end up with little piles of emblems that just won't be useful for the next/current level of raiding. This is just kinda annoying, since emblems are meant for level 80 players but can lose practical value rather quickly.

Solutions

Add a few next-gear-level items to be purchasable with many lower-level emblems (like Vanir's in TBC!), or an equivalent emblem trade-up program (3 for 1).
Make emblems (and Stone Keeper's Shards!) account-bound to help gear-up alts.
Make emblems vendor-able for some non-trivial amount of gold (to help with raiding consumables, repairs)
Some professions (like Jewelcrafting) use a token or other currency system to buy patterns and mats, so make emblems tradable for these tokens.
Allow PVP gear to be purchasable with PVE emblems.
Make emblems the currency for Scrolls of Level-Granting!

OK some ideas are a stretch, but we did see some of these types of solutions implemented towards the end of The Burning Crusade, hopefully we'll see similar adjustments as we move through Wrath.

3.1 Initial Impressions

2009-04-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

Dual Specs
...are awesome. Works as advertised, and Exelus is now officially Elemental/Restoration and the young Paladin is now Retribution/Holy. It feels like a huge restriction has been lifted in terms of how I will be able to enjoy the game and help out guildies (and do it with less toons!). Flexibility is at the core of hybrid classes, and we just got a lot more... flexible. /flex

Later this week we have Naxx10 and Naxx25 runs coming up, and I'm very much looking forward to the idea of being able to fill either role of DPS/Heals, even mid-stream! For example, when Elemental Ex is "tanking" one of the Four Horsemen in 10-man he's able to keep himself alive with Lesser Healing Wave spam, but it can get dicey. By contrast, as Resto it's easysauce thanks to Earth Shield and Riptide - also freeing me up throw extra heals on the other ranged "tank" as needed.

Exorcism
Got the Ret (and Holy!) Paladin into Hellfire last night, and was happy to find that Exorcism certainly does work against all mobs now. In terms of DPS rotation, he feels a lot more like a Death Knight now that there's another button to push. I updated my single-target FCFS (first come first serve) macros to this castsequence: J, CS, Ex, J CS. Seemed to work out nicely but I need to verify if it's the best way to go.

Argent Tournament
The new area in northern Icecrown is very cool - from a lore/RP perspective, you certainly do get the sense that something's building, that the troops are preparing for war. This is the Isle of Quel'Danas 2.0, and I'm looking forward to spending more time up there.

New Textures
Certain parts of the Exodar seemed to be sporting a slightly-darker color scheme - to better match the earth-tones of Northrend perhaps. These slight visual improvements are a welcome change, it's good to know that Blizzard is intersted in going back to revisit old zones to keep things fresh.

70s Porn Star
Yes, I know they're coming back (thanks a lot Jason Giambi), but I was surprised to find that Ex grew a mustache overnight. I was so irritated/distraught I took him straight to a barber and dropped 8g on a new face. Apparently I'm not alone, as the "Great Mustache Controversy of Patch 3.1" has spawned a WowInsider post and a dozen-page-long thread on the forums.

:{

Patch 3.1

2009-04-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

It appears that Patch 3.1 is being deployed right now! Maybe I had too much coffee this morning, but it's all making me downright giddy.

Dual Specs
Exelus will finally be able to flip between Elemental and Resto at-will, which I'm most excited about. Two-toons-in-one, FTW. Got my glyphs and gold at-the-ready.

My latest alt (yeah another one, get over it) is a Retribution Paladin named Lightus, who is already on the verge of crashing into Outland thanks to these fancy shoulders. It's looking very likely that he'll go Ret/Holy dual spec for soloing and running dungeons on his way to Northrend.

Argent Tournament
The tournament is not something I know a ton about yet, but I've read it's a very solo-friendly event so I'll likely send my DK over to take a look. Plus, this sexy tanking one-hander (pic) definitely caught Neverus' attention. He'll take two, please.

Ulduar
Our raid officers are currently putting a plan together for taking our first peeks into the new raid zone, and I'm pretty stoked on all the preview material I've seen thusfar. Been watching live PTR feeds of guilds trying-out various bosses; wipe after wipe after wipe. /salute to these PTR guilds for giving the new content a try so us casuals have some sense of what to do when we get there!

3.8mb of 742mb... this is going to take a while.

Totems: Raid or Party?

2009-04-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

The other night during a guild raid, I asked to be moved into the ranged group so our mages could benefit from my totems - when someone piped-up with, "aren't all totems raid-wide now?"

Uhh... err... wha... I'm not sure anymore!

/equip noobhat

Turns out Rakhman at Flame Shock has already covered the topic and I consider myself smarter because of it. :) The cliff notes from his post:

Buffing and Resistance totems are now raid-wide
Restorative and Cleansing water totems are only party-wide
Grounding and Tremor totems are also only party-wide

Therefore, it's still a good idea to group Shaman with mana-users for Mana Spring (and Tide), but all casters and/or physical DPS (within range) should be able to benefit from your major buffs like Flametongue and Strength of Earth.

Learning to Resto

2009-04-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it... I went 80 levels (and a year-and-a-half) before I even thought about healing with my Shaman. So Blizzard releases WotLK and the second-coming of Naxxramas, and (like many guilds) we found ourselves short on healers when raiding resumed.

With a gulp and and one eye closed I hit the "unlearn talents" button and found myself staring at the Resto tab for the first time. It's been a few months now (with many respecs back and forth), so hopefully my experiences can be help those giving Resto a try - especially with dual specs around the corner!

The Tools
Earth Shield - the orbiting poo is usually placed on your main tank, soaking up damage on a periodic basis. Always take Improved Earth Shield, and after 3.1, consider the glyph of ES as well. (Grid users should add it as a buff to help keep track of it's uptime: on my setup I use a little yellow dot in the lower left corner of the unit frame.)

Riptide - an outstanding instant-cast splash heal with a trailing HoT (heal over time), which I use for either main tank damage mitigation or quick spot heals on a single target. Also brilliant for two-left-footed dancers in Heigan. :)

Lesser Healing Wave - a fast but rather inefficient heal on it's own, when combined with the glyph on an earth-shielded target (usually your tank) it starts to approach the efficiency of it's big brother Healing Wave. Excellent for topping-off your tanks, and with a healthy amount of crit, good for triggering Ancestral Healing.

Healing Wave - personally I rarely ever use this spell (except when combined with a Nature's Swiftness macro*), as I'm not really talented for it and I prefer a more twitchy healing style rather than the pre-cast/cancel style (more on this later).

Chain Heal - the defining Shaman heal, excellent for healing melee-heavy groups. The longer cast time means some pre-casting may be required, but it's a very efficient way to patch up two or more people (up to four when glyphed, excellent for raid heals).

Cleanse Spirit - not a heal, but a very important utility.

Healing Styles and Talent Builds
Maybe I spent too much time as a Tree in the Burning Crusade, but I grew fond of the mitigation-style of healing backed-up with fast-cast reactive heals. As such, I've personally adopted a style that keeps ES and Riptide rolling on the tank with glyphed LHW and Chain Heals as needed. My typical Resto spec looks something like this.

The other style which may appeal to others focuses more on pre-casting/cancel-casting big Healing Waves, and requires a slightly different spec. I have not personally tried this one out yet.

Gearing
If you adopt the mitigation+fast cast style, Mp5 becomes very important since we're hardly ever out of the 5SR (five second rule). Otherwise if you're going for big Healing Waves, haste is likely to be more important to you, since hopefully you're staying inside the 5SR as much as possible.

With so many abilities triggering off crits, having high crit is important: 25% is probably a decent number to shoot for, but if you can get to 30% you're in good shape.

Weapon Imbues
Glyphed Earthliving Weapon, always! Also I read somewhere (EJ?) that the Elemental Weapons talent in Enhancement scales poorly with better gear, but it may be useful early on as you're starting heroics.

Tactics: Typical Heroic Trash Pull
Your tank's about to charge into a typical heroic trash group, CC be damned! If you have time, spam a few LHW's on him to trigger Ancestral Healing beforehand (or better yet use a single Tidal Force macro**), and make sure he's got a full stack of ES and Riptide him just before the charge.

Spikey damage happens, so have your fingers ready to LHW, CH or NS+HW. Try to build a mental database of which mobs murder melee or do big AoE damage (whirlwinds, etc), and pre-cast Chain Heals.

Heroics can get a little nutty if your tank has a hard time picking everything up, so I recommend taking Nature's Guardian and also learning to use Wind Shock and Hex to save yourself.

Tactics: Raid Healing
If you have plenty of healing classes to go around in your raid, chances are you'll be assigned to raid heal, which is arguably our forte:

Bind every key to Chain Heal and roll your face across the keyboard.

I'm halfway kidding - you should also keep ES on either MT or OT depending on who's likely to take bigger damage on a particular pull/boss. Since Riptide has a six-second cooldown I usually reserve it for someone who just took a big hit from a loose mob, but otherwise keep it rolling on one of the tanks.

Main Tank healing in a raid setting is certainly possible and viable, just have to ensure that you're fully spec'ed into Ancestral Healing (have it up as much as possible) and Improved Shields, along with the usual Improved ES and Riptide business.

Handy Macros
*Nature's Swiftness + Healing Wave
This is your tanks-gonna-die-now-unless-you-do-something-quick button.

#showtooltip Healing Wave
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Tidal Force
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [target=mouseover] Healing Wave

**Tidal Force + Lesser Healing Wave
This macro guarantees a LHW crit, triggering Ancestral Healing.

#showtooltip Lesser Healing Wave
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Tidal Force
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [target=mouseover] Lesser Healing Wave

Both macros above have /use 13 and 14 to auto-pop your trinkets, and have [target=mouseover] since I use these in conjunction with Clique to click-cast my heals. The Sound_Enable and UIErrorsFrame business just keeps the game from spamming you with "that ability is not ready yet" feedback.

Further Reading
Check out Elitist Jerks and Plusheal.com.

Shamantics in Naxx10

2009-04-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Between the guild's weekly runs and my zany heroic-mode PUG adventures, I've started to compile notes for the various encounters for the infamous Naxxramas. Below are all the boss fights in Naxx1o from a Shaman's point of view. (In the future I hope to write a followup post to describe some of the differences in 25-man heroic mode, stay tuned!).

Arachnid Quarter

Anub'Rekhan
Elementals and Restos, stand in the green circle in the middle of the room and do your thing at max range to avoid the boss's silence, but also spread out from the other ranged. Enhancement, alternate melee between the boss and the major spider add - and if your raid leader (RL) calls for it, run out during Locust Swarm and sling lolbolts with the ranged group. Try to time Heroism/Bloodlust for when all DPS is on the boss - and not during a Locust Swarm.

Faerlina
Elemental and Resto, DSITF (don't stand in the fire) somewhere in the middle. Poison totem can be useful here, but isn't necessary if your healers are on the ball. The RL will likely assign a DPS to take down each add to ~30%, so if that's you, just be very careful not to overshoot. Restos: be prepared to spam heals on the tank during Faerlina's enrage. Hero after the adds are softened up and all DPS is back on the boss.

Maexxna
After the tank runs in and turns the boss around, Enhancers should attack from behind (as usual). Ranged/healers should bunch up a few steps behind to make AoE'ing the adds a little easier (Thunderstorm, Chain Lightning and/or Magma Totem can help). Important for all specs: cleansing poison on the tank is priority, as it reduces healing by some insane amount. Save Heroism for the enrage at ~30%.

Plague Quarter

Noth
Tank/spank Noth in the center of the room until he teleports away, when DPS focuses on the adds. Elementals can also soften-up the adds if the offtank starts to get too many while Noth is still on the ground. There are times during this encounter when healing is not very intensive, so Restos could consider wearing a DPS set (high hit rating) for a little extra pew pew on the boss/adds. Watch out for the Plagued Guardians which do a massive AoE, so always focus-fire them down and Chain Heal to patch up the raid. I usually pop Hero a few seconds after Noth teleports down the 2nd time.

Heigan
Enhancement, stick to your tank as he kites Heigan around the room - don't worry about attacking from the back too much on this one - you don't want to get caught in the goo. If you can, plop a totem down in each safe zone to help give others a reference point. Elementals and Restos will remain up on the platform until the dance phase - let your tank know if he's too close (increased casting times) or too far out (out of range!). Disease Cleansing totem should be down at all times, as well as priority-casting Purge or Cleanse Disease for those who are out-of-totem-range.

The dance phase takes practice, so don't get discouraged, watch a few videos and look for recognizable patterns in the ground where the goo comes up. Restos use Riptide whenever its up/available during the dance, and everyone else concentrate on staying alive. (For dance experts only: it is possible to get off a LHW in between waves of goo, but don't sacrifice yourself doing so!)

Loatheb
20 second cycles, out of which only 3 seconds where healing works. Essentially a DPS race, Restos can consider a DPS set here as well, as long as they're on the ball with heals during the three second healing window. DPS Shaman should be prepared to help out during the 3 seconds also by casting two Chain Heals (pre-cast the first at two seconds out). Restos can Riptide at 12 seconds out, then again on someone else at 6 seconds out, then pre-cast Chain Heal back on your first Riptide target and then another CH wherever needed... and (if you can squeeze it) another Riptide somewhere. Hero after the first two spores have been killed, early on in the fight when everyone's still alive.

Military Quarter

Razuvious
Enhancement can do their usual thing, attacking from behind and watching aggro. Elementals and Restos stand at range and do their thing, keeping an eye on those who get knife-attacked and need extra heals. Restos can Earth Shield whichever understudy is tanking the boss, and otherwise keep them healthy (but not too healthy). If you use Grid, the understudies will show up as pets, with a red dot in the corner to show who has current aggro. Pop hero as soon as the tanks have settled into a good trade-off rhythm, might as well get Raz down ASAP!

Gothik
The RL will split the raid into a living side and undead side, so keep behind your side's tank to give them a clear view of the incoming mobs and then DPS/heal as needed. Restos need to watch their Chain Heals, as it's a sure-fire aggro pull if the tank hasn't gotten a hold of incoming adds. Save Hero for when the gates open and all your DPS is actively engaging Gothik.

Four Horsemen
The quintessential Naxxaramas fight! In-10 man, DPS shaman are ideal candidates for being a rear tank, so bring a healing set. Be prepared to spam LHW on yourself and communicate with your counterpart on the other side when you have 3 stacks of the debuff. ("back switch!") Since it's proximity-based aggro and only spell damage, you can turn yourself around and face the direction you will be running from the get-go.

If you're in the front left group, stack up on the tank and pop Hero right off the bat. Restos make ideal healers for Korth'azz since Chain Heal counters his Meteor nicely. Other than that, stay with your tank, but watch your debuff bar and move to another boss when 3 stacks are up. Don't entirely rely on callouts in Vent. (note that there are alternate strategies here, including having the DPS stay in place with only the tanks moving to swap bosses, so pay attention to how your RL wants to do it!)

Construct Quarter

Patchwerk
The penultimate gear-check for the "second half" of Naxxramas. It's a pure DPS race, so pop Hero a few seconds after the tank has established aggro so it becomes available again at the end if needed. Enhancement may take a dip in the river to lose some health to help avoid being struck by Hateful strike. Otherwise, tank/spank.

If you're Resto, be prepared to keep Riptide and Earth Shield up at all times, and pre-cast glyphed LHW and/or Healing Wave if you're specc'ed for it. If not spec'ed for Healing Wave, I might recommend healing the main tank rather than the hateful tank, as it can get a bit hectic. Don't forget to have casters in your group for Mana Spring and Tide totems.

Grobbulus
As your tank kites Grob around the room, always have a spot in mind for where you'll be running if you get hit with the mutagen. Enhancers, attack from rear-side so you don't spawn additional adds which can quickly overwhelm a raid. Elementals are ideal for taking down the spawned goo which your offtank should be holding in place for you. Restos will be making use of Riptide a lot during this fight - try to splash it on someone who just came out of dropping their cloud as they'll need about half their health restored. Do NOT cleanse poison off yourself or a raid member until in a safe spot - doing so early will instantly release the poison cloud.

Gluth
One of the fights where having a Shaman helps tremendously. Elemental and Restos should plop Earthbind totem right on top of the center grate in back to slow the adds and allow your kiter a bit of breathing room. We usually use a Prot Pally who's spec'ed into Pursuit of Justice, and the two of us can handle the adds no problem. This is a little tougher for Enhancement as they'd have a long way to run, but certainly right after decimate plop an Earthbind down to give yourself a few extra seconds to down all the adds. Restos should be prepared to help out with the DPS on the adds by using AoE totems (after the raid's been patched-up, of course).

Thaddius
Very fun fight, involving two mini-bosses which need to be killed simultaneously before engaging Thaddius himself. (The RL will also pre-assign a positive and negative side to Thaddius, more on this later.) Restos are ideal for the right side mini-boss (Feugen) as he does an AoE attack for which Chain Heal is pure win. After the mini-bosses, take a running-jump off the platform to Thaddius.

