week(end) update. . .

Well, I had a pretty interesting week(end). Have to put the end in parenthesis because I ended up working like 2 days last week. I did get a solid amount of Wow in though, so I was a lil anxious to get back to the blog and share.

First of all, I have come to really love shammy healing. I think I have a pretty firm grasp of my abilities, and I can keep most people up when things get really hairy. We ran Naxx 10 with 3 healers, cleared 3 wings with no wipes till Heigan (I hate him, I don't care what people say, that is NOT fun). I thought it kind of funny, there really aren't any upgrades for me in there. I mostly ran it for the experience. I LOOOOOVE healing stream totem. It took me a while to warm up to, but a semi permanent 300 health a tick is usually good enough to heal the DPS and it's super efficient. I ran recount on the run and while my overall heals were fairly close to the druid, my overhealing was about 1/3. I credit WTFspaghetti's guide which basically said "use these glyphs" lol.

Either I desperately suck at DPS, Rawr is completely wrong, or some combination of the 2. I had never had recount before, don't really care for meters or tracking, but I figured my DPS must be ok, I mean my lava burst crits for like 8-10k. Yeah, apparently not. Standing still, spamming the stock Lava burst, flameshock, lightning bolt or chain lightning till lava burst is off cooldown, repeat, I was able to hit 3500 DPS on pre-Onyxia trash. On Onyxia herself, it dropped to about 2300. Part of that is due to my computer not being able to handle that encounter. I was probably down to 3 frames per second. Rawr says I should be doing 4-5k with the gear I have currently equipped. I don't get it.

I don't like tanking. At all. It bothers me, is a pain in the ass, and is not, in general, fun for me. Even running things I massively overgear is more tedious and a chore. I ran H UP on both Shammy and Paladin yesterday. While on the shammy it was more pew pew (our DPS were 3 elemental shammies lol), on paladin it was fight like hell to keep aggro while the DPS AoE's everything under the sun. Hey blizz, you want to know why there are no tanks? IT SUCKS AND ISNT FUN. When I have problems with multi-target aggro on a paladin, I can only guess how druids must feel (I have tanked a lil on my druid, but never with a group that just AoE's everything).

I ran a couple alts through the thanksgiving day cooking stuff. I picked up the Turkinator achievement on both of them. My Shammy leveled cooking the old fashioned (painful, sucky, expensive) way, so I didn't feel like needlessly chasing turkeys for no reason on him. I shelled out some $$ and got my death knight cold weather flying and a basic flying mount. I figure I will level him. Having a dedicated gatherer and another titansteel cooldown will be useful. I probably won't do much with him, definately no dual spec or tanking, but DK's are pretty fun to level.

I ran a BUNCH of instances and a couple raids over the week as well, almost entirely on Shammy. I really like healing. Its decent, intuitive, and as long as the whole group doesnt wipe, I rez the straggler and we move on. DPS is ok, but it seems like 90% of people are more concerned with "where do I rank on the meters?" than why they're there in the first place. Case in point, got invited to run regular Nexus on my DK. A deathtard wiped the group by pulling half the frozen room going for the book in the middle, then was bragging about being top of the charts on DPS. Guess what, when you wipe the group by pulling a room, doesn't matter how much DPS you do.

I am looking forward to some more messing around this week, and another toon to level makes me happy. I hope everyone else's weekend went well as well!

Enjoying the whole game. . .

Everwrath left a comment on my blog from yesterday, basically saying it sounds like I'm enjoying the game again. This got me to thinking. He's right. I am enjoying the game now, and I wasn't before. I think before the game was more of a chore to pass the time, now it is fun.

There are a lot of things that contributed to my previous situation. I think the first was my chosen role of tanking. Tanking is a stressful, difficult, thankless job. Lower level instances don't drop tanking gear, but you are required to run them to learn them, because you can't tank content you aren't at least familiar with. Every group needs a tank, but it is the most difficult, tedious role to gear up for, and unlike DPS, there is no running with insufficient gear. Basically, tanking sucks. Blizz has tried to do things to make it less of a pain, made tanks do more DPS, easier to level, made lots of craftable tank gear, but in the end, tanking is the roughest role to fill in the game. However, this is not a post about past experiences.

