Shamen (Shamans?) and the ultimate fighter. . .

I still wonder, what is the plural of Shaman? Do you add an s, or is it like man and turn it to men? I have no idea. That is not the point of this blog however. I was messing around with talent calculators, plotting where to take my little shammy and through the course of it, got really excited. Enhancement looks really cool and I am looking forward to bringing the pain 2 handed. There also looks to be a good amount of mana replenishment abilities, so I can switch from water shield back to shock shield. I'm leaning heavily towards including 3 points of static shock in the build, which seems like pure win for me, however in looking around, I hadn't seen any builds with it. Elemental def also looks like fun, caster in mail who can throw big damage and AoE? Yes please! Resto. . .eh, its heals. I have my druid already, I'll prolly dual spec at 58 just to get some free instance runs, but its more of a luxury than a necessity if I have an extra 1000g laying around. All in all, very excited about how things are working out, pretty super excited to level him and put him through his paces (as I usually am with alts).

My referrence to the ultimate fighter is more an idea than the reality show on spike. If you could combine aspects from different fighters into one "ultimate fighter", who would it be? I've thought about it and here is my list.

First part of a fighter is their physical tools, strength, speed, agility, overall athletic ability. I want my fighter to be the incredible hulk. I want Brock Lesnar. A 300lb man who many have said is the strongest man they have seen who can also do a shooting star press? Hell yes. The next thing a fighter has to have is a warrior mentality. Forest Griffin will fight anyone and he keeps coming and refuses to quit. If you have seen any of his fights with Stephan Bonnar, they weren't battles of skill, they were battles of will. Fighters also have to have an ability to take a hit and for my money, no one can take hits better than Dan Henderson. He routinely eats shots that would rock lesser fighters. Yes, it is good to have good defense, but everyone gets tagged once a while, you need to be able to take the hit and keep coming.

Those are the physical and mental attributes I want in my fighter, what about skills? I want my fighter to have knockout ability. I want the punches of Chuck Liddell and the kicks of Mirco Cro Cop. Yes, there might be better technical punchers and kickers in MMA, but those two have one shot knockout power consistantly. In addition to punching and kicking, I want my fighter to have vicious Muay Thai strikes. No one in MMA has a better thai clinch than Anderson Silva. If you saw any of his fights with Rich Franklin, Silva dominated him with knees from the clinch. A good fighter has to be able to takedown his opponent. The best ones can do it from anywhere at any time and end up in a dominant position once on the ground. The best at this is Karo Parysian. (Yes, I have to take the Judo guy here). Lastly, once on the ground, a good fighter has to have strong Jujitsu to either transition to a strong offensive position, or defend against his opponent doing so. Again, I want the skills of a man who is head an shoulders above everyone else in MMA: Demian Maia. I have heard other people have strong Jujitsu, BJ Penn has great skills, but Maia is on another level. He transitions at will and finishes elite fighters with little effort.

That's my ultimate fighter, anyone think I missed something?