Let your tank engage, then wait for Polarity to hit. Polarity gives you either a positive or negative charge, and being near others who have the same polarity gives you a substantial buff (does damage otherwise), so everyone should bunch up a few steps behind the boss on their polarity's side. Thaddius has a large hit box so Enhancers can back up a few steps to make sure everyone on their side is getting the stacking buff. When your polarity switches, immediately run straight throughthe boss to the other side. Restos: this can be a healing-intensive fight if your raid doesn't respond quickly enough to polarity shifts, so be on your toes! Pop hero early while everyone's still alive.

Upper Wing

Sapphiron
A classic dragon fight! Enhancers and melee should attack from the back/side to avoid frontal cleave and swipe. Elementals and Restos just need to be back far enough to avoid both. When Sapph takes to the air, he will ice block two random members and everyone needs to use the ice block as a shield from the large blast which follows. As soon as you're in position, try casting Lightning Bolt at Sapph. If it says target is out of line of sight, you should be safe. All specs should also immediately cast Chain Heal on yourself to get those around you patched up. Frost resistance gear is helpful for this fight, as is Frost Resistance totem if you don't have any Paladins. This is one of those "stay alive and you will win" fights.

Kel'Thuzad
Final boss in Naxxaramas, congrats! After buffing-up at the entrance be sure to recall all your totems, as adds will spawn in that same location and may prematurely aggro causing a wipe (trust me, I've done it).

During first phase, Elementals (and Restos if they can spare the mana/time) should focus on incoming Banshees and skeletons (CL may accidentally pull more mobs, so stick to single-target DPS), and Enhancement can focus on the tanked Abominations. Elementals can use Thunderstorm if too many skeletons make it through to the middle circle.

Second phase KT will appear, and everyone needs to spread out 10 yards, except Enhancement who should stack up on another pre-determined melee DPS'er. Elementals/Restos just need to make sure they're 10 yards apart from each other. (Use DBM's /range window to see who's nearby - only melee DPS should see other names in the box, and make sure it's not the tank's name!)

Important for all Shaman specs: read my How to Win at KT post for how to deal with the ice blocked people, who will surely die if you do not act!

Third phase brings out two large insect types which will be offtanked off to one side. Make sure a healer is in range as the OT will need stronger heals as the fight goes on. Pop hero once the adds have been secured and focus-fire on KT.

Why I'm Re-Rolling Hunter

2009-04-01T00:57:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: yes, this was absolutely an April Fool's joke. Are you kidding? I <3 Shaman'ing!

This will be my final post at Shamantics, and I'll be starting a new blog chronicling the adventures of my new Blood Elf Hunter: Hunterantics.

I've been playing a Shaman for a long, long time. Too long. The truth is, I can never find a group anyway ("no thx, shaman dps is teh lolz" or "we don't need no stinkin' heals") so I'm a little fed up of being left out in the cold with nothing to do.

Also sick and tired of bringing up the rear on damage and healing meters when I do manage to ninja my way into a raid. I'm suprised Shaman can DPS their way out of a paper bag, frankly. And don't even get me started about the facerolling-chain-heal jokes. It's not funny folks. (It's our only healing spell, what do you want me to do?!)

Just take a look at the Shaman class forums: it's full of perfectly rational and valid reasons why the Shaman class sucks. For years I ignored all the crybaby QQ that happens in the forum, but in reality, I was just deluding myself. They've been right all along: Shaman are, in fact, for noobs.

On top of it all, whenever I'm rocking Enhancement spec I'm forced to roll on actual hunter loot (thanks for the itemization normalization, Blizz), but since no one seems to believe me, I've actually gotten /kicked out of two Naxx25 PUGs for rolling on hunter mail! WTF?!1 MEh needz! Gimme!!!

So I figure, if you can't beat em, join em.

Me and my tentcity pet will show y'all!!!

p.s.: will mailbox-dance for gold, pst.

How To Win at Kel'Thuzad

2009-03-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

Whether you're Enhancement, Elemental or Resto, being able to throw a heal at an ice-blocked target during Kel'Thuzad can mean the difference between a wipe and a successful attempt. Personally I struggled a bit with this, as there's only a FOUR second window in which to 1) identify who's been blocked, 2) find them in your unit frames and 3) cast your fastest heal. More often than not, I failed. :(

Grid to the Rescue
IMO Grid and Clique are the essential tools for successful healing. Even if you're a purely DPS-minded Shaman, having these installed is highly recommended, and your raidmates will love you for it.

Open Grid's config window: /grid config
Open Status > Auras
Type in a new debuff and hit enter: "Frost Blast" (without quotes)
Find the new debuff in the Auras list, change the color to a blinding bright red
Also make the priority 99 (meaning topmost priority)
Open Frame > Border
Check your newly-added Frost Blast debuff to enable it

The next time someone gets ice-blocked, you'll see their Grid frame highlighted in bright red, so simply click-cast your fastest available heal (Riptide, LHW, NS+HW macro, or maybe Chain Heal if two melee are blocked) then get back to pew pew or whatever you were doing before... playing Bejeweled perhaps?

Don't Stand So Close to Me
Also, if you have Deadly Boss Mods installed (which of course you do!), type /range and you'll see a handy little display of those within 10 yards. Move accordingly.

The Fifth Element

2009-03-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

After my recent primer post on totems I started daydreaming about a potential for a fifth element to be released as part of some future expansion. There's some precedence for the use of Spirit as the fifth Shamantic element, both in lore and the existing game (Feral Spirit). Here are some ideas for new totems/buffs:

Spiritual Focus Totem - increases the caster's and nearby party member's spirit attributes by X (similar to Priest's Divine Spirit ability, but doesn't stack with it). Likely to become the default Spirit totem.

Shadow Resistance Totem - similar to the Paladin aura or Priest resistance buff, increasing nearby player's shadow resistance by X (non-stacking).

Spirit Elemental Totem - summons a spirit elemental into the physical world to attack the casters current target, inflicting X physical damage on a single target and healing nearby party members by Y per strike. Physical damage scales with the caster's attack power, and healing effects scale with the caster's spell power. 20 min cooldown, shared 5 min cooldown with other elemental totems.

Spiritual Link (buff) - when all five totems are down within 10 yards of each other, they form a Spiritual Link, increasing effectiveness of all the caster's totems by X. (I could picture a beam of light connecting all five totems!)

Feel free to comment on your own ideas for this potential fifth element! :)

And no, Gary Oldman isn't a valid new totem type.

Totem Primer

2009-03-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

/wave WowInsiders! :)

Here's a little secret about Shaman: we're totally OP in PvE. We can melee with the best of 'em, sling deadly spells with the best of 'em, and certainly heal with the best of 'em. (And sometimes, do all three in the same encounter!)

But there's more... we have totems, too! These portable buff givers are the very thing that define our class and make us the "swiss army knives of WoW."

The Elements
The four types of totems we have match the elements: earth, fire, water and air. Generally these map to defensive, offensive, restorative and hastening (but not always). Lets break down totem usage by level ranges:

Levels 4-9
Early on we're introduced to the concept of totems, starting with Stoneskin (a nice armor buff for lowbies rocking leather armor). For most encounters through level 9, Stoneskin works great, but get used to dropping Earthbind for slowing runners or in PvP, and Stoneclaw for when you've overpulled a mob or two - it's our only "CC" (crowd control) until Hex at level 80.

Levels 10-25
At level 10 we gain two important totems: Strength of Earth and Searing. This era marks the transition towards DPS-centric thinking (ie: down the mobs before they down you!). SoE will be
used all the way to endgame, and should be your default earth totem. Use Searing with a bit of caution, it has a mind of it's own! Here's a handy macro for this level range:

/castsequence reset=combat/9 Strength of Earth Totem, Searing Totem, Healing Stream

The idea is that you'd press the macro twice to get the first two totems, and only use Healing Stream (gained at level 20) when really needed, to save on mana. This "only use what you need" theory continues for the rest of your soloing efforts, but remember in groups you will be expected to (and should whenever possible) drop all four totems.

Level 18 brings one of our most important situational totems, Tremor. Arguably the number one reason to bring a Shaman to your heroic, this totem will clear fear effects, hopefully keeping you and your party mates from running straight into another pack of mobs. Learn which mobs fear and always have it down for those fights.

Also in these levels we get our first cleansing totem, Poison Cleansing, and our first resist totem, Frost Resistance. Start using these early to get a feel for when they should be used. (you may find resistance totems unnecessary until very specific encounters, but practice anyway) Later in life we also get Disease Cleansing, Fire Resistance and Nature Resistance.

Levels 26-29
At levels 26 and 28 we gain our default water and fire totems: Mana Spring and Flametongue. For soloing, you may still opt to use Searing over Flametongue, but otherwise you can evolve your totem macro to something like this:

/castsequence reset=combat/9 Mana Spring Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Searing Totem

Note the shift of Mana Spring to the front in order to maximize mana return during the fight.

Levels 30-49
Level 30 brings the very important Totemic Call, an ability that lets you kill all your totems and return a portion of the mana spent on casting them. Also at 30 you gain a very nice PvP/anti-caster totem: Grounding. At 32, Enhancers gain their default air totem: Windfury, a nice haste buff for yourself and all the melee in your group.

During this level range you've likely set on either leveling melee or caster, and since you don't always need to drop all four totems while soloing, we've moved the important ones up front:

Enhancement
/castsequence reset=combat/9 Strength of Earth Totem, Magma Totem, Windfury Totem, Mana Spring Totem
(this will be your default set all the way to endgame!)

Elemental
/castsequence reset=combat/9 Flametongue Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem (the last two being mostly for other's benefit)

Restoration
For those healing-focused, at level 40 you'll gain Mana Tide Totem, but given it's powerful-but-short mana restoration you'll likely want to use it situationally rather than in your default totem set.

Levels 50-63
At level 50, Elementals can gain the signature Totem of Wrath, and should be used instead of Flametongue from now on:

/castsequence reset=combat/9 Totem of Wrath, Mana Spring Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem

Levels 64+
At 64, Elementals can finally get excited about their own hasty totem, Wrath of Air, and can finalize their default macro set to one that will be used all the way to endgame:

/castsequence reset=combat/9 Totem of Wrath, Wrath of Air Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Strength of Earth Totem

Restos can also finalize a similar set, just with Flametongue instead of Wrath.

At 66 and 68 you gain two awesome situational totems: Earth Elemental and Fire Elemental. Earthy acts as your own personal tank, allowing us to solo elites or taunt mobs off squishies (remember he can be healed, too!). Fire Elemental can add a nice amount of DPS, handy for when you lose a DPS or two and need to push damage.

Cleanup on aisle six!
As mentioned, way back at level 30 we received Totemic Call, important not only for the mana return but also for killing off the totems. Mobs can and will aggro off your totems, so it's important to pick up after yourself! Don't be "that guy!"

(prior to level 30 you can just manually right-click the individual totems under your name plate)

Mods
Personally I like YATA (yet another totem addon), as it creates a simple totem bar and a handy set of totem timers. This in conjunction with my default totem dropper macro seems to cover all my totemic bases.

Update: I realized the macros I had previously listed didn't totally match what I was using in-game (notably the reset timer), so I updated the above to reflect 9 seconds on each. The thinking here is that on fights that require movement, sometimes you want to relocate your totems to your new spot - and therefore want your most powerful totems down first in case you can only spare a global cooldown or two.

Offhealer Build Results

2009-03-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I wrote a bit about an offhealer build I was going to try out in our Naxx10 runs. Tonight marked the guild's first Kel'Thuzad downing and Naxx clear (/cheer!), so I can finally report on how it worked out along the way.

The Results
WWS parses seemed to show I was able to do ~1000 DPS or so while in combat, but that's a far cry from the ~2600+ I'm able to do as full Elemental. Kind of a dud there. :P

The healing output was noticeably weaker too, and I did run into some mana issues. Probably the biggest issue though was the lack of Riptide, our only instant heal and HoT. Fights like Heigan, Grobbulus and KT almost require it in a Shaman's healing arsenal.

(Full disclosure, I went back to full Resto from Grobbulus onward, as I didn't want to mess around on my guild's dime, so to speak). :)

The Verdict
So it seems that an offhealer build in a 10-man setting is probably limited to "first-half" Naxx, where your guild is just getting their feet wet with the first two wings and you're a little light on DPS output.

Or perhaps if your guild dramatically outgears the content (or in a 25-person setting) there would be more room experimental hybrid builds, but for getting Naxx on farm status and learning the fights, I recommend sticking with full Resto and just carry a DPS set with lots of +hit if you want to pew pew on trash. :)

Now when are dual specs arriving?!?!

Offhealer Build

2009-03-03T11:55:00.001-08:00

a.k.a.: The "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" build!

Ever since the guild started running Naxx10, I've been toying with the idea of running 2.5 healers rather than 3. As folks get more accustomed to the encounters, less raid healing is needed - and for efficiency's sake, having extra DPS just gets us through stuff faster.

Prior Issues
I've run as full Resto in MP5 gear, but felt practically useless on fights where a little extra DPS comes in handy (Heigan, Loatheb). Without my hit gear on I was missing like crazy, and Lava Burst does a measly 4k (if it hits at all) - compared to 11k as full Elemental. And it just "felt" like we were overstocked on heals.

I've also offhealed as full Elemental in MP5 gear, but suffered from the same hit issues and lacked key talents like Nature's Swiftness and Cleanse Spirit. Healing in this mode was mostly relagated to spamming Chain Heal.

The Build
So tonight I will try something like this. Assuming I'd stay in Elemental gear (full hit cap), the goals of this build are:

Elemental Precision for the hit, natch.
Lightning Mastery for LB spam.
Nature's Swiftness for emergency nuke heals.
Cleanse Spirit for effective decursing.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Flame Shock persistant DoTs FTW.
Glyph of Earthliving Weapon moar HoTs FTW.
Glyph of Chain Heal excellent for raid healing.

Potential Pitfalls
Lack of Earth Shield, but with a Resto Druid and Disc Priest as main heals, there's already plenty of mitigation to go around. Lack of Riptide, a very nice insta-heal and the only HoT we have - great for movement fights like Heigan. The flipside being able to sling effective pew pew from the platform and the getting the fight over with sooner.

Will update this post after the run - wish us luck!

On Dual Specs

2009-02-23T14:27:00.001-08:00

We seem to be nearing the launch of the dual-spec system, which I'm personally very excited about. MMO Champion has posted a dual spec Q&A if you want to know more.

Predictions
Gaining the ability to dual spec will cost something. My guess would be 1,000 gold, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was 5,000 gold either. The justification being: how much is it worth to you to not have to level and other toon to max level? Start saving folks!

I also don't see this system solving the tank/healer shortage... mostly because I don't believe many actually enjoy tanking or healing. Added responsibility, needs a whole new level of game awareness, not to mention gear as well. Besides, DPS is just plain sexy.

The Upside for Us Hybrids
Now if you can get over the hump (yeah, I said hump) of L2heal and even start enjoying it, there's a huge upside for us hybrids: badges, badges, badges. LFG is constantly full of "wtb heals for roic this-n-that." A good healer will find themselves on a ton of friend's lists and never be out-of-work, so to speak. You should be able to gear-up your healing set by drops alone, and use your badges to buy funtime DPS pieces! Seems like a win-win to me.

Now if only badges were account-bound, we'd be onto something...

Dual Spec Plans
Currently I've got two 80s, the beloved Shaman and obligatory Death Knight. My next-closest alt is a 77 Priest, but I'm realizing he's becoming more of my Tailoring bot than anything else - and I don't plan on dual spec'ing him at all if it costs anything.

Exelus will go Elemental/Resto, natch. Those occasions when he's been forced kicking and screaming to heal, wasn't actually all that bad. With a certain amount of experience and gear things got easier, too. Even more fun when running with guildies.

Neverus the DK will likely go Frost tank and Frost dual-wield DPS (/PvP?). Yeah yeah, I know how two-handers are "better," take less +hit and all that, there's just something about slashing his way through stuff with two swords that I find appealing.

In Other News
Ex got his first piece of "item level 213" the other day! A heroic VoA PUG yielded this fancy skirt, his first PvP epic. Despite the resilience it still turned out to be better than my early-Naxx10 legs, so with a bada, boom and a bing it'll be here to stay for a bit.

Neverus tanked his first heroics and offtanked his first OS10 PUG raid, too. Have to say it was exhilirating. I definitely enjoy being up in the front, hanging onto mobs and Death Gripping loose ones from eating over-zealous DPS. Fun stuff!

Position Is Everything

2009-02-15T15:44:00.001-08:00

The topic at-hand is maximizing DPS. It's no secret that our beloved Shaman class (like many hybrid classes) have some ground to make up against pure DPS classes, but frankly it's a challenge I enjoy. Let's hear it for the underbog... err underdog!

Other than the obvious stuff (having decent gear, being hit-capped, knowing your DPS rotation, the right spec, etc.), having solid tactics is a sure-fire way to boost your DPS. Here are some tips for Shaman, but some tips should apply to other melee and ranged casters, too.

Enhancement (melee pew pew)
Melee DPS is all about being within range. Those precious few seconds you spend getting into position will add up over the course of an instance/raid, and cause your DPS to fall below where it should be.

