Onyxia 25

Oh, my God, that was like soooo 3 patches ago. I know, I ran Onyxia back then on my shaman and rocked the place. The first day it was out, on the very first attempt at killing the almighty dragon I got the achievement for the speed kill. And that was shortly after I had begun my gear transition from PvP only to PvE only. It was easy, a loot pinata, if you will, and all you needed to know were the tactics for downing her. Oh, and the loot… similar to ToC loot but class and spec erm… specific? Yes, please! No more having to roll higher than the hunter that /roll ed just because it’s a mail item and, as we all know, all loot is hunter loot.

Fast forward to today. My DK, ok geared, entry level ICC to be more precise, joined a PuG for Onyxia 25. I whisper my achievement, GS (-.-) and accept the invite. Immediately I search for other DKs, Retribution Paladins and Warriors, because i only need the 2h sword. Crit and Expertise? Yes, please! Just a glance showed me 5 death knights, including myself, a warrior and a paladin. Small chances but hey, it’s the last day before the reset so why not give it a whack?

After waiting for some 20ish minutes for the raid to fill we go in, clear trash and start buffing, what you would normally expect from a raid, PuG or not. One priest healer said brb 2 minutes, we wait 5 and then start the encounter. What we did not think about was to do a headcount. Everybody got summoned, I’m sure of that because I usually do it myself and only need a dedicated clicker and this time it was no exception. So we go in, P1 goes by smoothly and we start the transition to P2, ya kno, the part where as melee you run behind her and try to squeeze a few more blows.

Adds spawn, tanks pick them up, the ranged group is doing its thing, AoE fest going on down on the ground. Swiftly we reach the 50% mark when one tank goes down. That, of course, lead to a wipe, the other two tanks were far off and couldn’t pick the adds up fast enough. Ok, one try went south, replace the healer and let’s do better on the next. Am I assuming to much that this would be the normal attitude?

I was, apparently. Immediately after we zoned in again after running from the spirit healer all three tanks dropped group. Then two healers plus the AFK one which was kicked immediately after we wiped. Immediately after, a bung of DPS dropped too. The raid leader, through this all, was in Dalaran, searching for replacements, and was patient enough to stick around until the empty spots were filled. The reason I mentioned the headcount earlier was that upon analizing recount we noticed that 2 DKs weren’t on there. Mouseover in raid frame and we saw that they were in Undercity, respectively Durotar. They had gone through all the ready checks and clicked Yes. Why they would do this boggles my mind, I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

Anywho, half an hour later, numbers bolstered we line up and buff again, ready to take on Mother O. The new group is littered with druids, 3 tanks, 2 healers, 1 feral and 2 boomkins but we take what we’re offered and can’t afford being too picky. Onward again, wipe again but this time we made it through to P3 where we wiped because as soon as Onyxia landed almost all the DPS rushed to her and adds chewed the tank’s and healers’ faces off. Half the raid dropped group instantly and the other half soon after.

Is it something fundamentally wrong to wipe? As long as I can think back, this is almost normal, you die once, regroup, try again. Everybody in that group had some stakes in this otherwise there were a lot easier ways to pick up 3 Triumph Emblems. Is it a lower tolerance to failiure that’s involved? Are all elitists and if they are, why did we wipe?

The answer, I believe, is a lot simpler than this and has a lot to do with good players caring for the community. Everybody in the raid, as I remember, was in a guild. It is impossible to reach the current level cap without any interaction with another human being. And while it is no longer dominant, there is a community of players that actually give a crap and try to help others, either by tells ingame or on guild chat, or even on the WoW forums. If you meet such a player in a random heroic he will not only pull his weight, but rather pull the whole group’s weight as well. He will be the tank that outdamages 2 DPS, the DPS that does over 50% off total damage or the healer that will heal your ass off through the incredibly slow paced run.

When grouped with such a player, seeing him excell and pick up their slack, they think it’s ok to not give it the best shot they possibly can. They are used to being carried and will think that it is their God given right to do sub-par DPS. Usually tanks and healers do not fall under this category and they only come in two flavors: the ones that outright suck and you can usually spot by the weird gear choices and gems/enchants and those that do their goddamn jobs.

