Of time ingame

Heya again, long time no post, which seems to be the going rule around here. RL blahblah and so on and so forth. I really lacked the inspiration during the past month and I honestly thought that my muse had died. In the meanwhile I have maxed Mining and JC on my DK and all was well. I was pleased. But (there’s always a but) what I hadn’t considdered was that just by havink the skill does not make you a licensed jewelcrafter. You have to learn the recipes and they each cost 4 tokens of which you only get one a day. Believe you me, that knocked my gold making dreams down a peg or ten.

Then I turned to my Warlock and saw it was seriously lacking. No gear to be proud of and he had his Enchanting in the 150 range plus tailoring about the same, slightly higher. In a fit of ingame rage I ditched enchanting and thought I’d pick up Herbalism for my up and coming Paladin Scribe. That las all through reaching skill 2 before it got removed too, go figure. I focused my full and undivided attention on leveling my Tailoring and PuG-ing with my DK, of the rare and soon to be extinct breed of Blood damage dealer. Got some nice upgrades for her, by the way, she is currently guildless and sitting on a 5.7 k groovy score, enough to grant me a spot in any GS PuG. Now if only I could work out how to change my rotation to take full advantage of the ilvl264 sigil it would be great. But I digress. Back to the Lock:

While camping the AH for cloth I figured I’d PvP for a bit. Mind you, I have not entered a BG in almost 11 months since I got incredibly disheartened by the survival chances of a shaman in a PvP environment and the number of leechers that joined and then did not move for the duration. I shelved my hard worked for Elemental and Enhancement PvP gear in the bank (this was before the Honor Jug was broken over BGs, when it took a week of loosing constantly to get an upgrade or a set piece – think ilvl 213 being teh bomb) and swore myself off PvP.

All that aside, I entered my first BG on my lock past lvl 29 in my full set of PvE gear and got mowed down repeatedly within seconds. SotA, 2 minutes left on the clock and the Horde hadn’t made it off the beach.

Damn! Things haven’t changed at all, I thought, until I remembered that I had 2 PvP set pieces in my bank, from VoA, things I chose not to roll on but were awarded to me regardless. Equipped them, gemmed and enchanted them and stepped back through the portal in my Affliction PvE spec. The alternative would have been Destro PvE and I never even tried it out, just got it because all the cool kids were doing it. Things were better. I even managed to survive for a while even though I was pummeled on. Sure, having a keybind for Fear helped a lot with that but I was pleased with the results. So much even that I respecced into Affliction PvP as OS. It was fun but I felt I didn’t pack a punch, really and for me it’s all about the big numbers. Respecced Destro PvP and after reading the tooltip for all the spells and talents I felt confident enough to go in a BG again. And I loved it. I still died a lot because of low resilience but with practice comes perfection and honor. I am currently sporting a 4pc PvP set (2 ilvl232 and 2 ilvl251) and almost everything I wear has resilience on it. I can even haz trinket!

I even has Arena team. It is fail because I am fail at arena PvP and my RL friend and partner is a resto drood that last did Arenas in TBC. We’re working out the kinks in the system and we even won our first match! Gogo sap-trinket machine! Oh, yeah, because I liked PvP I also maxed my Engineering skill for teh sweet toys. Not cheap, mind you!

The reason I did all this was because I was really bummed about my shaman, my first love. I hadn’t gotten any gear upgrades since fucking forever and really, not for lack of trying. I had the same darn MH since early December, the Anub 25 mace of awesomesauce (back then) and it was getting old logging to see that melon on top of a pike every time.

