Friday, June 25, 2010
Devastating
Damn. Encountered an Alliance Warlock with a full Wrathful set of gear, coming in at a 6135 rating: Lunaeclipse-Bloodscalp. Needless to say she did very well in Warsong Gulch.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Porn is Everywhere
During my Ahune runs I was grouped with a Mage named Seancody. Did end up sending him a whisper:
After I'd left the group I realized the question was a little vague. Turns out the Armory currently lists sixteen toons named Seancody. I wonder how many of them realize that's the name of one of my favorite gay pornagraphers.
After I'd left the group I realized the question was a little vague. Turns out the Armory currently lists sixteen toons named Seancody. I wonder how many of them realize that's the name of one of my favorite gay pornagraphers.
That's a Rap
My Zul'Gurub run this morning finally involved a mount dropping.
Felt pretty good to have Martini sitting atop her new Swift Razzashi Raptor with Bloodlord Mandokir's form beneath her. It's really a fun mount with a lot of bounce. It will also be helpful in PvP, letting Martini blend with other Horde mounts.
The Armory feed does show the number of attempts it took, so I'm estimating around fifteen. I suppose that's reasonable. It does show twenty-seven Kael'thas Sunstrider kills and still no fucking bird.
Felt pretty good to have Martini sitting atop her new Swift Razzashi Raptor with Bloodlord Mandokir's form beneath her. It's really a fun mount with a lot of bounce. It will also be helpful in PvP, letting Martini blend with other Horde mounts.
The Armory feed does show the number of attempts it took, so I'm estimating around fifteen. I suppose that's reasonable. It does show twenty-seven Kael'thas Sunstrider kills and still no fucking bird.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Hope Blooms
Maybe servers are slowing coming up. Sure hadn't seen this screen in a while!
Alleria isn't where I wanted to be but whatever.
Alleria isn't where I wanted to be but whatever.
It Patches Well
The application of the latest content patch" has not gone well at all. They initially estimated completion at the regular 2pm EST but everything is still offline. It's twenty minutes after when they said they'd provide another status but no word. Naturally the forums are on fire. I posted a quick "I think Ahune is fighting back. Or maybe it's one of the Ruby Sanctum guardians." on page 47 of a General Forums whiner post moments before it got locked. Checking the forum now gives a huge Battle.Net error screen:
Hehe. Awesome customer service response… too much flaming and no more forums at all!
Hehe. Awesome customer service response… too much flaming and no more forums at all!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Flame On!
The Midsummer Fire Festival started up today. Hate how these stupid events suck up my time; Blizzard really know how to keep me reeled in. Thankfully Martini, Aenara, and Sloosh already have it done. Dragging Decimate along as Favor does the Honor/Extinguish the flames things in the old world for the Mage ports. Followed the comments in Flame Warden of Kalimdor, getting them all done including Stealing Thunder Bluff's Flame. Going to save Stealing Orgrimmar's Flame for later when it's less popular and less active.
Only had one PvP encounter when Decimate and Favor got separated. Favor didn't have the flight path so she had to hoof it from the Exodar. Crossing the bridge to Bloodmyst Isle, some stupid cow warrior, Kuitrurah, charged my Pally in full tanking gear! Killing this pathetic Arms Warrior was easy. A Shadow Priest, Fynnlee, happened upon us as I dealt the killing blow. She did manage to get me to half health, but I ended up out running her with Pally speed.
The Lord Ahune encounter is the same once started. With the cross-realm LFG tool it was pretty easy to run on all my 80s except for tanking with Faerune. All of the adds are immune to Frost which is conveniently a Death Knight's primary form of threat. The cloak drops are mostly useless but it's any easy two Frost Emblems. The only character to get the updated Frostscythe of Lord Ahune was the Warrior. Of course.
Only had one PvP encounter when Decimate and Favor got separated. Favor didn't have the flight path so she had to hoof it from the Exodar. Crossing the bridge to Bloodmyst Isle, some stupid cow warrior, Kuitrurah, charged my Pally in full tanking gear! Killing this pathetic Arms Warrior was easy. A Shadow Priest, Fynnlee, happened upon us as I dealt the killing blow. She did manage to get me to half health, but I ended up out running her with Pally speed.
