changes | Bloodlust

Take Heed of the Celestial Steed

18 04 2010

I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I feel it needs to be said. The big deal in WoW recently: the Celestial Steed and Lil’XT. Blizzard just released both of these, and anyone can buy them from their store for $25 and $10, respectively. Now, WoW.com had a figure that said the queue for these things was at 140,000. That was a few days ago, which means they’ve probably made five, six, maybe even seven million dollars by now. I’m not even surprised, personally; it’s a really cool looking mount, and a really cool pet. I see the steeds everywhere in Dalaran, and in a raid I was doing, there were five players with them. Five.

What. The. Eff.

Maybe it’s because I have very little disposable income, but this just seems really, really dumb. $25 for an in-game horse. A cool horse, admittedly, but one whose uniqueness is diminished when everyone around you is riding one, and one that people will tire of, just like so many other mounts. I remember when I though I’d never stop riding my Great White Kodo. Then, I thought my new Hawkstrider was really cool. But that couldn’t compare to a Wooly Mammoth! That, however, wasn’t nearly as cool as my Black War Raptor. Which in turn wasn’t nearly as cool as my Thunder Bluff Kodo. However, once I started riding that I remembered my Great White, and promptly switched back to my old favorite. Only to abandon it to the badass status symbol that is the Mechano-hog. The story’s the same with my flying mounts too. I quickly replaced my Amber Drake with a Red one, only to change that in for a Hippogryph, before finally settling in with my Red Proto Drake. Even Ruby, though, will probably see a lot less airtime if I can manage to get my Ironbound Drake. For me, Lil’XT is a much cooler choice. It’s a pet, sure, but it still has XT’s voice, and even his abilities. Gimmicky, sure, but not no less than the mount. I won’t be buying either because I simply don’t have the cash, or even the need for either of these. I have flying mounts; I have pets. I don’t have the cash to throw away on items that I’ll end up replacing shortly anyways. I guess what I’ve been trying to get at, in a really roundabout way, is that buying this is dumb. It’s expensive, it’ll get replaced, and it’s something you can’t take out of the game. I know that others will disagree, and that they’re entitled to their own opinion.

But that doesn’t mean theirs is right.

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Tags: changes, fail, loot
Categories : Diary

Two Busy Weeks

27 03 2010

Business in and out of WoW. In the last two weeks, I bought my fifth piece of t10 and sanctified my third. I also managed to get exalted with the Kalu’ak (finally!), grabbing the Mastercraft rod and the pet to boot, all while finishing up quests in Howling Fjord to become Loremaster of Northrend. At the same time, 3.3.3 has dropped, and naturally, I’ve been farming BGs like there’s no tomorrow. Yikes.

Outside of an ICC 25, last week was pretty uneventful. This was due to Saint Patrick’s Day falling on a Wednesday. With most of my guild being either collegiate or older, well, that meant no raid day, which was fine with me. Then, my GM’s computer died; he’s also our main tank, and that meant no guild raid on Sunday, either. I spent the week doing my daily random, and the occasional BG or Kalu’ak rep quest. I also spent time running through Howling Fjord, getting halfway through the zone by the end of the week, and seeing some pretty cool quests. Notably, I got to see my Inner Turmoil (he was defeated quickly) before getting a slow fall buff, and then jumping off the mountain I was on. So cool! I also took the time to run a couple guildies through BRD, using my mole machine to get us there; it was a quick, fun run.

Rockin' full t10 at last!	Facing down my Inner Turmoil
It's a long way down...	Sitting like a King in BRD

The weekend arrived, though, and with that came the ICC 25. Hoo boy. The week’s lack of excitement was instantly made up for when not one, but two Marks of the Protector dropped.

I then proceeded to roll in the mid-70s, good enough for third place. This was followed by a long sigh, a face palm, and immediate offers on the Mark.

At that point, things turned around. I ended up talking directly to the guy I was bidding against, and I paid out a whopping 7.5k g for the Mark, leaving me with only 500. However, I’ve got this to say right now: completely worth it. Why? Because I got the Sanctified helm, and man do I look cool.