On pulls, try to stay up near the tank and run with them into the foray, just a hair behind.
Always, always, always (well, usually) attack from behind. Doing so knocks parries off your attack table, and saves your tank from taking 40% hasted hits off the mob from your bad positioning.
The aforementioned time spent running between mobs is a huge DPS killer, so invest in a minor speed boost enchant or meta gem.
Don't forget about your AoE fire totems on trash pulls, as they no longer generate threat and can safely be plopped down after a second or two of your tank establishing aggro.

Elemental (ranged pew pew)
Being a ranged DPS means a little more flexibility as far as positioning, but there are still some tactical considerations that can help boost your damage.

Know your surroundings: if there are objects which could cause LoS (line of sight) issues (like stairs, pillars), be aware of them and get into a good spot right away.
This may be controversial, but it doesn't always pay for us Elementals to "finish off" the current target. Chances are by the time your last Lightning Bolt is about to fly, the mob will be dead already, meaning wasted time and lower DPS. If you have good steady DPS in your group already (DoTs, hunters, meleers, etc.), switch to the next target at 10% to start softening them up. This assures that all your spells with a cast time will actually land. This tip is also important when it comes to judiciously using our Lava Burst cooldown - our highest DPS spell should be used on targets that can actually take all the damage.
AoE fire totems on multi-mob trash pulls: after your first Flame Shock/Lava Burst/Chain Lightning, run up and drop an AoE totem.
If you must run to avoid something, throw a Flame Shock and/or drop a fire totem to keep some DPS going while you get to a safe spot.
Add /startattack to the beginning of your spell macros (which already auto-pop your trinkets, right?). This saves the half-second it takes to tab-over (or click) to your next mob, by auto-targeting the next closest mob in a cone shape in front of you. Be very careful with this one, though - take some time to learn the "shape" of this cone by practicing during your dailies. It's also possible to accidentally pull something you didn't mean to, so use with caution. :)

Don't Forget About Threat
While these tips may be helpful in upping your DPS under optimal settings, realize that tanks of various classes, gear levels and (frankly) ability may prevent you from going balls-out right off the bat. Go easy until you get the feel for how your tank is holding threat. Know the difference between your single target rotation and multi-mob rotation and when to use each.

You Can Haz Heals
Don't ever forget that you can (and should) off-heal and dispel/cleanse. Often times, throwing a few extra heals while DPS'ing will prevent unnecessary wipes and repair bills, and will furthermore endear you to the group healer(s). Sure you'll lose a smidge of DPS, but if your healer likes you, they'll work harder to keep you alive, allowing you more pew pew time. It's a win-win, baby!

Bonus Trivia
The title of this post is an homage to the website positioniseverything.net (no, it's not an adult site... ahem), a website for developers who do daily battle on the front lines of fighting CSS-related browser bugs. /salute

Elemental Fixed

2009-02-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

Patch 3.08 finally dropped a few weeks ago, and as Borat is happy to report, "Lolemental Deeps Fixed!"

Wearing the same gear he had prior to the patch, Exelus was able to finally break 2,000 dps over the course of an average instance, up from a previous 1,600 or so (source: Recount).

/cheer

So with some recent upgrades, lucky drops and crafted stuff (mostly loaded up with those tasty JC-only hit gems!) he's now squarely back in the mix competing with other DPS classes, something I'm very happy with. Sure he's not outputting 3k DPS like mages and the like, but when looking at overall damage done (ie: actual health-reducing contribution to the fights), he's usually able to be within the top 3 on 10-man PUGs and top 5 on 25-mans. Good times. :)

We're back, baby!

In other news, the guild is now regularly taking pokes into Naxx10, for which I've participated as Resto. Been learning lots about Shamantic healing (and have even started to like it - gasp!), but alas I haven't had a lot of time to put my thoughts together yet. Soon, hopefully!

The Big Update Post

2009-01-08T16:40:00.000-08:00

Shaman Update
Yep, still waitin' for Patch 3.08 to drop so I can stop referring to my Shaman's spec as Lolemental. Sure I could run back to Enhancement, but I've been having too much fun standing in the back and slingin' spells around. It's just fun for a change, and truth be told, my "unoriginal DK alt" has taken over the melee role quite nicely (more on that later).

Got to Honored with the Sons of Hodir for the basic shoulder enchant, so now begins the long road to the fancier version and sweet ride. Just a few heroic runs away from Exalted with Wyrmrest which I'm pretty excited about, too. Now I just need to find a few random world drop epics so I can fund wings for the alts.

The guild will be attempting our first official Naxx10 run in a few weeks, so I'm doing my best to get ready... With gems and stuff I've reached the hit cap of 264 (assumes Shadow Priest in the raid), but if I'm reading this chart right, I may be gimping my overall non-raid-boss DPS by having too much hit for regular instances/heroics and trash encounters. I may drop a hit gem for a SP one and munch on hit food prior to a boss fight. Hmm.

Of course, if we wind up short on heals it'll all be somewhat moot as he'll go Resto. I've got a few nice pieces that work well enough for both specs, and with a few MP5 bits in the bank, hopefully I'll be ready for facerolling-chain-heals if needed.

On the profession-front, Jewelcrafting remains the dud it was in TBC. Trainable patterns run out rather rapidly in the early 400s, and you're forced to buy new ones using shards or worse yet, tokens from doing dailies. Ugh. In Blizzard's defense, the array of cuts available to learn is much greater than before (along with some really nice JC-only cuts), but the grind has increased too. Stuck at 422.

Death Knight Update
Currently rocking a mostly-frost-tankish build with some DPS talents, he's been able to do both roles reasonably well as he makes his way through the mid-70s. While melee DPS'in is always fun, I've really grown fond of the tanking role. There's an added sense of responsibility I'm enjoying as you lead the group through a dungeon, making tactical decisions and holding mob's attentions while your team beats them to virtual pulps.

He's two bubbles shy of 75 at this point, and I gotta say Blacksmithing has really paid off for him (currently 426). The new craftable tanking gear is really nice (Cobalt "set" for lower 70s, Tempered "set" for mid-70s). Eventually looking forward to the Tempered Titansteel stuff at 80, along with the recently-announced tanking weapons that will be introduced next patch. I'm just bummed that the Axe has defense while the Sword has parry... but I'll still probably go for the sword for the aesthetics and make up for the lost defense by adding sockets to armor pieces.

Priest Update
Haelus is secretly my favorite alt. The little guy just has so much attitude it cracks me up. He gets all my other toon's cloth drops, and has manged to get up to 423 tailoring or so at level 74. Not too shabby. His second profession (lol 220 mining) is way under Northrend levels, so that'll need to be rectified at some point. I powerleveled mining on the DK at great expense, but may have to do the same for the priest.

Anywho, he mostly just sits near a mailbox in Dalaran waiting for cloth to arrive; or answers the occasional guild-chat call for a mid 70s healer.

Druid Update
Sigh. It's true, I do miss the changeling. He's currently languishing at 70, without really a role to fill in my stable of toons. /sadface. So until I figure it out, he'll be doing jello shots, telling bad jokes, and making passes at the barmaids at Valguard Keep Inn.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

The relative craziness of the holidays (no pun intended) comes to an end tonight at midnight, with the closing of another calendar year. Lack of posting activity has been due to a flurry of usual year-end activity, and I look forward to getting some more in-game time and blogging time during the next few weeks. (WTB Naxx10)

May 2009 bring you phat loots and downed bosses, and a buff to Elemental Shaman DPS. ;)

Happy New Year Everyone!

Walk softly and...

2008-12-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

...carry a big epic mace!

While I'm still not 100% sold on staying Elemental, the Titansteel Guardian still makes a decent mainhand for an eventual alternate Resto spec, so I scrounged up the mats and had a guildie craft it. Woot! Spellpower has gone up into the 1500 range, which is nice - feels closer to where I should be, but I really need to work on that hit cap.

A Bit About Hit
Looks like Draenei Elemental Shaman need 342 hit rating to not "miss" a level 83 boss. We do have a few Shadow Priests in the guild, so with their lovely Misery talent I can knock almost 80 rating off that number, down to 265 or so. Currently I'm sitting at a miserable 150-ish.

In Other News
Did my first two heroics yesterday: Utgarde Keep and Violet Hold Pretty fun stuff - came away with a few blue upgrades, even though they were cloth and leather. Also ran a bunch of non-roic regular 80 instances and was able to pull ~1300 dps, so the numbers are improving somewhat. Still not fantastic, but keeping in mind that I can instantly flip over to offhealing when things go sideways, I'm liking the flexibility.

Oh, and did I mention the awesomeness of Hex yet?

Ribbit.

Reputation Rewards: Shaman

2008-12-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

With 80 right around the corner, I've turned some of my attention to getting ready for Naxx and endgame in general. As many of us know, hitting the level cap is far from the "end" of the game - a newborn 80 is a very different character than one who's well into raiding.

One of the first steps to preparing for Naxx is to make sure you're wearing a healthy amount of high quality "blue" gear. Some of this Item Level 187+ gear can be purchased from various Nothrend faction quartermasters after certain reputation levels have been earned.

Matthew Rossi over at WowInsider wrote a nice breakdown of rep gear for Shaman, but it's in paragraph form and was hard for me to scan, so here's the list in tabular form, complete with Wowhead rollovers:

Northrend Reputation Rewards: Shaman

Regardless of whether or not I decide to stay Elemental or go back to Enhancement, the two reps I'm already interested in are:

Sons of Hodir for the shoulder enchants
Wrymrest Accord for the dragon mount

/start-rant

From there, I have some decisions to make, spec-wise. Hopefully 3.04 will be released soon and Elemental will get their much needed buffs, but from what I've been reading it's not looking good. :( Some math is showing equally-geared Elemental Shamans doing 2/3's the DPS of a Mage or Hunter. That's 66%. Ouch. Give me 80% or 90% and I'll close the gap by working extra hard at gearing up, but c'mon Blizzard... 66%?

/end-rant

Elemental Macros In Depth

2008-12-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my prior post, my main pew-pew buttons are macros which are bound to the 2-3-4 keys, making DPS a muscle memory and cooldown-watching exercise rather than a frantic click-fest.

Bumwaller and D-Form posted some comments/questions after the last post, so I'll attempt to answer here by posting the actual macros and breaking them down line-by-line.

Lightning Bolt w/Trinket Pops
#showtooltip Lightning Bolt
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Lightning Bolt

The first line (showtooltip) forces the macro to display the spell/ability/item you specify - making it "look right" on your toolbar. Otherwise it just picks the first item in the macro (slot 13 in this case, your first trinket slot). Sound_EnableSFX 0 turns off your sound in anticipation of "that item is not ready yet" audio, which gets annoying after a while.

Use 13 and 14 are your two trinket slots, and if the first one is on cooldown it'll attempt to use the next slot. UIErrorsFrame:Clear() will remove the potential "item is not ready yet" from the display. So after re-enabling sound effects with Sound_EnableSFX 1, we can finally actually cast the spell: Lightning Bolt.

Since the only thing that triggers the global cooldown is the spell itself, the macro becomes "spammable," meaning you can press it over and over again (after waiting on the cast time of LB, of course).

Flame Shock + Lava Bursts
/castsequence reset=14/target Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lava Burst

In this macro, I'm not using showtooltip specifically because I want to watch Lava Burst's cooldown in my action bar. Instead, I use a castsequence to cast Flame Shock, then Lava Burst, then I'll do some other stuff until the second Lava Burst becomes available. (I use this glyph to extend Flame Shock's duration so it covers two Lava Burst cooldowns.)

The reset number tells the macro to reset the sequence after that amount of idle time has elapsed. (The /target right after it also resets the macro when I switch targets.) Now back to the timer: every time you press the macro, the timer starts over. The reason I'm using 14:

Lets look at the timeline of this macro (assuming zero latency and no haste):

at 0 seconds: Flame Shock instant-cast (18 sec duration w/glyph)
at 1.5 seconds: first Lava Burst
at 9.5 second: Lava Burst

After the 2nd LvB, a 3rd would be available at 17.5, but that's cutting it too close to the end of FS's 18 second duration, which you always want up on the target. Working one global cooldown backwards from 17.5, we're at 15 seconds which is the ideal time to re-apply FS. My macro is listed at 14 because I want to give myself some wiggle room - and if I cast it a smidge too early it's not a big deal since the guaranteed LvB is more important than a tick or two of FS.

You may be asking yourself: "but if 14 is idle-time-since-last-keypress, wouldn't the macro wait too long to reset to Flame Shock after the 2nd LvB?" Luckily, the macro seems to respect the "castsequence" part and will reset back to FS after the last LvB. :)

I chose not to use a trinket here since I generally open with a Lightning Bolt (either for a long-range solo pull or to let the tank get a bit of aggro before unloading). Also didn't use Elemental Mastery since having Flame Shock on the target already causes Lava Burst to crit - and I'd rather save Mastery for the relatively expensive Chain Lightning.

Chain Lightning + Lightning Bolts
#showtooltip Chain Lightning
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Elemental Mastery
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/castsequence reset=6 Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

In this macro, I'm doing some of the futzing with the sound effects and UI errors around the casting of Elemental Mastery, which takes the mana sting out of Chain Lightning. The two Lightning Bolts after it (when added to the CL) comes to a total casting time of 5.5 seconds for the whole sequence. The reset of 6 matches the cooldown of CL, so if I only use this macro once or twice on a pull, CL will be available again after the cooldown.

I'm not using reset=target here since the reset has everything to do with CL's cooldown, as opposed to the FS+LvBs macro where I always want to apply FS first on new targets.

Macros Aren't Everything
Due to the dynamic nature of many fights/encounters, sequences can easily get out-of-sync, so be prepared to fire off these abilities manually by using other available action bar slots!

Haste Changes Everything
There's a certain amount of haste that will undoubtedly have an effect on Elemental rotations, but until I actually get a bunch of haste gear I'm not really sure how things will get affected. My priorities as I head to level 80 raiding are some balance of spell damage, crit and hit. For the moment, haste just helps me deal with a small amount of latency/server lag.

What's with the Propeller Hat?
I have no idea. I just think they're funny.

Elemental FTW

2008-12-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

Exelus hit 77 tonight, and finally got his wings back!

Elemental has continued to be a lot of fun, especially after a respec (thanks Aaron J) and a slight modification to my soloing DPS rotation. Here are my current key bindings:

2) Lightning Bolt
3) Flame Shock > Lava Burst > Lava Burst
4) Chain Lightning > Lightning Bolt > Lightning Bolt > Lightning Bolt

All are macros which include things like Elemental Mastery and automatic trinket pops. Keys 3 & 4 have resets that match the respective cooldowns of Lava Burst and Chain Lightning. Taking down a mob looks like:

2, 2 - two sequential Lightning Bolts (flight time ftw)
3, 3 - Flame Shock then a Lava Burst crit
4, 4 - Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt
5 - Earth Shock finisher (if needed)

The mob is usually dead by the fourth or fifth key press. :) And of course, Thunderstorm is available if I need to push back multiple mobs and/or get a spell off.

Sidenote: anyone else notice that quest reward armor matches much better than the clown gear we got in TBC? Aesthetics FTW.

Gone (Ele)Mental

2008-12-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

I may have gone insane. Exelus went Elemental last night. This (somewhat) calculated move happened for a few reasons:

Level 75 brings Lava Burst, unfortunately not part of the Enhancement rotation
Incoming Elemental buffs are making the spec more and more attractive
My old level 70 Enhancement epics are being slowly replaced by quest gear anyway
An eventual Elemental/Resto dual spec is likely to have more synergy than Enhancement/Resto, both in playstyle and gear
If Exelus has ranged DPS and heals covered by dual-spec'ing, then my DK can cover melee DPS and tanking - all bases covered by two toons!

So after a quick visit to the trainer in Exodar, I found myself staring at the talent screen, totally clueless. :)

Talent Selection
Here was my initial talent selection at 75, which is very likely to change. Sure insta-cast Ghost Wolf is nice, but maybe not at the expense of other pew-pew talents in Elemental. Also I didn't notice too much in the way of mana issues, so I will likely let go of Shamanistic Focus - and I'm not sure if Elemental Weapons is worth it at this point. TBD. I do like Thundering Strikes still though, since Elemental seems to be such a crit-heavy build.

Probably tonight I will re-do it all so I can get Thunderstorm - seems like a very nice talent for soloing multi-mob encounters (and PvP?) after the loss of my favorite two emergency buttons.

DPS Rotation
After some trolling at Elitist Jerks it seems that the Elemental rotation is more of a priority system:

Keep Flame Shock ticking (the glyph is mandatory for Elemental)
Lava Burst when it's up
Chain Lightning when it's up
Lightning Bolt spam to fill time

Here's how I distilled that down to two macros, bound to my "2" and "3" keys:

2) /castsequence reset=6 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lava Burst
3) /castsequence Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

These spells are all bound to other keys as well, but these macros let me mostly alternate between just two keys which reset themselves upon Flame Shock and Chain Lightning cooldowns.

