Weekend update. . .

Well, I had one of the best weekends in a long time this weekend, for a variety of reasons. I got some good sports in, spent time with the gf, and made a lot of progress on the Wow front.

First of all, in non-wow related activities, my Cincinnati Bearcats beat West Virginia in a pretty good game on Friday night. I am a graduate of Cincinnati and I have to say the worst beat down I ever witnessed in person came at the hands of West Virginia. Good to see UC still undefeated. I also went out with my gf on saturday night. I have to say, I love the smaller non-chain mexican places. We had some food and we both had margaritas and boy were they strong! Sunday the Bengals beat the Steelers to take the lead in the AFC north.

With all that other stuff, I was actually able to get some Wow time in between. I think the coolest thing I did was download Rawr. It is a great app that lets you load up your talents and gear and give a rough idea of how it will perform and which items are more beneficial. I've been using it to see how my shammy will perform at 80, and I have to say it is encouraging. With the gear I've accumulated, some easy enchants, and a basic Elemental shammy rotation (flame shock, lava burst, lightning till lava burst is off cooldown), they say I will do around 2500 DPS. Now, that is roughly equivalent to what my pally does, but I am a firm believer it's not what you're doing, but how you're doing it, and I want to be doing it as a caster.

I wasn't able to quite get to 80 though. I ran through Culling of Stratholme, Utgarde Pinnacle, and with some major guildie help, managed to get through Trial of the Crusader on regular. In what seemed wrong, backwards and in all other ways ridiculous, we started with my buddy Ruhtra tanking and me healing. Unfortunately the priest chick with the dragon put an end to that, I just couldnt keep up with her smites. Eus stepped in to heal, I switched to enhancement and we downed her and the black knight, and I got some sweet gear for my Elemental set. I shouldn't have a problem reaching the hit cap, although I should be more than good to go for heroics out of the box.

I am about 400k XP from 80, so I should be able to hit that tonight with minimal effort. I think I made the right choice as far as caster DPS/heals goes. I really like shammy healing and looking at the numbers from Rawr, I think I'm gonna love elemental a lot too (8k crit on lava burst, YES PLEASE!). I somewhat worry about losing spirit wolves in doing dailies, but I know elemental has other tools, so I'm not too super concerned. I'm also looking forward to maybe doing some BGs and seeing how that goes. I know I don't like melee, maybe a caster will make things easier.

I hope everyone elses weekend was as enjoyable and productive as mine!

Some quality time with my shammy. . .

Well, in my job I don't work on wednesdays. This gives me an opportunity to put in some quality time during the day when the kiddies (thats code for douchebags who look for lowbies to gank) aren't on, and I can do some leveling.

I started the day at 76 and figured if I made a pretty good go of it, I would be able to hit 78. I managed to do that JUST BARELY. It gave me a lot of time to think about things and strategize for 80 (which I now think I will hit this weekend, YAY!).

First of all, I wonder why I am skinning. I have a leatherworker, but he's not my shammy so I won't be learning new patterns, and I bought both the revenants pieces on the AH (about 155g between them, yes I am a jew IRL). I kind of wanted the spellshock belt for my resto set, but there's a cloth belt from Wyrmrest Accord rep that is just as good, albeit cloth. I actually have a pretty good starter set at 80 ready to go, might do a writeup on it later, the only real piece missing that I would want is the titansteel guardian. Six titansteel bars is a bear (36 titanium ore, blizz you're killin me!). I made the saronite mace you can use at 77, I will prolly try to run some heroic nexus to see if the mace from there drops.

I am definately switching to alchemy ASAP given skinning is next to useless to me. I have epic gem cuts, why not transmute some epic gems? I also need to start running dailies like ASAP. Most of the gear I want is a rep reward from someone (looks like I will wear the tabard for wyrmrest till revered, then switch to Kirin Tor, and get ebon blade rep from quests and dailies), and I also want to get cracking on the cooking dailies (worg tartar is a key part of my hit cap calculations, why not take a free 20 points?).

