Reflecting on the glory days.

So my last post was supposed to be posted about a month ago....But for your viewing pleasure I'm doing another post to make up for it.

3.2.2 is out and needless to say Elemental shammies got a little love from Blizzard. Sure you can read the forums and see a bunch of people complaining about how it was a hack job, or QQ "I no haz enuf deeps". To everyone that complains about a buff, whether great or small, and still complains about other classes out damaging you....well I'll put this as gently as possible. Go re-roll to that class if you like it so much. If you don't like being a shaman that much then do it. Just go make yourself another character and get your class with the maximum dps. But if you like being a shaman come better or worse, suck it up and do the best you can*.

*By best you can I mean make use of everything in your shaman toolkit to be better than other classes in ways that they cannot be. Example: Dead DPS = Zero DPS. Shamans have a self rez so when we get smoked by that mob we accidentally pulled aggro on, we can pop back up and still be competative. Dead mages stay dead.

Then buff I'm talking about is the slight rearrangement of a set bonus, glyph and baseline spell ability. As well as a couple changes to some talents. Basically a glyph is now baseline spell, the T8 2 piece bonus is now the glyph, and that frees up a glyph spot for some of us. And Chain Lightning now gets a buff in our talent tree which makes it more likeable for using even on single targets.

But enough about all that boring stuff, what I really long for in a future patch is the ressurection of 2 handed weapon viability for Enhancement shamans. Before WOTLK came about, my PVP weapon of choice was this huge 2H mace with spikes that looks like it could both crush and shred any face it came in contact with. Slap a little winndfury on there to occasionally proc a couple extra attacks and you could effectively cut 3/4 of the life of that pally that was just lol'ing his way across the battlefield. Thats enough to warrant use of his bubble so he can heal up. Or even being able to almost kill that rogue that didn't manage to finish you off during his stun lock period.

I still remember the day when I was leveling my shaman and the 2H axe from Razorfen Kraul dropped and my friend told me that I needed to take it. This was back in the day that you actually had to use a talent point in order to use 2 handed maces and axes. I was looking forward to dual wielding and didn't really want to use a talent point on something i wouldn't use...but I did and boy was I glad I did. Windfury+2H axe at lvl 30ish = 2 shotting mobs of my level. I felt like a lumberjack running through the woods felling the beasts as I ran by them. I still remember looking around in AV at all the enhancement shamans dual wielding while I was toting around my 2Hander mace and wondering why they would settle for those dinky little hits slowly carving away when they could strike fear into an opponent with the massive damage spikes of a good 2Hander.

Truth be told a 2 handed weapon dropped the other day that i got by a greed roll and I thought I would try it out just to see how it compared to my dual wielding at 80. Lackluster is all I can say. With all the changes, and the fact that maelstrom weapon is virtually useless when it comes to the very slow 2 handed weapons. I sighed thinking about how awesome it was and half tempted to grind a shaman to 39 and lock his experience so I could re-live the glory days using a 2 hander. Oh well... Maybe they will let us grow 1 more arm and then we can put a 2hander in our main hand(s) and a 1 hander in our off hand thus making them viable again. But then again I like having ghost puppies and wouldn't want to give them up for that.

Patch 3.2 and Me

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm..... Taste that patchy goodness. It's like giant piece of warm apple pie with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it. The only bad thing is there isn't an infinite amount of pie and ice cream.

So it's been quite a while since I talked about anything, but frankly I've been busy for a while, didn't have anything worth mentioning for a while, started to feel burnt-out on Wow ever so slightly. So I cut back my play time quite a bit. Part of this was due to some of my firends not being on as much when I'm on anymore so it lowers my motivation to be on most nights.

The last time I was talking about WoW I'm pretty sure I was still enhancement, Ulduar hadn't been released, and the Argent Tournament didn't exist. So basically everything has changed. I'm now Elemental/Resto dual spec(woo go dual spec!), Ulduar is definitely released, and the Argent Tournament has there colliseum done even.

But on with the patchy goodness.