The Lord Ahune encounter is the same once started. With the cross-realm LFG tool it was pretty easy to run on all my 80s except for tanking with Faerune. All of the adds are immune to Frost which is conveniently a Death Knight's primary form of threat. The cloak drops are mostly useless but it's any easy two Frost Emblems. The only character to get the updated Frostscythe of Lord Ahune was the Warrior. Of course.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Back in the Kitchen
Until today Sloosh was my only maxxed cook. Martini had been sitting on 163 Dalaran Cooking Awards for a couple of months so today she went in to pick up the Chef's Hat, earning that silly Cooking with Style achievement. I had gotten her skill to 425 so she was able to drop Fish Feasts as needed. About twenty minutes of fishing in Wintergrasp netted enough raw fish to be done with it. I must say… the Chef's Hat really speeds up cooking.
Martini will need to start doing the Fishing Dailies again to get all the Dalaran recipes bought. Guess Aenara and Favor will be next.
Martini will need to start doing the Fishing Dailies again to get all the Dalaran recipes bought. Guess Aenara and Favor will be next.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
More Heroic 10'ing
Martini had a fairly good night in Heroic ICC10. Got through the lower citadel without much trouble. We decided to head over to The Plagueworks where both Festergut and Rotface went down on our first attempts. The Malleable Goo on Fester was only an annoyance with proper positioning and raid awareness. The Vile Gas addition to Rotface was dealt with relatively easy. At least it seemed since I wasn't healing. *snicker*
Spent over an hour on Blood Prince Council to no avail. Took a while to get fucking Kinetic Bombs under control then we still had positioning problems. There's more to do this week for sure.
Picked up a few things this run: Shawl of Nerubian Silk, Abracadaver, and Taldron's Short-Sighted Helm. The cloak and the helm are offspec "in-case" side grades, but it appears I'll actually be using the Heroic Abracadaver. The fucking Spirit on Frozen Bonespike itemizes poorly enough for me to not use it with Bulwark of Smouldering Steel—for now. Shaman using a staff—horrible. Really ready for a Royal Scepter of Terenas II or a Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King. *sigh*
Spent over an hour on Blood Prince Council to no avail. Took a while to get fucking Kinetic Bombs under control then we still had positioning problems. There's more to do this week for sure.
Picked up a few things this run: Shawl of Nerubian Silk, Abracadaver, and Taldron's Short-Sighted Helm. The cloak and the helm are offspec "in-case" side grades, but it appears I'll actually be using the Heroic Abracadaver. The fucking Spirit on Frozen Bonespike itemizes poorly enough for me to not use it with Bulwark of Smouldering Steel—for now. Shaman using a staff—horrible. Really ready for a Royal Scepter of Terenas II or a Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King. *sigh*
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Back Into the Thick of It
So Martini's GM informed me last night that he needs me back in Enhancement since our regular Death Knight population has dwindled to zero. It always annoys me how he prioritizes melee DPS over the casters. Currently we don't have a Demonology Warlock for Demonic Pact, yet he hasn't asked our sole regular Lock to change from Destruction.
At the moment I can't make a compelling argument to retain my favored spec since another Elemental Shaman joined. He appears to know what he's doing plus attends regularly. Though I am doing more DPS, it's only a gear thing. Plus my Enhancement offset is nearly as good as my Elemental. So it looks like I'll be at Rogue and DK elbows again with Spirit Wolves howling.
It's been months since I've dusted off the melee gear or even thought about the Enhancement rotation… errr, priority system. Figured I needed to visit Elitist Jerks for some review. I'd noticed an Enhancement Shaman in the Druid's guild, Jinnä, do some impressive DPS that involved a lot more Fire Nova than I remembered mine ever showing.
Instead of heading directly to the Think Tank summary I started in the Class Mechanics forum where I found an interesting thread, [Enhancement] BiS gear and set-up discussion (3.3 and onward). The first thing that startled me was seeing this ability priority order:
Whining aside, I was very surprised to see Flame Shock at the number two spot. Then I noticed that the gear list included the "caster" trinket (Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice). I'd heard of this relic being used by healers but for some reason it surprised me to see it on melee. Haste seems to be the sweet stat on all upper-geared classes regardless of role or talent specialization anymore. While I really like have my attack power break 11k with Totem of the Avalanche, I suppose I could give this a shot.