My Sanctified Helm, in glorious high quality graphics

Once again: completely worth it. This is only the second time I’ve cranked my graphics up to high for a screen shot (the first was for my Mechano-hog), and you can’t see it here, but I’m chugging along at around 2fps. Awesome. I put off buying the Quill until next week, opting instead to sell a couple Primordial Saronites and complete a round of Argent Dailies to bring me back up to around 3k g; I’ve found that having less than 1000 is a terrible feeling.

Moving on, I ran an ICC 10 with a PuG (they only got the first four down, surprise surprise) and did little else until 3.3.3 dropped on Tuesday. Verdict with the patch so far: very cool. The Random BG Finder has made getting into BGs a few minutes faster, and a lot more rewarding, although I’ve gotten Strand and Arathi Basin far more than any other BG. Either way, the biggest difference so far? The ease at which honor is obtainable. 6k honor from the first win, followed by 4k afterwards? I remember when I was ecstatic at seeing 2k from an Alterac Valley, and that took fifteen minutes of que time, followed by thirty of hard fighting. Now… wow. Just wow. They’ve already made it cake to get into a full set of Furious gear. If this doesn’t drive a few people into the Arena, I don’t know what will. It’s also interesting to note that epic gems have seen a price drop already on my server; getting an epic with 10k honor no longer means doing 10 BGs, it means doing 2. I’ve personally already sold about 1000g worth of gems, simply because PvP’ing is way more fun than questing. The only other things of note recently have been a couple achievements; I finally picked up Warsong Expedience, and I ran ZA awhile with a few friends too. There was some pretty cool looking Shaman gear in there, and the troll aesthetic is something Blizzard doesn’t do often with gear. Coming off the ice, bone, and otherwise dark coloring of Northrend gear, it was a refreshing change. I’ve also been enjoying the slight DPS bump from 3.3.3, and I’ve swapped out my Flame Shock glyph for Glyph of Lava. So far, it’s looking like a 200, maybe 300 increase, and the ability to crit on a FS tick has been cool for PvP. Having Elemental Oath as a passive buff is also nothing to complain about. So far, 3.3.3 is shaping up to be one of Blizzard’s better minor releases.

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Tags: achievements, changes, icecrown, loot, pvp, raiding, Shaman
Categories : Diary

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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Tags: changes, Shaman
Categories : Gameplay

Brewfest/3.2.2 Impressions

23 09 2009

Another Tuesday, another day of maintanence, only yesterday brought 3.2.2 along with it. First impresssions: everything is exactly the same, only with a bit of patch-day lag. I did re-glyph my Flame Shock glyph to Glyph of Lava, and I feel like I’m hitting a little bit harder, but nothing’s really jumped right out and changed for me. I’ll have to wait until a raid to really see how much DPS I’ve gained.

Brewfest also began over the weekend, and I’m just now getting around to trying out the dailies. So far, they seem pretty easy, and also about as monotonous as the average holiday quest. Still, I’m gonna push through them for the Brewmaster achievement, since that Violet Proto Drake isn’t going to get itself (even though, at minimum, it’ll still be almost a year until I can get it.) One thing I’ve noticed about Brewfest that I’m not sure I like: the music, and the goblins. Usually, Blizzard does a pretty good job with their soundtracks but this… this just seems annoying. And as much as I like quoting Goblins as a long-running joke with my guild, I could’ve done without the constant Goblin laughter and chatter. I didn’t really care too much the first time when one of them couldn’t feel his legs, and after thirty minutes, it became mind-numbing. The sooner I can get that Brewmaster achievement, the better.