I joined a new guild on the shaman about a month back, that had the core of the guld I felt best in. Things looked pro and all I wanted was to bring down Arthas. Match made in heaven, amirite? No. Like with any good guild, there were raiding hours and they never were during when I could be online for the full duration. I either had to work those hours or have to leave for work after 2/3.5. Bummer. I went on an ICC 10 run with the GL and I guess I made an impression because I was asked again despite the guild having a shaman join per day for a week or so. Fast forward, I explained why I couldn’t raid, the GL said it’s ok and I went back to PvP on my lock. All of this until yesterday night, when out of sheer boredom I opened the Armory app on my phone. Saw a ICC10 HC run scheduled for the next day, and figured that if I tried really hard I could make 3/3.5 hours and then take a cab to work. I signed up and was online at invite time. And 5 minutes after. And 10 after that, during which everything was quiet. Out of the blue, when I got tired of re-listing auctions the invite swooped in out of the blue. There were so many to sign up (only 9, making me the 10th, when I had) that there were actually 2 groups put together.

I wasn’t really surprised to not make thefirst group, the A team, and was just fine with being accepted. I got my flasks and feasts and proceeded to ICC.

Buffs, trash, feast. Marrowgar HC. I had only seen this fight on HC once before, when it ended terribad and we did not try it again. One wipe. Rebuff. Feast. Kill. Rejoice. Lady Deathwhisper, never seen her before so pissy. Had the fight explained for the priest so I listened to everything except the tanking bit because I am not a tank and why the fuck should I care about tanking? I was wrong. It seems that she is untauntable in phase 2 which had me actually watch Omen. The second time around. Apparently the mage wasn’t listening either cause he snatched aggro in no time flat and whaddaya know, was 1 shotted. A death promptly followed by mine because I was next in the pretty aggro chart. A kill in two is not that bad, I wager, I have seen and been in groups flailing about and not able to down her despite the 25% (at the time) buff on 10m normal.

Onwards and upwards to lootship where I finally got my new weapon. Yes, it’s a healer’s weapon, it has mp5 but the trade-off was worth it. Some measly 50 crit for 120 SP plus a yellow socket of hasty goodness? Yes, please! I honestly wouldn’t have minded HC Muradin’s Spyglass either but I was thrilled to get an upgrade, any upgrade. And a weapon upgrade was to die for at this point, really.

Heroic Saurfang was the stuff of legends because of the tauntfail that had us bursting in laughter. Our KS (on another char), the OT, had 4 consecutive taunts miss, 2 of which being during Jr’s ‘oi, look at me, I’m big and bad’ phase. I was the only one on the floor at the end, got 1shotted by a blood beast when the boss only had 300k HP left -.- . Luckily I did not have a mark on me so it was all cool. 1shot, by the way.

This is where the HC bit ended, even though we easily could have downed Festerface based on the level of teamplay involved and the DPS we were pumping out. We got Festergut to hit the ground in 2 minutes and 10 seconds without using Bloodlust. I was honestly shocked to see this. Rotface posed no problem and dropped some boots for mah enhancement offspec (ARP meh) and then we killed the Proffessor although judging by the MT’s shoddy Abomination handling I thought we wouldn’t.

That was all the ICC experience I had, both in 10 and 25 man. I know it’s little, so late after the raid opened its gates and with the buff and all but just how things were. I find it weird myself if you’re asking.

Next up – Blood Wing. I had been in a few attempts to kill the Princes but nothing that even made it past 50%. One-shot. I knew the tactics for this one, which was more than I could say for Blood Queen. I knew the general direction the fight would be going in, with the biting and the lazor and the flames but never having seen it… I was reluctant to believe in myself that I would perform according to expectations. The healing priest admitted to not knowing tacts so they were explained briefly and I had my ears peeled. RC and gogogo, I blow all my cool-downs, which are not many – racial SP and EM and lo and behold, I am the first one to be bitten. The RL actually loled a bit at this (elemental shaman to be top bursty DPS? Unfathomable!) but then ignored me. No Bite assignments? Really?

I proceeded and bit the mage, which was the only other ranged DPS in the raid group and then before I knew it (was chained with the lazor once) it was over. Achievement pops up and I’m like yay, I have gone where no me has ever gone before! All on the inside, I did not need everybody to know that I was excited about such a ‘trivial’ thing as a new wing clear. I had to go shortly after so the frost wing and the LK will be rescheduled. I sure hope I can make it then!

