Shamans-Core

Rant about a Nub

2009-02-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

Ohh boy. So I'm going to start out saying that I want a new flying mount. Badly. I was one of the first people on my server to have the fast flying skill back in the day.... and I've been on my wind rider ever since!

In the last 2 days, I've done my first 2 heroic CoS runs. First try, we make it under the time no problem... 3 of us roll for the Drake and I lose by a long shot. No problem. Close, but no cigar.

The wife's Oracle egg hatched in to the Green Proto Drake. So jealous..

I am finally exaulted with Wyrmrest, but the mount's 2000 and I'm real low right now.

Okay, here's where I get mad. I decide to go in to another timed CoS run. Actually, it was meant to be just the run for the dialy, but of course we try to get in the timed run. So, we do, with about 10 seconds to spare. I was pulling just over 3K DPS, and a Balance Druid who wasn't doing much the whole time was pulling about 1100 DPS, tops. He's running behind looting thing as we're trying to bust through the trash, going AFK / follow a lot, not pulling his weight. The drake drops, and only him and I roll on it. We both roll and 87, and it automatically gives it to him. The guy doesn't even have his fast flying skill, and probably never will. Plus, I carried his ass all the way through there, giving it my all (cooldowns, food, elixers, mad button pushing).

Just a rant. No big deal really, but DAMN I want a different mount than the Windrider. That damn NUB.

PuGs

2009-02-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

Some Blogs that I follow had touched on this recently. All I ever do is PuGs. I choose not to participate in a GuildGuild these days, as I can't stand '1337 d00d5' or whatever. Me, my wife, and a good friend share the guild bank and use it for storage et cetera. It works out really well because on of my friend's alt is a disenchanter, so we put all our BoEs in the guild bank and he gets to them to DE when he has a chance. My wife is a cook, so she makes food for us all and we can take it out whenever. We consolidate our Crystalized fires/earths/airs et cetera and sell them for the guild bank, which we use for repairs.... plus all the other many uses that we have for it. In these days of WoW, you don't need a raiding guild to see the content, or even to raid. I love it.

PuGs. I love em, and hate them at the same time. Obviously, when the group is going well, it's awesome. When it's not, it can be frustrating. But I think they make you a better player over all, as you have to think on your toes a lot more. I find myself having to off heal a lot more, which can be challenging. It's all about attitude though. You can't join a PuG and expect it to go as smooth as butter... which is where most people go wrong. One bad pull and all of the sudden someone's a NuB, or someone breaks out the L2P (which is my biggest pet peeve of all). And then it's all downhill from there.

Last night the wife and I decided to do a 'quick' Heroic Violet Hold, as they've been going so well lately. The healer must not have been 80 long as he only had 1 epic, and the rest were lower level blues and greens. He just couldn't keep up with the group. And the tank was watching TV or something because he was the last one to the portals every time. BUT, on a positive note, the night before we had done 3-4 heroics with a PuG with no wipes. So it's hit or miss, but each run can be a learning experience. I mean, it IS still a video game... what fun would it be if it was always Easy Peasy? Although last night was a headache, I shrugged it off as a bad group and moved on.

Anyway, my 2 cents. PuGs - it's how I play WoW. I have enough friends IRL to worry about meeting new people online. I've been in enough raiding guilds to know what they're like. I don't play enough to need a guild. And I refuse to 'schedule' video game time anymore.

3.08 Elemental changes

2009-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

Elemental Oath: In addition to existing effects, now increases spell damage done by the Shaman by 5/10% while Elemental Focus Clearcasting is active.
Elemental Mastery: Redesigned. Now increases the Shaman’s critical strike chance by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown remains at 3 minutes.
Elemental Shields: This talent has been removed. It has now been merged with Elemental Warding.
Elemental Warding: Now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. Changed from only reducing Nature, Fire and Frost by 4/7/10%.
New Talent: Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
Storm, Earth and Fire: This talent has been moved up in the tree, and it’s talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to 20/40/60.
Unrelenting Storm: point cost reduced to 3, down from 5. Now does 4/8/12%
Fixed a bug where Thunderstorm (Elemental) was knocking back 15 yards, instead of 20. It should now roughly knockback the correct length of 20 yards.

Love it. Love it a lot. My DPS in heroics went from an average of 1500 to about 2300, depending on the instance and fights of course. My biggest Lava Burst crit is over 12K in a 5 man. I haven't had the pleasure of trying out the new talents in a 10 man yet, so I will report those findings as I uncover them. Even while dropping totems for every fight and doing off heals a lot, I still happen to get first or second in overall damage in a lot of the pugs I run. My warlock buddy in tier 7.5 can still top me, but he's ridiculous.