How do I feel about my Shammy's performance? Well I healed DTK last night, and although our group was overpowered for the instance OMFG! Healing with the shammy is everything I want in 5 mans. I earthshield the tank (making sure to refresh it when necessary) put riptide on him and either toss him a lesser healing wave every now and then or chain heal if the melee DPS are taking damage. I'm rocking about 1000 SP right now which should almost double at 80 (I will go from greens/blues to blues/purples) and I'm not having problems with mana. I think my casting efficientcy has improved although I'm still working on a few things.

Elemental I am a lil nervous about. Well, not nervous as much as not sure how often I'll use it. The major barriers to groups are not having a tank or healer. Obviously I won't be tanking on the shammy, and I'm just not excited about leveling another tank, so it's caster DPS or heals. I wonder: are groups even going to want/let me DPS? Really as much as shammy healing is cool, I wouldn't want to do it all the time. Sometimes, I just want to blast stuff.

Btw WTFspaghetti has an excellent guide for starting shammies here

Tanking Meme. . .

Well, I'm not really a tank. I mean my "main" is a prot paladin in tank gear. I have around 30k HP self buffed. But as one of my guildies Nymeros pointed out, I spend more time goofing around on my alts then actually tanking anything. If someone needs something and I'm not in the midst of a leveling session, I will hop on, tank a heroic and let them collect their loots. Last time I did this, I ran some guildies and a PuG DPS warrior through H UP. I almost had a bout of nerd rage when the red sword dropped leaving our DK and the PuG warrior to roll for it (I had to win it tanking that thing 8 bazillion times. . .maybe not that many, but it was a lot!). Anyways, even though I'm not really a tank, I've done more of it than any other role, so I figured I would participate in the tanking meme posted by Chastity on Righteous Orbs.


What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Five mans. I don't really have any desire to tank in a raid. Too much learning of fights, too much responsibility. I can tell I would not enjoy it.

What is your favorite tanking spell for your class and why?
Consecration. It is the mark of pally tanking. Everything else is nice and all, but it has been my most used spell since vanilla.

What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
Lay on hands. I used to not even have it on my action bar. I have been using it more frequently of late (as necessary of course, not because my healers have been sucking)

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
AoE. Either grinding or holding threat on multiple mobs, no other class has it like pallies.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
Dependance on mana. Any boss that has a silence is like a death blow. It's not even worth bringing a pally tank at that point.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
Leveling an alt on the outside. Seriously, don't bring me to a raid.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?
Paladin. My main is a paladin, my first 70 was paladin, my first 80 was paladin. I wouldn't say I "enjoy" tanking. But I am only confident doing it on paladin.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?
Thats hard to say. Other classes are most definately NOT pallies. DK's have an ability like consecration but not the mitigation. Druids have awesome health but not the AoE threat. Warriors are the closest to pallies but rage is a pain to manage. All the other classes are about even, I wouldn't want to tank with any of them lol.

What is your worst habit as a tank?
I will call this a tie between trying to go too fast (sometimes resulting in over pulls, healer freak out, etc), and forgetting to turn on all my tank abilities (I have forgotten to use righteous fury, devotion aura, etc). I solo so much and rarely ever tank, its a mental exercise to remember to do everything.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
Bad DPS. I don't just mean DPS who don't do much damage, they are annoying too. DPS who pull, they suck. I am the tank, I can take them beating on me, you can't, don't pull. DPS who don't watch aggro. I put out a pretty decent threat. I know my rotations for single target or multi mobs (I like the shield slam on single mobs). If you pull aggro, I'm letting you die. There was a warlock in a recent H UP run who kept constantly pulling aggro. Consequently, he had some repair bills, I'm sure. We had zero group wipes, he died about 4-5 times. If you pull aggro and you're not the healer, you might get a taunt, if you keep aggro, you're dead.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
I think so. There are a lot of factors blizz is trying to balance with very different tanking styles.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
I'm pretty compulsive about omen. I like to keep track of my threat generation to make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
I think other paladins honestly have the biggest misconception about prot. I have leveled prot from about level 40 on. Prot is a mindset, not just a set of abilities. You can't level to 80 as retribution and then expect to be an effective tank (I think this is why most DK tanks suck).

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
See above. Also, I have come to the conclusion the biggest thing about tanking is knowing all the fights. Even though my pally is geared to tank about anything, what I can tank is severely limited because I don't know the majority of instances in the game.

Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
You can't really seperate the two, although with the new icecrown debuff, I think blizz is moving towards the Effective Health model. Avoidance is tricky because I think it leads to spike damage. Mitigating a little damage at a time is better because it keeps from excessive use of the "OH SHIT" buttons. Some avoidance is probably good, but I think moving towards more of a mitigation model is better. There is a reason why Rogues don't tank.

What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
DK's. I have a level 70 death knight that I don't play because he's not that interesting and I have never tanked on him. I know I don't care for melee DPS in instances, so why level another one?

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?
Before we got a taunt, I had a macro for that. I use Omen and Deadly boss mods as well. Thats about it though.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Once I got to the defense cap, I just stacked as much stamina as I could. However, I don't really look for stats, and if something is an upgrade, I can work around it. My gear really isnt to the point there I'm turning down tanking gear (maybe blues).

In other news, got priest to 64 last night, Shammy ran VH and actually hit 76. Four more levels to go, then I switch to Ele/Resto and see about getting in on some raids.

Weekend update. . .

Well, I didnt get any Wow time in until sunday for a few reasons. Friday night and sat was spent with my gf. Her son has an obsession with trains that defies explanation. Anyways, saturday night was Cincinnati vs UConn. My little brother is a student there (I'm an alum) so I got to sit in the student section. I am pretty sure I was on TV a few times, we were in the 2nd row, corner of the endzone. Also, being a 30yo dude in the student section is weird. Younger drunken girls in body paint, generally cute. Younger drunken girls in body paint puking and causing drama, not cute.

Sunday I actually got to sit down and have some quality time with Wow. I pretty much wanted to spend the whole day leveling, which I did. I got my shammy almost to 76. I tried to pug into Violet Hold, but the group broke up due to no tank. I thought DK's were supposed to fix the tank problem. Instead it just gave us another DPS class who refuses to tank. Ugh. I think of DK's even worse because THEY HAVE TO HAVE A MID LEVEL ALT TO MAKE ONE!!! The only comparable I can think of is a warrior, and honestly, if it's your first character, ok, tanking is prolly not a solid choice. But seriously, if you want to instance on your DK, you should at least be ABLE to tank. And yes, I practice what I preach, all of my characters capable of a dual role have dual specs (my mage and lock don't and my warrior probably isn't going to be leveled past 67 like ever).

Anyways, speaking of dual spec, thats the OTHER thing I did this weekend was buy dual spec for my priest. I was originally going to go Holy, I figured that's "the healing tree" for priests. Thanks to Miss Medecina for clarifying things. I read her beginner's guide to both Discipline and Holy, and decided to go discipline. I really like the thought of a powerful shield and penance, and then being able to throw renew around on the DPS. I havent really done any instance healing on my priest (I healed a ramps run once as shadow), so I'm interested to see how it works. I also discovered I can access Plusheal at work, so that will be some goodness.

I have been thinking about gearing my Shammy and when I am going to switch things around. I made some glyphs for my switch to Elemental (I just "discovered" Lava, which seems really good for elemental), and bid on some gear in the AH. I have been skinning with him, but my Druid is actually the leatherworker. I have gotten enough arctic fur to buy both the patterns for the Revenants gear, although I bid on the boots in the AH as a cheaper short term fix. I think I might be able to use the boots for Elemental and resto, I dunno if there is a straight spellpower boot enchant so icewalker shouldn't be a huge issue there. I'm thinking I will drop skinning for alchemy around 78-79 and drop Enhancement for Elemental at 80. As much as elemental seems awesome for instancing, I just can't see leveling without Spirit Wolves. It has become my favorite "OH SHIT" button in the game. I can't quite solo elites as well as on the pally, but in general things die much faster, so it's smooth leveling.

I would LOVE to hit 80 on the shammy before 3.3 drops, although I dunno how possible that is. Maybe 77 on weds, 79 by next sunday I will be a lil short. Then once Shammy hits 80, it's the gear grind. Oh how I love you. . .not.

FUNNIEST. . .THING. . .EVER!!!!

So I was going to post something about DPS, then Darraxus posted a blog about e-peen, and all I could think of was the youtube video "My new haircut". For those of you who havent seen it, watch it here.