When soloing, I tend to open combat with a regular LB since it has "flight time," then immediately hit 2 twice, then 3 a few times and close with an Earth Shock kill shot ("4" key). In groups, it's similar (usually without Earth Shock), but I keep more of an eye on cooldowns and the overall situation (offhealing, interrupts, etc).

General Impressions
After killing a few hapless mobs in Dragonblight to get my rotation down, I went off to UK and then OK with some guildies and had a great time. It was kinda weird to stand in the back, but there are some advantages - better view of the overall battle, etc.

My gear is pretty lame at the moment, mustering just over 900 spell damage, but I still managed to stay roughly on-par with other DPS while spot-offhealing. Mana didn't seem to be too much of an issue, which was a nice suprise.

I will likely contine this experiment for a while... the 4k Lava Burst crits are sweet, and it's fun to try something new. :)

Progress Report

2008-11-30T22:35:00.000-08:00

Exelus to 75: check.
Culling of Stratholme: check (kinda, barely hit anything).
Collecting caster gear for Resto dual-spec: check.
Haelus to 72: check.
Broke after the Flying Carpet: check.
Codus to 64: check.
Mining to 300+ on the DK: check.
Doing my part to "stimulate the economy" by ordering an early holiday present: check.
Another lame excuse for a post: checkity-check.

Shamantic Briefs

2008-11-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

Ambassador Exelus to 72: check.
Haelus to 71: check.
Utgarde Keep: check x6.
Azjol Nerub: check.
Ahn Kahet: check.
The Nexus: check.
Healer shortage still in effect: check.
Too busy in-RL and in-game to write a real post: check.
Too many checks: check.

Weekend of the Lich King

2008-11-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

With a cleared schedule, I took a wowcation and played an unhealthy amount a great deal of WoW over the weekend. :) A brief breakdown and first impressions:

Death Knight
Wanting to get the blue rested XP ticking right away, the first thing I did was roll a Death Knight. Of course everyone else had the same idea, but thanks to the new "phased" instance-like starting zone, the mob/quest ganking was kept to a minimum. I managed to plow through all the starting quests until arriving in Stormwind at level 58 (ready for Outland!).

Later in the weekend, I took him into Hellfire and started on quests, and even managed a four-DK run of Ramparts with some guildies. I think I left him around level 60. So far he feels rather overpowered for the content, but I expect that to even-out closer to 80. The jury is still out on whether or not he will become my tank, however. He's currently Unholy spec but that may change (Blood/Frost maybe?) - I don't really like the Ghoul pet. Kinda creepy.

Starting Zones
Figuring I should see what this "Northrend" business was all about, I took Exelus north into the Borean Tundra and encountered all sorts of lag, mob/quest ganking, and a fairly meh first impression of the zone. It wasn't until I took Haelus into Howling Fjord that I had that feeling of, "oooh aahh."

The quest quality seems fairly similar between the two, but the atmosphere is distinctly different. The Fjord is like landing in Scandinavia, whereas the Tundra is more reminiscent of... Siberia?

Ding 71 (twice!)
I got Exelus to 71.5 via questing and a single run though Utgarde Keep, but have already run UK with Haelus five times or so (LF1M healz pls!) and have reached one bubble into 71. So the plan of leveling one via questing and another via instancing seems to be working out fairly well. However, with the promise of dual-spec'ing on the horizon, I'm a bit torn: Ex would be able to DPS or heal as needed... maybe I should just work on him exclusively for the time being?

Ciribrus the druid is, for the moment, semi-retired in Shattrath. He was closest to 70 when the guild needed another healer so it was natural for him to go Resto, but am not sure what role he will fill (if any?) going forward. Maybe tank if the DK doesn't feel right?

Utgarde Keep
The "first" instance in Lich King is awesome, and tons of fun. It seems to be tuned just right: a healthy challenge for new-ish 70s yet still not a complete cakewalk for Kara-geared 70s. The boss encounters are reminiscint of Kara too: the first boss is a caster that likes to freeze people (a la Illhoof's Demon Chains) and the second is a Romeo/Juliet-like encounter where both need to be burned down at the same time. The final boss is a tank/spank with the exception of some nasty tricks: resurrects with a big AoE, a melee smash effect (tank and melee should run 10 yards), and a spell school lockout if you happen to be casting during his roar (instants seem to be fine though?). All in all really fun, look forward to coming back in heroic mode!

Goals for the coming days: get Exelus to 73 or so, take peek into Nexus... sell over-inflated Frostweave and Cobalt ore for profit!

On Achievements

2008-11-05T13:39:00.001-08:00

As part of the upcoming Wrath expansion, Blizzard has added an Achievement system to WoW: a method to track one's accomplishments in-game. The way it works is fairly simple and requires no additional interaction from the user: complete an achievement and you get a "ding" of sorts, an announcement in guild chat and a few points earned.

When I first heard about this system I was resoundingly meh'ed. Just another useless carrot-dangling mechanic that fuels the OCD in all of us (as if we don't have enough of that in us as MMOers!). Very few of the achievements actually do anything for us in-game... a few titles here and there, an epic mount after collecting some insane number of mounts, etc. Again, meh. There are goals within the game that I mentally keep track of, but you won't see my dwarf running off to Teldrassil just for some exploration achievement.

However, what I didn't anticipate was the team-building and community aspect, which so far has been an overwhelmingly positive thing. The guild chat announcements encourage conversation ("grats!") and cooperation ("LFM SFK!"), even from our quietest members. Another benefit of the system is that it helps keep track of certain goals you may already have, like playing through every instance in the game.

So in the end, I have to give kudos to Blizz for adding a mechanic that you can either take or leave, with no real impact on your ability to play the game well (e.g.: kill mobs faster). It's an added grind only if you want it to be, but doesn't have to be if you could care less...

Like with Fishing.

Or Cooking.

Meh.

:)

FigurePrinted

2008-10-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

First impressions are everything, and there's certainly was a lot of wow factor (no pun intended) pulling this out of the box. It's pretty awesome... a bit larger than I expected (a good thing), and the colors are just right: not too dark, not to cartoon-y or bright. The detail is rather impressive, from the physical features (fingers, face, etc.) down to the printed-on detail of the armor and weapons.

These photos do not do the FigurePrint justice, as the flash reflects off the powder material these things are printed from, making it look dusty or sparkly. Under normal natural light, it looks great, and the "dust" is not visible.

Minor nits: the name plate and the base-surrounding Warcraft label do not exactly line up, and there's a red splotch on the back of one of Ex's blue shoulder pads - but I don't plan to spend a lot of time looking at the back of this model anyway.

Would I recommend getting this to a friend or guildie? The answer is: depends. A lot of us spend a fair amount of time playing this game, so it's great to have a physical representation of your character, but the price feels a bit high. Hopefully they'll lower the price soon?

I'm already contemplating which toon to get made next, likely at the end of Lich King. :)

Haelus 3.0

2008-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Many moons ago (1.5 years), on a far-away land (PvP server), Haelus was born to the world (of Warcraft) as Exemel (yes, pronounced XML). This is what I will refer to as Haelus 1.0, who was conceived to be a healer in a triumvirate (avoiding the word: threesome) of intrepid adventurers (RL buddies). Over time, the fellowship scattered and Hael pondered his next move (WTB server transfer?) and settled into a period of deep meditation (several months of rested XP).

During this time of deep self-reflection (working on a Shaman main), Haelus' thoughts slowly drifted towards the darker side (emo dwarf), drawn by promises of unlimited power (face melting!). So when he finally arose from his sabbitcal (server transfer), he fully embraced the Shadow (respec), found a new band of adventurers (Chivalry) and temporarily took on the name Ordus (paid name change). This was to be the era of Haelus 2.0, a period filled with death and destruction (moar dots) as he rampaged across Azeroth, sealing the fate of those (mobs) who would seek to impede his progress and exploration (questing).

One day (last week-ish?), Haelus (2nd paid name change) stumbled upon the Dark Portal and discovered a new world of wonder beyond (Outland). As he began to explore this new land (ugh, Hellfire gives me vertigo), a change began to take hold in Haelus, as he realized that the powers of Light had grown within him (patch 3.02) and that his gifts (spells and talents) could be used to not only smite (Holy Fire and uh... Smite) down his opponents in battle, but also to (gasp) heal! In fact, these abilities were so sought after that those all across the land (trade chat) began to send word (/whisper) that his powers of salvation ("u healz rite?") and prayer ("buff fort!") were desprately needed ("plz!").

So began the era of Haelus 3.0 (Disc/Holy respec), where even his physical appearance began to morph as he gravitated towards the Light (Shave and a Haircut). To his suprise, he found that even in personal combat, mixing the powers of Light and Shadow (DPS rotation: Holy Fire, Devouring Plague, SW:P, Smite x2, wand) was highly effective (lol pwn u) and his enemies (mobs) fell rapidly, maybe more rapidly than before (woot insta-Smites) with great efficiency (can't let go of Spirit Tap). And when confronted with large groups of enemies, he could blast the powers of Light to simultaneously heal friends and harm foe (Holy Nova FTW).

His story continues to be written, as rumors of trouble in northern Azeroth (zomg expansion) begin to fill the minds of adventurers (must hit 70 before Nov 13th!).

To be continued...

3.02 Level 70 Enhancement DPS Rotation

2008-10-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

The introduction of new abilities (and tweaks to existing ones) has undeniably changed what our maximum DPS rotation is going to look like. First, a quick overview of how my keybinding is/was set up, as it has some bearing on the hot DPS action:

Your default action bar (bottom left) is already set up as 1-through-equals sign. To keep things within reach, I've set the bar above it to use shift-number key.

Pre-3.02 Keybinding and Rotation
In general, I set up the keys to follow the standard DPS rotation:

auto attack (sometimes you want to start off mellow)
storm strike macro of doom (pops a trinket, /startattack, /cast storm strike)
flame shock macro (/startattack then /cast)
earth shock macro (also /startattack then /cast)
frost shock (mostly for pvp and threat gen)

DPS was as easy as 2, 3, 4, repeat. The /startattack business ensured that if you started melee with a shock (during grinding for example), you'd also start melee'ing.

Post-3.02 Keybinding and Rotation
In a nutshell: we want to SS whenever its up, Earth Shock whenever its up, Lava Lash whenever it's up, and insta-Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning or Heal) whenever 5x Maelstrom Weapon is up. (Note that Flame Shock has fallen out of temporary favor since our enhanced spell damage improves ES more, but that may change when Lava Burst is introduced at 75.) The new keybindings:

auto attack
updated storm strike macro of doom (see below)
lightning bolt (shift-3 as Chain Lightning)

So now we're proposing to let our SS macro do more work for us, and manually weave-in Lightning Bolts/Chain Lightning (or a heal) whenever 5x Maelstrom Weapon is up. The improved storm strike macro of doom:

pops a trinket
/startattack
/castsequence reset=8 Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash, Earth Shock

And therefore DPS becomes: mash the 2 key until 5x MW, then hit 3 (or some other instant). Situationally, flame/wind/frost shocks are still very useful, so they're close at-hand at 4, shift-4 and 5 respectively.

Honorable mention for the tilde key (`) as it's now bound to /petattack for our newfound Feral Spirit friends. :)

Links/Credits
3.0 Pocket Guide
Castsequence Macro

3.02 First Impressions: Druid & Priest

2008-10-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

The last post focused on my main, an Enhancement Shaman. This time, some initial impressions of Patch 3.02 from my alts points of view: a Resto Druid and Shadow Priest.

Resto Druid
After a bit of agony that Insect Swarm is no longer reachable for Trees at level 70, I still took 11 points in Balance to get Nature's Splendor. As the tool tip states, it increases the duration of some over-time spells, most notably Lifebloom. (More on this later.) The rest went into Restoration, skipping the Healing Touch talents (which I may go back for later, since HT is now castable in Tree and I got a handy glyph that converts it to a nice Flash Heal-type spell).

I had a chance to test out the new build during an Onyxia run last night, which we easily 7-manned for fun and profit (and achievement). Our Paladin tank is rather uber, so he wasn't taking a ton of damage anyway, but I was able to keep him at full health rolling Lifebloom and Rejuvination exclusively.

Now getting back to Nature's Splendor: the 2 second increase combined with a few points in Gift of the Earthmother made it noticeably easier to roll HoTs on the tank and spot-heal the raid. (Before, it always seemed like I was under-the-gun, barely able to squeeze raid heals just before LB was about to bloom.) Of course, the real test will come later if I get to run Kara or ZA with this build, so TBD.

On the DPS front (sum treez are 4 fite?), my former DPS gear set is now looking like vendor fodder. Unbuffed, I'm just below 1k spell power, not too shabby. I'll have to run a daily or two on the isle to see what kind of numbers come back, but I have a feeling Resto DPS is not as awful as it used to be.

So the big news (besides finally getting a real rez zomg!), is the Night Elf racial Shadowmeld - which acts as a temporary aggro dump as long as you don't move and wait long enough for someone else (hopefully the tank) to grab your newfound friend's attention. Let me repeat teh awesomeness of this: NE Resto Druids now get a free racial Fade! Woot! No more Barkskin + pray or relying on a weaksauce trinket + "/y halpmeh!" macro.

I know some have complained about the normalization of tanking and healing specs, but I say phooey. Normalization just means more inclusion when determining party/raid line-ups. We should all be seeing more instances while playing the class/specs that we like, and this is absolutely a good thing. GG Blizz.

Shadow Priest
While the overall fate of my Spriest is still in question, as I admitted in guild chat last night, I may be only leveling him for the flying carpet. Heh. (Dinged 325 tailoring last night, and he's only 57.) Anyway, first impressions:

Mana efficiency is up, which is great. I used to end up with half mana after a mob fight (even though it recovered quickly with Spirit Tap) - and now, if I'm around 75% mana after a single mob pull. Not bad. This is probably partially due to the fact that...

Mind Flay has a new graphic! ...no wait, I meant to say: Mind Flay can now crit!

The previous yawn that was Mind Flay spam is now more like playing slots: "c'mon crit baby, crit!" Haelus is my third ranking toon, so I don't spend a lot of time trolling Elitist Jerk's Shadow Priest forums, but it'll be interesting to see if crit becomes more of a thing for us to aspire to. Methinks yes.

Also Mind Flay now refreshing Shadow Word: Pain is awesome. I only have 2/3 talent points in Pain and Suffering so far, but 66% high enough to keep the DoT ticking, as it "rolls" on each Mind Flay tick.

I have yet to try out any Holy stuff... maybe in a few levels when he reaches Outland. :) I wonder if Holy DPS has been improved? Hmm...

3.02 First Impressions: Shaman

2008-10-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was full of excitement, and not just on the WoW front: Apple announced the latest round of upgrades to their Macbook and Macbook Pro lines, with great news for gamers. The new integrated graphics chip (even on the cheaper models) are reportedly 5x faster than last gen's, which should mean dramatically better WoW performance on these affordable machines. And the Pro model actually has both the integrated graphics chip (for better battery life) and a full-fledged GPU for powerhouse graphics performance. Hott!

Anyhoo... what's this blog about again? Oh yeah... Shamantics.

After playing World of Patchcraft for half the night, I finally got into 3.02. Here's a quick rundown on first impressions:

New Login Screen and Intro Music
Honorable mention because it's refreshing to be greeted by something new. As usual, Blizz hit a home run with the new graphics and music - you really get the feeling something is coming, and you better grab a coat. Brr.

Sharper/Brighter Graphics
The game world seemed somehow clearer and more colorful than before. Certain colors and textures really popped, am not sure if this was a result of some graphics modeling updates or the installer changing my settings, but whatev. Thumbs up.

New Talents
Of course all our talent points have been refunded, so the first thing I did was go visit the Shaman trainer in the Exodar (I like the zen of that city) and buy up all the ranks of new spells like Wind Shock (a replacement for spell-interrupting rank 1 Earth Shock, but also reduces threat!). I immediately abandoned my initial plans of going partway into Elemental and went full 61-point Enhancement - there's just so many goodies in there:

Lava Lash
I'm not sure that the mathletes have fully vetted this talent yet, but I took it just for my own unscientific testing. This is the first of a few significant Enhancement changes, as it clearly favors WF/FT rather than WF/WF. I spent the rest of the night using this new combo, and I have to say it was refreshing to have another insta-attack available rather than the prior scenario: SS, Flame Shock, wait for it.... wait for it... wait... ok now Earth Shock! I'll keep experimenting with this, but it seems like a good thing.

Maelstrom Weapon
I had misunderestimated (sic, lol) the power of this talent when reading about it earlier. After a few seconds of beating stuff up, you find yourself able to insta-cast several key spells. In real-world (of Warcraft) use, this seems to be made of win. This gives you ability to weave-in Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning (and later Lava Burst) into the DPS rotation, or to throw an insta-heal on yourself or those around you, without gimping your DPS for more than a GCD. Awesomesauce.