First I have to admit I'm loving the new totem system that Blizzard set up for shamans. It is close to being my favorite thing about 3.2. Definitely my favorite thing about shaman improvements but not quite best thing overall. I can now have 3 preset totem sets for each spec and can switch between them between pulls. And now that I realize it i could probably access them all directly from my spell book. The only downside that I have noticed is I had gotten used to having a grid of all my totems on my screen so I could drop what I needed as I saw fit and with the new one I only see my set of 4 totems. But with the new patch I disabled my totem grid, partially to prevent issues and partially to force myself to use the new system. I quickly discovered that I can't switch out totems in my set while I'm in combat, which truthfully is kind of annoying. With my grid it was there ready to be clicked at all times, but with this new interface I can pick my set before the pull and stick with those 4 totems.

Now I know you're thinking, "Well you could throw some totems on your action bars for the extras you need" which is true and I have done that with 2 or 3 totems that I need for specific situations, but the fact that I can click open the list of options in combat, yet I cannot select a different totem for that slot during combat makes me feel like the game is taunting me. It almost infuriates me as much as a rogue stun-locking me in PVP and kiling me before i have a chance to move. Anyways, I think the only thing I would do to improve the system a little bit is to allow swapping out totems in combat. It probably has somethign to do with the way they intend it to work though.

What I love about it is i can cast all 4 totems at once. No more waiting on 4 cooldowns to start dealing damage, no more dropping a totem between each cast. It's drop and go. Time to move? Totemic recall and then drop in the new spot and go. Mobile fights are so much better for me now. That means I have much more time to DPS and that means Bosses die faster. I've also found myself pulling aggro a little bit more so I'm actually using wind shear a little bit more now, especailly since it doens't share cooldowns with my flame shock. Overall plenty of elemental goodness. It would also be great for enhancment now that i think about it. I may repec ele/enhancement, but I tend to run more heorics with resto since groups always need a healer.

As for the rest of the patch, let me say there is a ton of stuff that will keep me occupied and has refueled my desire to play, which is exactly what Blizzard wants. Here's a list of the stuff I can remember that I'm excited about:

• New Argent Tournament Dailies


• New Argent Tournament Dungeons and Raids


• New Gear for the masses


• Emblems of Heroism and Valor now Emblems of Conquest


• New horde only Ravasuar Mount


• 8 new Raptor companions

I love all of these changes. In fact I really like the Emblem change since it means I can now buy a couple new tier pieces buy grinding heroics. I love 5 man heroics in Northrend. Outland...not so much. Bad memories of people not wanting me as dps due to not having any crowd control. Good thing Blizzard gave us cc when we hit 80, and basically had no use for it since dungeons don't have nearly as much trash as they used to. But I'm already well on my way to getting some new gear and that is exciting. It will definitely help out with guild runs in Ulduar. But it also gives me more of a reason to try and get some more of the achievements for those heorics too, since people are coming back to the 5-mans to get some gear.

As for the Argent tournament dungeons I've completed the 5 man normal and heroic dungeons and I enjoy the format. Do a little jousting, beat some guys into submission, and show the Black Knight who is boss once again. I tried the first boss in a 10 man heroic and got trounced but I know a little about how that will go now too.

As for new Raptor companions, I'm excited. I've already gotten the one i can buy, and I'mworking on getting the one from WC, but farming for the rare mobs is going to be annoying since everyone will be camping them. I may have to get lucky on some 3-4am time frame when virtually no one is on. But I'm slowly getting closer to getting my pet fawn. I think i'm within 11 pets.

Well I'm off for now. Got a lot of things to accomplish form now until I go to sleep. Let the lightning flow!

Why I hate DK's...at least as an enhancemnt shaman.