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Tags: achievements, changes
Categories : Diary

Looking Ahead to 3.2.2

16 09 2009

After reading the patch notes for 3.2.2, I’ve gotta say I’m pretty pumped. Why? Because Ele Shamans are getting a few nice buffs to the class. Here are the patch notes for Shamans:

Cleansing Totem: No longer pulses instantly when dropped
Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds
Lava Burst: The ability no longer consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target
Elemental Combat: Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
Enhancement: Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively)

What does this mean for us? Basically, a nice little DPS increase, achieved in two ways. The most obvious is the integration of the Glyph of Flame Shock (formerly a “required” glyph) into the class itself; Blizzard says they’ll be changing the Glyph to mimic the T8 2-piece bonus by allowing Flame Shock DoTs to crit. This means that Shamans will be able to choose a new glyph, upping our damage. The Glyph of Lava looks like the most obvious choice, although the Glyph of Flametongue Weapon wouldn’t be awful either. The other nice thing about this patch is the change to Shamanism: the bonus damage for Lightning Bolt was upped to 15%, and it now affects Chain Lightning as well, meaning that using Chain Lightning when possible (instead of Lightning Bolt constantly) might be a way to increase DPS, albeit at a very high mana cost. Either way, I’ll see a DPS boost next patch, so I’m happy.

As for bug fixes, we get this:

Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell
Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience)
Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast
Stoneclaw Totem will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units
Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated

Kinda lame for Shamans on the whole, but nothing really huge. Can’t get Death Gripped? Big deal… the DK’ll just use one of his eighty other stuns, interrupts or slows. I never noticed the Lava Burst, Lightning Shield, or Stoneclaw thing, and I typically don’t Thunderstorm when I’m in one of those CCs. In conclusion, it looks like 3.2.2 is shaping up to be a good patch for Shamans.

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Tags: changes, Shaman
Categories : Gameplay

I’m Going To Try Resto.

3 09 2009

Yep, that’s right. I’m going to do it.

I decided last night that, well, I’m a Shaman. And our guild could always use another healer. And healing would be a big change of pace, and it could be a lot of fun. But what really put me over the edge was running a normal ToC with some guildies. We were short a healer, so I decided to just heal in elemental spec; I’ve done it before, and it basically equates to “throw Earthliving on (a weapon buff that can proc a HoT), and spam Lesser Healing Wave like there’s no tomorrow.” This time, though, our tank wasn’t as geared, and a dps warrior we found in LFG was putting out 600 dps, and a guildie druid we were trying to gear was putting out about 800. So, pretty awful DPS overall. This led to some wipes, and, when we resolved to run it again to get some more gear, I specced into the Resto tree.

One word: wow. I was still wearing most of my ele gear, since I’ve never really worked on a healing set, but the difference was huge. My healing spells did more! They cost less! I have an instant cast heal! Earth Shield is amazing! We still wiped a couple times since we ended up four manning, and Confessor Paletress beat the living crap out of me. But the experience was, overall, really cool. It’s left me with these thoughts:

healing isn’t too bad it’s actually pretty fun I keep people alive and I’m really good at this and oh god I’m stunned oh god I can’t heal oh god the tank is dead shit shit shit
okay I’m going to do better this time I just need to watch the tank’s health bar and then when he gets hit I’ll just throw a BURST DAMAGE oh god the tank is dead shit shit shit
Getting a third set of gear is going to be time-consuming. Enchanting and gemming that gear is going to be expensive. Learning how to heal is going to be a pain. Better head back into Naxx…
I can’t kill anyone in PvP.
Re-speccing between Resto and Ele PvP is going to get very expensive, very fast.
I forsee a few weeks of checking out Elitist Jerks-recommended healing mods. Healbot, Grid, Decursive… you’re on notice.

So, that was a couple hours on Monday night. Courtesy of RL and Tuesday maintanence, I actually didn’t play at all yesterday. Definitely looking forward to tonight’s raid though.

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Tags: changes, healing, heroics, Shaman
Categories : Diary

Isle Of Conquest Is Not A Fun Fest

11 08 2009

Yesterday I finally got around to playing Isle of Conquest , which I had really high hopes for. They should’ve named the BG “Hanger of Conquest” or “Isle of Hangar.” Since, that’s really what it boiled down to in four of the five battles I fought. Here’s how it went those four times:

Start off at gate. Anticipation of the fun times ahead. All Paladins present have never heard of Crusader’s Aura.
The game starts! Myself and ten other Horde rush towards the Hangar. The rest of us go for the workshop and docks. Some poor soul goes to cap the refinery.
Uh oh. We meet the entire Alliance team at Hangar. Death follows soon after.
The Alliance airship takes off with their entire team aboard. Myself and a few others defend the keep while our vehicle crews begin their hour-long quest to batter down each gate at the same time.
The Alliance drop into the keep, and we lie down quietly as their team kills the two people defending and camps the graveyard, before running into the keep and killing our CO. Our offense sits in front of their gate, twiddling their thumbs. Crushing disappointment.