If your only experience of the "endgame" was lousy, your overall opinion of that content would be that it sucks and is not fun. In the real world, jobs that are more difficult and stressful get rewarded (they make more money). In Wow, rewards are generally random or equal no matter the role. Mr 800 DPS in heroics gets the same amount of emblems as the tank or healer. I will honestly say that my experiences as a tank colored my experience of the game. Going back to TBC, gearing for tanking was ridiculous and then you had to know every fight and have control of every situation. I was burnt out. I needed something else.

I turned to alts. My love of many of the classes in Wow is well documented. I've also written many posts about how leveling and instancing are completely different. Finally, it all fell into place for me. I got my Shaman to 80, picked up Elemental/Restoration and started getting geared. I will admit, I had a much easier go of it than I would have. I pretty much skipped the rep grind (I wanted exalted with Wyrmrest Accord and Ebon Blade for their mail items) by running trial of the Champion. However, unlike the Paladin whose DPS spec I didn't care for and felt somewhat unnatural, the shaman DPS spec is FUN. I can blast multiple mobs with chain lightning, I can hit lava burst crits for 9k.

I wrote yesterday that before I knew it, I was geared. They say time flies when you're having fun, they're right. I've been running a ton of stuff on my shammy, both as DPS and as heals, and it is a ton of fun. For example, last night, I healed a timed CoS run, we did the run, I won the drake. The run itself was a TON of fun (even though the cat druid and retardadin kept attacking whatever and taking tons of damage), the drake was just icing (I dont even have 300 riding yet to ride it, working on the gold to buy that, damn dual specs). For the first time in the game, I feel like consistantly at the end game, I'm pulling my own weight.

Another interesting facet of playing the shammy, when I log into the game, and I think about who I want to play, shammy wins. I log into my pally to do my jewelcrafting daily (sooo many patterns left to buy), but I don't really have the urge to play one of my alts. Even my warlock who needs one level to get to 65 (so he can learn northrend enchanting) and my priest (who is dual specced discipline and shadow) don't hold the appeal they did while I was leveling. I want to log into my shammy and do dailies while I wait in LFG. Really, if I could do CoS, VH, and maybe UP/UK every day, I would be fine with that and have a ton of badges. I passed on the heroic daily yesterday, I think it was Old Kingdom, I am not a fan of that instance. In a perfect world, the daily will be something like VH, that I want to run anyways, and just gives me some free triumph badges.

I also decided that with the addition of some enchants and gems, my DPS set is more than adequate. I have never wanted to top charts, as long as my DPS is "adequate" I'm happy. However, I was talking with my buddy Ruhtra yesterday and he brough up the fact that being the most effective healer I can will make me more likely to participate in raid content. This had never really been a consideration for me before because I can't/won't raid tank on my pally and I consider him scrub DPS. I don't even care if he gets DPS drops, he's just there to fill space. Not so with my shammy. So I've been taking a deeper look into how to use my badges to help my healing. I definately need the totem first of all. After last night, I have almost enough emblems for it. I think after that, I will buy the shield. I may head down to Venture bay and check and see if we hold it one of these days because I have more than enough coins for an Elemental totem from there that will be an upgrade (I'm using the level 60 one that increase SP by 33 for lightning spells, blech).

I think tommorow if I'm feeling adventurous I will link my shammy. I would love to get feedback on what gear I should be looking for as far as upgrades.

poof! I'm geared. . .

I don't know how much of it was patch changes, I don't know how much ToC contributed (ok, a LOT), and cloth makes up a large part of my gear, but I am now pretty much what I would consider "geared". I have two things to replace, my shield (crafted epics blizz? seems like a waste downgrading conquest badges just to get an upgrade), and totem (which is my first priority, 19 badges each for resto and elemental). I also really want the mail shoulders you get with badges of triumph, but I really only get those from the daily heroic, so it will be a while.