Back to the MS, as Gevlon likes to call them. They have gathered the good gear and boast with their incredible GS, they write stuff like L2P n00b and join the Anal [ability] bandwagon. And they drop group when they notice that in a particular raid it is expected of them to pull their own weight.

Elton John said: “It’s a sad, sad, situation/ And it’s getting more and more absurd”. This fits like a glove. I don’t know how this can be avoided in the future but I’m afraid that no amount of work Blizzard can put into the game will fix it. Because they can’t. And I fear that this will be the downfall of the game, once those good players quit due to burnout or whatever reason.

Big News, Everyone!

Not a lot of posts lately, mostly because IRL sucks and keeps intervening. But enough of the whining, let’s go back to what World of Warcraft is all about: “I love my mother but not nearly as much as WoW,” to paraphrase a local football supporter’s chant. And speaking of, I had a stunning revelation during TBC at one point, when I was leveling my brother’s mage through Hellfire (thus making it the 4th character I took through the Outlands): If your mum sends you to get some water and you’re thinking what is closer, Scryers or Aldor, you’re playing too much.

Now on to the big news released today: shared lock-outs for the same raid for both 10 and 25 man versions.

What this means: To put it in the words of Blizzard, you cannot down a boss twice in a week. No more running 10 man for starter gear so you can go join the 25 man version, where the real money’s at.. if it were a professional sport. There’s also another announcement, saying that you’ll be able to choose what bosses you want to kill normally and which ones you want to try your hand on the heroic version.

With this comes the clarification of loot: the same items will be dropped from both versions of the raid, just more of them on 25. To translate this in current terms, if right now a boss drops 2 epix on 10 man and 3 on 25, the latter will change to drop 5 epix. All of the same ilvl, that will, by the way, cease to be. I guess GS will be out and one can only praise the Lord for this bit.

This will make a huge impact on the game, as much as the first raids being accessible in quest blues. Like I have stated many a times before, I am in a small guild that revolves around 10 mans. This change alone will be our bread and butter. Sure, you can never see an item drop but that’s bad luck and won’t cause the same frustration like the one from knowing that you’re not able to field 25 players that you can count on. It’s a lot easier to live with fortune than with your inability, if I may call it that (be it work, low tolerance to stupidity or whatnot) to get a shot in at the good stuff.

Then again, if some things never change, each raid boss will have a ~10 item drops possible, 15 on 25 man. Not counting here Sartharion with the 1, 2 and 3D option. You will still have a better chance of seeing an item drop on 25 man but with numbers comes demand. Better chance to have it drop on 25 but better chance of winning it on 10, to summarize loot options.

I like it, and I like it a whole lot. The bomb Blizz dropped on us does indeed mean that, as Hinenuitepo put it, 10 man guilds will no longer feel like second class citizens. Which I do when I run around in circles in the mecca of narcissism, Dalaran, being able to eyeball those ilvl277 epix on other players, knowing that I will never have one.

In other news, the ICC buff will increase after today’s maintenance to 15%. I think I have a problem with this. 10% is a good enough buff, on par with tweaking a raid boss or 12 to be a tad more accessible. For what is twaking, I ask of thee, if not having a boss hit for x% less or not as often by making his melee swing .5 seconds longer. At least in my mind that’s how it’s done, after careful consideration and a ton of legitimate feedback from the gaming community.

I’m late to jump on the bandwagon but hey, I wasn’t blogging at the time. 30% buff in the end? My God that’s enormous. Imagine a nice and round 10k DPS fella that walking in and getting this buff. Chances are that on 10 K he’s already able to carry a bunch of alts, you only need some 6-7 K to down the bosses that are a DPS race. He’s picking up others’ slack of lack of gear. With the buff he’ll do some 13K DPS. Almost counts as two people, making 9 man ICC a possibility and not something that you laugh at the idea of. Then again, if he is in a guild that was able to gear him up to pull the damage bar so high, imagine that there are others like him in the same group. I know my logic is flawed in many ways with this but effectively with the 30% buff you could go by with only 3 DPS, 2 tanks and 2 healers. A 3rd healer would be obsolete and could only be brought along for the gear upgrades and for him to have a look-see at what raid healing is all about, without him being a liability in case he chokes.