So yeah. I like my Shaman again and that’s both good and bad news. I will now have 3 raiding characters again (the lock is always warlocky and greedy for some upgrades) and this means time. Time that is very precious to me actually. So far the only thing I have been cutting off on was sleeping. I am at an all-time record of maximum 4 hours per night and I don’t know if I should be proud or sad.

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (Part 4/12)

Deathbringer Saurfang

A rather simple fight in terms of mechanics, the Saurfang the Younger fight starts off with a monologue from papa Saurfang that touches the childhood and his life expectations of Jr. You can use this to get into position or go for a bio break, there’s an almost 2 minute mark for the yapping.

Saurfang Jr, whom we will only refer to affectionately as Saur or Jr, has an interesting gimmick up his sleeve that will kill your defense if you’re not paying attention. He casts Boiling Blood at a random target, an ability doing 5k dmg every 3 seconds and you want to be 11 yards away from your closest teammate if you get tagged otherwise upon him using Blood Nova (another interesting ability) he would get more blood energy back, 1 for each player within 11 yds of the Boiling Blood target. When he reaches 100 energy he will cast a Mark of the Fallen Champion on a random target except the tanks, who will take the same damage taken by the tank each hit Saur lands.

Because of the above abilities, positioning is crucial. If your team is bunched up he will get the chance to cast a helluva lot of Marks and that will bring extra stress to the healers (most comps are running 2 healers for 10 man and 5 for 25). If the target of the Mark dies, Jr will be healed for 5% of his total HP so you will not be only down a player but also will have a harder task ahead of you.

Periodically Saur will also call a couple of Blood Beasts and they will give him 1 energy per hit made as well so it’s important to kill them on sight and not get gibed. Here is what smart positioning does. Ideally you will want more ranged DPS than melee for this fight because you can keep your spacing for Boiling Blood and be able to kill the Beasts until they reach you. As a Shaman this is where you shine, with Thunderstorm and Earthbind Totem.  With a bit of luck you won’t need to use the totem if you have a strong partner that can also CC the beasts (they cannot be feared) so you get some damage done on them plus some mana back? Good times!

You will want to be at maximum range from Saurfang, that’s a given, but you also want to be in a place where you can easily kite the beast around without having to get into somebody’s 11yd bubble. I found that the location I’m most comfortable with is at the bottom of the big platform leading up to him, far into the corner. You would then be able to kite the beast towards the enclosed area of the balcony (where the loot chest will spawn) without anyone else having to run out of your way.

If carefully executed, the beasts thing will at most have you move one or two yards back, if TS isn’t enough or on CD, just then use the totem and /profit.

The beasts will be spawned roughly every 10% of HP the boss looses so you will know when they will be summoned. Plus, if you’re using DBM or BigWigs or any other similar addon you’ll have a visual representation of the CD on this ability.

The best time to use BloodLust (again, wait for the RL to call out for it or ask when he wants it used) would be around 30% HP left on Jr. That’s when he will hit a soft enrage and the healers will need the breathing room. That’s also when adds will be summoned so you get to not go full out DPS on the boss because you have to kill them dead. Not a big win for us ranged but at least we’re helping out so it should be cool. Remember to always switch to the closest beast to you as soon as possible.

Elemental Tips:

1. When beasts are spawned you don’t actually need to immediately (as in split second) switch, as long as you make sure your CL is off CD. Hit the button for the extra damage on the boss plus both adds (in 10 man) and then rock your beast’s world with DS, LvB, LB and then TS if you’re the one with the aggro.
2. When you see that Blood Beasts are about to be summoned and the LvB CD just ended don’t blow it on the boss, instead LB again so that it will be up from the get go when the beasts actually spawn. You really want your hardest hitting attack fly as soon as possible (except if you want to go with 1.)
3. If you are the target of a Mark of the Fallen Champion, depending on how far into the fight it’s cast, you would rather want to keep yourself alive rather than doing damage to Saurfang. For instance if you’re it before the 30% soft enrage you will want to let the healers handle this. If you’re tagged on the enrage or immediately after (that would be down to 20% on the boss, until things cool off in their department) you will want to keep yourself alive. Spamming LHW will be enough for this. Another moment when you will want to self-heal is if you get gibbed on the last 10%. A lot of players relax early and might miss the Mark, if you get it and die that’s another 5% more HP that they’ll be too relaxed for.