What I think is kind of strange/funny is the speed and ease of gearing up my shammy as opposed to the pally. First of all, I figured I would have to rep grind and get purples that way. Not so much. I am just about revered with Ebon Blade and Wyrmrest Accord and the purples from exalted are no longer upgrades. I ran a BUNCH of ToC over the weekend as well as the dailies (cept CoS, get to that later), and the drops were good to me. I got the +Hit trinket from heroic violet hold, as well as the robe, which it turns out I no longer need. I got the Abyssal Rune from ToC to upgrade my other slot. I got the mail pants from the black knight on heroic, in addition to the cloth head and cloth boots. Basically the only gear I have left from dinging 80 (I made the titansteel guardian a lil later) is my totem, shield, Revenant's breastplate, shoulders and my 2 capes (I am using the Ebon Blade rep one for elemental, and a BoE spellpower one for resto).

I am not all enchanted up or gemmed completely (I wasn't quite prepared to get geared this fast), but with some easy gemming/enchanting I got some pretty ridiculous numbers. I downloaded Rawr a while ago because it seems like the best way to compare gear and see where I'd be at. Rawr does seem to heavily favor crit, which I guess I could see based on what I've read on Elitist Jerks, but I've been reading shadow priest stuff too, so it's easy to get paths crossed. Anyways, my gear on dinging 80 Rawr said would give me DPS of around 2500 (I think they use a patchwerk type boss for example). Now with my upgrades I will be hit capped, and Rawr showed my DPS to be around 5k. I still really don't know what "acceptable" DPS is, but I would think 5k would be acceptable for 10 man content. I also don't think that number takes Chain lightning or my ability to drink my unlimited mana potions (yay free mana!). Their rotation was Flame Shock, Lava Burst, 5x lightning bolt, repeat. Mine normally ends up being FS, LB, chain lightning, LBx2, repeat. While it does put a slight drain on mana, my pots are plenty without even factoring in replenishment to keep me up.

I am also really close to 450 alchemy on the shammy. I still cant do the master of transmute quest, I need to farm some primal airs for that. While extra pots is semi good, potentially getting 2 for 1 epic gems is just too good to pass up. I still keep doing the JC daily every day on pally because there are always more cuts I need. I am working on the skyflare one for crit (Rawr said its BIS for me, I don't really have a basis for comparison on that, but as crit triggers my water shields so I guess it will work for both). After that its the epic luminous cut and maybe the epic royal cut. I am trying to get as many double duty cuts as I can. Hit really is entirely a DPS stat. I have the epic yellow +hit, and I have a couple melee epic cuts, now it's time to work on caster cuts.

I almost forgot about my Culling of Stratholme "drama". Now, I have recently been pugging heroics, generally with no problems. I usually end up healing, which is fine, I have a full resto set and I think I now have a decent grasp of when to use my abilities (I also have had zero probs with threat, so I'm gonna switch some points around in my resto build into improved healing wave). I got through both daily heroics from the weekend with no wipes (although admittedly with hugely over-geared pally tanks). So I got into a group for H CoS, and they dropped me 2 mins in. I whispered the leader with a WTF? (I hearthed in the middle of dailies to switch gear) and he said "sorry, we're trying for drake". WTF!?!? In other instance difficulties, we had a pretty big problem with a guild run in H VH. There were other problems, but I had major issues keeping the tank up. He was really actually well geared, but I've never healed a DK tank before. I dunno if it was his dual wield build or generally lower health than I'm used to (he had 27k during the run) or just some weakness with DKs, but he seemed to be taking a lot of spiky damage. I don't know if its a lack of SP on my part, or my build, or something I can fix. I do need to get my emergency macro together so I can do instant healing wave. I want to have it hit my focus target and just focus on tank but apart from that, I dunno what else I could do.

I didn't really play on my alts at all this weekend. I can tell I'm really enjoying the shammy because I havent really had the desire to play my alts. I will def try to get my warlock up to 65 to level his enchanting, and I still want to try a shadow priest, but shammy is just so much fun! Hope everyone else's weekend went as well as mine. . .

finding what feels right. . .

Wow is one of those games that gives players LOTS of choices. Although there are nine classes in the game, talent tree decisions can make that number seem much higher (I wouldn't quite say 27 because some classes play similarly regardless of spec). How can someone find the "right" class to play with so many choices? You just have to experiment and play what feels right.

