New Belt, New Shield, New Alt

23 02 2010

So, the last few days have been pretty eventful. I’ve seen some success in 2s and 3s, joined a good ICC 25 PuG, and even started a new alt, a hunter, which I think I’m going to try to stick with. I’m going to be trying something else that’s kind of cool… I’m taking a screenshot for every new piece of gear I get, from 1-80, and recording the name, level, and location and I got it at. Hopefully, I’ll transition from scrubby to superb by the end!

Thursday, I only ran a few instances. Friday, however, was packed. With WSG as the holiday, I was queing up for that and doing little else. Incredibly, I got my 25,000th kill… wow. I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that I’ve accumulated so many, or the fact that I’m already at 26,000. Anyway, I put in a couple of 2s matches on Friday, one of which I’d have to say ranks as our best ever. We went up against a Mage/Disc Priest on the Dalaran Sewers, which is one of the better 2s comps. Our match ended up lasting 26 minutes. Twenty. Six. Both our teams weren’t making any mistakes… on our side, I was keeping the correct totems down, we were line-of-sighting properly, I was getting broken out of polys, and doing some Hexing of my own. For them, they were keeping us pretty CC’d, line-of-sighting, and avoiding too much burst damage. Both our priests tried to mana burn, only to be line-of-sighted, CC’d, or forced to switch because of damage. And both ended up drinking, several times. Courtesy of my Water Shield and Thunderstorm, which I glyphed for a 10 second reduced cooldown, I didn’t go oom, but ended up hovering around 2k mana the entire fight. Finally, at around the 24 minute mark, the break we needed came. Both the Mage/Priest focused on my partner, trying to bring him down, and I saw my opportunity: the enemy Priest was on the offense, leaving his defenses down. I popped Mastery, interrupted a heal, and managed to burn him down before he could save himself… the Mage went down soon afterwards. It was a hard fought, utterly satisfying match. Afterwards, I did a VoA 10, where my Resto legs dropped. I didn’t win, although I don’t plan on healing so it wasn’t a big deal. Afterwards, I helped a friend gem up properly, and did some late-nite 3s and BGs, ending at 1707 rating for the night.

On Saturday, the BG farming continued as I tried to put 68k honor together for my Wrathful Belt, the last piece I need. In the evening, I joined a PuG for ICC 25, and it ended up being pretty intense. I found out soon after joining that they were one of the better guilds on Executus, and it showed. There wasn’t too much messing around, and everyone was geared; one of the loot rules was, if you don’t deserve it, you won’t get it. Well, fine… I just had to make sure I was bringing my A-game. We strove up to Marrowgar, took him out in a one-shot, and bam… the Bulwark of Smouldering Steel dropped. The first person rolled an 89; I sighed, and typed in my /roll. 97. Yeah! The raid leader checked over the damage meters, and it showed that I was in the top six for DPS, and third place for switching to spikes. He looted me the shield, and a pally in his guild almost rage quit when he saw it; didn’t want it going to “another bad Shaman.” His guildies pacified him, and we continued. Deathwhisper was a three-shot, the Gunship was a one-shot, and Saurfang went down in two. Another chill thing: I got the I’ve Gone and Made a Mess achievement on Saurfang, a testament to our raid not sucking. My Mark dropped, but a hunter rolled a 100, and after offering him 6k g, I was informed that the bidding was up to 6.8. Wow. I was just happy to have the shield, though, and after doing the Plague Quarter raid weekly, the raid dispersed and I left satisfied. A bit later, I put in some more 3s matches, getting past 1750 for the first time! We ended up finishing at 1728 for the night, but it’s good to see that we’re moving up.

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My new Bulwark of Smoldering Steel. The icicles are a great touch.

On Sunday, the BG farming continued, and I finally got enough honor for my Wrathful Belt. Immediately after, we did some more 3s. That night, we got up to 1770, but we couldn’t keep it going. We finished at 1748 for the night. The 1800 rating is so close we can taste it, and it’ll only be one little push before we’re there. I also made a new alt on Sunday: Jabbathehunt, a hunter. Myself and a few other guildies are making some Star Wars themed alts; eventually, we’ll have a fully party. Bobathreat, Hearthvador, and Critfisto are the others so far, and it’ll be cool if we ever get them to 80. Monday was the day that I actually sat down and played Jabba for the first time, and I’ve been taking screenshots of every piece of gear. My plan is to get to 80, and then make a quick montage showing the change of gear. This is also the first time I’ve quested in Durotar, and so far, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. The starting zone isn’t too bad, but moving out to Echo Isles and Razor Hill… wow. I’ve seen better drop rates at a lottery. To get my eight Crawler shells, I probably had to kill 20+ monsters. Then, to get another four drops, I had to massacre another 10+ enemies, all of which were spread around. Maybe I’m unlucky, but damn. I’ve heard the trolls are going to take back the Echo Isles… good riddance. It’ll save everybody the trouble of questing there. So far, I’m at level 9, and the class seems pretty decent. I don’t have a pet, which will be game-changing, but I’ve got the basics down, at least so far.

