Exhaustion

Its an interesting mechanic. When Heroism is cast, everyone who is affected by it also gets exhaustion, keeping them from benefiting from it again. Normally, when it is used, it ends with a wipe or a win (kinda has to doesn't it) so it doesn't matter if you have the debuff. If you died, its gone and if you killed it, you don't need it anymore. It would be interesting if they got rid of exhaustion, but made it less effective, that way even if you have multiple shaman's it doesn't matter as much.

Also, when you work lots and raid lots you get the same debuff. I promise you, tomorrow (and this weekend) I will post more. I might even post two significant posts in a day. I will cover those talent changes.

Sorry for the short shrift.

Death by Shaman

More death!

Lets get right to the nitty-gritty.

Elemental: Its a good, old fashioned rent-a-turret. You be walkin along, in your garden, when a glowing giant blue half-demon appears. He throws some rocks onto the ground and blasts you. First with lightning, then fire, then lightning. You are nearly instantly baked, broiled and thoroughly cooked.

Enhancement: First, you get spammed by emails.... Right, so again, with the giant blue half-demon and the totems. He goes into a frenzy, hitting you with all of the elements, rock to the face, fire to the gut, wind to the eyes, water to the nose. And he tenderizes you with a couple of awesome looking, glowing weapons. Then wolves eat you. His wolves.

Restoration: So this be another one of them boring ones. First you get bored. Then you try killing it again, but you get bored again. So you leave, but they cyclone you. When you fall out, they manage to get off a cast. Then they continue to be bored. Finally, you jump off a cliff because you are bored. Then the other player won.

Forays in Icecrown Citadel

In addition to my walks in that icy palace on my paladin with my guild, I have had the privilege of going there on my lock as a guest for another guild's alt-10s. Recently, the leader has announced that it will be extended until we manage to down the Lich King.

Last week, we one shot everything up to Putricide and three-shot him. This week we one shot the Princes, two shot the Blood Queen, and rescued Valithria on our first attempt.

Then we proceeded to bring Sindragosa to phase three four times, before the raid was called.

Now, all of their raiders were significantly better geared than those of TOC, but it was an educational experience nonetheless.

For the Blood Prince Council, they used only two tanks. They had their paladin tank Taldaram and Valanar while the bear tanked Keleseth. One hunter was on Kinetic bomb duty- he shot at one and his pet was on the other.

Proceeding to BQL, they had the ranged put themselves in the middle ring and had the her tanked on her platform. They called out who should be bitten. Those who were connected ran to the middle (which was empty) and those who had the flames ran to the outer ring (also empty). When she flew up and feared, the tanks and dps scattered on the platform and the ranged and healers were already spread out.

For Valithria, they had the two tanks call out the adds that spawned on their sides.

Priority was as follows:

1. Blazing Skeletons: have pets on passive and bring them to the middle. They do not cast Lay Waste until they have cast a fireball on their initial target, so they can be kited to be in range of everybody. (or so it appeared- this is not fact, only observation).
2. Rot Worms: A little AoE should handle them easily.
3. Suppressors: They only have 35k hp, so they can be taken care of easily. If one (or two) dps are assigned to them, it shouldn't be a problem.
4. Risen Archmage: Their Frostbolt Volley should be interrupted, rogues, DKs and Shamans are good at this job.
5. Blistering Zombies: Have a Hunter (or some other kiting class) kite these guys around so as to avoid the armor debuff on the tanks.
6. Gluttonous Abomination: Its not much of a threat (as compared to the rest) so it can be low priority.

Their strategy for Sindragosa was quite different from the Tankspot video and consequently deserves an article of its own, probably in a day or two.

Blood Prince Ranged-Tanks

After running the Blood Princes and having our Keleseth tank we a specialized tank spec/gear, I came up with some specs of my own:

Warlock
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IcxMbhbhoZ0GchohZVfhVbhuhcb:jdw
In the affliction tree, I wanted to get to Siphon Life and thus put points to improve corruption where I could. I put points into Suppression to decrease the frequency with which the warlock would need to life tap and to increase hit chance so that they can garner more threat. Soul Siphon and Fel Concentration make it so that the lock can cast Drain Life, to make the healers' lives easier. Grim reach allows the lock to hit Kinetic Bombs (disco balls) and the Dark Nuclei from a greater distance. Also, if he gets knocked back, he can get back into action faster. I chose to glyph Siphon Life because it will increase the self healing by a good portion.