Another thing that makes the whole thing murky is the concept of the endgame. Blizz has set the first 79 levels (soon to be 84) up as this time of continuous improvement and advancement, mostly done solo. You are more powerful than most of the mobs you'll fight one on one, and you can usually take down multiples at once, sometimes with a short time to rest and refresh afterwards. Then you get to the level cap and everything changes.

I have found a couple things in my leveling of multiple characters in the game. In solo content melee characters generally have an easier time of it. Three to four mobs on a paladin, death knight or enhancement shammy are nothing. Three to four mobs get up to a priest and I'm freaking out, dotting them up, dispersing, and praying they die before I do. However, this has no bearing at how things will play at 80 apart from dailies.

I have found "the game" at 80 to be an application of fast AoE on trash, and sustained single target damage on "bosses". I prefer accomplishing this at range for easier targeting and safety. For me, caster DPS is the way to go with additional points given for utility. This is what feels right for me, your feel for the game may be completely different. Rogues, who lack utility and can only melee DPS are useless to me. Hunters who have solid ranged DPS but no other utility are equally so. Warlocks and mages have some measure of additional utility, but fall short of the druid, priest and shammy's abilities to heal. That is a HUGE benefit to me, in addition to any other buffs they provide groups.

The last thing to consider is how the class makes you feel. I have not leveled up a priest all the way to have an accurate comparison. However, in playing my shammy elemental, I just get a little giddy inside. 7.5k crits from lava burst, sometimes I literally say "BOOM!!! You're dead!" Shammy is just enjoyable. Priest might be just as enjoyable, I don't have a point of comparison yet.

What feels right to you? Try to step outside the box and give other classes a chance, you might find one you really like.

Can I haz grp plz!?!?!?

So I have to say, I am really looking forward to cross server PuG's and the new dungeon finder. I am hoping it allows a better mix of what you're looking to queue for. As things stand right now, I've noticed two types of groups: those destined to fail, and none whatsoever.

Speaking of destined to failure, I have a new target of my wrath: ToC. I despise this instance for numerous reasons. First of all, jousting. I despise the jousting mechanic, don't like it, isn't fun, and has nothing to do with how my character plays at other times. Secondly, the instance itself plays nothing like other instances. Its short, just successive "challenges", and the bosses don't just focus on the tank. It also allows people to re-enter after dying (which is almost guaranteed to happen). This re-entry causes a lot of confusion in people who havent run the instance before. Lastly, because the rewards it gives out are over-powered in relation to similar level content, it attracts a lot of people looking for "easy gear" who arent necessarily up to the level of the instance. Case in point, the most recent time I ran this, the DPS, on dying, failed to come back to their bodies to keep fighting. I kept the tank up for around a minute with no DPS.

Besides my hatred of ToC, other instances don't seem to go much better. My shammy is geared almost entirely in blues/purples. I have both pieces of Revenants mail, the titansteel guardian, and titanium spellshock ring. In my elemental gear, while I'm not hit capped for raiding, I have around 10% spell hit which, with elemental precision, should be fine. While I havent run too many heroics, I know that I have the numbers to heal them or at the very least DPS. However, when I was on pally, couldn't seem to find heals. Its frustrating. CAN I HAZ GRP PLZ!?!?!?

I just want to farm some badges and get some rep with Wyrmrest Accord. Once I hit exalted with them, I will have purple gloves, and I will get purple pants (um kilt?) from Ebon Blade from dailies, so I will be almost entirely in purples. I would think that would be enough to farm heroics?

Oh well. In other Wow news, I am about 100k from hitting 65 on my Warlock so I can learn grandmaster Enchanting. That will give me every profession at Northrend level besides Engineering, which I've gone on record as saying I have no use for. My shammy hit 423 alchemy yesterday which is frustrating because everything is green except transmutes, which are on a cooldown. Oh well, another couple days then I can learn meta gem transmutes and then start making flasks.

Still trying to decide who to level next. Priest, Druid, Death Knight, Warrior? Anyone have any feedback?

I can't believe I'm saying this: I agree with the Goblin. . .

I just read Tobold's blog and he had an especially interesting post today. I have to say this upfront, I am kind of a massive fan. His was one of the first blogs that I followed (along with Blessing of Kings). So, the long and short of it was Markco from Just my two coppers allegedly approached him about linking or bannering something about his gold guide. Apparently he's charging more than two coppers for it and was looking for some advertisement. Then he mentioned that Gevlon the Greedy Goblin similarly rebuffed Markco, in a post here.