Well that got me to thinking "Is there a wow version?" There is. I laughed so hard I cried and couldnt breath.

Gearing for the necessary roles. . .

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking around gearing a healer/DPS hybrid. Obviously the gear won't be completely the same due to the hit cap requirement on the caster DPS gear. Now, I've been trying to read all I can about healing and get some practice in instances, but as many have pointed out, the game at 80 is not the same as the game while leveling.

This brings about my question of the day: Why does Blizzard make it more difficult gearing for the "necessary" roles (tank and healer)?

Now both face challenges in gearing and they are similar but different. Tanks have to deal with the defense cap. Currently only druids are not required to collect gear with enough rating to make them un-crittable by bosses. A tank without the necessary defense rating just isnt a tank. The catch is that it is very difficult to amass enough defense gear to tank heroics without actually running heroics. Doesn't make much sense does it?

Healers have a similar but different problem. There is no standard spellpower rating, no hit cap, nothing that says "you must have X number". How does a healer know they're ready to heal heroics? I can't really figure out any way other than run heroics, and if you kept the group up, you obviously were ready.

One of my guildies Nymeros, has an alt who is a shammy and just hit 80 the other day. Apparently he has had a number of difficulties getting into PuGs as a healer. Now, I will be upfront in saying I respect "quality" DPS. However, most players in the game are not quality DPS. They want to be carried through content despite their performance and collect as many purples as possible. I think it sucks he got booted from groups looking for an easy ride from a geared healer.

My main is a tank, I'm not a great one, I'm ok. However, I understand holding aggro and how to gear a tank, and I crafted most of my tanking gear or got it as rep rewards. I'm not a great healer, I'm ok. For the three classes I heal with, I generally understand what to do at what time, and how to gear and talent them to keep people up. I'm learning, but with groups of approximately my skill level, I'd make it through level appropriate content. The problem is that most DPS don't want to go through level appropriate content. They want to do ToC heroic or Ulduar when they're geared for entry level heroics.

Unfortunately, there really isn't a cure for this. I PuG as little as possible. The reason for this is I just don't care for the majority of Wow players. As a consequence, my characters aren't that geared. I don't really care. I will never tank a raid, I have no interest in the stress, the responsibility or the requirement to know every fight. I am content with just running the occasional heroic with people I know, trust and like, and getting what drops my way.

End Rambling

On a leveling note, the rabbi (my shadow priest) is almost up to 63. I still can't quite afford dual spec for him (I have the gold, but it would just about bankupt me, so I'm gonna pass), but I figure it's not a big deal because I don't run instances in TBC. I definately want to get him dual spec and cold weather flying which will run me about 2k gold and bring my number of chars with that to 4 (Pally, Druid, Shammy, and Priest). My Shammy hit 74 yesterday, I am hoping to hit 75 sunday and keep a modest pace of 2 levels per week. I really can't do more than that because of general non-wow pursuits (gf, college football games with lil brother, etc), still Shammy should hit 80 before 3.3. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on instance groups.

Hope everyone has had a good week, GO BEARCATS!!! (I am a graduate of the University of Cincinnati)

Healing meme: I was tagged. . .

First of all, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had an interesting weekend to say the least. Earlier this year, I was engaged and my current gf and ex fiancee were at the party I was at. Yeah, luckily it ended up not as uncomfortable as it could have been. I also got a pic of my gf and her friend with guitar hero controllers rocking out. I might post it from home (just don't tell my gf I posted pics of her on teh inter-webz . . . or that I have a blog about World of Warcraft lol).

I got tagged by my buddy Ruhtra to join in a lil meme about healing. Now much like almost every other class/role in the game, I don't have an 80 healer, but I've played all the healing classes, and healed instances with all of them.

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Well, this is hard to answer, I have 3 healers, 2 70+ and one on the way, none of them 80, so I havent made a decision yet about which one will be my "primary" healer. The leader in the clubhouse right now is Lefish my 73 Orc Shammy.

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (ie raids, 5 man, PVP)
Primary being only, I've only healed 5 mans, although I've done so with every healing class in the game (ok, you got me, no bandage spec rogue healing)

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Each one is different, although I am horrible with names, I generally just know effects and icon. With Druid I love the AoE HoT. With Shammy I love Chain Heal. With the Priest, don't ask me why, but I love Renew.