The talent build on this thread was also a little disconcerting. Glyph of Feral Spirit and Glyph of Stormstrike were familiar. I'd laughed the Glyph of Flame Shock out of Elemental use many patches ago so seeing it here made me laugh out loud. Jinnä is using Glyph of Fire Nova so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this choice. I may try to sneak in Glyph of Lava Lash or Glyph of Windfury Weapon for old time's sake.
As for the actual talents, I see extreme pains were taken at avoiding any mana conservation. Namely Elemental Focus, Shamanistic Focus, and Improved Stormstrike were not chosen. This is where I see reality clashing with theory. While Shamanistic Rage makes filling up a mana bar trivial at my gear level, it does still require something to smack for seven to ten seconds. Boss encounters don't always allow that. Yet the above priority list will be making damn sure I'm using my mana.
So while I agree with all three points in Improved Shields, I don't feel that a human dealing with latency can really make use of one point in Reverberation. Where to put this stray point? Elemental Focus and Shamanistic Focus are too specific. I considered Ancestral Knowledge for extra mana, Elemental Warding for slight damage reduction, or Totemic Focus since I'm always dropping totems. But Initially I'm going with Improved Stormstrike because it will have the most consistent use and provides the most generalized return.
I would like to peruse the standard summary in the Think Tank, but I'm currently getting a "502 Bad Gateway" error trying to access it. That's fine. It's going to take me an hour just to respec and figure out my bag space. Carrying around three entire sets of gear is difficult for a pack-rat like me. *snicker* Probably going to have to re-gem everything once I get Rawr to review things. *sigh*
At the moment I can't make a compelling argument to retain my favored spec since another Elemental Shaman joined. He appears to know what he's doing plus attends regularly. Though I am doing more DPS, it's only a gear thing. Plus my Enhancement offset is nearly as good as my Elemental. So it looks like I'll be at Rogue and DK elbows again with Spirit Wolves howling.
It's been months since I've dusted off the melee gear or even thought about the Enhancement rotation… errr, priority system. Figured I needed to visit Elitist Jerks for some review. I'd noticed an Enhancement Shaman in the Druid's guild, Jinnä, do some impressive DPS that involved a lot more Fire Nova than I remembered mine ever showing.
Instead of heading directly to the Think Tank summary I started in the Class Mechanics forum where I found an interesting thread, [Enhancement] BiS gear and set-up discussion (3.3 and onward). The first thing that startled me was seeing this ability priority order:
- Maelstrom Weapon x 5 stacks - Lightning Bolt
- Flame Shock
- Stormstrike if debuff not active
- Lightning Shield if not active
- Fire Elemental
- Magma Totem if not active
- Spirit Wolves
- Shamanistic Rage
- Earthshock
- Stormstrike
- Lava Lash
- Fire Nova
- Magma Totem
- Lightning Shield
Whining aside, I was very surprised to see Flame Shock at the number two spot. Then I noticed that the gear list included the "caster" trinket (Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice). I'd heard of this relic being used by healers but for some reason it surprised me to see it on melee. Haste seems to be the sweet stat on all upper-geared classes regardless of role or talent specialization anymore. While I really like have my attack power break 11k with Totem of the Avalanche, I suppose I could give this a shot.
The talent build on this thread was also a little disconcerting. Glyph of Feral Spirit and Glyph of Stormstrike were familiar. I'd laughed the Glyph of Flame Shock out of Elemental use many patches ago so seeing it here made me laugh out loud. Jinnä is using Glyph of Fire Nova so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this choice. I may try to sneak in Glyph of Lava Lash or Glyph of Windfury Weapon for old time's sake.
As for the actual talents, I see extreme pains were taken at avoiding any mana conservation. Namely Elemental Focus, Shamanistic Focus, and Improved Stormstrike were not chosen. This is where I see reality clashing with theory. While Shamanistic Rage makes filling up a mana bar trivial at my gear level, it does still require something to smack for seven to ten seconds. Boss encounters don't always allow that. Yet the above priority list will be making damn sure I'm using my mana.