Feral Spirit
I feel like a nerf is incoming on this talent... cuz it's crazy good. The wolves act in tandem, and have a pet bar - and therefore can be directed at specific targets or set completely loose. They seem to do a fair amount of DPS while (at the same time!) healing you. Lolwut?! They even seem to have that pouncy-looking attack that Cat Durids have now. OP!!1

Shamanistic Rage
I didn't notice this, but I think they buffed the crap outta this one. I'm now able to get all my mana back in about ~6 seconds. It's like Innervate on steroids (kids: don't use steroids, they make your nuts shrink).

So between Feral Spirit and Shamanistic Rage, we now have two nice emergency buttons for getting health or mana back quickly. Sweet.

Totems
Strength of Earth now buffs Str and Agi, which is all-win. Windfury is now a physical haste totem, and to my suprise, was showing the buff as active in addition to my weapon imbues. Since my totem mod was broken, I quickly re-worked my castsequence totem and was off-and-running:

/castsequence reset=9 Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Searing Totem

Achievements
On paper (err, interweb) this addition seemed totally superflous and geared towards the quest-completing OCD types. Which it is. But it's also more fun than I imagined. Anytime a player gets an achievement it's broadcast to /guildchat, so from a community perspective, it's also a win as it encourages communication ("grats!" or "how did you do that?") and cooperation ("anyone for SFK?") within the guild. Now, how do I sneak my blue-tailed-butt into Orgrimmar for RFC?

Gear
Without changing any gear or enchants/gems, my attack power went up by roughly 7% - likely due to AP-from-Int changes and the hunter gear I was already wearing. Crit went down 1%, but that can easily be made up for... for example, there's a glyph that adds 1% crit for your Strength of Earth totem, not a bad buff for the 10g I paid for it.

The Net Effect
After quick run-throughs of SFK and SM (with a visit to the Grand Canyon, fka: Dalaran), I went off to Sunwell Isle to try all this stuff against level-appropriate mobs. Again, no math yet, but it certainly felt like things were going down faster than before. Windfury seemed to be proc'ing less with it only on the mainhand, but it didn't seem to affect the speed at which mobs were dropping. Having Lava Lash and insta-bolts in the DPS rotation was a lot of fun, and the insta-heals came in handy a time or two. And the Feral Spirits: awesome. Set them on mob 1 while you work on mob 2, and by the time you're done, the wolves have just about taken down mob 1 and have been healing you the whole time. Overall, combat seemed more dynamic, less waiting for cooldowns (which is exactly what Blizz was intending, I believe).

So all things considered, I'm really stoked about the new abilities and am looking forward to trying them in a raid scenario. :) Next task is finding the optimal DPS rotation!

Dual Spec Hybrids: The End of Raiding Alts?

2008-10-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

It's rather obvious that I favor hybrid classes - there's a utility to them (even when performing offspec roles) that makes them very compelling for me to play... and I think most who play Shaman/Druids/Paladins/etc. would agree that flexibility is a key to what makes these classes fun.

For TBC, I ended up with two raid-capable toons: an Enhancement Shaman (melee DPS) and Restoration Druid (healz). With LK incoming, I've been working on a Priest to take over healing duty at the next endgame.

However... it just occured to me that this third toon may be totally unnecessary? It largely depends on how dual-spec'ing will be implemented, but news from Blizzcon is that players will be able to swap specs even during the middle of a raid... lolwut?!

Pure DPS'ers (Rogues, Mages, Locks, Hunters) would of course still need alts if they wanted to tank/heal - but for hybrid players like me, Tanking/DPS/Healing may largely become an issue of gearing and L2play over having distinct characters to individually level-up to fill specific roles. (Also unified spell power makes things somewhat easier in the gear dept. too, at least for casual raiders.)

Hmm. I suppose if you want a PvP/Arena spec and a PvE spec you'd still need alts to fill other roles, but personally I tend to lean PvE anyway - so I'm more likely to use dual specs to fill two distinct PvE roles (DPS or heals for example). This provides more flexibility for what the guild needs on any given run...

Anyone want a level 57 Priest? :) Haz 298 Tailoring!

Lookin' Ahead: Toons

2008-10-03T13:50:00.001-07:00

With Wrath and the 3.x patch looming on the horizon, I've been doing some pre-planning for my characters:

Exelus
will stay Enhancement for leveling in Wrath. For some possibly RP-related reason, I just can't see him as anything other than a two-fisted bringer of teh pain. Since's he's melee DPS with limited CC, he'll likely be solo'ing his way to 80. I'd like to get him raid-ready ASAP (to be followed by Ciribrus) so that I have both melee and ranged DPS available to the guild.

Ciribrus
has been collecting DPS caster gear in anticipation of specc'ing back to Doomchicken for leveling. Beta testers are saying that healing 5-mans with a caster offspec is still viable, so am looking forward to LFG'ing either as DPS or heals.

Haelus
is working his way to 60-ish, hopefully to catch the wave of leveling Death Knights and other alts working their way through Outland. A respec to Holy/Disc is likely at that point, but have another 10 levels or so to go yet. While I don't anticipate focusing on him initially, I'm trying to maneuver him into a position to be able to raid heal if the guild ends up light on healers.

Unnamed
the Death Knight has yet to be "born," but am hoping to roll one as my tank alt (along with everyone else and their brother!). While I have a 40's Paladin and an even younger Warrior in the wings, starting at level 55 has it's obvious advantages. As with Haelus, Unnamed will likely not be my main focus until some sort of raiding routine has been established, but we'll see.

So whether or not I stick to this general plan, am mostly just posting this for posterity - might be fun to look back on this 6 months from now to see how things panned out. :)

Ofc, I might be playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure instead, y'never know...

Ordered

2008-09-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

I ended up missing my last lottery pick with FigurePrints (was right around the time my MBP needed a rez), so when I got another congratulatory email last week, I figured I should jump on it. Timing is pretty good too, as this little piece of art will be a good snapshot for what Ex looked like at the end of the Burning Crusade. Final price came out to $163.39, a little on the steep side, but having a physical representation of something virtual is worth something IMO.

Ironic that the best-matching set of gear is his PvP gear, but whatevs. :)

Pics to follow upon delivery.

Is Just Theorycraftin'

2008-09-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

Boy do I like teh chart above (source), as it bodes well for both Exelus and Ciribrus (who will likely go back to Doomchicken in Wrath). Ofc it's all speculation in the World of Mathcraft (BETA), but I sure do like them purty bars.

Moar. DPS. FTW.

Nerf bat inc.

Honor Points and Macs

2008-09-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Looks like our saved honor points will be reset for the upcoming expansion, which means any plans to save them for Wrath welfare epics are now foiled. Not all is lost, though: I had previously held-off on buying the much-needed PvP trinkets in favor of armor/weapons, so now it's finally time to pony-up and spend my remaining honor on them before I lose 'em.

In other news, I'm considering a new computer purchase in preparation for Wrath... Currently I play on a "Santa Rosa" MacBook Pro (2.2ghz Core Duo 2) hooked up to a 23" Apple Cinema Display - which works great - but I have to constrain framerates in order to limit heat on the machine. It's a great portable/backup machine, but I want moar powah!

Up for consideration are the 24" iMac and the Mac Pro. Both machines, when equipped with the Nvidia video option, appear to be full of awesome, well capable of running the game at full settings at high framerates. I like the all-in-oneness of the iMac, and would prefer the 20" over the 24" (just obnoxiously big), but the 20" only comes with meh ATI video. Then there's the issue of what to do with my ACD, no longer would be needed.

The Mac Pro would go nicely with the monitor I already own, and would be more future-proof, but is pretty dang expensive: the config I'd want costs around $2,500. >.< Although the 24" iMac is no bargain either at $2,000, but at least I could sell the ACD...

Hmm, decisions...

And no, I'm not considering PCs. Pfft.

Pre-Wrath Update

2008-09-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well shiver me timbers, if it ain't National Talk Like A Pirate Day! First, my favorite knock knock joke of all time:

knock knock
who's there
impatient pirate
impa...
aaarrrrrr!!!

Thank you, I'll be here all week. :P

So with the announcement of an official release date for Wrath of the Lich King, I've made my pre-order of the collector's edition and will likely be taking a Wowcation for a day or two after the release. Funny, I remember doing the same when WC3 The Frozen Throne came out.

Being that Exelus is as geared as I'm willing to invest in currently, I've been working mostly on the Druid lately, practicing the art of healing as much as possible. He's been to Kara a few times now, and has made it past Curator to Illhoof and Aran. This weekend's followup will likely bring the challenges of Netherspite and Prince. Oh, and ezmode Chess. :)

Stats-wise, Ciribrus was heading over 1700 +heal but was feeling light in raw stats dept, so I made a few adjustments to gems, keeping the +heal over 1600 but inflating survivability and longevity (stam and int, respectively). His MP5 is around 140-ish, which seems reasonable given the efficiency of Tree healing.

Also found the rare Ace of Beasts on the auction house for the bargain price of 299g, which was the final card needed for Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon. Woot! This level 60 trinket has a proc that returns 100% of your regular mana regen for 15 seconds... so unless they change this item, its one of the few (only?) cards that will scale all the way to 80! Perfect for both grinding and healing during long fights, methinks. :) It's like a mini-innervate!

Now, the dilemma I have is my level 48-ish Priest, who recently took on the name Haelus from my deceased Resto Shaman project toon. The general plan is to level him Shadow till 60, then park him in Outland and level him by healing instances packed with Death Knights. In a way, this frees up Ciribrus from healing duty, as I may be transitioning him back to Laser Chicken for Wrath. Being able to root indoors, plus all the new Balance goodness means that Moonkin should be able to compete with Mages for ranged DPS spots in 5-mans more easily.

So anyway, do I save the Darkmoon card for Haelus instead? Decisions, decisions.

Oh, and I just heard the mammoth mount is going to cost 16,000 gold? Ouch.

Big Weekend

2008-09-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was huuuge on the GTD front, both from a guild perspective and a personal in-game goal perspective. First, let's talk about our guild's First Full Karazhan clear!

On Tuesday we did our usual "first half" clear through Curator, no issues, no wipes, all good. Then Friday we one-shotted Aran, collected our free epics from Chess and proceeded to Prince.

Prince, what a PITA.

After several attempts, we just couldn't seem to pull it off... between super-unlucky infernal drops and being a little light on DPS, we had to call it and regroup on Sunday.

/recruit Mages,Warlocks,Hunters

Sunday rolls around and we're one DPS short, but luckily a guildy knew a very-well geared Mage who graciously agreed to come. :) Our guest's abilities and strategy advice proved invaluable the rest of the night.

First we one-shotted Illhoof, /target Demon Chains ftw. Our offtank picked up a very nice cloak, grats! Then we went to visit Netherspite, a boss that the guild has maybe downed once? Not that it's particularly hard, it's just VERY gadgety. Beams, phases, aggro resets, it just takes a bit of coordination. After a few tries we got the timing down and he fell. :)

Feeling good, we went up the tower to re-visit Prince and tried the usual tanking spot, far left against the wall. Bad luck with infernals and range issues had us looking for a new tactic, so we made another attempt with the Pandadin tank along the right wall, with ranged in the doorway. This time we got lucky and were able to apply enough DPS, Prince downed!

Our guest had the urn to summon Nightbane, so even though it was late and not many of us had done the fight before, we crammed on the strategy and... one-shot big nasty Bane. /cheer! Even made out with some nice hunter loot.

By this point, I had 103 Badges of Justice... just 2 shy of Vanir's Lolfist. Out-of-the-blue I got a /w from a friend-lister and off I went to Heroic Blood Furnace. It was a bit of a struggle (putting it mildly), but we persisted and made it through.

/beeline Isle of Quel'Danas
/buy Vanir's Right Fist of Brutali-tay
/apply Mongoose

Since buying Vanir's freed up the honor I'd been saving for the PvP fist (no longer needed), tonight I'll be able to replace my last blue item with this one. Woot!

Ciribrus the Durid Alt also managed exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive and has just over 3k gold, working towards epic flight... maybe in a few weeks?

In other RL news, the Seahawks got crushed by the freakin' Bills. /cry

Karazhan Loot Watch List

2008-09-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

Even though Wrath is only a few months away, those of us still running KZ for fun and profit will likely be able to continue using our epics into the first few levels of Northrend, making raiding as worthwhile as ever. So better late than never, below is a list of Karazhan loot to watch for as an Enhancement Shaman!

Disclaimer
A few months ago I would have left out the "hunter loot," but with upcoming changes to how we get our attack power, having Intellect will no longer be as worthless as it is today. Also your mileage will vary depending on what you already have and have access to - for example, some crafted and PvP epics will definitely outrank items listed below. Use EP and RatingBuster to determine what works for you!

Now on to the list!

Trash Mobs

Grips of Deftness and Zierhut's Lost Treads - normally we like leather because it often comes with stuff like hit/crit, but these gloves and boots have decent raw stats and may be an upgrade for whatever you're currently wearing.
Belt of the Tracker - pass on this for hunters in your group, but take it in lieu of disenchanting and bank it. Depending on what gear you have when Wrath hits, you may gain some attack power from Intellect.

Attumen

Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation - gem it with two +8 strength gems and you're good-to-go!
Stalker's War Bands - hunter loot, but has decent stats and may be less huntery after Wrath hits. I still have these as nothing better have come along yet.
Worgen Claw Necklace - nice balance of stats and comes with hit rating. A solid entry-level raiding piece.

Moroes

Edgewalker Longboots - nice stats, sockets, hit rating, a definite upgrade from Zierhut's.
Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings - seems tailor-made for Burning Crusade-era Enhancement Shaman. Strength, Stamina, hit rating = win. Slap on an agility enchant.
Formula: Mongoose - this drop gets special mention because dual-Mongoose on your weapons are considered best until super high-end raiding (T6/Sunwell).

Maiden

Bracers of Maliciousness - leave this for kitty druids, otherwise take 'em if they're an upgrade.
Gloves of Quickening - hunter loot, but with two pure strength gems they're not bad.

Opera

Big Bad Wolf's Paw - ugliest weapon in the game, but decent stats and nice slow speed will tide you over until you can get a PvP or badge weapon.
Romulo's Poison Vial - there are way better trinkets for us, but if everyone passes, take it - especially if you're low on hit rating as it may improve DPS on boss fights.
Beastmaw Pauldrons - more hunter loot, but take it if it's an upgrade.

Curator

Gloves of the Fallen Champion -> Cyclone Gauntlets - not the best gloves out there (I like Felfury Gauntlets), but it's your first piece of official T4, so grats! It also gets better with the set bonuses, so /roll away. (You can also exchange the token for PvP gloves if you're into that sort of thing.)
Garona's Signet Ring - almost missed this one (thanks Mend Pet), a very decent compliment to your Violet Eye quest reward ring.

Illhoof

Fool's Bane - PvP and badge weapons are better, but this is very decent if you have neither.
Girdle of the Prowler - sigh, more hunter loot, maybe take it for Wrath.

Aran

Rapscallion Boots - kitty druid boots, but a nice amount of attack power.
Steelspine Faceguard - yet again more hunter loot, take it in lieu of DE.
Drape of the Dark Reavers - a very nice cloak, will tide you over until you can farm mats/gold for the Cloak of Darkness (Leatherworking recipe available to those exalted with Karazhan's faction, the Violet Eye).
Saberclaw Talisman - kinda meh, the easily-attainable SSO necklace is better, but this still may be an upgrade in the meantime.

Chess

Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless - argh, been waiting for these to drop for a while! AP, crit, hit, sockets, it's all good. And they're rated above the T4 shoulders for us enhancers.
Girdle of Treachery - kinda kitty or rogue, but may be an upgrade - at least the two red sockets (which should always be filled with pure strength gems) will get you the agility bonus.
Fiend Slayer Boots - huntery, but not terrible with the two gem slots.
Mithril Chain of Heroism - raw stats FTW. Maybe slightly better than the SSO neck if you aren't Exalted with Aldorks yet.

Netherspite

Cowl of Defiance - 100 attack powah, gotta love that. Oh, and hit and other stats too!
Skulker's Greaves - itemized for ferals, but has decent stats and three sockets.
Rip-Flayer Leggings - lots of Int and MP5 make these hunter loot, but three slots would serve you well with all strength gems until Wrath arrives.
Mithril Band of the Unscarred - more raw stats FTW.

Prince

The Decapitator - still a very nice weapon, but has since been out-itemized by S2 PvP and badge weapons.
Farstrider Wildercloak - there are likely far better blue-quality cloaks out there, but if it drops, no one wants it and it's an upgrade, I guess /roll on it. Totally meh.
Ring of a Thousand Marks - another very nice compliment to you Violet Eye ring, has all the good stuff on it.
Helm of the Fallen Champion -> Cyclone Helm - grats on your next piece of T4! The 2-piece set bonus grants an additional 12 strength from your totem - not great, but not terrible.

Nightbane

Chestguard of the Conniver - looks to be a fairly decent piece, if you can wrestle it away from rogues and cat druids. Even better though, is the Shadowprowler's Chestguard with it's 3 slots, another LW pattern available at the Violet Eye quartermaster.
Ferocious Swift-Kickers - decent boots given the two gem slots, and they visually match the rest of our T4 stuff.
Scaled Breastplate of Carnage - healthy does of Int makes this a hunter piece (do I sound like a broken record yet?) but may come in handy in preparation for Wrath.