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Again, depends on class. With Priest I almost never use "big" heals. Its either Flash heal, renew, binding heal, or Prayer of Healing. With Druid I use most everything. With Shammy I use healing wave less, mostly because I'm chain healing a lot, and unless I pop nature's swiftness to get a big instant heal, there's not much reason to use it.

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
With Druid, it's the HoTs, totally. With the priest it's the variety of healing tools, they can seriously do a little bit of everything. Shammy I would have a hard time nailing a "biggest" strength. Totems are awesome and something no other class has access to, but Chain Heal is a very unique ability (heals like a big heal with some AoE functionality) so I'm copping out and saying those two.

6. In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel is the best healing assignment (in general) for you?
I doubt I will ever heal a 25 man raid, I really have no desire to go over 10.

7. What healing class do you enjoy healing with the most and why?
As I only run 5 mans (at the moment) I've never healed "with" anyone.

8. What healing class do you least enjoy (hate) healing with and why?
See above

9. What is your worst habit as a healer?
I cast too much with leaves me with low mana and major over heals. I got used to healing with a druid, which is constant "maintenance healing", and the mana regen is pretty sick. Shammies and Priests can't heal like that (at least to this point). I am trying to get better with it, but that is my struggle. It used to be not healing DPS, although I've gotten better about that.

10. What is your biggest peeve in a group environment when healing?
DPS who pull aggro and then want to know why I let them die. I didn't let you die, your dumb ass shouldn't be taking damage in the first place. My other biggest pet peeve is under geared/leveled tanks who try to tank things they're not prepared for and want to complain. My main is a tank, you get no sympathy here.

11. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PVE healing?
I think of the healers that I play, they are balanced and it is player skill/gear that determines how good a player is. Obviously there are talent choices, but blizz has made the PvE healing spec pretty obvious

12. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I look at 2 things: Are we wiping and how often am I drinking? Wipes that are my fault (yeah, there have been a few), I try to figure out what I could have done differently. Sometimes I have gone into content under-geared and it showed. More often than not though, I go OOM and its because I cast too much.

13. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
I dont think anyone who doesnt play a healer really understands healing (this includes players of classes able to heal who choose not to). Healing is it's own classification for a reason, and it takes a lot of know-how to do effectively. Since getting into it, I think I like it more than tanking, it is both easier and harder at the same time.

14. What do you think is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
There is an easy thing for new healers to learn? Breaking into healing is to completely change the way that you think and function at other times in the game. You do no damage (generally) and your sole responsibility is to support the group. Your gear choices are different, your use of abilities is different. There is just a lot to learn about healing. As I alluded to previously, learning to heal is as hard or harder than learning to tank.

15. If someone were to evaluate your performance as a healer (via recount), what sort of pattern would they see (ie lots of overhealing, low healing output, ect)?
Generally I overheal a lot, but my healing output is pretty good. I dont think I will ever get away from over healing, but I do need to work on being more efficient with my heals.

16. Haste or Crit and why?
It depends. I used to go for crit with the mindset that a very small benefit all the time (haste) has less of an impact than very low potential for a major benefit (crit). However, in thinking about it, I have almost come back to haste because in thinking about it, crit seems like it would just lead to more over-healing. Now, the major exception to this is with HoTs because while they can crit, you generally arent using them to keep people from dying, more to keep their health at managable levels, so crit makes it easier. [edit - Yeah, I found out HoTs can't crit. WTF!?!?! Makes no sense since DoTs can crit. . .] Honestly, blizz has a tendency to pick what's what on gear and I've never been in a position to be overly choosy with drops, so I get what I get.

17. What add-ons or macros (if any) do you use to aid you in healing?
I use healbot.

18. Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats or do you stack some much higher than others?
Again, it depends. On the Druid and priest it is as much SP and Spirit as I can get and everything else just comes on gear. On shammy I have been shooting for SP and Int (shammy gear generally has a lot of MP5, and I have seen a lot of blue sockets which lead me to SP/MP5). SP seems to be the gold standard and stacking any other stats just seems pointless. Haste seems nice, but because you need so much of it to get any real bonus, it isn't worth stacking for (to me).