The only exception to this was when the Allies took the Hangar, only this time, about two thirds of our team defended. Myself and a few others eventually went on offense, charging the keep and 3-manning the final boss for a longwinded victory. Me personally? I’ll stick to the old BGs, thanks. Outside of the PvP, the only other thing I did was a few heroics to get my closer to my T8.5 helm. Soon, soon…

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Tags: changes, pvp
Categories : Diary

3.2 Four Days In

9 08 2009

More like three, since Tuesday was a joke, but whatever. So far, I’d say 3.2 is shaping up to be a great patch. The new Argent Dailies took some getting used to, but I’ve settled into them nicely, and, notably, discovered that the Commanders are spread around, and a few are even mobile; in other words, I won’t need to sit and camp one spot, praying for one to spawn. The ones in Icecrown are still out of the way, but other than that, everything else is good with the Argents. And, speaking of the Argents, I really do like the new Heroic. The start is pretty longwinded, but the jousting is kinda fun when you’re doing it with friends, and killing the Champions after they dismount is tight. Follow that with memories of the past, and the still-laughably-easy Black Knight phase, and Naxx25 level gear, and I’m a happy guy.

On the subject of heroics, two things come to mind: first, making Emblems of Conquest easy to get is awesome! Second, making Emblems of Conquest easy to get is really lame. After running a bunch of Heroics over the last few days, I’ve snagged my Conqueror’s chest, and I’m over halfway towards my helm, which will complete my 4-piece bonus. This is cool, yeah, but at the same time it means that players who can’t do half my DPS will be able to get the same types of gear that would’ve been out of reach of 90% of the game’s populace only a week ago. On a more stat-oriented note, courtesy of the loads of hit on this gear, I’m way, way over hit cap now. This isn’t helping me a ton, considering I got a great cape, Kurisu’s Indecision, from one of my H ToC runs. It’s sitting in my bank, unused for the moment, waiting for a day when I inexplicably am under the hit cap again. A week ago, that cape would’ve been amazing, and now… not so much. Funny how quickly things can change.

As for the other happenings in Azeroth, there’s been PvP, Emblem grinding, and heroic Achievements for that elusive red proto drake. As far as PvP goes, I’ve finally accumulated enough emblems from all the BGs I’ve been doing to get my Black War Raptor. I was also pretty pumped after an Alterac Valley where I managed to snag the Alterac Valley All Star achievement (even if we did lose in the end). And with Alterac Valley… wow. They made the bracket different, from 70-79, to 70-80. In other words, there are low level 70s running around AV. Can you say “two-shot?” Because I was spending time in AV, I ended up not checking out the new BG…. I’ll try it eventually, I guess. As far as Arenas went, I managed to get a few 2s battles in, along with a bunch of 3s with my Ele Sham/Disc Priest/Fury Warrior combo. Almost at 1300 for 3s, and 1350 for 2s. Not bad at all. Wintergrasp, for me personally, has changed for the better. Even though there are way less people in the battle overall, the people that are there seem to have an idea of what they’re doing; enough that we managed to defeat the Alliance on defense before they even breached a single wall. “Crushing” would a be good word to describe our victory.