So while I agree with all three points in Improved Shields, I don't feel that a human dealing with latency can really make use of one point in Reverberation. Where to put this stray point? Elemental Focus and Shamanistic Focus are too specific. I considered Ancestral Knowledge for extra mana, Elemental Warding for slight damage reduction, or Totemic Focus since I'm always dropping totems. But Initially I'm going with Improved Stormstrike because it will have the most consistent use and provides the most generalized return.
I would like to peruse the standard summary in the Think Tank, but I'm currently getting a "502 Bad Gateway" error trying to access it. That's fine. It's going to take me an hour just to respec and figure out my bag space. Carrying around three entire sets of gear is difficult for a pack-rat like me. *snicker* Probably going to have to re-gem everything once I get Rawr to review things. *sigh*
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Shadow Power
It's been almost a month since I encountered the Twin Terrors Shix-Feathermoon and Carverll-Feathermoon in Warsong Gulch. The two of them kept half the alliance idiots at the graveyard while the Horde ran flags with rapidity. They were nothing short of amazing. Poor Martini had to endure being farmed for a rez or two while figuring this menace out.
Discipline is such a strong Arena/BG spec I had lost touch with Shadow. Namely, I didn't know Dispersion is so OP now. With the glyph, they get 1/3 of their mana back and reduce damage by 90% every minute. Then there's Psychic Horror, an instant CC from huge range with a nice after-effect for melee opponents. Top it all off with the newly huge ranged Mind Flay. Shadow is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
While that's probably surmountable in 2v2s, these two worked very well together, bringing suffering to my random group. Looking over their gear it was all readily accessible emblem armor and PvE weapons/trinkets. Their specs weren't the same so I'll have to look into the variations. Actually found a very tight (20/0/51) on Amyth-Darkspear that interests me. It seems really strange not to see Shadow Power in there but it sorta makes sense when the three evil DoTs are not enhanced by it. Mind Flay is channeled, Mind Blast has a cast time and a cooldown, and Shadow Word: Death has huge cooldown with conditional back-last—all bad things.
It all looks possible given my current means. Yet I've decided to level my bank/auctioneer Faerawr instead of good old Sloosh. Sloosh already has some gear and all, but I want Engineering. There's no way I'm dropping Sloosh's Tailoring or Enchanting. I'll also keep Sloosh healing in PvE, whereas Faerawr will be PvP Disc and PvP Shadow.
Funny. I remember being so disappointed when Blizzard took stun procs out of the Shadow tree. Doesn't seem to matter anymore though. Heh. See what happens!
Discipline is such a strong Arena/BG spec I had lost touch with Shadow. Namely, I didn't know Dispersion is so OP now. With the glyph, they get 1/3 of their mana back and reduce damage by 90% every minute. Then there's Psychic Horror, an instant CC from huge range with a nice after-effect for melee opponents. Top it all off with the newly huge ranged Mind Flay. Shadow is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
While that's probably surmountable in 2v2s, these two worked very well together, bringing suffering to my random group. Looking over their gear it was all readily accessible emblem armor and PvE weapons/trinkets. Their specs weren't the same so I'll have to look into the variations. Actually found a very tight (20/0/51) on Amyth-Darkspear that interests me. It seems really strange not to see Shadow Power in there but it sorta makes sense when the three evil DoTs are not enhanced by it. Mind Flay is channeled, Mind Blast has a cast time and a cooldown, and Shadow Word: Death has huge cooldown with conditional back-last—all bad things.
It all looks possible given my current means. Yet I've decided to level my bank/auctioneer Faerawr instead of good old Sloosh. Sloosh already has some gear and all, but I want Engineering. There's no way I'm dropping Sloosh's Tailoring or Enchanting. I'll also keep Sloosh healing in PvE, whereas Faerawr will be PvP Disc and PvP Shadow.
Funny. I remember being so disappointed when Blizzard took stun procs out of the Shadow tree. Doesn't seem to matter anymore though. Heh. See what happens!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Heroically Forward
It's one week since Martini got Kingslayer and tonight she got Heroic: Storming the Citadel (10 player) out of the way. Lord Marrowgar was downed second attempt and Lady Deathwhisper died first time. Lootship we'd all done before but Deathbringer Saurfang proved more challenging. We downed him on our third attempt but it took some discussion and finesse. Good times!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)