That's it for now, happy hunting!

Has WoW Jumped the Shark?

2008-08-19T13:40:00.001-07:00

MMO Champion is reporting the confirmation of a new mechanical mount for Wrath of the Lich King, "the Hog."

OK, I'm not a hardcore RP'er or anything, but to me, this is a fairly significant break in the fourth wall, blurring the lines between WoW and real life. It's a question of suspended disbelief, a literary tool that helps us immerse ourselves when watching movies or playing video games.

You might argue that the current flying mount is a roflcopter with jet engines attached, but at least 1) it comes from existing Warcraft lore and 2) nothing designed like that would actually fly in our world, so it still "fits" the genre IMO.

There are tons of different directions Blizzard could have gone with this - there are lots of great steampunk and DaVinci-esque inspirations a mechanical land mount could have taken on. To me, a recreating a motorcycle just shows a distinct lack of imagination.

Flying carpets, on the other hand, get the Shamantic thumbs-up.

On Endgame Jewelcrafting

2008-08-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

When I pull up teh beloved Shaman on the armory and examine him in all his T4ish-ness, I see (count 'em!) one epic Jewelcrafting trinket that he uses for raiding.

One. Uno. Ichi.

...and it's a Rogue item. >.<

Most of his gems are Bold Living Rubies, all of which were bought off the auction house since the pattern itself sold for ridiculous amounts on the AH. Also, I tended to level his JC'ing in spurts since mats took a while to accumulate, so he never really benefited from crafting his own wares, either. Sure, he made some money with JC'ing, but also spent a lot of money leveling it.

This is all in stark contrast to Leatherworking/Skinning, which I have on teh Durid. While leveling up, I generally also leveled LW since mats were readily available - which meant Ciribrus wore much of what he crafted. From an arpee perspective, I like the idea that he makes his own stuffs.

Currently at level 68.9, he's well on-track to be able to craft the complete Windhawk armor set before hitting 70. This means right-off-the-bat, he'll be able to equip three crafted epics and get a huge jumpstart on raiding/heroics.

With Wrath approaching, the question is:
"Should I stay or should I go now?"

Do I put trust in Blizzard to make endgame Jewelcrafting more like a primary profession? Or do I powerlevel him to 350 in something else now, in preparation for Wrath's endgame?

Hmm...

Who Sez Chickens Can't Fly?

2008-08-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Obsessive compulsive disorder hard work and focus got Ciribrus to level 68 yesterday, and with that came Flight Form - woot! The first thing I did was take a running leap off Aldor Rise, hitting shift-F (my flying mount hotkey) halfway down. Insta-cast FTW! I think I'll be enjoying this new virtual sport (Base Jumping), but also sure that at some point, I'll attempt it with the wrong character and go splat. Heh.

And having been spoiled by epic flight on Exelus, I now have another thing to obsess over work towards: Swift Flight Form. Boo that I can't work on that quest chain until 70!

In other news, Ciribrus also ran regular Mana Tombs as healer yesterday - overall I think it went fairly well... just one wipe on an overpull and then another during the escort quest. Oops. -_- Keeping the Pally tank up with HOTs was fairly easy to do, but the insta-cast Healing Touch w/Nature's Swiftness definitely came in handy once or twice. The DPS was a little wobbly though, under-geared and under-leveled - complete with an AFK rogue who readily admitted (proudly!?!) to alt-tabbing out during trash after I caught him standing still on multiple pulls. Ugh. Congrats on making my ignore list, jerky.

But, as my capable and patient guildy tank reminded me, "it's only Mana Tombs." :)

Shamantic Lull

2008-08-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

Not too much has been going on in the world of Exelus... funding Ciribrus' leatherworking endeavors (need moar Thick Clefthoof Leather, plskthx) and the occasional heroic/Kara is about all he's up to. AV weekend came and went, and I totally flaked on grinding honor for that PvP fist, opting instead to practice battle medic'ing with Ciri and gaining 10k honor for him in the process.

Although yesterday while doing dailies, I did notice an Elemental Shaman running around two-shotting mobs on the Isle. Upon inspection I saw the expected purple haze of gear, but was pretty impressed nonetheless. Maybe Ex will try out Elemental on his way to 80? ...or not, as I just heard a rumor about a 2.9 speed green axe in the beta. 0.o WTB!

Speaking of which, have you seen the new weapon designs? Awesome.

Notes to Drood Self

2008-08-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

When on healing duty, do not enter an instance without plenty of:

water
mana potions
reagents

Do not:

forget to Innervate self
forget to battle rez when appropriate
allow major pulls to start with Nature's Swiftness on cooldown

So much to remembers... >.<

Buuut, Ciribrus now has Lifebloom after dinging 64. Woot!

Shamanistic Update

2008-07-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

KK, this is supposed to be a blog about Shaman'ing, so here's teh latest update on the adventures of Exelus.

Several days ago, he and some guildies assaulted Magister's Terrace - still a challenge in T4-ish gear in regular mode. Cleared up to the 5v5 PvP boss with relative ease, but weren't able to complete it. The chaos of this encounter really requires a different mindset/playstyle and it's something that will require more practice. :) The coolest part though, was learning the Priest's trick to thinning out 4-5 person pulls: mind control FTW. The Priest strips down and MC's someone in the mob group, which promptly gets burned down by their compadres. Of course the priest then dies too, but a Shaman can has rez. The key is to have the rest of the party far away though, so they don't enter combat and get aggro'ed as well.

Yesterday's heroic was Black Morass/Dark Portal, and being one of my favorite instances I was in-like-Flynn. Four guildies and a guest Rogue resulted in only one wipe and five badges. (The wipe was a simple tactical error on Temporus, where we didn't pay enough attention to the adds, and the healer was stuck in combat from the previous fight and couldn't drink beforehand.) And of course, the Hourglass did not drop. Not that I really need it anymore, but it's still on my list. *shakes fist*

Badge Watch '08: only 50 more to go... /sigh

In crafting news, Exelus seems seems to have developed an expensive gambling habit in the form of creating Brilliant Glass. Which, out of of dozens of attempts, has only yielded one epic gem (and not a very good one at that). Needs to break this habit and focus more on dailies so he can support Ciribrus' leatherworking endeavors (ding level 63, LW 360, honored @ CE yesterday!).

Dreamstate-ish

2008-07-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

The Druid alt recently dinged 62 (shouldn't that technically be "dung?" lol), and made another spec tweak while visiting Moonglade. (That free port spell is oh-so-handy when you need to get to Darn/AH without blowing your hearth!)

After some research, it appears that the Dreamstate build is still viable for healing regular 5-man content - and conveniently, leaves enough points in Balance to do some damage as well. This build would seem very appropriate for what I'm trying to do at the moment: get to 70 via soloing/questing and instancing as healer or DPS.

Lolwut is Dreamstate?

The idea behind the Dreamstate build seems to be maximizing MP5, as Druidic healing is a constant affair: re-applying HOTs in a continuous cycle. Dreamstate is a Balance talent that grants 10% of your Intellect as MP5, and when combined with the early Resto talent Intensity (30% mana regen IFSR), would seem to keep a fair amount of mana coming back during combat.

So for the moment, Ciribrus is working a Dreamstate-lite build: with just enough points into Resto to get the insta-nuke-heal from Nature's Swiftness. In a few levels he'll be able to max-out the namesake talent, all while keeping Doomkin form.

I'm thinking that the NS insta-heal is one of the more important tools that was missing from the healing arsenal during those early Hellfire runs... am looking forward to trying out this new build, especially armed with an emergency oh-noes-tank-be-dyin' button. :)

WotLK Overload

2008-07-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

I realize its been a while since The Burning Crusade, and a lot of folks are burned-out on the old content, but geebus there's such a flood of Wrath info that I'm starting to get burned-out on Wrath itself! Wowinsider, Elitist Jerks, just about every blog I see out there is all abuzz.

The issue I have with all this speculation and pre-analysis is that the thing's merely in BETA at this point, with so many changes/tweaks yet to come. Yes, it's neat to check out talent trees, speculate on the economic impact of Inscription and watch videos of DK's pwning Orcs in Terokkar, but isn't there something to be said about waiting for the real deal?

/rant

Gearing your 70

2008-07-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Now that I've got the lolchicken to 60 and questing/instancing in Outland, it's causing me to reflect a bit on the gearing-up process that Exelus went through on his way up to (and beyond) 70. There are several tactics that can be used to outfit your character depending on what you want to do in-game (PvP, PvE, or both).

On the way to 70: Quest Rewards and Drops
With the sheer number of quests and instances available in Outland, you'll likely find a number of great class-and-spec-specific blue quality items that you'll continue to use at 70. The trick is knowing which items are worth pursuing/keeping, and luckily there are great resources out there, like MaxDPS.com and Kaliban's Loot List (see Sample Builds).

Also on the way to 70: PvP Epics
Currently one of the best investments for a 70 Enhancement Shaman are the Arena Season 2 Merciless Gladiator weapons (36k honor, 40 EotS tokens for both). Since honor and tokens don't degrade or expire, you can begin working on them several levels before 70. Get the Axes if you're an Orc, otherwise take your pick of the Fists, Axes or Maces. These weapons are great for both PvP (resilience) and PvE (hit rating). Just be sure to take the 2.6 speed version for your offhand. :) Definitely worthy of Mongoose, or Crusader if you can't afford it yet. Note however, that the 45-badge Vanir's offhand is definitely better than a S2 offhand, and is also relatively easy to get if you run Kara or heroics with any regularity. Other classes can absolutely benefit from PvP epics in the same way: Ciribrus certainly has his eyes on the S2 caster staff.

Newly at 70: Reputation Gear
If you've been completing quests and running the occassional Outland instance, you'll likely have reached Honored with most major Outland factions. With this, you'll have access to some quite good level 70 blue gear, albeit PvP-oriented. (This is still great filler gear even if you're doing mostly PvE.) For many classes, there are also quite nice epics availble at Revered/Exalted: a musket and caster sword at Honor Hold, Feral Druid mace at Cenarion Expedition, etc. There's also some excellent gear available from the Shattered Sun Offensive vendor (something for almost every class/spec/profession), and is totally solo-able by just doing dailies. It's like getting paid for grinding reputation to be able to buy epics. Brilliant!

Crafting/Buying Epics
The aforementioned SSO faction dailies on the Isle of Quel'Danas is a ridiculous moneymaker. In 45 minutes you can easily make 100 gold or more, and earn reputation at the same time. With all this cash flow it becomes feasible to level crafting professions and/or just buy epics right off the auction house. At this point Exelus has bought a chest, cloak, (mats for) gloves and a trinket directly off the AH. The gear list at MaxDPS.com has little icons next to each item to reveal their source: some are excellent BoE crafted items! As a Jewelcrafter, Exelus was also able to craft one of the best DPS trinkets in the game, thanks to a few badges and gold. Each profession may have several BoE/BoP items that are now much more attainable thanks to dailies. (Many high-end recipies can now be purchased directly from reputation vendors.)

Raiding/Heroics and Badge Gear
With a mix of high-end blues, PvP gear, reputation gear and crafted/purchased gear, you may find that upgrades will only come from raiding drops and badges. At this point you're certainly geared for most heroics, which can be fun and challenging, and a great source of extra badges if you do the daily heroic quests. Many of the badge-purchasable gear rivals the best stuff attainable in the game (Black Temple/Hyjal/Sunwell level), and there are some bargains to be had as well. The Stonebreaker's Totem is the first thing Exelus bought, a staple of raiding Enhancers and dirt-cheap at 25 badges. He's currently got his eyes set on Vanir's mainhand, but still needs 60+ badges. Ouch. :)

So as you can see, there's numerous ways to get your character geared, and I've found that doing a little bit of each of the above combines into a decently-geared character without having to become a hardcore raider. Exploring the various paths also makes for a fun and diverse gameplay experience, and also makes for a well-rounded player.

Happy hunting!

Healing Ramps

2008-07-21T13:43:00.001-07:00

After dinging 60, Ciribrus the wonder chicken ported himself to Moonglade to learn some new skills and respec. Since there are so many great instances in Outland, and since healers are always in demand, I figured I'd try a Balance/Resto hybrid build. Specifically, I was gunning for the 15 points in Resto to pick up Subtlety, reducing threat by 20%. Seems like a pretty decent talent (if not required) for both healing and pew pew in groups. The remaining points went all back into Balance for now, can't quite give up the chicken for a tree just yet. :)

I tried out this build on a regular Hellfire Ramparts run, and was happy to find that it worked pretty well. The only times I drew aggro were on the accidental overpulls, but I think that's to be expected. For the majority of the run, though, it was fairly easy going. A little pre-HOT as the tank pulled, then just re-applying Rejuvination and Regrowth as needed. I don't think I had to cast a single Healing Touch, so mana efficiency was excellent.

Pretty fun, and I plan on going back to Ramps soon (as healer or chicken) before completing too many more Hellfire quests. (Ramps continues to give out HH rep until Honored, I believe.)

Is Outland Ready for This?!

2008-07-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a big night for Ciribrus the Lazer Chicken alt. After dinging 58 in Eastern Plaguelands, he made a beeline for the Dark Portal and Honor Hold. Those early Hellfire quests are amazing: in less than an hour he gained a half level and got some neat early quest rewards, like the Staff of the Twin Worlds, which totally beat the crap outta my old level 50-ish of-the-Eagle staff.

His Skinning was already up to 300, so in the interest of not falling too far behind in Leatherworking I also spent some time powerleveling him up to 300. He chose Tribal Leatherworking, natch, as a caster. Someday perhaps, Windhawk Armor? :o

Also discovered the beauty of the Focus CC macro while grinding Turtle Scales. This ingenious bit of code will cast the CC of your choice (Roots or Hibernate in this case) and set the target as your focus. You can then move on to other targets (friendly or otherwise), and if the CC breaks/ends, simply hit the macro again and your original focus will be re-CC'ed:

/focus [target=focus, exists, nodead] focus; [btn:2][] target
/cast [target=focus] Entangling Roots

With that little gem, I was able to nuke down a turtle, root it around 25%, cast Insect Swarm and move on to the next mob while the turtle died a slow horrible death from DOTs.

Genius! :)

Laser Chicken

2008-07-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

In the past few days, I've gone back to working on my original main, a (formerly Feral) Druid who has gone Balance since 47 or so. Thanks to a boatload of rested XP, he's now sitting at 54 after not too much effort. While leveling Balance has been noticeably slower than Feral, I decided to try it out as a caster playstyle experiment. Also, since our guild already has several excellent Feral Druids, going Balance with an eye on Resto seems like a natural fit.

The thing that draws me to hybrid classes of course is flexibility - being able to sling spells, cure stuff, throw a few HOTs around then going back to DPS is right up my alley.

Another reason for leveling said Druid is Leatherworking, which I'm envisioning could be useful in helping out my Enhancement Shaman... For example: I've been seeing a Cloak of Darkness float around the AH recently, which would be a fantastic DPS cloak for Exelus, but at 1500g, it's more than I'm willing to spend as a marginal upgrade from Aran's Drape of the Dark Reavers. Buuut, if Ciribrus can eventually make a few nice things for Exelus (esp during Wrath of the Lich King), then all the better, right?

Or, what I could do is get a 2nd account for the level grind from 70-80, transfer this Druid over and autofollow Exelus around and toss HOTs as needed. :O Hmm, this idea has merit...

Heh.

UPDATE: just read up a bit on Moonkin DPS, where a theorycrafter puts Starfire and Wrath spam up against a Mage's Fireball. Interesting! Also learned that Insect Swarm does roughly the same DPS as a Priest's Shadow Word Pain, at about half the mana cost.

Secured

2008-07-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm at work, banging my head against a particularly frustrating .NET/Safari bug - because you apparently can't debug Safari using "attach to process" from Visual Studio... WTF Microsoft? (Do you like how I blame MS rather than Apple? Yep, that's how I roll...)

So instead, I'm going to write a post about my shiny new Blizzard Authenticator. :) This little bad boy arrived yesterday in the mail, despite all the talk about out-of-stockness and shipping delays. (I must've gotten my order in just before the madness.)

After pairing it to my account at worldofwarcraft.com/account (there's a serial number on the back that creates the association from your device to your account), I'm now required to press a little button on the keychain device to retrieve a temporary PIN to enter along with my user name and password. It's like having a second password that changes every minute or so. Brilliant!

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that I'm 100% hackproof, but my limited knowledge of application security tells me that my WoW account is way more secure than it was 24 hours ago. The fact that many corporations and financial institutions use these seems to support the notion that multi-point authentication with physically-held security devices are the way to go.

In other news, iPhone's 2.0 software was released today, which now officially includes support for third-party applications. (ZOMG gamez!) Super Monkey Ball is superhard and superfun and super-better-graphics-than-I-expected. I now have something productive to do while flying from Darnassus to Gadgetzan. (Or from Seattle to Vegas?)