Totem Selection:

Earth: Stoneskin Totem, for the extra mitigation on the tanks, thus making it easier for any Mark victim. Switch for Earthbind only if needed.

Fire: Go with Fire Elemental in the start and then, when it expires, ToW is the best choice.

Water: Depending on if you have a Paladin that dishes out GBoW, Mana Spring or Healing Stream Totem

Air: Wrath of Air Totem all the way, baby!

The 25 man version doesn’t bring a lot more, just 5 beasts and more HP on them and the boss. Well, that and, given the extra numbers, more Marks will be cast so watch out.

Personality Change

I oft find it amusing to see my personality and the way I interact with people based on the character I’m playing. I’m not all that much into the RP part of the game although I would like to (I even created a character that OMG! has a background story that is not a Mary-Sue type thing) but… I’d best explain it on a per character basis.

When I play my Shaman, my main, I am very tactful. I offer advice and help if I’m very bored. I do not speak a lot in raids (or type) unless I have something really important to say. I end up deleting most of the stuff I begin writing because I either do not find it witty enough or deep enough to share. I take on extra duties beyond what my role in the raid implies (because I’m just that nice and will spot-heal/dispel/help CC/whatever I find I can do to ease somebody else’s pain) and I go to great lengths to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I never get angry, or if I do, I do not let that transpire in /s, /p, /g or /raid. I will try to put together raids or send out invites, sort out roles and explain tactics.

When I’m on my Death Knight I’m almost the opposite of the above. I will make silly jokes, call out players for mistakes, demand justice, insist for anything that might bring me an advantage. I’m ruthless and cutthroat in both manners of language and approach. I will point out bad gemming and bad gearing (roll for a+AGI item from a different DK? Come on!), I will throw a tantrum over loosing a roll for an item I badly wanted and will express it in writing, not to its fullest potential but still. You do not want to meet me when I’m on my DK and am having a bad day. I will pick fights with people just for the fuck of it and not give up even tho I might be proven wrong (but that almost never happens). I’ll be snappy and go the extra mile to make others feel what I believe to be an intellectual superiority.

My Warlock is the bridge between the two. I am calm in general but likely to call out people that get on my bad side. I will cry a little on the inside when I loose a roll on an item I wanted but will congratulate the winner nonetheless. So far I haven’t been in any raid on this toon yet (dinged 80 6 hours of playtime ago) except for a VoA 25 PuG the other day so I don’t know how I’d react under raid circumstances. In the VoA raid I was humble and happy to have been invited seeing as I had the worst gear of the lot but when this aspect of my ‘lock game will improve I wonder and actually can’t wait to see how it will go down.

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!

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!

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.

Shaman Changes for Cataclysm

I’m quite sure that everybody’s heard about the new tricks your favorite class will learn once Cataclysm hits so I won’t list them, I’ll stick to the Elemental side of things.

“Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we’re considering for this ability:

Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman’s Haste for the next five swings.
Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman’s next Fire attack by 20%.
Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman’s next healing spell by 20%.”

That is the exact blue post. While pretty straightforward in the way it will and should be used, this Unleash Weapon thing is something that will need to be worked into our rotation and for spice it up. It’s not just a damage boost, it can also be very, VERY tricky to get right if and only if the Flame Shock ticks aren’t considered an attack. I’m quite new to  the theorycrafting and I might have my facts wrong but to me damage done = attack. If I’m correct this will be very problematic because you’d always want to use it for your main nuke, Lava Burst. Now, with the FS ticks being affected by haste you will most certainly not be able to do so unless you use Elemental Mastery and stand on top of the boss so the spell don’t need to be flyin’. I’m guessing I’m either wrong in my assumption or there will be future clarification on how this will work or it will turn from an OMG GIEF! spell to something that won’t be really worth the GCD and nerves. Only time will tell.

“Spiritwalker’s Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.”