Anyway, that’s everything for the last few days. I’ll probably do some more leveling this week, and, assuming I continue to do my daily dungeons, I should get my 264-level mail belt this Wednesday, which will mesh much better with my gear and get me out of the cloth I’ve got on right now. Now, if Putricide or Toravon would just drop my damn kilt…


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Putting Down the Princes

20 02 2010

Wednesday’s raid went, obviously, really well. After hitting up Naxx10 for the raid weekly, we one-shot every boss in the first quarter, as usual. The Soulcleave Pendant dropped again, and this time, I won! Moving on, we one-shot Festergut and two-shotted Rotface and Putricide. Kind of a big deal for my guild, since each week, we’re moving through ICC faster and faster, and scoring cleaner and cleaner kills. Last week, we managed to defeat the first seven bosses in three hours; this week, it only took us two. This was due to a much cleaner Rotface kill, since I’m no longer in charge of cleansing and kiting, making the latter much easier to focus on. In addition to all of this, I finally got enough badges together for my fourth piece of t10. I grabbed the chest, and, in hindsight, should have looked at the stats before doing so; unlike my t9 chestpiece, there’s no hit on it. I swung by my bank quickly, and dusted off my Elemental Focus Stone, something I haven’t used since Ulduar. At the same time, I ran some numbers using ZAP and determined that, courtesy of brute ilvl, my Wrathful cloak was my new best choice. My next purchase with Frost Emblems will either be the Waistband of Despair or Maghia’s Misguided Quill, now that I need the hit. In the meantime, I’m basking in the glow of the new gear; the four piece bonus is a very subtle DPS boost. As for the Blood Princes, well, tonight everything finally came together. I got to be our ranged tank again, and had no problems with damage throughout the fight. With a flask and my new Wrathful gear giving me a boost, I actually had around 31k health; crazy. While gathering orbs, I avoided using Flame Shock to pick them up, for fear that the DoT ticks would reduce their uptime. With our Hunter misdirecting to me, and our Rogue using Tricks of the Trade, I was also able to hold aggro when everybody switched to Kelseth. Upon finishing the fight, I was pleasantly surprised to see us get The Orb Whisperer as well; I guess I did my job right. Loot-wise, I got a nice Resto cloak, which I’ll actually be using for my Ele set too until I can get a better one. Afterwards, due to late-ness and our MT having internet trouble we ended up calling it, and I descended into doing 3s for the rest of the night.

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My t10 chestpiece. Now, to do something about those damn purple pants...

Man, 3s. Our rating started off at 1667 for the night. Around two, three hours later when we called it: 1667. We hit a low point of around 1620, and a high point in the low 1700s. We’ve been making progress with 3s, though, and it’s fun to try to improve our play-style. Getting 1800 in 3s might have to wait for awhile, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some 2s matches in to close the gap there. It’s a long season, though, and I’ve got plenty of time; no need to rush too much. Thursday, the only thing that went on was a random and a couple BGs. That’ll probably change this weekend though, as I’m aiming to get my last Wrathful piece and keep pushing towards an 1800 rating. Onwards!


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ICC and Arena. Lots of Arena.

18 02 2010

Hoo boy. Between school, my social life and WoW, I haven’t written a blog post in forever. In the last two weeks, Arena Season 8 started, and I promptly cashed in my emblems for the new Wrathful gear. A caveat: it doesn’t require any arena rating. So now, anyone can get into Wrathful gear without having a team. Along with the ease of gathering Triumph badges, this means that someone fresh to arena can have a full Furious set, and all Wrathful and Relentless offpieces. The only thing they’d be missing would be weapons. I’m a little bit resentful of the change… after all, I had to put a ton of time into arenas to get my Battlemaster’s trinket, not to mention all of the offset pieces. Now, anyone can get a better version doing only BGs. Argh. Enough about arena, though, since it wasn’t all that went on over the last two weeks. I’ll be doing this post a bit differently; dividing up one half into PvE, and the other generalizing my PvP experiences in the last two weeks.

Last Wednesday, we had our weekly ICC 10. Beforehand, though, I got together enough Emblems of Frost to get my t10 helm. One word: badass. I am so, so happy to have glowing eyes again. Gone is the over-sized t9 helm, back is a correctly fitted headpiece of bone and glow and antlers and awesome. Very chill. We killed Razorscale with ease for the weekly, and then raced through ICC. We one-shotted every boss up to Rotface, then killed him in a few tries, then one-shotted Putricide! It was a much cleaner kill than Sunday, with kiting going well and everybody working together perfectly. The Blood Princes, however, still don’t want to die. Our best attempt got them to 200k health before we wiped because of a kinetic bomb exploding and me getting pegged by an Empowered Shadow Bolt at the same time. Ouch. We didn’t get a chance to get them later because of Super Bowl Sunday, but we all left satisfied with our progress. Loot-wise, my Soucleave Pendant dropped, but it went to our pally healer instead. I’m next in line, so hopefully I’ll see it again soon. I also ran two successful VoA runs that took out Toravon on our first tries, although nothing dropped for me.