So given the surprising graphics and processing capability of the little iPhone, is it too much to expect we'll see some sort of mobile gaming experience from Blizzard? How about a 2D side-scroller-jump-n-shoot game in a Diablo/Starcraft/Warcraft theme? WTB!!!

Healy Gear, Etc.

2008-07-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since my last post, but am happy to report the computer is back from Apple, good as new. Let the postings begin again. :)

Tonight we had an absolutely great run through the first half of Karazhan - it's been a while since I've been able to run it and it was fun to join in again. 3-ish hours yielded six bosses down and 12 badges with ZERO wipes. Woots.

One of the highlights was off-healing the Maiden fight with my "caster set." It was a nice change of pace, and even though my spec is wrong and my gear was patchwork, I felt I did OK and was able to contribute to the fight without becoming another melee liability. Chain Heal, of course, made it pretty easy. :)

The gear wasn't really a true healer set (maybe 600-ish +healing?), since most of the bits were comprised of the Elemental reputation PvP set, but after running heroics/Kara a few times and getting exalted with Shattered Sun, I've come away with some decent healy epics so I figured it was time to step-up the other offspec gear.

After collecting the Resto-focused Seer's Ringmail PvP set along with various healy Jewelcrafting trinkets, gems and glyphs, I now sit at 932 +healing, 90 mp5 IFSR (241 OFSR) with just under 9k mana. Lol, not bad for a field medic, methinks.

I still need to look at some cheap enchants (including the Aldork shoulder 'chant), but am not totally sure where to start. More research is warranted, but it seems like I could use some more Int (and Stam, for that matter) in this getup.

In other news, I'm still 12k honor away from S2's Right Ripper. Maybe I'll grind out some honor as "restohancement." Lol.

This just in...

2008-06-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

...Shaman to remain awesome and over-powered in WotLK.

Huge announcements coming in from Blizzards Invitational event in Paris, not the least of which involve Shamantic love in the forms of:

- raid-wide totem effects
- hex, a short-duration but very-needed CC
- windfury to affect sum bare durids
- rockbiter replaced(?) with earthliving, a +heal buff
- strength and agility totems to be combined into a single totem

ZOMG!

18k Honor, 20 EotS Marks

2008-06-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

PvP here I come again? With the start of Season 4 Arena, Season 2's armor and weapons are now up for sale for honor and marks. I swore I'd never go to Eye of the Storm again, but looks like Merciless Gladiator's Right Ripper is the next best (easily achievable) weapon upgrade. -_-

That is, once I get my computer back. Waaah.

Gruul'd

2008-06-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

So even though I missed our guild's run on Gruul yesterday (boo busted 'puter), a few days prior I managed to get a raid spot with an allied guild at the last minute. It was to be my first time, and I didn't even have my unstable flasks yet. >.<

I had seen some videos, read some strats, but of course nothing prepares you like the real thing. There are very few trash pulls, thankfully, fairly straightforward stuff there. Bunch up on the Brutes, interrupt the casters.

First major encounter of course is High King Maulgar and his Pals. There's a lot more coordination that needs to happen here than your average instance. Hunter misdirects, Mage tanks, even a Hunter tank in our case. Lots of weirdness and folks scrambling into position. Luckily for me, it was just following Blindeye's tank in and melee'ing from behind, watching Omen and Earth Shock'ing to interrupt the heals. From there it's just following kill order, watching threat, etc. Ahh, the life of a no-pressure DPS'er. :P

The first attempt was almost insta-wipe as we had our positioning wrong, but the 2nd shot was much smoother. Unfortunately I hit the dirt at some point, popped Reincarnation, then promptly died again. It's not a party until a Shammy goes down! We managed it on either the 2nd or 3rd try (can't remember), but it was all sorts of fun, total chaos as folks scrambled from one mini-boss to the other. I seem to recall a near-wipe on the successful downing, with backup tanks picking up HKM, only a few healers left and ONE DPS'er around to finish off at ~2%.

After HKM comes some more minor trash (bunch up on the Brute, LOS the casters around the corner), then its on to Gruul The Dragonkiller hisself. He's actually not a terribly complicated fight, basically tank/spank with some tricks in-between... Like rocks falling on your head and flinging you into the air before shattering the ground under you. Good stuff. With some helpful mods (DBM FTW) and paying attention, though, it's definitely do-able. Just don't get frozen next to a healer! We had all healers marked with raid symbols just to be able to spot them easier.

I personally seemed to do better on Gruul than HKM, although I think I did die on try 2 of 3, but overall not bad. Average damage for the whole instance was reported at 733 DPS, number 5 on the damage meters. <3 those raid buffs! Probably coulda been higher if I didn't spend so much time AFK'ing during large portions of HKM (squished blueberry).

Sounds like our own guild is going to take another shot at Gruuls in a few weeks, hopefully the computer will be back in action by then!

In other news, I'm now wearing a goofy Mardi Gras decoration in the offhand... yup, I broke down and got Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality, and slapped on Mongoose.

I look ridiculous.

Oy.

Hosed

2008-06-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this on my iPhone. The Macbook Pro is in the shop with a bad "logic board." Sounds like a Johnson Rod explanation if u ask me.

Late last night the darn thing booted with no video. Not on the built-in screen, not on the external monitor. Apparently its a semi common issue, there's a fair amount of noise about it on the apple forums. Also its being fixed for free even though I'm three weeks out of warranty. Hmm, class-action prevention?

So besides being computerless for possibly a week, I missed tonights Gruuls run. Doh. Hopefully me guildies came away with a good time and phat loots. Lame thing is GuildPortal won't run propers with mobile safari, so I can't even check the loot list to see what dropped! Boo.

WTB working puter plskthx.

Chosen

2008-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got an email from the folks at FigurePrints, the outfit that "prints" 4-inch tall 3D models of your WoW character. Several months ago, I had signed up to be part of their lottery system as apparently the demand is greater than their current output. Last night's email was a congratulatory message. :)

It looks like their prices have gone up from $99 to $129, but I'll still be placing an order this weekend. I realize that to some, that amount may seem expensive, but the chance to have a physical representation of a virtual character that I've spent so much time on is, IMO, awesome. Someday the WoW chapter will close and I'll be busy leveling my Protoss Archon in UoS (Universe of Starcraft!), so it'll be great to have Exelus sitting on my bookshelf, dual S1 axes at-the-ready.

Now is pretty good timing too, as Exelus currrently has a relatively-matching set of armor and weapons. Most likely I'll be decking him out in PvP gear rather than the mixed PvE/PvP leather gear you see pictured, as it matches a little better. (a Shaman in a skirt seems more fitting to me anyway - but maybe that's just the cross-dresser in me)

Umm wut?

I'll post pictures as soon as it arrives, of course. :)

Mounts at 30

2008-06-18T17:29:00.001-07:00

So apparently the new patch is on the PTR, lots of bug fixes and whatnots, but the biggest news for us altaholics is basic riding skill now purchasable at 30! (For 35g!) Pallys and Warlocks can learn their summonable mounts at 30 as well.

Zones like Darkshire and STV should be a little more tolerable now.

WTB bear mount, though. Rawr.

Future's Looking Bright

2008-06-13T12:39:00.001-07:00

I've accidentally stumbled across some info relating to upcoming Shaman talents, both tweaks to existing ones as well as insights into new ones, and zomg things are looking pretty interesting. :)

Of course none of this stuff is set in stone, much of what we'll see will evolve between now and release (and even after release), but I'm looking forward to maintaining our OP status after the expansion.

GG to Blizz for making (what appears to be) further needed changes to even our lower end talent trees, as well as (possibly) adding a few tricks that bring us closer to the Shaman we saw in Warcraft 3.

That is all.

Also, WTB moar Badges of Justice.

Not Prepared

2008-06-10T23:07:00.001-07:00

So I had this post all thought up about The Adventures of Haelus the Wonder Alt and his new goofy weapon enchant: Lifestealing, but tonight's Karazhan run totally trumps that.

Through a series of RL happenstance, our fearless raid leader was unable to start the run, and our backup (fearless GM) was also unavailable. Gulp. Since I started the invites, I somehow wound up "leading" the raid - totally unprepared and amateur-style. Luckily some of us had been doing Kara for a while, and they helped me along. Everyone performed fantastically despite my noobery.

So the big lesson tonight is that Enhancement Shaman'ing is ridiculous ezmode compared to raid leadin', where you have to be aware of Everything, all the time. It's not merely about knowing the mobs/encounters, but also knowing the capabilities of every class in your raid, including other considerations like gear and specs.

And then there's marking. Sheesh. I have all the function keys set to marks (F1 = skull, F2 = X, etc.), but I've only really used three. Tonight we had banish's, traps, shackles, two tanks, wandering patrols, the works. I must've cycled through ten keypresses trying to find the right marks on some of the mobs. I'm totally taping little icons to my keyboard.

I also wound up as master looter which is also more work than I had previously appreciated - l2delegate. :)

Anywho, the net results:
Attumen one-shotted.
Moroes two-shotted.
Maiden one-shotted.
Romulo and Julietta two-shotted us. :P

A great experience, but kinda nutty. Lol.

Tew Much Pew Pew

2008-06-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

So what happens if you out-level or out-gear your party? What happens when you're in Karazhan and the skeleton ushers freeze your tank and oops, you're 2nd on the threat list? What happens when you just can't stay under the tank's threat at all, because you've got your maximum DPS rotation down and you're going to use it, dammit!

At the very worst, you die, and the lack of DPS wipes the group. Or, at best, your healer is irritated at you because they now have to heal more than the tank, unnecessarily. Lets talk a bit about threat and throttling your DPS.

Sure there are things like Blessing of Salvation (best evar), Tranquil Air Totem (only if you're not in the tank's party), Subtlety cloak enchant ('spensive!), etc. These are all helpful, situationally. But really, it's best to have some tactics of your own to keep threat to a minimum. Choice of weapon imbues is a good place to start:

Windfury is uber. Windfury is awesome. Windfury is the cornerstone of Enhancement DPS. Windfury can get you killed, too. -_- Some fights, like the aforementioned iceblocking ushers, I'm finding its best to just disable weapon imbues altogether. Your DPS suffers a bit, but living through the encounter is a fair trade-off.

Another option is Flametongue weapon, which still adds DPS but without the spiky-ness of Windfury. This is helpful for when you slightly out-gear or out-level your party mates. Again, just turning them off altogether is always an option.

Then there's your SS/Shock rotation. If you're having problems shooting past the tank's threat, simply don't Stormstrike until several seconds into the fight. Or maybe ever. Flameshock maybe, reserve rank 1 Earth Shock for interrupts, and you're set. (you do have rank 1 ES next to your full-rank ES, right?) :)

I think as DPS we can get carried away with big numbers and OMGCRITZLOL!!1!, but the best encounters are those that have a certain flow - call it being "in the zone."

Go with the flow, (Sha)man...

Murmur and Moar Leatherz

2008-06-06T12:19:00.001-07:00

Last night in Azeroth was a bit random, did some dailies and then helped a guildee with two Kara key frags, taking us into Shadow Labs and Arcatraz.

First, lets talk about Murmur. He's the big dude pictured at right. He's the final boss in Shadow Labs, and has had my number on speed dial every time I had been there before.

Ring ring, "Hi Exelus? This is Murmur. I kills you now."

It's a seriously Enhancement unfriendly fight, with the shockwave slow thing followed-up by that neat debuff. What a mess. I've never lived through this fight, until last night. :) The quest to down him also yielded a nice 32g at 70, after selling the quest reward.

As a bit of vindication, he also dropped the Leggings of Assassination, part of a nice Rogue set. I had been wearing Seer's Linked Leggings (one of my last two remaining blues), but Rating Buster lit up with green numbers in all meaningful PvE categories. More AP, crit, hit, etc., and this was before applying leg armor.

I was too beat to do the EP calcs last night on-the-fly, but it looks like Rating Buster was absolutely right, the Assassination pants come in at 200.85 EP over the Seer's 122.66. I lost a bit of raw strength but gained agility, probably a good thing as I seem to be out-of-balance on the two at the moment anyway. Also passed 100 hit rating (6.72% +9% with talents).

Woot for leather.

And Arcatraz, that's just a fun instance. I really need to come back and do both of these in Heroic.

Almost Forgot

2008-06-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's a new month, go gets your free gems!

Understanding EP

2008-06-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the World of Mathcraft makes me a little nuts. Thankfully, people who are even more obsessive-compulsive than I have already done the work for me - so it's just a matter of understanding the words that are coming out of their mouths.

Lolwut? L2math.

Backtracking a bit... tonight was a breakthrough in our little guild that could: the first time Chivalry ran two simultaneous Karazhan raids. Pretty exciting stuff, as the potential for 25-man content is there, even though it's definitely not one of our stated goals. Sometimes it's enough to know you *could* do something if you wanted to. Lol.

Gear-wise it was a pretty decent night. We had two random-drop epics off trash, and a blue jewelcrafting recipe that got defaulted to me. Woots. One of the purples was Zierhut's Lost Treads, which caught my attention with all it's raw stats and mail-like armor. Since the kind Rogue in our raid passed (already had PvP boots), and there were no Druids, I was lucky enough to collect them. Rating Buster reported it as a pretty decent upgrade over my current Outland Striders, but I wanted a 2nd opinion.

Getting back to the part about people doing the work for me already, the Elitist Jerks have developed a formula for Enhancement Points (EP). No, this has nothing to do with those commercials you see on TV. :P It's a way to weigh the stats of a particular item, based on the tier of content you're in and whether or not you typically get Blessing of Kings (which we usually do - three Pallys tonight!).

Here's the EP breakdown for our current raiding level, Tier 4 (with Kings):
AP = 1
Strength = 2.2
Agility = 1.91
Crit = 1.97
Haste = 1.28
Hit = 1.34
Armor Pen = 0.22
Expertise = 3 (zomg wtb expertise gear)

Stats like Intellect, Armor or Stamina are not considered, as they're often included for "free" in sufficient amounts.

So using EP, below are three items: what I previously had, what I received tonight, and what I considered getting with badges before tonight's drop. You can mouseover each to see their stats, and next to each their respective EPs - spreadsheets FTW.

Outland Striders 91.37 EP
Zierhut's Lost Treads 128.28 EP
Nyn’jah’s Tabi Boots 180.07 EP (two +8 strength gems)

So using EP seems like another great way to obsess over compare Enhancement Shaman gear, and it's pretty obvious that going from Striders to Boots woulda been like, zomgdoublebetter. But now that the Treads are on my hooves, the Boots are less of an upgrade, especially considering the other bits of gear I could spend badges on first.

Like Mardi Gras decorations. -_-

p.s.: there's some hooves for ya, Fel!

Moar Haelz

2008-06-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today Project Haelus went to four-man Blackfathom Depths as main healer with two mid-20's DPS and a level 29 Feral Tank. More or less level appropriate, but most mobs were gray to the tank - and at 25, most mobs were green to Haelus.

Wow what a long drawn-out instance! Took us over 2 hours to complete, with only two wipes. First wipe was in the murloc boss's room where we accidentally pulled the entire room, and second was in the Orc Warlock boss's room where someone clicked on the braziers, unleashing turtles and elementals. Woops. Twasn't me, though. Swears. And holy crap those elementals hit hard, but we got em down on the 2nd try.

The big lesson in today's BFD run was threat management: I think I'm starting to understand the mechanics of healing aggro a bit more. Starting slow with Lesser Healing Wave then using regular Healing Waves (or Gift of the Naaru) seemed to do the trick. On overpulls though, I could pretty much guess which mob(s) were going to come after me even before I started the cast. Not exactly sure yet what to do in those situations when the tank needs a heal, but hasn't yet established aggro on the adds.

WtbShammyAggroDumpPlskthx.

So later I also ran Stockades with a different level-appropriate group, and thanks to a Paladin tank didn't have any issues with over-aggro'ing adds. Consecrate FTW! Went pretty smoothly, but did have a wipe that was entirely my fault on the Ogre boss - I was futzing with my totems as we ran in, and didn't notice the crazy burst damage that the tank was taking until too late. :( Nature's Swiftness + Healing Wave woulda come in handy here.

L2payattention.

Ugly Stick

2008-05-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

A rant post tonight... Exelus has been proudly sporting dual Gladiator Cleavers for quite some time now, after a long but well-worth-it honor grind. After getting these bad boys, DPS took a noticeable jump over the previous blue dungeon drops.

As is well-documented on this here blog, I've been trying to analyze my gear and the various stat weight balances in the goal of achieving better DPS. First goal at 70 was to get to 1100 AP and 20% crit. Check. Next goal was to get to 1300 AP and 25% crit. Check. Now I'm in the process of keeping 1300/25% while adding a bit of hit rating (100-120 should do, according to all the Mathcrafters). This goal should be achievable with drops from Karazhan, Zul'Aman and badge gear.

Now speaking of badge gear (and getting back to the original point of this post), it's time to re-examine weapon upgrades available to me. Unlike casters, armor with stats alone does not improve DPS (although certainly helps), the inherit damage of the weapons themselves has a significant role.