Yes, healers choke. I did, when I was resto, and even though I only healed 5 man heroics and the odd VoA 10 or 25 and Onyxia, i was a very emo healer, in the sense that I always thought that it was my fault if somebody died and that there was something I could have done and oh, why, cruel world. I mean fuck it, with the offset pieces I gathered along the way I have a pretty decent healing set and I might respec from enhancement to resto again. I know I have a bit of a healer heart in me, I always jump to top somebody off if I don’t think that the healer can manage it (even though he can and I’ve seen him do it).

Threat

This one is inspired by the wall of text that BBB posted yesterday. He goes on for 4000 words about how tanks, and particularly bear tanks, can handle happy trigger DPS pulling threat. I must confess that at times I too have this problem, I start unloading everything I’ve got the second the tank charges/pulls/taunts the far off mob. While I know it can be a problem for most tanks, as you don’t see that many with a red GS joining the daily heroics, I sometimes can’t help it. I’m'a tell you a little somethin-somethin’ about how to do this and live.

Just to be clear, I don’t condone this kind of behavior (we have a local saying, do as the priest says, not what he does) even though I sometimes get carried away and start mah blasting early. Early but not before the tank, mind you.

Ok, moving on. There are two types of aproaches, as Elemental, to this issue. Bear in mind that this is trash we’re talking about and not bosses, single-target threat should not be an issue.

1st way: This I recommend for the times you feel hyped up or see that you have a well geared tank at the helm of the group. It will yield the most DPS but it’s also the risky thing to do, specially at higher gear levels. Once the tank starts running in/charging/whatever you should wait a second and then run behind him. Figure out on the fly where he wants to do the tanking and drop your totems (Magma as Fire) on the spot. Don’t stop running, go a couple of steps further (but not too far, just outside melee mobs cleave) and as soon as the GCD from dropping the totems is up Fire Nova. Then assist the tank and start with the usual rotation of FS, LvB, CL off CD, FN off CD. Remember, this is a high damage – high mana requirement rotation so try not to go in at less than half mana. Usually if it’s executed right, this will net you some decent damage done and won’t pull any aggro off of the tank. Unless it’s a bear and he’s off attacking another mob from the one you were assisting with.

What you want to do in this scenario, as you are only a few yards away from the upset skelly or vrykul or whatever, is to make a judgement call whether you can CC it enough to burn its remaining HP down or you need to get it back to the tank. Fortunately (for us) we can do both just fine, but my personal phylosophy is that of tanks (got one myself, maybe that’s why), namely ‘if you pull it you tank it’.

So: if mobs’ health < than [DPS you can push in to kill it until it reaches you] then /cast Eartbinding Totem, blast away
else position yourself so that the tank, mob and you are in a straight line and Thunderstorm when it’s close, sending it to the tank’s loving Axe or Shield. Or Axe and Shield. Depends.

2nd way: You play it safe. You use ToW for the extra punch and you only Assist the tank. Grabbing aggro and thus a munchy thing off of your face doesn’t become an issue unless you have a tank that is severely undergeared compared to you.

For both situations, make sure to have Wind Shear handy for when you see the threat percentages go up.
Wind Slap, Biatch! I no threatening, I be cauliflower, garden rose, I be in fact a squirrel under a heap of mail armor! You no want me!

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (part 3/12)

The Gunship Battle in ICC is one of the easiest and more exciting battles that you will find in end-game content by far. It is, in fact, so easy, that it doesn’t even merit a walk-through but I’m’a do it anyway because it is also one of my favorites.

OK, so you’re on the boat. Remember to always equip the jetpack. This is mighty important for you, as a shaman, because otherwise you will not only not contribute to the success (or only marginally) but you can also be the bringer of death and sorrow, namely of a wipe. This is, of course, given the fact that you are stepping into ICC for the first time and are not at a vast disadvantage, gearwise, compared to your group. After you have the jet-pack equipped it’s very important to ask what is expected of you for this fight. There are a number of viable scenarios as to how this battle can be won so make sure you know what your part in it all is. Most likely you’ll be on add duty and that is the easiest part of the easiest battle. You just have to grow roots in one place near the ledge of your ship and go all out on the dwarven riflemen on the other side. CL is a good idea for this part, because said riflemen will be shooting at your ship and try to take it down. More on this later.