In Demononlogy, I didn't put points into the improved healthstone (nor did I use the Glyph) because I feel that it is not as useful as some of the other available talents. Demonic Embrace is an obvious choice and Fel Synergy will help keep your pet up via Soul Link. The pet of choice for this spec would be the Voidwalker and Demonic Brutality helps him immensely. You'll be using him mostly to soak damage via Soul Link and Sacrifice. Fel Vitality gives the Voidwalker a lot more health and increases the mana and health of the warlock- more survivability and less Life Tap. Demoic Aegis helps with Demon Armor. Demon Armor increases armor as well as healing received, a 30% boost is fairly significant. Finally, Soul Link will reduce all incoming damage by 20% and with the glyph, by 25%. This essentially makes your Voidwalker an extra Dark Nucleus.

For Destruction I put points in Bane for faster cast times, meaning that if the warlock needs to hit something quickly- ie: Disco Ball, Nucleus or a runaway boss, he can. Molten Skin increases survivability and Cataclysm is a going to be a great expansion. It also means that the warlock Life Taps less and so he is less likely to get insta-gibbed by an incoming shadow lance. Aftermath helps a little with maintaining threat via Immolate as well as keeping the disco balls up. I put a few points into Ruin, because a big crit with Searing Pain will garner a lot of threat, and that threat will be useful. Intensity again allows the Warlock to cast through being hit by a lance and so can hit what he needs to hit sooner. Searing Pain is probably the best way for the warlock to grab and hold onto things as it has a decent increase in threat. Devestation will also help with Searing Pain and with the Warlocks DPS. Improved Immolate is a point-dump, but it does help with damage and disco balls. Nether Protection can also act as an emergency Dark Nucleus- after getting hit by a shadow lance, it is possible that the warlock will take significantly less damage from the next (of the same class). Keleseth's cast time is about 1.5 seconds, so in an 8 second period he can get off five or six Shadow Lances, more likely than not, one of those will trigger Nether Protection, so it would constantly be up- which is another great damage soak. Soul Leech helps with healing via crits and I chose pyroclasm over emberstorm because it also effect corruption.

Priest
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhh0oZfVtZGbcVRfzff:hbfVMc
I need to preface this by saying that my only priest got to level 21 before I stopped, so you priests probably know a huge amount more than I do. Like the Warlock spec, this is just a huge mish-mash of useful talents all thrown in together.

In the Discipline tree, I focused on improving Power Word: Shield, as that should be a useful buffer to have as it essentially adds to your current effective health. If there is a Disc priest in the raid, I don't think that it will be necessary to go that far into the tree, but it could be helpful. Imp Inner Fire is a point dump to get to Imp PW:S. The other points in that tree may not be entirely necessary if the caster does not have any mana problems or there is another Disc Priest in the group. The glyph for the shield just makes you last that little bit longer.

For Holy, I focused on getting some talents to help improve direct damage spells and healing. You can stick renew on yourself and any of your spells that have cast times- Holy Fire, Smite etc... won't be as slowed down, so you can hit the Nuclei more efficiently. Desperate Prayer should be very useful as a 'tanking' button to push when you get almost killed. I'm not sure how good the glpyh of renew is but it can be traded out for Glyph of SW:P.

For Shadow, I focus on more mana regen and getting those DoTs to work. Sticking SW:P onto the Nuclei should bring them to you. Spirit Tap increases mana regen and Darkness helps with threat. Shadow Focus drops mana costs andmakes you more likely to hit- which in turn means more mana. Imp MB lets you cast it more often, which we always like. Mind Flay will probably be the main workhorse of the spec, grabbing Nuclei and the bosses and potentially hitting Disco balls as well. For the rest of the shadow tree we continue to improve Mind Blast and Mind Flay while picking up Vampiric Embrace and Devouring plague for the healing abiltities. We stop before picking up Shadowform, because of the immense threat reduction that would make it very difficult to hold off other players.