Since patch 2.4 it's looking like the best available (and attainable for me) weapons are Vanir's Right and Left Fists of Brutatility. Those stats are hot. Admittedly, I don't have the full math on this, but it seems like getting two of these could improve my DPS by maybe 10%?

Unfortunately, the weapons themselves look more like Day Glow Mardi Gras decorations than fearsome weapons. And that's putting it kindly. Why on earth did Blizzard make some of the best weapons in the game look so ridiculous? Does anyone think these actually look cool?

/sigh

Still, seems like I should consider 'em. (only like 110 badges to go)

/grumble

Haelus Heals

2008-05-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons that I'm trying this re-roll experiment with another Shaman is to practice the caster-playstyle on the way up, rather than respec Exelus and have to noob it up at 70.

So today at level 22, Haelus entered the LFG channel and found a Deadmines group. We had all healing hybrid classes (two druids, a priest, a paladin and myself) - and I was designated main healer. I just thought it was funny that 1) the priest insisted on being DPS (which was fine by me) and 2) one of the druids was named a variation of the word "hots" (heal over time) but also insisted on being kitty DPS. Lolz.

The feral tank did a good job tanking, and I was lucky that both the ret paladin (shout-out to guildee Tyr!) and priest (bubbles ftw) have my back on several occasions. I did seem to pull aggro too often, which I'm sure had to do with my choice of healing spells and frequency of heals in general. I have to learn to start slow before dropping the big bomb heal - especially as a Resto Shaman (in-training): there's no aggro dump like Fade or protective measures like Power Word Shield available.

So afterwards I made this macro, hopefully it'll help in the future:

/say Healer is under attack!!! (might change that to a yell?)
/cast Stoneskin Totem (would Stoneclaw help pull mobs off me?)

There was also the issue of Mr. Hots running off in his own direction (often ahead of the tank), which forced me to split large heals between two folks, leaving my mana too low for comfort by the end of the fights. I burned through a lot of water in between pulls.

All in all though, a great experience, no wipes. (Just one accidental overpull which resulted in a dead tank and priest, but the rest of us made it to the ship's wheel - and within resurrection range, thankfully). Looking forward to healing other lowbie instances like Stockades, Scarlet Monastery, Shadowfang Keep, etc.

Also considering first taking Resto talents up through Healing Grace before returning to Elemental, as I think the 15% threat mitigation might come in handy if I heal a lot of instances on the way up.

Now off to read the Elitist Jerk's Resto Shaman megathread...

Kara Speed Run

2008-05-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Since we didn't quite have the right group make-up for another run on Zul'Aman, we decided instead to try a speed run thru Karazhan up to (and including) the Chess Event. 10 badges in three hours, not bad at all for ye olde casual guilde! and with no wipes!

/cheer

Only 31 moar badges to go for Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots. :\

But tonight I was lucky to pick up the Mithril Chain of Heroism, and though the math is somewhat unclear to me, methinks it's a smidge better than my Shattered Sun Pendant of Might because I'm not yet exalted with Aldor. The 200 AP proc is what I think makes the SSO neck so much more superior (4th best in the game for Enhancement Shaman?)... but rep grinds give me the hives.

Zul'Aman!

2008-05-21T19:32:00.001-07:00

When I first picked up WoW again last year (had a trial membership in '05, and you should see the n00bish talents I picked for my... night elf lolhunter), I used to think of raids as things "those other guys" did, and pretty much resigned myself to never getting to see even entry-level raids like Karazhan and Zul'Aman.

Welp here we is, nervously looking up at them gates. ZOMG is King Kong himself behind there?! /shiver

So last we finally took a romp inside Zul'Aman to see how we'd do, and am happy to report we dids quite well. Admittedly it was a little swervy - all the research and video-watchin' doesn't ever fully prepare you for the real thing. Or the virtually-real thing. Or something.

As most ZA initiates do, we went right towards Nalorakk the bear boss. There's a bit of trash along the way, but nothing too crazy. Taking down the healers with their totems is first priority, and the rest were easily handled by the traditional two-tank/spank routine. Still, the new-ness of it all was pretty exciting, and my gamer-drenaline was a-pumpin'.

So we clear to Nalorakk and downed him on the third try. Woot! He apparently hits VERY hard on the tanks - ouch. But it's a very Enhancement-friendly fight: pretty much just stayed planted on his behind the whole time, making sure to keep my totems up. During his random charges I tried running after him, but it seemed more efficient just stay put, sling a bolt or shock (or heal) and wait for him to come back to the tanks. Popped Heroism and Fire Elemental at two-thirds or so, the usual tactic.

Now here comes the big mistake of the night: I opted not to take Bladeangel's Money Belt off Nalorakk. Noobish of me not to have researched the drops ahead of time, but Rating Buster threw me off a bit when it reported such a huge loss in Strength and some other trivial stats - it looked like a crossgrade. What I failed to realize was that the Agility and Crit rating more than made up for this loss, and MaxDPS.com reports something like +20 DPS over my current PeeVeePee belt. /l2pve

/embarrassed

Afterwards we went left towards the bird boss, Akil'zon. This encounter is prefaced by a gauntlet-style run up to his platform, pretty exciting but I liked the pace of it. It seems important to keep the group moving up the hill, so the clothies don't get ambushed from behind. The birds are a little annoying, but overall not a big deal.

We made it up to the big bad birdy and started a few attempts on him. The big issue here was making sure everyone bunches up for storm cloud, and then spreads back out again afterwards. Deadly Boss Mods is very helpful here. Again, a pretty Enhancement-friendly fight, the only trouble I had was when he flung me up in the air, it's a pretty hard landing when you come down. Have a pot or healthstone ready for immediate use upon landing. :)

During our 2-3 attempts we unfortunately had the gauntlet respawn behind us, and we just ran out of time so we had to call it a night, but I think we're all feeling pretty good about the progress and are looking forward to another crack at it (tomorrow?).

/cheer

Hai Fire Guys!!1

2008-05-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

Can't wait to get one of you as a totem... in like... 54 levels!

Ding 14

2008-05-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

Lol. I love the early game in WoW, with your limited spells/abilities, awful gear and huge aggro radius. There's something very refreshing about the danger lurking around every tree, usually in the form of a big hungry level 12 bear. /run!

So as part of some goofy experiment, I went out and bought a level 11 white dagger and had it enchanted with Fiery Weapon. The choice of a regular weapon is intentional, because even with the enchant it's not soulbound, and can thus be transferred to other characters or sold. When it procs, it adds 40 damage (or 60 if it crits). Combined with Flametongue Weapon and Lightning Shield, I'm having little downtime between pulls, as usually I'm only casting two Lightning Bolts then a Flameshock before melee'ing.

In other news, Exelus went to Zul'Aman yesterday for the first time and participated in the downing of the first boss and a decent attempt at the 2nd boss. More on that later. :)

WotLK Info Pouring Out

2008-05-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a TON of spoiler infoz appearing on the interwebs now that Wrath is in official Alpha. I'm not going to link to anything because (as a technologist by trade), the whole concept of an NDA is pretty sacred to me. But still...

It's all looking pretty amazing - from new Shaman talents/mechanics to Death Knight toon pics to actual in-game videos of zones in development. Pretty fricken sweet. The hard part is just going to be keeping myself from spoiling it all by seeing too much in advance. :)

I have a minor bone to pick with a certain popular WoW info site, though: they say Blizzard asked them to take down leaked info posts (which they have), but then make a post linking to a site that has all the goods. Isn't that exactly the same as hosting the info yourself? (In principle?)

Meet Haelus

2008-05-19T22:58:00.001-07:00

World (of Warcraft), meet Haelus - my latest WoW project. He's very young yet - still learning his way around Lightning Bolts and Rockbiter Weapon. Picked up Herbalism and Alchemy just 'cause.

As mentioned in my prior post, he's an Elemental Shaman with Resto aspirations, hence the name. The famous mispelling of "heal" ("hael meh!") combined with my ever-unimaginative "us" name-ending. :)

There's actually a funny story about my main Exelus and the whole "us" suffix, btw... but first a bit of backstory. Since starting WoW I've tended to name my characters things like Magus (obviously a Mage), Lockus (you guessed it, Warlock) and Ciribrus (StarCraft reference). So when I rolled Exelus I thought, "he's a Draenei Shaman... so maybe Shamus? No. Dranus? Cool."

That's right. Dranus.

I didn't realize until my mid-20s that I had made a grave error. I started getting tells in-game from teenagers, "cool name, doc. lol." Oy. I eventually reported myself and a sympathetic GM let me change the name. He became Ardus for a while, but when I moved him over to Eonar I combined one of my first characters names with the omnipresent "us" suffix: Exemel with a "us" ending = Exelus. Muuuch better.

So anyway, back to Haelus. Kek.

There's a few playstyle differences that I'm already becoming aware of... spamming ~3 lightning bolts before melee'ing the final 25% or so, using Stoneclaw as a means to keep a mob busy while I sling bolts, etc. Made myself a macro that starts auto-attack, since it's fairly obvious that LB will become a primary pull/attack - I wanted an automatic hunter-style (ezmode) switch between ranged and melee action:

#showTooltip Lightning Bolt
/startattack
/cast Lightning Bolt

Teamed-up with some lowbies around the isle and practiced healing and aggro management, even down-ranked Healing Wave for practice and to get in the habit. Learning to watch the Quartz cast bar for optimizing LB casts. Making extensive use of Clique to fling heals while still targeting the mob. Lots of new techniques, but not so foreign that I feel like I'm starting completely over. :)

Could be a fun experiment, and look forward to reporting on his progress here!

Wut Next?

2008-05-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

Exelus has settled into a rhythm of sorts: weekly-ish Karazhan runs (with our first peek into Zul'Aman tomorrow?), the occasional heroic/instance, etc. I completely burned-out on PvP getting the "welfare" axes and head/shoulders - and now that I canhaz epic flyer, I'm only really doing dailies to get back over the 1k gold mark again. Gear seems to be trickling in nicely via raiding and badges...

So... what's next?

I've got a stable of alts scattered all over the place - and knowing how healers and tanks are always in demand (both in-guild and in PUGland) - I feel like I should be working on either my Paladin, Druid or Priest (all in the 40's), but for some reason none of them are very compelling to me at the moment. I've got a mid-level hunter somewhere that's fun to play (lol ez-mode), but DPS is a dime-a-dozen. At least he's got CC. I also recently re-spec'ed Lazer Chicken on me Durid, which is kinda neat, but a ranged caster with weak CC is going to be questionable. (Although there's the option of going Feral Tank or Tree Healer later.)

I think what I'm really waiting for is the Death Knight - I've got a name reserved on a level 1 alt, and am thinkin' Night Elf for the race, if that becomes an option. (Gno Gnomish Gdeath Gnights Gplskthx)

Also been considering rolling another Shaman, trying-out Elemental for leveling with an eye on Resto later. But the last two times I rolled one, I thought, "why not just respec Exelus for a bit?" Then of course I never do. Perhaps this idea warrants further consideration - even though it feels weird to me having two of the same class.

Then there's always Cenarion Expedition grind for that Hippogryph... I've always pictured Exelus riding one. Cuz y'know, I'm all about the arrpee and stuff.

Hmm.

Crafted

2008-05-17T02:00:00.001-07:00

Just as I was lamenting about the relative uselessness of Jewelcrafting, I find that one of the best trinkets for Enhancers is the Shadowsong Panther figurine. With today's unlocking of the epic gem vendor on the Isle, it was time to turn in some badges and get this lil' kitty crafted. (Actually ended up buying only one gem with badges and the other off the AH, saving 15 badges for a future purchase.)

So yup the stealth level boost is obviously useless (lolrogueitem), but at 80 AP and the on-use 320 AP it's kind of a no-brainer over the Ancient Draenei War Talisman (my last green). The lost crit will be easily recoverable once I replace one of my remaining three blues. I'm now officially over the 1300 AP mark un-buffed, with a still-respectable ~24.5% crit. The word on the street is that 1400 AP is the target for T5 raiding, so I'm more than happy to get just this far.

Funny thing when this item is used, a little panther pet comes out for the 15 second duration. :)

Sunwell Dailies: Enhancement Tactics

2008-05-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

While doing your Shattered Sun Offensive dailies around the island and in Outland, you get to face a wide range of mobs that are best fought using varying tactics - so in the span of 40 minutes you'll get to employ almost every trick in your toolkit. Err totem sack. Err wha? Uhm yeah. Here's a breakdown of the tactics I use:

Mana Remnant Dudes
Run up in Ghost Wolf and fire off a Flame Shock as you approach, so when they start that nasty channeling spell your Earth Shock should be ready. Sometimes they come in pairs, so Stoneclaw totem helps keep the beating to a minimum. Also since they steal mana, I tend to use Shamanistic Rage to keep my mana topped off.

Rockem Sockem Robots
Just beat 'em down with a heavy DPS rotation.

Sunfury Archers
Open with a Flame Shock, run up and pew pew. Pretty straightforward.

Sunfury Knights
Open with a Flame Shock to quickly tag your mob, but hold off on the Earth Shock until they begin healing themselves.

Sunfury Warlocks
Drop a Grounding totem on approach, if you're lucky it'll swallow both spells by the imp and the 'lock. Usually a stormstrike takes care of the annoying imp, leaving my Earth Shock to interrupt the warlock's second spell. Dispel Magic to cleanse the armor off.

Demon Casters
Drop a Grounding totem on approach, use Earth Shock to interrupt subsequent Fireballs.

Other Demons
I tend to use Lightning Shield around these guys, as the winged ones like to do the stun/fire shower trick. This way they can beat themselves to death even while I'm incapacitated.

Naga Casters
Grounding Totem, Earth Shocks for interrupts and Dispel to clear their Frost Shields.

Naga Warriors
Heavy DPS rotation, sometimes with Lightning Shield and Shamanistic Rage since they hit fairly hard. Stormstrike, Flame Shock, Earth Shock. By the way, worst drop rate evar on those stupid keys. :\

Sunfury Reservists
Just like the Archers, usually open with Flame Shock and beat 'em down. Getting between boats is made much easier with Water Walking!

Now on to Outland...!

Fel Armament Orcs
Usually a mix of casters and melee, just employ the best-practice techniques here: Grounding totem/Earth Shock for casters, Flame Shock dots and mass DPS on the meleers. Dispel the Bloodlust effect. If you aggro one of the big elites, Ghost Wolf is very handy for running away.

Sunfury Attack Plans
Also a mix of casters and melee - you know what to do here.

Mana Cells
Those Mana Worms are extremely annoying, especially since you can't loot the mana cells while being beat on. Early on I used to get ninja'd a lot while busily defending myself. The trick is to drop Stoneclaw as you approach the cell - it should last long enough for one (maybe two) gathers of mana cells. Then you can worry about downing the worms. I use Lightning Shield and Searing totem here just to make the fights go faster.

I know there are other SSO dailies (Hellfire Peninsula, etc.), but I usually just do the rounds as shown above, seems to be fairly efficient time-wise and yields a ton of gold. Don't forget to vendor excess bandages - it's an easy 6g per stack!

That New Leather Smell

2008-05-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

Given all the DPS research and feedback I've been collecting recently, it was becoming clear that I needed to start looking beyond AP and crit for ways to improve damage output.

Raw stats are always good since they scale with Blessing of Kings (and we seem to have an abundance of Paladins around), but now that I've crossed the 1200 AP/25% crit range it's also time to stop neglecting +hit as much.

The biggest problem is gear itemization, especially when it comes to accessible gear for the casual player. I'm sure there's some megaphatlewtz in Mount Hyjal and Sunwell Plateau, but umm... I'm still LFG Kara, and intellect/mp5 does nothing for me. And I'm not a badge farmer either. PUG'ing 'roics gives me the hives.

So what kind of gear has hit rating and raw stats? Leather. Oh yeah baby, I said it. Mail armor isn't going to save my blue bacon in a heroic or raid anyway, so why not get back to my roots? For the past few weeks I've been monitoring both the Leather and Mail categories for good buys, and today a Shadowprowler's Chestguard showed up in the AH for relatively cheap.

/buy

So yes, this is definitely a kittydurid piece, but look at those raw stats when including the +6 All Stats enchant and three Bold Living Ruby's: 62(!) strength, 46 agility and 18 stamina - plus a bit of hit rating as well. Zomg now we're talking! (Also picked up a Cloak of the Craft for the additional hit rating and slapped-on the 12 agility 'chant.)

Took this new getup into Kara tonight, and while it's not completely scientific (mostly went up against Aran and Prince, so not so much trash), there did seem to be a pretty significant improvement in my DPS. Recount was showing ~625 DPS, up from ~550 on the previous report. Next time I get to participate in "night one" of a Karazhan run I'll update this post for more of an oranges-to-oranges comparison.

UPDATE 05/13: tonight we ran the first bit of Kara (up through Curator), and Recount showed an average of ~675 DPS, compared to my pre-leather average of ~550. Not bad!

Breaking: Death Knight Infoz

2008-05-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

WowInsider has some news and details about the new Death Knight hero class in Wrath of the Lich King. 0.o

Can't wait!