The first post

2009-01-24T09:12:00.001-08:00

Okay, it's time for my first post. I don't know if anybody's going to read this, but I guess it doesn't matter. I am using this blog as a fix for my World of Warcraft needs while at work, and the proxy has most game sites blocked. Self medication, if you will.

Now, about me and my Shaman.

I'm 27, married, with a beautiful daughter who is almost 2. I've been a gamer since the Nintendo days, and have been hooked ever since. I've always considered myself to be a hardcore gamer, from the first moment that phrase was coined. I started playing World of Warcraft about 3-4 months after the game was originally released. My first toon was a mage who I played until level 16, when I abondoned him for my main, Phhreak the Shaman of Darkspear. When I first started, I had a crappy computer and didn't play much. I very casually leveled my Shaman with a friend of mine, back when the levels took forever, no quest helper mods.. just good old quest readin, grinding fun! I've always been on a PvP server, so I've had my share of ganking, being ganked, camping, and being camped. It never got bad enough where I've wished I was on a PvE server.

Anyway, I'll speed it up here. I leveled to 60, PvP'd a lot and PuG'd UBRS and the level 60 instances. My friend and I joined a raiding guild in an UBRS run one day, and we got our first taste of Molten Core. By this time, I had met my current wife (GF at the time), and I had a screamin' eagle computer setup (at the time). At this time, Molten Core raids had me pretty occupied most evenings trying to muscle our 40 man through MC. PHHREAK YOU'RE THE BOMB!!!!!! We were hung up on Baron Geddon for a few weeks, through the others, Domo no problem to about a month of getting to Rag each week before finally taking him down. We moved on to BWL, AQ40.. and I got tired of the grind. I got married and slowed down on the play time.

When BC was released, I was already down to a part time player as I didn't want to lose my wife! I also got sick of the slightly-thoughtless grind that is PvE. BC 5 mans were pretty much a joke, and the raids were pretty tough and time consuming. So I basically PvP'd the whole time BC was out as I would log on every few days for an hour or two late at night. I never wanted to sit around looking for groups so I would just go and queue up for an instant BG. Did arenas, 10 games a week. Got the shaman to about 350 resilience by the middle of season 2. I decided I didn't play playing the "First target" every time, as when I did arenas I would basically just be a self-healbot and that's it, rarely getting a chance to do damage. I started a hunter, took a long while to level him to 70, and PvP'd with him almost reaching 500 resilience at level 70. I loved to PvP with my hunter as BM (BGs), but it still didn't quite get me to where I wanted to be in the arenas, as any top rated arena team will tell you that Hunters are the hardest to play correctly as there's not much room for error.

Anyway, to the best part. One night my wife and I were having beers after the daughter went to sleep, and I had made the suggestion that my wife start a character (as she had just finished Zelda on the Wii and needed a new game to play). This was just a few months before WotlK was released. She started a rogue, and instantly became hooked! She couldn't get enough! So much that she gave me the go-ahead to finance a new computer for myself and I rebuilt my now older machine for her. I started my very own rogue and we had an absolute blast leveling up together (except that she was a skinner and she just HAD to skin everything). We killed SO many alliance on the way to 70... SO much fun! Anyway, when we hit level 64, it was about 3 weeks until Wrath, and I decided that I didn't want to start having to roll on things against my wife and started to miss playing my Shaman (who also had his fast flyer!), so I decided to pick him up again and let my wife play the rogue... and haven't looked back since!

So I'm not back to 'hardcore', but I at least get to play almost every night for a few hours, instead of a random few here and there. I really really enjoy the changes that Blizzard has made to the game to cater to the less hardcore crowd. The best part is that you don't have to be in a big raiding guild with a bunch of elitist jerk pukes to see the content. I've been PvEing my ass off... getting through most of the heroics, doing some 10 mans. Haven't done any 25 mans except for Vault, and will get in to those in a few weeks when I get a little more hit rating. My wife is right there along with me, learning the game and some of the aspects of raiding/grouping. We do mostly PuGs, since I have a RL buddy who is a great tank, and another one who puts out crazy DPS. So it's either me respecing for healing or us LF Heals and we're good to go (for 5 mans that is). My current spec that I am playing with is Elemental, and I LOVE the changes that were recently implemented! Most of the stuff talked about in this last paragraph will get their own seperate blogs. Anyway, that's me and my Shaman in a nutshell. I'm not extremely hard core, but I know about most aspects of the game as I've been playing for so damn long! Anyway, I hope someone reads this. Welcome to Shamans-Core!

Welcome!

2009-01-10T09:51:00.001-08:00

Welcome to my first blog! This is going to be my WoW fix at work. More to come!