There's nothing quite like that first savory kill of some supposedly big bad in the current tier of raiding. Breath is held as the last bit of health is whittled away from whatever boss your group is collectively trying to bring down, panicked prayers to the gods of DoTs and RNG are uttered, and yells of triumph are shouted as the big bad finally gasps and keels over, spilling his or her glittering purple loot for whoever can equip it.
Most of us who raid often live for that short window of time. That moment of "OMG KILL IT KILL IT!! MOAR DOTS!" and the adrenaline rush that soon comes to follow when that one pesky boss finally keels over and coughs up the goods that it somehow keeps hidden away in its invisible pockets.
Side note: I've always wondered how some sticky lava goo from Deathwing's back enabled me to be more agile. I mean sure, I suppose you could cut away Morchok's loincloth and make a pretty decent set of shoulder pads from them, smack a faceless crab man around enough and take his claw for a sword, or make a set of bracers from a dragon that has been experimented upon, but seriously...when do the heroes (aka our characters) have time to craft these things from the creatures they down? In a rush to save Azeroth, I highly doubt they're running around going "Oh, this bit of horn would make a lovely addition to your helm, Dornak. It will surely increase your damage to the next brute by 50!" I also doubt Hagara really keeps a staff on her person. I mean, no dual axe wielding half batshit crazy shaman woman would bother toting a staff. You'd think we'd at least be able to steal her axes...
*Grumbles something about silly games and their silly loot*
The video above is in a few ways how to execute some of the mechanics Heroic Warlord Zon'ozz encounter and somehow still win. It's also a video that had been recorded when the Dragon Soul nerf first hit 20%.
Now, originally we had to three heal this fight. Being my group's swing healer, the footage above is from my first time dpsing Zon'ozz. As you can see, right off the bat I pull hate off of our tank (who had just main changed from his prot paladin to his blood dk), I'm rather uncertain about my target switches, and some of my cooldown timings are awkward at best.
Let's learn from my mistakes, shall we?
Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw)
Please note that Zon'ozz's attacks either deal shadow damage or physical damage, so Glyph of Healing Stream Totem won't benefit your raid any.
Totem Changes:
Run your standard set up that your raid composition requires. During the "Black" phases it would be wise of you to twist in a Stoneclaw totem to help mitigate some of the damage.
The Encounter:
As things are at this moment, there is about 1.5 minutes worth of time in between black phases, at least with how my group tends to bounce the ball (7 times each, 2 black phases, and done). Depending on how bounces your raid does, your timing between black phases *might* vary slightly. You will need to play with timings a bit to gain optimal use of your dps cooldowns, but here are the general scenarios as I see them.
1) Use your usual opener with wolves out and axes ablaze (as shown in the video). Your wolves will not be up for the first black phase and will require you to wait a bit to pop them, but they will for sure be up for the second black phase.
2) Save your wolves for the first black phase, do your usual dps like crazy and live thing for the second black phase, and if you get a third black phase, your wolves will be up again.
3). Save your wolves, but pop them a bit before the first black phase. Going by rough judgments in that video, pop them about 10 seconds before the first black phase so that they'll overlap into the black phase, so that he'll get some extra increase incoming damage from you, plus you'll have a bit extra healing incoming on yourself. Popping them like this will make your wolves come off of cooldown about half way through the second black phase. I have yet to test out this third option myself, but I am eager to test this one out next week to see if it provides a better outcome for me personally than the first option, which is what I've been using.
From a melee dps stand point this fight is pretty easy. Stand behind boss, get hit in the behind by the boss' balls, run out when you have the debuff and get cleansed, run like hell back to the behind of the boss, run out at appropriate bounces, get into black phase and survive. The reason why I'm fussing about the usage of our wolves so much is mainly because of the black phase. The boss takes increased damage during that phase, while we take in some pretty massive AoE damage ourselves. Wolves are our one almost kind of sort of big dps cd, plus their passive healing is sexy.