You will see that there are two cannons you could use but usually they are assigned to specific people so unless told otherwise, stay clear of them because you’ll be most likely mocked for your gunnery affinity. If you are assigned to be in a cannon, however, the only thing you need to do is to spam 1 until the heat bar to the right of the ‘vehicle’ UI goes up to around 75%-90% and then pres 2. A normal way to start causing more damage (albeit not a lot) is to pre-heat the cannons by starting firing them once the gunship is on the move so that you can use the special attack as soon as possible on the enemy ship.

Now down to the nitty-gritty, (if only) the fight itself. Your job will be to kill the enemy’s riflemen. Normal rotation on these guys, FS, LvB with the addition of CL off CD. Don’t worry about mana, it’s EZ mode, trust me on this one.

From time to time you’ll hear Muradin asking for a mage to come to the stage (‘Get a Mage in here to freeze those cannons!’ I believe are his exact words), and your cannons will be enclosed in a block of ice and their respective gunners will be ejected. At this point the jetpack kicks in and you’ll have to board the enemy ship and kill that pesky mage as soon as possible. Once he’s down the cannons return to normal and the group can have at it again. Rinse and repeat until the enemy ship starts going down in flames. Loot. But make sure you’re not actually aboard the enemy ship when it starts descending or you’ll be going down with it. Like a captain. With a another faction’s ship. Erm… yeah…

A little tid-bit about the riflemen. Make sure you snipe all of them, otherwise the longer they stay up the stronger they become and the more they hurt your ship.

This was the offensive part, now for defense: to make your healer’s lives a lot easier when you see that there’s a circle under your feet get outside it’s radius and start blasting again. That’s where a rocket is going to land and even though it doesn’t hurt that much, multiple rockets can kill you if you’re not paying attention. Be wary also of Muradin’s cleave. It hurts like a MOFO even though you’re wearing mail so make sure that when you jump over to the enemy ship:

a) You’re not the first one otherwise he will come get you and turn you into a smear on the floor.

b) Make sure that you don’t target him at some point and start unloading damage in his arse or you’ll be getting some back in retaliation – this doesn’t hurt, some 1.5K ranged attack (while you’re on your boat) but it’s better to not cop damage at all, if possible, as your healers would appreciate it.

Fun things to do while in this fight:

1. Just as you’re about to jump back on your ship after killing the enemy mage position yourself between two riflemen , select your landing target and as soon as you’re in the air Thunderstorm. You’ll get some mana back and do upwards of 15 k dmg if you’re lucky enough to hit 3.

2. I’ve never actually tried this but you can leave your fire elemental on the Alliance boat, in the furthermost left corner. You want him there otherwise he might wonder up to Muradin and he won’t be happy about having a big ass fire thingy wondering about on his wooden boat.

Totem Selection:

Earth Totem: Stoneskin. It will help everybody and it’s the safest choice.

Fire Totem: You want to go with ToW on this one unless you’re trying the Fire Elemental thing mentioned above. Searing might also be a fun choice but it always chooses a random target and might end up shot at by a rifleman.

Water Totem: Unless GBoW is on the table, really, really go for Mana Spring, otherwise Healing Stream.

Air Totem: Wrath of Air, plain and simple

The difference between the 10 man and the 25 man version is in the number of cannons available to your side (2/4) and the HP of the mobs.

Happy Sniping!

Raid group part 1/10

Right, the “write post from work and then paste it on blog” thing that I’ve had going on is clearly not ‘working as intended’ ™, I just now got to edit the post from yesterday. And while this is yet another post written ducking behind all the other e-mails I have open (I do this to not get spotted and for it to bear some resemblance of productive corporate work) from whoevers, whatevers and banks, I’m trying to make myself believe that it will be the last one.

I know I said yesterday that I’d start with the presenting the members of my raiding group, so here goes nothing of interest. There will be a later post about ICC and I’m hoping that it will encompass both remaining fights of the first four.

I’ll start off with the Raid Leader and Guild Leader, or somebody I like calling intimately He Who Has More Alts Better Geared Up For ICC Than My Main, or HWHMABGUFICCTMM. I like it like that. What I can say I love about him (a very manly but not gayish love, mind you) is that when he’s online, he’s there for you. And he can do whatever the raid needs, tank (Padalin), heal (Druid) or DPS (Druid or DK, ranged/melee). I silently begrudge him for winning the T10 gloves on his DK in VoA when I rolled on them as well but not that much.