As a final note on priests, it may be possible just to get a PvP Shadow spec to do the work and hit dispersion when he begins to cast his empowered lances to avoid that damage.

Mage
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=8&tal=03202520012003212300000000000000000000000000000000000000000533030310203103230132211100
This is Kyabetsu's build exported straight from his armory page. I definitely don't know mages as well as he does, so I'm going to throw together my own and compare the two

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ocbfbubhdfZZVIccobksfzTbk:Rj
Here's what I came up with. 

The Important talents in Arcane are Prismatic Cloak for the damage reduction, Presence of Mind, in case you need to toss out a huge spell to grab aggro back, Improved Blink to dodge more spells and Arcane Shielding to increase the effectiveness of Mana Shield. Arcane Focus allows more hits and consequently more threat.

Fire doesn't really have any damage reduction talents, so its not necessary to go into that tree.

Frostbolt is the main nuke of this, so most of the points are in frost. Precision fills the same roll as Arcane Focus. Arctic Reach is our usual range increment, useful for reasons already mentioned. Frozen core reduces your damage taken further and Cold Snap can refresh the cooldowns on both Ice Block and Ice Barrier. Finish up by improving your frost spells some more, and poof. A spec.

Hunter
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cVcGzxRZcZe00i0fMhxhA0so
Again, this is a class that I'm not very familiar with, so I had to look at all of the talents and figure out how to best alot them.

In Beast Mastery the Important talents are Endurance Training (for the HP), Imp Monkey (for the dodge), Aspect Mastery (5% damage Reduction), and Spirit Bond which increases heals to you(and has a steady HoT on you).

The Marksmanship talents are just for the hit- if you're capped without em, put em into Surv, where most of the points are. 

For Survival the Important talents are Hawk Eye, for the extra range to snag the Nuclei and K-bombs, Survival Instincts for the Damage Reduction, and Survivalist for the 10% Stam.

You could take all the points in Surv out of there and stick them into BM if you think that filling up that tree would be more effective than what I did. Again, since I don't know Hunters all that well, I don't know what would be best at holding aggro.

While doing this, the hunter pet can either be attacking the main target, or, using a simple macro, can be chasing after the falling K-Bombs:
/tar Kinetic Bomb
/petattack

Shaman
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hec0qcdIthfzqo0xxbcV:s
Finally, another class that I don't know. I'm going to look to amph to point out any obvious deficiencies.

I put points into Enhancement to get Anticipation and Toughness, for the survivability.

The (imo) vital talents in elemental are Elemental Warding for the damage reduction, Eye of the storm for fewest interuptions, Elemental Reach and precision for the normal reasons. And after that I just tossed in points to fill out the tree.
It may be a good idea to specialize in making the shocks really good so that you can just snap one out on a Nucleus (or a K-bomb) if you absolutely need to hit it immediately.

Druid
I ruled out Druids because of class mechanics. The useful talents in the Feral Tree would not affect the druid when it was in a caster for (either normal or boomkin). However, it could (in theory) be done. I just don't know how.

WoW in Real Life: Compilation

I've finally finished all the WoW in Real Life pieces- at least the first round. When the next expac comes around, I may have had enough experience to fill out this list better- but who knows. Anyways, they are as follows, in alphabetic (and chronological) order.

WoW in Real Life: Death Knights

WoW in Real Life: Druids

WoW in Real Life: Hunters

WoW in Real Life: Mages

WoW in Real Life: Paladins

WoW in Real Life: Priests

WoW in Real Life: Rogues

WoW in Real Life: Shamans

WoW in Real Life: Warlocks

WoW in Real Life: Warriors

I'm a healer now

Yesterday was the first time I ever healed an instance.

I mean, I've done healing before on my Paladin, but never Holy specced and very rarely in groups.

When I healed on my pally, it was a Art of War/Flash of Light kinda deal. Additionally, the heals would be during a speed run wherein I was at least 10 levels above content.

But yesterday I actually healed an on level instance with the intent of healing it.

