Ugly Stick

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

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

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!

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

Can't wait to get one of you as a totem... in like... 54 levels!

Ding 14

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

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?)