I ended up having to miss Wednesday’s raid, and instead joined an ICC 10 PuG on Thursday night. It was surprisingly good, and we ended up getting to Rotface before we had to call it for the night. The best raid of the week was actually on Saturday, when I joined an ICC 25 PuG that needed a single Shaman. It was a great decision, as we one-shot every single boss in the first quarter, including Saurfang, getting me the achievement for clearing the first four on 25-man. The necklace dropped from the Gunship Battle, which I didn’t win, and a Mark of the Protector dropped.

I won it with a 93.

Very. Very. Clutch. The raid ended up being unable to down any bosses afterwards due to low DPS, but I had no complaints whatsoever. I turned in the Mark for my Sanctified shoulders. Crunching the numbers, upgrading my helm would have been a better choice, but goddamn do those shoulders look cool. I’d like to eventually be in full Sanctified gear, and this was a nice step towards making it happen. Even better, I managed to both of the raid weekly quests, and those, along with the two weekly VoAs and a raid weekly I joined, mean I’ll have enough emblems to buy my tier assuming our raid tonight goes well. If my kilt finally drops, I’ll be lookin’ very legit. Here’s hoping!

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My Sanctified t10 Shoulders... very icy, very blue.

PvP-wise, well, let’s just say there’s been a lot of it. Since the season started, I’ve reached 1650+ on both my 2s and 3s teams, with a few hundred matches played. I’ve also accrued enough honor with BG farming, Stone Keeper Shards, and Wintergrasp Marks to get the new shoulders from Wintergrasp, Wrathful Necklace, Cloak, Bracers, and the new Medallion of the Horde. With my new changes, I’ve got way more resilience (1140, compared to around 900) and I’m doing better damage to boot. I’ve also earned Wintergrasp Veteran with 100 WG wins, and I got Quick Cap and Ironman from Warsong Gulch today.

As far the actual PvP is going, well, it’s good. I’ve been running Ele Sham/Disc Priest/Unholy DK, and it’s a pretty decent comp. My tactics have changed drastically since the start of the season; I’ve been purging more, DPS-ing less, and trying to line-of-sight much more. This is because, as a Shaman, I’m often the one getting focused on. That means I often don’t have time to do much more than throw off Purges, Shocks, and the occasional Lava Burst/Chain Lightning. I don’t believe the Resilience/healing nerf have done anything, since burst damage is still ridiculous. 2s-wise, we’re still doing well, but the limitations of Disc Priest/Ele Sham are becoming all-too-apparent. It’s one of the reasons I’m focusing more on 3s this season. Maybe in Cataclysm we’ll see a change, but I’m not holding my breath.

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My Relentless-style Shoulders, courtesy of the new vendor in Wintergrasp.

All in all, the focus I’ve had the last two weeks has been on Arena, and grinding honor so I’ll have better gear to PvP with. Getting a Paladin to 29 health and then watching him bubble is dandy, but I’d prefer it if he ended up dead instead. I also got the Love Fool title from the Love is in the Air event, and I’ve made some baby steps towards doing the Lunar Festival achievements, which I plan to do this year. I’m looking forward to more Arena, raiding, and of course, my fourth piece of t10, which’ll get me that much closer to topping charts and looking like a badass. Life is good!


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3.3.2: It’s About Time

3 02 2010

Hell, it’s about time. Reading through the patch notes, you’ll notice a lot of nice things scattered throughout: dungeons have been further streamlined, Arena Season 8 has started (FINALLY!), Toravon’s in VoA now, and the final wing of ICC has been unlocked. Most importantly though, is this:

  • Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

At long last, a bump to help us stay competitive. We’ve been down near the bottom of the DPS meters, and this buff equates to around a 4-5% dps bump, with math courtesy of Charles over at Planet of the Hats. The t10 4-piece bonus has also been redesigned to not suck, with Lava Burst casts increasing the duration of Flame Shock by 6 seconds. This equates to 150-250 DPS, going once again off of Charles’ numbers.

So, it’s a great time to be Elemental. The DPS will help in both PvE and PvP, and our 4-piece doesn’t suck anymore! Arthas doesn’t stand a chance.


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Good News, Everyone! We Killed Professor Putricide!