If I were to choose a role for him in our raid that would be, hands down, that of tank. He is a bloody good tank that never lost agro on anything ever I think. Not while I’ve been around and on my off-days there were rumors of me TAB targeting mobs instead of assisting. He doesn’t get to run with us in this role tho, his healing wiggly branches are much more needed. Hell’s the kind of RL that doesn’t talk a lot, doesn’t blow steam by slandering the ones that may have made a mistake and has the patience of a mountain. No loot drama occurring under his lead and if there happens to be an issue he will take the time to explain his decisions and actions. Story time:

Not so long ago we had to PuG a ranged DPS for our weekly run at ICC and it happened to be a SP that was under geared compared to the lot of us but adequately geared for the content. The Gunship Battle finishes and the dagger with MP5 drops. A little background now: The SP was doing ok but not great, the weapon would have been a clear upgrade for him. Hell had a healing staff ilvl 232 from ToC but he did have the OH from Lady D already, won on an OS roll a while back. I have the caster mace from Anub 25 like I said a while back and the guildie Mage that was running with us then for the first time had something in the ilvl 232 area.

The dagger had dropped before us a couple of times and each time we passed it to the appropriate healer that needed it, regarding of roll. Because it has fucking MP5 on it, that’s why. It would be an upgrade for me in terms of SP and haste, both of which I love dearly, and if I have to give up .5% of my exaggerated* crit chance so be it. I would not roll on this until absolutely nobody of a healy type needed it. So I didn’t but the SP, mage and Hell rolled and the SP rolled highest. After a short and chilled debate the dagger went the druid’s way (thank you, SP, for not being an ass and not dwelling on your thought of Guild prio when explained that it’s MS prio). Needless to say that we congratulated Hell and then proceeded to prepare for the Saurfang fight that was up next. Meanwhile I whispered whether he wanted to have the item enchanted, I had the mats on me and I was happy to do it, especially knowing how long he had wanted this item. While we don’t usually talk that much, or at least not as much as I talk to the other guild and raid members, we have a respect thingy going on. So he politely declined and linked me his enchanting, to show me that he could also do it. He then told me that he was hoping for the +spirit staff to drop off of Saur so he could trade the dagger to the SP.

And now back to the main broadcast. He is the silent yet deciding factor in the decision-making process, as he should be, given that he is the GL and all but he doesn’t step up that often when petty squabbles surface. That is not by far his cup of tea and there are others there to squash these in their infancy. More on this at a later date.

* Shamans were supposed to be around 25% crit chance in end game content if I understood correctly from a blue post a while back but they kind of exaggerated with Tiers of armor and this was blown out of proportion and subsequent patches and raid zones accommodated the higher number instead of tightening crit down a notch.

Not much happenin’

A long time has passed since I haven’t written anything and this probably is because not a lot has happened meanwhile. Or, actually, it has but for some reason I can’t bring myself about to do it. For instance I have been looking forward to my first piece of Sanctified Frost Witches whatever for so long that I grinded my teeth every time I rolled below 20 on the Mark of the Protector (and that is every time). Yesterday I rolled 100 and won it hands down but the joy was shadowed by the personality of the PuG RL which kept bitching throughout the entire raid and claiming how imba and all that he is. The only thing that I can admit to is that he put together a group of people that actually blew through Marrowgar -> Saurfang in 45 minutes flat. I know this because the flask I had jugged down before uncle Storm (The name’s Storm. *removes black shades* BOOOOOONE STOOOORM!) had 15 more minutes.

I chose to upgrade the head piece because it gives me haste and that is what I lack and probably will always lack. I’m even thinking of trying out the Melee Dps Haste trinket to up that a bit but I really don’t like being the laughing stock of He Who Might Inspect. Now I sit at an all time high 770 haste before relic proc and it feels ok. I sometimes Armory (yes, if I want I’ll use it as a verb, just like you Google stuff) the shamans I meet and die a little bit inside when I see over 900 haste through items alone but I don’t envy them or bear a grudge for them taking my shinies. No, I really don’t. Ok, may be I do, a little bit.