The very cool Black War Raptor

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=22721

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Tags: 2s, 3.2, 3s, achievements, changes, dailies, heroics, loot, pvp, wintergrasp
Categories : Diary

First Impressions of 3.2

6 08 2009

Patch day on Executus was like any other: the server was “up” as long as waiting five minutes in between actions sounds appealing. It wasn’t to me, so the real playtime I put into the patch came yesterday, post-Ulduar. Yep, we decided to wait on Trial of the Crusader and headed back for another week of raiding. Things started off poorly at best; heading into FL with two towers down, we managed to bug the fight so that we were actually fighting with the equivalent of one tower down. We came through after four wipes, moved onto Razorscale for a one-shot (no trinket again), and then moved on to XT. What Blizzard didn’t mention in the patch notes was that they tweaked this fight. We usually tank XT on the very left, with adds only spawning on the right… ranged DPS can just AOE them down easily. This time, adds spawned on the left, with about three times more bomb bots than usual in the mix, leading to an almost insta-wipe. So, it was back to killing XT in the center, as ranged DPS struggled to bring down the bombs coming from all sides. We managed a two-shot. Kologarn and Auriaya were one shots, before we backtracked to Ignis, taking him out without trouble as well. We went back to kill Thorim… and, fun times: guild drama. After our Paladin tank got his third tier for his 4-piece set bonus (he got lucky in Vault) a healing pally, who’d gotten the same number of tier, flips out. The same healing pally stopped healing the tank afterwards, and after frustration on Freya trash, we called the raid.

Which brings me, finally, to 3.2. I started doing the Argent dailies, both new and old, and wow… really, really annoying now. There’s a single daily in Storm Peaks, aka “the exact opposite direction of where I need to go.” The Battle Before the Citadel quest has been made infinitely more annoying, since it’s tough to kill three commanders when their respawn timer is five minutes each. Freeing some Crusaders meant killing Cultists for the keys to the cages (annoying, and alliterative!). Follow this up with me flying into an island off the coast and killing ten more of the Vykrul, and every day is going to be daily-tastic now. At least the money’s good.

Afterwards, I tried out the new 5-man heroic with some guildies, and was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. Jousting is still jousting, whatever, but the fight afterwards was good, as was Paltress’ boss memories. As for the Black Knight… ouch. I don’t think it gets much easier than that. I almost feel a bit bad for the guy, he just gets crushed whenever he tries to help out his boss. As for the loot, extra Champion’s Seals are always nice, and although nothing dropped for me it was cool to see 25 Naxx gear dropping from something so simplistic. I might finally be able to replace my rings and trinket if I get lucky.

As for the Shaman changes, they’re actually really nice. Making Wind Shock not worthless by renaming it and putting it on a seperate cooldown is great, and the new totem bar, as well as the ability to throw 4 totems at once… lots of awesome right there. A few rounds of 2s demonstrated that Druids have been nerfed a bit in their healing, and that Wind Shear’s interrupting abilities are a huge plus. I’m going to be trying out the new BG today; hopefully it’ll be just as cool as everything else so far.

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Tags: 3.2, changes, raiding, ulduar
Categories : Diary

My Thoughts on Tier 9

2 08 2009

I’ve been reading WoW.com’s articles about the upcoming Tier gear in 3.2, and “mixed bag” seems to be the perfect catchphrase to describe the new faction-specific sets. I think it’s really cool that the Horde and Alliance will be getting their own styles; giving a cohesive look across each faction will be a nice change, and highlights the divide that both have suffered recently. On the whole, I like the Horde’s styles better than the Alliance’s flavor; spikes and fur beat corsets and boat shoulders any day of the week. As far as the Shaman set goes, though, I’m less impressed. Here’s what I get to look forward to:

Blizzard's preview of Shaman T9. Meh.

Because I share an armor class with hunters, I understand the need for pants; someone wielding a gun would look like a dork if he was wearing a dress. It’s just that, while wearing pants is nice, it doesn’t really fit well with me since I’m a caster. I’m supposed to wear a dress or a skirt or a kilt or whatever. The shoulders are also underwhelming, especially coming off of the awesome exploding-rock style of T8, and even the glowing orb of T7. The helm is okay, as are the boots, chest and hands.And while I can’t complain too loudly since the new tier does look pretty cool… It’s not really (ie T8) cool.

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Tags: 3.2, changes, loot, Shaman
Categories : Diary

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