This is really sweet for us and our resto brethren as well. The main problem with the Elemental play-style is that in order to be competitive we need to be rooted in place and go back to being the TBC turrets. While moving we’re crap and unless while going from point A to point B we get a lucky Lightning Overload proc and we get to squeeze in a Frost Shock (if not on CD) that’s dead time right there. I’m guessing that they’ve thought of this for a specific reason and not just because of the countless QQ threads so… yeah… I’m looking forward to it and to putting it to good use. Here-here!

“Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group’s spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock’s Demonic Pact, so you can’t benefit from all of them at once. We’re also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.”

1. Yay, we get to throw totems around!

2. Yay, we get ToW to scale!

3. Yay, we get to throw totems around!

4. Only Searing? QQ to come

*Edit : they’re toying with the idea of making any totem one that can be used at range. I hope they include Magma as well, it’s getting really old really fast to gave to run in, drop magma, run the fuck away from Cleave damage then to run back into it in about 15 seconds (2.5 for running in and out). At one point I said fuck it, I haz shield, i no di….! And then got cleaved in half by Marrowgar. The tank decided to WALK instead of RUN in to pull and somehow I got ahead of him in my race to find the perfect spot for mah totemz (Fire Ele in this particular case).

“Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.”

Moar range? Good! Moar options and moar running to drop in magma if they don’t make it ranged.

Earthquake? Yes, please! On trash we really can’t hold a candle to other classes so this is a very nice buff. It will be channeled tho but just imagine magma + persistent AoE. Key word Persistent, mind you!

“With the Mastery system, we’re also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature’s Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.”

This can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. In giving you more freedom to choose fun talents or those that will let you develop your own play-style they are opening up a horizon of opportunity to what can safely be called a pretty boring rotation and, some say, spec. As is the current state of things in the game there will always be a cookie-cutter spec and you’ll find it over at Elitist Jerks. PuGging, on the other hand, will make you see even crazier things that you see now. 71 points in the Elemental tree? That’s NOTHING! 75 is better, or even a 44/32/0 spec might seem viable to some, for some of the added benefits from the Enhancement tree. While I love the option to be able to come up with my own spec I dread the diopters I’ll get from staring at others’ specs in awe.

“Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.”

No more +hit gems sounds nice, although they won’t be removed or completely useless. Chances are that the better your gear will get at 85 the less you’ll need to gem or enchant hit. Either way, this will be really sweet talent exactly because you might need it or you might not, thus freeing one point to put in Improved Stormstrike or whatever.

“Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Elemental
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Elemental Overload

Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful ‘bonus” version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.“

Nice but I’m not sure if it’s nice enough, it seems a bit lackluster. The big bonus for our tree is something we’ve had all along +1? Oh, how… wonderful…

Of course,  Blizz said that this is a work in progress so I hope we get more juice out of the ultimate Mastery bonus. As a side note, I’d like to see a haste bonus instead of crit but meh…

Stories of failing. Chapter 1/153246

Definitely not a new concept and one of the oldest and best implemented thoughts in the mind of WoW players and not only. There is a big amount of Fail out there and you have to try to not be a part of it. It’s impossible, lemme tell you that. It might not be your fault or it might not have anything to do with you personally but everybody fails at one point or another. I’m’a start you off with an example of my own failing and then move on to the really bad part: others’.

My latest FAIL moment on my shaman was a couple of nights ago, and, of course, by night I mean 6 AM. Random HC pops up and it’s ToC. I was actually relieved that it’s not HoR which can drive you bananaz if you get that one tank that is gearing up, or the healer with lag or the dps that can’t tie his shoelaces alone (I have nothing against you, guys, but I think I wiped in Halls of Reflection more than I did in ICC. And it was your fault! /sob). An instance that is not HoL or HoS or any other instance where half the mobs resist my spells? Gief! OK, so the loading screen does its thing, we mount, kill faction champs both horse, or rather wolfback and after dismounting and then comes the part where you loot the chest, watch everybody else roll on the item Disenchant and then talk to the Belf. Side note: this was always a point of high suspense for me. I wanted Eadric and I wanted him to Drop Aledar’s Battlestar for my Enhancement offspec. Farmed for 2 of them for 1 month and then the first ToC 10 I ran I got upgrades. Meh. Still, it was one of my “oh, GOD, let it be him, let it be him!” moments in the game. Surely enough, he comes and the 3×3 mobs assume position.