First of all, let me be very clear in saying that I don't hate all death knights.  Just most of them.  And mostly just when I'm enhancement.  I have reasons for not hating them as much when I'm resto but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Instead of just listing off a bunch of reasons I'll just jump right into it.  First of all I don't like it when death knights tell me what totems to use.  Key word being "tell".  Of every other class that's out there I have only been asked if I could use certain totems to help people.  Windfury for the melee or wrath of air for the casters.  Before the combined Strength of Earth (Attack power or strength I honestly can't remember because of how little I look at the tool tips anymore) and Grace of Air(Agility) I had to nix windfury and wrath of air right out since more agility was always a good thing for me.  For some reason though Death knights seem to think they know my totems better than I do and thus "tell" me what I'm supposed to use.  Personally I  don't really care if they have improved icy talons and thus my windfury totem isn't required (except my windfury totem is always up compared to them always having icy talons up).  Or "Don't use SOE totem"  is something I've heard all to often due to their Horn of Winter buff (which oddly they don't remember to keep up at all times and they forget my totem has +Agility as well as +Strength as well as my totem being better since I put in the talent points. Why else would my totem overwrite their buff?)  Personally I think I should start saying "No YOU don't use horn of winter"  or "YOU don't need to worry about what totems I have down".  I don't remember seeing DK's have totems last time I checked.  Plus I am the master of totem dropping. 

Secondly I would like to point out that DK's seem to be much needier in the "What's my DPS look like" category.  Before WOTLK I would occasionally see people report DPS  but mostly as a standard for themselves to see if they are improving in dps as they get better gear.  After WOTLK hit and there were DK's running amok everywhere, every group I was in there was a DK either reporting the DPS to the group after each pull or requesting it to stroke their own ego.  Hey if I had a bazillion aoe attacks I'd probably be topping the charts with little or no effort as well.  Personally I like my dps.  I shred through things dual wielding fists of windfury death (and occasionally off handed flametongue).  In fact I don't like DPS meters anymore because people use them all to ofter to try and say they are better than everyone else.  Granted if someone is doing abysmally on dps they should look at what they could do different to change that.  I don't think people should berate them on their low dps with no suggestions as how to improve it (most likely because said person has never played that class before).  But all this ranting about DPS meters is something for another post.

Those are my big pet peeves about DK's, which amazingly enough don't bother me in the slightest when I'm resto.  Partially since I don't use any of the totems that overlap with their buffs since I'm casting and they are pew pewing, and partly because healing/sec meters really aren't good indicators of whose healing is the best so dps meters are a moot point for me.  I just sit back and throw up and Earth Shield every once in a while and chain heal during the aoe damage.  As enhancement I've learned to just ignore the *cough* requests *cough* of DK's because my totems are there more that just for buffs.  There there for the atmosphere. And we could all use a little more atmosphere when it comes down to it.

Hail to the King, baby.

So this is the guy, huh?  Our prodigal Leader.  yeah I guess he looks tough.  He’s got some nice shiny armor anyways.  Truth be told I think he looks a little bit like George Clooney.  You know, that actor guy that’s been in those movies and such.  Well I was never a big fan of the guy and thought he always had a stunt double around when he might get a paper cut in the next scene.  in fact the guy we think is George Clooney is probably his stunt double.  How would we ever know?

Well that’s kind of how I feel about this “Prodigal Leader”, Frank.  Sure he looks all shiny and has a good looking weapon and has done “amazing” things, but I think he’s just a little “off”.  He doesn’t really look like he’s gotten that much sleep lately or sun for that matter.  He’s getting quite pale if you ask me.

But you know what Frank?  This is probably the best thing I have going for me at the moment, so I’m out here waiting around with all you guys for some directions in all this craziness with the zombies and abominations and giant skeletons. I wonder if this is what grave-keepers go through when they snap?

Oh it looks like our “Prodigal leader” want to make an announcement.  Probably going to say something like “They can take our lives, but not or freedom!" except they would just resurrect us into something for the scourge so technically we would lose our freedom, or “This…Is….Northrend!” which is pretty obvious if you ask me since there’s scourge everywhere and it ain’t exactly a tropical paradise either.

Wait.  What’s going on?  Did he just kill Stuart?  Why is he fighting us?  has he gone mad?  I KNEW it!  He is crazy.  We got to stop him , Frank.  He’s going to kill us all if we don’t.

 

    Great!  Just great!  Now He’s turning people into zombies.  This was just a giant trap!  When I signed up for this military position and they told me that I would be a lifetime of servitude…I didn’t think it was an eternal lifetime.  Well I guess the bright side is now I don’t have to worry about getting my bills paid.  Gahhh………

Braiiiiiiiiinnnnssssssss…..