I did try going for ToC 10 with my guild (weekly’s Jarraxus) in an all-melee group on my Death Knight but that didn’t work that well. After a very long time, I wiped on Worms, and with me, 5 more DPS. It was a really interesting idea and we thought about filming it in case we managed through some miracle to be successful. If you want to give it a shot, here’s what we tried it with:

2 paladin Tanks

5 DKs, 2 Blood, 3 Unholy

1 Fury Warrior

1 Resto Druid

1 Resto Shaman

It won’t work!

Speaking of my DK, I did some tanking in ICC. Ok, that’s an over-statement, I tanked Darnavan or what’s his name for the weekly quest and I pulled it off. It was, in fact, a breeze, and I think it is the easiest thing I have ever did in this game ever. It’s even easier than camping an egg spawn place, because that actually requires attention. This – just spam Chains of Ice and run away, take a look at Lady D’s HP, run around in circles, apply some diseases on her, run some more, get intimate with every corner of the room, then jump a bit, skill up your unarmed on the dude. Then go to the fridge for a snak while auto-running from one corner of the room to the other. Ok, I didn’t actually do this bit, but I could have. My trusted guildmates did not share the trust they showed me on my Shaman so I was beaconed and Vis did some serious overhealing, then Hell’s druid took the spotlight and overhealed me some more. All the while I was taking some ~600 hits on a 44k raidbuffed health pool. I blew my defensive cooldowns when he whirlwinded but other than that it was a piece of cake.

Speaking of my guildmates, I’m thinking about presenting each one soon, not that anybody;s interested really, but they’re just so great that in 20 years I want to remember writing this blog and maybe look them up. And fly to meet them in my personal charter. Yes, we have a guild that’s from all over the place. The UK, South Africa, Poland, Sweden, Romania are just the countries I know off. Plus the dude that’s in college in the US but still plays on an EU server. Him I meet most often because I work US hours and well, go figure.

Now for something totally unrelated, the Celestial Steed is said to have netted $2 mil in the first 24 hours. That’s a lot and I really wonder, after buying it and seeing a lot of it in Dalaran as well if it’s worth it. I’m not having second thoughts, no sir, it has already given me its value worth of moments when I was the first to use it in flying all over the Outlands, 4 hours after the Steed became available. I know I was the first because at the time, there were only two others on the server and they were posing for pictures in Dalaran.

My Little Pony, like it has been called on already countless blogs, is not what you’d call a good mount for any Horde race except Blood Elves. Maybe Forsaken but they’re all the long lost (and dead) cousins of Al the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It does its job, of carrying your fat orc or tauren ass allover the place but it looks weird. I sometimes wonder why would I be doing this to the poor animal? I am clearly bigger and heavier than what a horse, albeit celestial, was raised to carry. Plus my Shamanistic skirt (whoops, kilt) is all inside the poor bugger.

Long story short, I would like to get around to finishing the ICC elemental shaman tips series but work’s been hounding me lately.

Steed and Rant

I have given in to the temptation. As you can see from the screenshots below, I could not help myself and went ahead and got my Celestial Steed today. By the way, the title ‘the Patient’ is there for a reason, i’ve been in a virtual queue for 4 hours during which I could do nothing else but check back every 10 minutes to see how long till I get to fork over 20 Euro.

Couldn’t find a good angle and cba to pose a lot.

(A lot of personal views on the state of the game and self-characterization follows so if you don’t feel like reading it scroll down a couple of paragraphs.)

I’m not so happy about this, either. I had a sort of solemn (not so much it seems) vow that I will not buy anything other than game time and maybe the books (just had the trilogy delivered the other day but not from Blizzard coz they were frickin’ sold out and have been for the last year from what I checked. Wonder why they still have them listed in the store if they’re never gonna bring’em back). And an authenticator, which I proudly wear at the key-chain because I just don’t give a big enough fuck as to how that would make me look. I don’t meet that many new people in my day-to-day activities and generally don’t care how I come off. I’m that overly ironical, overly critical, never-keeps-his-mouth-shut-and-doesn’t-know-when-to-stop-joking type of a fella and I will plain out feel and look disgusted with people if at a first glance they don’t seem worthy of my time. I will give them a second chance if the first one didn’t go that well but i’ll do that with a scornful look and little patience. This plays over in game as well. If the first time you raid with me and don’t do your job and have the audacity to comment on others’ performance given yours is lacking seriously I can guarantee that I would rather PuG your class instead of bringing you along again for a raid. Keyword RAID.