I signed up for Ragefire Chasm as a healer/dps Shaman with a Prot warrior friend. Admittedly I was in heirlooms and he was a good tank, but I didn't have to hit my healing spell more than fifteen or twenty times throughout the instance. It is definitely a good thing that I can enjoy healing because with the new LFD system, it is very helpful if I can heal or tank.

With this event having occurred, you can trust to hear from me in the future regarding healing.

WoW in Real Life: Shamans

Shamans have a bunch of cool casting abilities, but most of them are just throwing fire or earth or lightning or green-healy stuff at people. And that is all well and good, but nothing too spectacular.

First up we have Ghost Wolf. You turn into a wolf. And you're a ghost. A ghostly, ghastly, wondrous wolf. Incredibly awesome. And cool. And you're a wolf. Who people can't see. Cuz you're a ghost. And a wolf.

Second up have Feral Spirit. What's better than one ethereal wolf? Two ethereal wolves. However, you're not one of them in this case- they just follow you around. So it isn't quite as awesome.

Finally we have Thunderstorm. Not only do you rejuvenate your energy slightly, but you also push everything within 20 yards of you to twenty yards away. And you get hit by a bolt of lightning to prove that you are a BAMF.

Jewelcrafting at its finest

Go go faux healing stream totem!

POWA

I Feel the POWA!

Lightning Shield refresh reminders brought to you by Power Auras Classic. POWA to the Player!

Leveling Guide: The Early Shaman 1-20

Now, this is going to be an interesting article to write, seeing as I don't have any shamans above level 19. That does give me some experience, but I've mostly played for the experience as a resto-ele Twink.

When you start out, you have your lighting and you heal. Just cast lightning a couple times, and then melee them, or if you don't seem to be having any mana troubles, keep on the lightning.

You'll get a chance to quest for your first totem at level four. You don't need to drop your totems for every fight, but they can be very helpful. If you know that there will be trouble, be sure to drop your totems before the pull, because otherwise you will waste valuable time during combat.

As you level you will gain more totems, and at level twelve you can begin the quest for your fire totem. For both factions, it requires large amounts of running around, more so for the Horde than for the Alliance.

Another thing to note is that your 'Shock' spells have a shared cooldown, before level 20 you will only have Earth Shock and Flame Shock.

You will additionally get spells that enhance your weapons- you will want to keep those up at all times as well.

Finally, you will get Lightning Shield, a free spell that creates a magical presence around you (like Thorns or Retribution Aura) so that the next three melee attacks damage the attacker.

If you want to go Elemental, which is the Shaman's ranged caster spec, I would suggest starting with these talents.

If you pick Enhancement, the Shaman's melee spec, I would say that these are your best choices.

Finally, if you want to heal instances and level through the Random Dungeon finder system, I would say you should start by picking these talents.

Good groups

I'm going to continue on my series of PuG pseudo guides. I'm gonna tell some stories, give some tips.

1. Apologize, but not too much: I've had people apologize for accidently pulling mobs. Thats ok. If they die, and I manage to pick it up and keep everyone else alive- well- they're the one with the repair bill- so I consider it even.
2. Know who to blame: If the healer dies, its the tank's fault. If the tank dies, its the healer's fault. If the DPS dies, it is their own damn fault.
3. Explain yourself: If you don't want to skip a boss, let them know why. If you do want to skip a boss, let them know why. Same with achievements, or full clears.
4. Make (reasonable) suggestions: In today's H-Gundrak (try 24 this week for Less-rabi) the healer shaman asked if I thought I could sustain myself through the boss fight if they went enhancement to DPS the boss. I was pretty sure I could and gave the go-ahead. If I had gotten the achievement, I would say that was why.
5. Know class trademarks: Knowing certain skills like Heroism, Misdirection, Death Grip, Army of the Dead, Divine Intervention, Tricks of the Trade and others can be very helpful when leading/tanking/healing a pug.

Look! An even five. Score!

Humorous

Personally I find all of the classes in WoW to be humorous in one way or another. Lets go through them one at a time- it'll be a good laugh for me.