The tank goes to the usual starting point, left as you look at Eadric, and does his thing (seriously, are there groups that start on the right? Anywhere?). I cast my totems and start LvB and CL-ing away. The priestess goes down and I’m half asleep at this point. Getting a heroic I like is nice but it’s not going to race my pulse. I then TAB to the next target which just so happens to be the priestess from the second group of mobs and paying no attention I start my rotation of OMFGIMBADPS. In two or three seconds I have all 3 on me and while the tank and melee dps are slowed down by the stupid bubbly Argent Monk that had just died and can’t intervene, the healer is getting omnomnommed for trying to heal me. Wipe. Plain and simple. The group was cool, though and we laughed through it and then went on to get our two frosties each. After that I logged my DK which I am insanely trying to gear up right now, to the point where I no longer care if an item has STR or AGI on it, if it has a better GS than what I have I’ll take it! Not really, but the principle stands. I want to have the GS to be able to PuG ToC 25 and I have to carefully plan this as I do not have “Achie” and need to find the Tuesday night group that is desperately in need of people. It wasn’t meant to be this week. Maybe the next. Short inner pep talk.

A surprisingly short queue has me standing in HoL. The warrior tank looks really good with his 47k HP unbuffed and the healer is a 40K mana paladin. Good short run, says I, and then I go on to greet everybody with my baby blue writing. I always queue as Dungeon Guide. Don’t really know why, tho, I guess I like the color. Or maybe it’s the closest that I’ll ever be to leading a raid, despite not having any actual powah. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The tank says Hi and then turns around, runs through the swirly instance entrance and vanishes, not dropping group. “Erm… tank?” I say in a squeaky pigtailed Belf voice. I hate it when somebody calls me by the function but that never stooped me from doing it. Do unto others? Nonsense! “You’re all on your own,” the tank replied. “Come back or drop group,” the pally healer stepped up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you lol” And we were all flabergasted. He did not drop group, but the healer and a rogue did, immediately. The balance drood and I waited out the 5 (?) minutes and then kicked the tank, I switched specs and tanked for the new group. I really hate tanking. With fervour, especially tanking trash. Bosses I can handle, the taunt button is hit off CD and I manage to pull it off but invariably I have one DPS in the group that keeps dying when I tank. Statistically it’s the 3rd one down, dunno why. The new group consists of me, DK tank, Boomkin, Resto Shaman, Ret Pally and Hunter. The hunter apparently did not agree to the slow pace I had in mind and kept pulling. And pulling. And pulling. Without any Misdirect. He just pulled 2 packs at a time and after that let me and the healer deal with it. The shaman was awesome and did a bang up job but we were both growling. As we had kicked the previous tank we were all out and had to deal with it.

At one point I tell the hunter, in a very polite manner, that if he is going to pull for me he can at least MD. He does not. I tell him again to MD, explain while auto-attacking, inbetween taunts and casting D&D and Howling Winds, so in extremely short sentences, that I haz 2 taunts, Dark Command and Death Grip and that he is pulling to many at once and my gear doesn’t allow massive threat generation. Heck, the best item I’ve got is the Onyxia Head quest trinket reward! Nothing. He was from Hakkar and that might explain it. It’s better if you’re not in the know but if you’re curious go Google the stories about them. They’re all true, I swear!

After a short talk with the Shaman we decide to let the hunter die the next pull. Which we promptly execute, in outstanding fashion. He was dead within 2 seconds and I did nothing. NOTHING, you hear that? After he died I D&D’d and did my thing and we moved on.

“Rez plx”

…

“REZ PLS”

…

Hunter drops group.

Damn, that felt good. Tomorrow I think I’ll ride a bus without a ticket!