I will, under certain circumstances, run a dungeon with you and if you show me signs that you’ve improved I’ll dish out an invite or put in a meh word with the RL if that’s not me. But enough about me, let’s talk about me. As an Elemental Shaman I am very unforgiving towards my kin that do not perform. I will /w advice and try guiding you towards the light at first. I take purging as a must, by the way, and throwing down a Grounding Totem will go a long way to convince me that you know your biz. I rarely do it myself because it’s bound to a key I can hardly reach but can’t afford changing that sadly.

Now there is a point in me writing all of this. I am elitist in intention, I expect myself and others around me to live up to the fullest capabilities of the class. Does that happen? More than often not and I sometimes, while smoking and holding the cigarette in my right hand, move the fingers of my left hand where they should have been going that one time that they did not. I’m trying to imprint the action into my muscular memory, if that makes any sense. I get crazy mad when I see people failing over and over again. While I know I am not hardcore and probably never will be, I still get mad. That does not me a dick make, though, by the way, I bottle it up and vent to my IRL drood buddy face to face or over the phone. I see the same behavior in people that I meet for the first time in a PuG and they just melt down on the poor bastard that kept Crusader Aura on during a boss fight or something like that.

The closer we are to the end of the expansion the more elitist people around me get. I was definitely not like that during the first months or when I switched from PvP only to PvE only. I blame it on mental fatigue and burnout. People have a much lower tolerance to failing, i find. And that translates into swearing and other people, those on the receiving end, are reacting and soon /p or /raid is just filled with nasty stuff. Would you group with an Enhancement Shaman that’s using a 2H? Never! That’s how I leveled 70-80 because I didn’t know better back then. The ax was my only blue item when I got it that was not PvP Resto gear. I know i wouldn’t group with me back then! But the players I met then were very open about this and they said nothing, allowing me to be happy in my stupidity. And by personal experience I learned that Enhancement needs 2 x slow 1H. I still find it difficult to play Enhancement, like I did back then but over the time I have come to a more ample understanding of the class and its mechanics. Do I know at what exact point is gemming for Agility better than gemming for AP? No. Do I know the rotation, or more like priorities? You bet your ass I do! That’s the learning curve.

Many still have a ways to go to the top but in the current player state of mind very few still encourage others to learn. They all want it like NAO! That’s why stupid GS requirements are asked for joining a Naxx PuG or an achieve for something everybody and their dead nanny has done (ToC10). If I were to step in the game as it is today I’m not sure I would continue based on this alone. Or if I did I’d move to a RP server, where I could go about my business (huge lore nerd here) and not be constantly harassed. If I see that I’m not performing I will improve because I bloody well want to and not because some moron yells at me. True, the raid’s $ > my $ paid but if I know that I’m not doing so great I wouldn’t raid.

*** All the while I was waiting to be able to finalize the purchase the stock was listed steady at 48%. From screenshots I have seen posted of the same page, it seems it was ALWAYS at 48% -.- Way to go Blizz marketing team!

Playas be playin’, Scammers be scammin’

I know I wrote a couple of posts ago that scammers no longer seem interested in their ‘job’ and have been getting sloppier. Mental paranthesis: i consider scamming to be a business, as it is in fact, but for some reason that eludes me, I do not actually blame the one scammer but the industry for what’s going on. I respect the person trying to steal my account because, after all, we are going head to head on this. Me trying to stay safe and them trying to corner me into giving up my password. That is being changed daily. And authenticator. That generates a new code every 20 seconds and that can only be used within this window.

Back to business: after being disappointed by the last dude that tried to persuade me last, I was very nicely surprised by an in-game letter that I received via mail.

I actually thought that there was another vanity pet coming out that I was not aware of. Or that I had, unknowingly, undergone some tedious chain of quests that granted a pet in the end. So I opened the message hastily and read it. First thing that queued a question mark in my head was the “You are drawn in the system” (oh, noes, the matrixes are after me, ruun!) phrasing. After that the “achievements awards” looked odd (English is not my first language but I think that there might have been a better way to say this). The website listed made everything clear as daylight.

Just then I checked the name the message came from and saw that it’s not BrEAnni but BrAEnni and had to tip my virtual hat to the person who came up with this scheme. Good job, scammer! Better luck next time! Or never.