I don't ordinarily agree with the Goblin. I almost never do. I rarely read his blog unless led to it for some particular reason. I think his brand of anti-social for it's own sake is tiresome and just a means to get attention. In this instance, I agree with him 100%.

I think bloggers are one of the things that make Wow so enjoyable. My main is a Prot Paladin, and I am an ok tank at best. I am middling geared, and have a good aggro rotation, but I just cant seem to remember 27 bajillion fights. However, most of what I do know about paladining (I don't think that's a word, but it should be), I learned online. Most of what I know about playing a shammy, priest, warlock, mage, and druid, I learned online. Death knight I pretty much just hit a bunch of buttons, thats how you're supposed to play them, right? lol I look at gold making as just another facet of the game. Could I make a ton of gold? Probably, but I prefer to grind things and do dailies because that's fun for me, making gold is more like work.

I guess when it comes down to it, I look at blogs as this awesome free resource for people who want information. Trying to use one as a scam to make real life money just seems wrong. As a result, I will no longer be supporting: Just my two coppers, and have removed it from my blogroll.

In a completely unrelated note, something I probably don't say enough. I really genuinely enjoy all the blogs on my blogroll and read them as regularly as I can. However, my job has filters on posting to certain things, so as such, I can't always comment. My job has also blocked some of the blogs in my blogroll (I miss reading Gnomeageddon), but we do what we can. Keep blogging people, its a great mental exercise and it gives me something to do while I should be working.

Ding 80 (again), more shammy thoughts. . .

Well, normally I wouldn't be blogging at 7:30am, but I'm home sick. I don't think it's swine flu (I've heard when you get that, you're freaking miserable), but I have something, so I def want to to get to the dr (hopefully while they're doing maintenance, I'm not an addict, I can quit whenever I want to).

So, I've been working on my Shammy for quite some time, and last night, while doing my dailies, I dinged 80 (and got the 50 dailies achievement, and the achievement for cooking lol). I promptly went and learned all my talents and re-specced from enhancement to elemental, and changed around my resto build. My resto build is pretty cookie cutter 0/13/58 with healing grace instead of elemental weapons. I have been convinced by people who say the benefit from elemental weapons is marginal at best and doesn't scale. As I will probably be running heroics with some inexperienced tanks, threat reduction on heals is prolly more beneficial.

The resto change was pretty minor, I've had a resto dual spec for a while and done some instance healing with it. While I like resto, I really wanted a caster DPS, so the change I was most looking forward to was switching enhancement to elemental. Again, I am using a pretty cookie cutter 57/14/00 build, with my main PvE omission being reverberation. I just don't see that as being very beneficial for the points, and I think the anti-puchback and mana regen talents are more useful.

Another thing I've been doing to prepare for the change is collecting some gear. I got cloth belt and bracers from reg ToC with +hit as well as Revenant's boots and chest. I have some other assorted blues to fill in, and I've been working rep with dailies. I am going to start doing the Wyrmrest dailies every day in addition to the 5-6 Ebon Blade dailies (the intelligence docs one is frustrating, I have a ton of keys, but finding chests kind blows and 35 copper after killing a bunch of mobs kinda sucks). Tonight when my titansteel cooldown refreshes, I will be able to make a titansteel guardian. I also sent 2 jewelcrafting rings, the spellshock ring, and ring of northern tears. I'm socketing the spellshock ring with a runed cardinal ruby since I don't think I'll be replacing it ever, and it can do work in my ele and resto sets.

I took it out to icecrown to test out on some mobs and OMFG!!!! I thought I killed things quick as enhancement, this is a whole other level. Lightning bolt for 2k, flameshock, then a lava burst for 5-7k, dead.

I have to give major shoutouts to WTFspaghetti, plusheal, and drug. As I'm not really an expert on any class, the majority of ideas I have come from other sources. Wow wiki has great talent builds, but the blogs and discussion boards really go more in depth.

Now I have to decide who's next: Priest (Shadow/Disc), Druid (Feral/Resto) or other. . .