Death Knight: Do I really have to say anything? At all? Seriously- it used to be huntards but now- its Stupid DKs. When you're leveling them up, they are ridiculously overpowered. When fighting Tusker at level 67- solo mind you, I started the fight at full health. I ended the fight at over full health. Even on my Retadin I didn't glide through that easily. Each of their talent trees can be formed to be a dps spec, tank spec, or PvP spec. Both Frost and Unholy can be duel-wielding specs, again for each of the above three.

Druid: I could just link you to Alamo's guide to druids... so I will. I've leveled a couple of druids. My first 'real' toon (second toon overall) got to level 26. I have one at 19 and one to 44. I've tried all the trees and have had a great time with all of them. The animations are always good for a laugh, and when leveling with bear druids... well- they like big butts... and cannot see their screen. Additionally- Boomkin. Everyone's favorite turkey. I'd love to point out this video to show how much fun being a oomkin is in PvP.

Hunter: "Don't be that hunter." "Thats hunter loot." "Huntard." All classic tales. Hunters for a long time were considered a very easy class to play- just tame a pet and make it do all the work. Because it was so easy, hunters did not really learn how to play (theoretically). Since it was so easy, all the little kids chose to be hunters. As little kids they did not know proper social etiquette. Combine all of those so you get a player who is easily defeated by a door boss, takes the loot, the accidentally pulls the next boss with his pet before dropping the party.

Mage: "Hai GUYS! I'm gonna blink!... or not." My personal favorite part about mages, when I'm on my paladin tanking around is that they are strudel vending machines. They makes the delicious free foods. Oh- and know they've gotten around to copying warlocks. They now have a permanent pet so they can be just like their betters. It always makes me laugh.

Paladin: I play a paladin. Paladins were fail during classic WoW. They were fail during TBC. They ruined everything that stood in their way in WotLK. As my paladin I was able to solo classic Ony in quest blues and greens. Once in AB in prot spec I was spamming Flash of Light on myself for 7k a hit. I have bubble, I have wings, I have a seven second stun. During some fights that don't require much movement (Instructor Rasuvious for one) I can bang on my keyboard and still be top dps. And I can bubble hearth. Sucker.

Priest: I find priests to be a joke. I've tried leveling one in full heirlooms and found that he was waaay to difficult to level. They really need someone to work with them or else they won't be able to get very far. But the best thing about a priest, they can kill someone who is two hundred feet in the air. Cast a couple dots, levitate and cast your flying mount again.

Rogue: Especially undead ones. They sneak up to you. Stab you dead. Defile your corpse. In a H-Gundrak I did today, one of our random party members asked for a summon ("Summon prz"). We could not do that because we were on different servers. We told him to use the 'teleport to dungeon' button. We told him where it was. He quit the group. We had cleared up to the second boss. At that point we rejoined the queue and another rogue joined the group. We began the encounter as soon as the rogue was in the instance. The rogue not only made it to the fight before we were a quarter of the way through, but managed to hit top dps for the fight and hit top overall damage dealth on the following trash pull, breaking 7k. The difference amused me- either they are like hunters or they are ridiculously good.

Shaman: My shaman, at level 13, in heirloom gear took out a level 18 mage. Even heirloom gear should not give me that much of a boost. I'm running around one shotting most of the mobs I face now that I'm level 17. Their totems are oh so pretty and they can do anything, even tank, although that is fairly difficult for them to do.

Warlock: They are, in my not quite humble opinion, the best class in the game. I mean, they can tank, they can dps, they can heal and they're not even a hybrid class! You don't believe me eh? Well then here's some proof. They were built for demolition, destruction, affliction and demonology. That there is your dpsness. They've been proven to be able to tank (at the time) the HARDEST raid boss in the game (sarth 3D or Illdian). Then they have some healing properties for their tank. Yeah- take that. And then there is Outland. See one of my previous posts.

Warrior: I'm gonna hit you with my big axe! But wait. I no has rage. And tanking Warriors are a conundrum. I get rage by being hit. And to be a better tank I need to get hit less. That way I can get less rage. And therefore I will have less threat. So I will be a worse tank. 'prz' explain this to me. I don't precisely understand this concept.

A no, I did not write this post over time. I turned it in before midnight.