Bloodlust/Heroism Uses

You know what Bloodlust does and you kind of have an idea by now that this is one of the more important reasons you are brought to a raid.

In case you missed it, the tooltip says that:

Bloodlust: Increases melee, ranged, and spell casting speed by 30% for all party and raid members. Lasts 40 sec. After the completion of this effect, those affected will become Sated and unable to benefit from Bloodlust again for 10 min.

You are no doubt familiar with the offensive uses of the ability and if you made it through any Dungeon, Raid or HC Dungeon you know when to pop it. In ICC it’s a little trickier, because, if you run with different Raid Leaders, they might have different approaches to its use. Take for instance the Saurfang the Younger fight, the last one in the Lower Spire. While I found that the best time to use it  is when the dude’s HP is at 30% and he hits the soft enrage there, in PuGging the 25 man version I was asked to use it in the beginning (perhaps this way you guarantee a very good start for the team and manage to DPS more until the first Blood Beasts come out) and even have been asked to delay it until 28%. The latter is for situations when you need max DPS on the boss if a healer has the Mark or something and you want to burn the beasts down and thus get more face to face time with Saurfang under the effects of BL.

You will want to ask, if you are the only shaman in the group, or if you are the one designated to BL, beforehand, who will be the one that will give the go ahead (usually the Raid Leader) or if you can use it when you think it’s necessary. Enough of the offensive uses for it, tho.

Defensively it is a very, very powerful tool to have as well. Picture a fight that has heavy unavoidable damage on the MT and then a bunch of avoidable damage, such as Rotface. If one healer bites it fast, and by fast I mean  around 70% and no Combat Rezzes are available (druid healer is the one that has been ‘deaded’ or the only durid you have is the MT) and it’s close to raid time end you (or actually the RL, if he is on the ball) might consider trying to go on and not request a wipe and a fresh start. A defensive Bloodlust will be the difference between a wipe and a kill. Pay close attention to the healer still standing and if it’s you, well, good luck!

Timing the BL just as the healer is getting overwhelmed is essential. The 30% haste will give him the much needed breathing room for upping the tank to full and then moving on to the DPS that need it the most. He will be performing  triage at this point so if you end up being the one dying just Ankh up and keep on rolling. But, if a similar situation to the above one does happen, you have to be available to BL or else it’s pointless after all.

Another fight that has the same approximate mechanics but is far less punishing IMO is the Onyxia fight and the above can be used with the same results. Or Patchwerk, if you get the weekly quest to kill him dead.

I’m not saying that this is a good tactic to try but I did want to point to the spell being far more useful and, dare I say it, versatile, than usually meets the eye.

The PvP ramifications are all there, of course,  but due to my limited time in Arenas, I would not dare venture in trying to give tips and pointers of BL uses.

Back to scrub camp

If you’ve never been there, I salute you! I have and I’m sure that a lot of the players out there that you like have been there as well. It’s the camp where you see a bigger and more bad-ass [insert same class as you here] that’s willing to help you and you keep badgering him with questions.

Buh why am I using Lava Burst off cooldown, gwampa?

Well now, you want to use LvB off CD because in theory it’s your hardest hitting attack.

In theory?

Yes, I’ve seen a Lightning Bolt crit for more a lot of times.

All that aside, I want to try and implement the Class Master role and functionality in our guild. We have some very good players and others have a lot of improvement to go through before they can go into the wild and make their first kill. It’s really hard to DPS Saurfang Jr. while whispering to the hunter that he needs to go use the frost trap on the stairs before the beasts spawn and then again each time. Priorities must be known, nay, dreamed about in their sleep. We do some things a bit different than others but they work out so I would like to give the newer players in the guild the same freedom of choices when they raid.

Do you want to stick to the strategy that is used by everybody else or do you want to give that crazy idea in the back of your head a shot? You will get to, but not with 2.8 K DPS as a hunter on Saurfang, 10% buff included. You need to learn your abilities and the way they work together, put together a rotation, learn when to clip and when not to clip and for the love of God, learn to resurrect your pet after each wipe and not need to be reminded of it.

Yeah, it seems the last batch of recruits were not the best overall but there are a couple of guys that are great and I’m looking forward to raiding with them.