2 02 2010

The weekend I lead a mediocre ICC 25 run, ran some BGs, fished, and most importantly: downed Professor Putricide. Yeah, we finally got our act together and took out everyone’s favorite Futurama-themed boss over the weekend. My leggings were nowhere to be seen, but there’s always next time and I’m confident we can make it a repeat performance. Our experience afterward with the Blood Prince Council was a good one, and we got them to 150k health on our best attempt. Arthas won’t be waiting long at this rate!

I started off the weekend leading another late-night ICC 25 on Friday. Unfortunately, this week the raid was much, much sloppier, in part because of our healers being terrible (despite having the achievements and gear) and people being annoying in Vent. One of our tanks wouldn’t stop talking, making it that much harder to lead the raid, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the non-guild healers I’d gotten were pretty awful. During our Marrowgar attempts, which ended up being a two-shot, at least one tank seemed to be perpetually close to dying, and it always seemed iffy if someone got heals whilst spiked. Deathwhisper was better, as we two-shotted only because of some bad luck on the first try. But the Gunship Battle… oh, the Gunship Battle. We wiped it up because the healers I assigned to jump over didn’t jump over.What. Deathbringer Saurfang was a no-go like last week, due to poor heals and a lack of DPS. Argh. I have to say, part of the blame for the raid is on my shoulders; after awhile, the annoying-ness got to me and I stopped caring how the raid went, which is pretty much the opposite of what a raid lead should do. Next week’s resolution: don’t lose heart, no matter how annoyed I am. ICC left a sour taste in my mouth, and afterwards I did a quick all-guildies random, and that was the end of my night.

On Saturday I did some BGs and fishing to replenish my mats for Fish Feasts, followed by some Howling Fjord quests to get me closer to Seeker. On Sunday we went back to ICC, but that wasn’t the only thing going on. I’ve been hated by the Steamwheedle Cartel for months now, and I’ve just started to get back on their good side. Point in case: I’m no longer hated by Ratchet, or Booty Bay, which allowed me to enter into my first Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza ever. I got stomped, catching only 23 fish by the time somebody else grabbed 40, but it was still cool to be able to try. I also got killed by a Fire Mage, then released, equipped my weapons, and took revenge. He got me again whilst fishing… yeah. This contest could be harder to win than I thought. Afterwards I got my Mechanical Chicken when I finally turned in the last OOX quest I’d had for months, since I could finally re-enter Booty Bay safely! I did some fishing and cooking and then logged off for a few hours before the raid.

Like I said before, we finally killed the Professor. After clearing trash up to him, we tried a new way of killing the oozes… basically, the ranged would stand at max range from where the oozes spawned. Because of that, we were able to burn for about 5-6 seconds while they chose a target. If it went on a melee or healer, great; they were further away, and ranged DPS could just burn it down. If it went on a ranged DPS, still fine, since we could stack, melee could run over, and we’d get hit but survive. The real problem became our transition into Phase 3, and our subsequent survival. The first few times we made it that far, we did so just as a brown slime would spawn. With our off-tank out of the Abombination, we were unable to slow it, and had to try to burn it/not die. That also meant less time killing Putricide, and each time we went to Phase 3 with an add, we wiped. Our last two attempts exposed the problem of kiting the boss; once, we simply ran out of space, and had to run through an increasingly-narrow gap between two expanding slime puddles. Once we were in the clear, we had so little space that we were eventually standing in slime, and once he tossed down another puddle, well, game over. On our kill, it was incredibly hairy, as we were standing in about a 10-yard radius around the boss in the only slime-free area in the room. Our tank’s health was jumping up and down by 15k at a time, and we finished Putricide off just in time. Wow, what a fight. My kilt didn’t drop, and I ended up passing on the caster necklace that did; I’m holding out for the better-itemized Soulcleave Pendant, since hit/crit and a blue socket aren’t really my thing.

Afterwards, we went on to the Blood Prince Council, where I ended up switching to PvP spec, strapping on some gear and tanking Keleseth. It looks like I’ve become our dedicated Ranged Tank, and it’s a role I’m starting to like more and more. Our attempts were good, mostly; I was stacking orbs like crazy, and my guildies were pulling ones on the other side of the room to me, which was cool. Still when he starts casting his Empowered Shadow Bolts… hoo boy. Not having enough orbs is bad news bears, since I got nailed for 20k by one. I’m glad to have my Battlemaster’s Trinket & Stoneclaw Totem to help me (and the healers) out. Our only real snag (besides keeping our tanks alive) came with the Kinetic Bombs and our melee DPS avoiding the AOE effects. By the end of the night, though, our ranged DPS were doing much better handling the bombs, and the melee were surviving much more consistently. The next time we face them, I think we’ve got a good chance of victory.

On Monday, I only logged on to do a random. It was H UK, where I ended up facing, of course, Prince Keleseth in his 5-man variety. Ironic. More importantly, today marks the start of the new Arena season and a buff for Elemental Shamans! FINALLY!


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