During black phase, we must concentrate on two main things:
1) Cleave the crap out of the boss and the big claw things.
2) Use available survivability cooldowns.
*Most* raid compositions tend to lean a bit more ranged heavy if they can, which means very rarely does an enhancement shaman have to worry about the eye stalks. Our usual big focus is the boss and the claw. If your group is a bit melee heavy though, fret not. We could in theory run around and kill nearby eye stalks (send your ranged after the ones that are further away from the raid), provided we manage to keep in range of a strong healer. Just remember to use Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw totem when your health starts dropping a bit, and you should be able to complete your task with no issue. In a typical raid though, you should be able to stay on the boss and cleave off of him. Running with a fury warrior and a combat rogue, plus myself as the "let's sit on the boss" dpsers (we sent our poor ret paladin off into the abyss of eye stalks), the three of us were easily able to stay on the boss and cleave the claw down in a fairly efficient fashion. If your cleave dps is a bit low though, focus on the claw while cleaving off of it to continue putting pressure on the boss.
To reiterate, H-Zon'ozz in 10 easy steps:
1) Stand behind boss
2) Get hit by balls
3) Run away little girl when you have the debuff. Be cleansed child!
4) Stand behind boss
5) Run away from balls
6) Smack smack!
7) Cleeeeave ALL THE TWO THINGS
8) LIVE DAMN YOU
9) Smack and hack!
10) Collect loot
Loots:
Gauntlets of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier gloves, BiS. For a while it was up in the air whether or not the Sporebeard Gauntlets were BiS, or if the tier gloves were. From what I've gathered the Spiritwalker's Grips are indeed our best in slot item for hands, despite having one socket less than the Sporebeard Gauntlets. More mastery ftw!
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A
trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj,
Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer
is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral
dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a
Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they
all have it.
Ahhh Hagara, you crazy woman you. Normally I'd tell a fellow enhancement shaman to heed the words of Halbrium and play nicely with your fellow axe wielding elementalists. Unfortunately this wannabe shaman is nothing more than a slave of Al'Akir and likes nothing more than to hang with her Twilight's Hammer homies. She's a bad, bad lady folks.
At first glance, this encounter might look rather difficult as a melee. It's really not. I find that as a melee player, specifically as enhancement and feral, this fight is extremely easy to get great numbers on. Let's go over the details on how to shine on this encounter.
Spec Changes:
Standard 10/31/0 spec (Optimal and recommended)
EP 8/33/0 spec (Suboptimal - Contains Earthen Power)
The second spec mentioned should only be used in the event that you find that your raid is often struggling with sticking together, you often find yourself out of cleanse range of your healers in the ice phase due to ice wall dodging in the bubble, or if for some reason healer mana is an issue (it really shouldn't be, as the ice phase is all about dodging damage - it's one big regen fest for healers usually). Consider it a "we're really struggling with dispells" spec, to only be used in dire situations.
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep two of your standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf) and adjust your third as you need it (Healing Stream if you don't have a frost/nature resist in the raid, Shamanistic Rage if you really do need an extra dispell ability, Stoneclaw to have your usual minor mitigation ability)
Totem Changes:
For most of the fight you will use your typical totem set up. However, in the event that you get caught in an ice tomb, it may be beneficial to drop your Fire Elemental Totem or your Magma Totem to help AoE down the tombs. You lose your Searing Stacks from the boss, but I think the trade off of getting out of the tomb faster is worth it.
Drop Grounding Totem just before Hagara casts Shattered Ice. It doesn't *always* eat the Shattered Ice spell, but it should most of the time. May potentially save the life of a raid member, especially if Ice Lance soaking isn't the best.
The Encounter:
How you open up with the fight depends heavily on how your raid decides to take on this encounter. Some raid groups prefer to always begin with the lightning phase, since it's much shorter than the ice phase and in general most raid groups will only get three phases total these days. Others will begin with whichever phase she happens to start with. (Helpful hint: a hunter can sacrifice a pet or a rogue can engage and vanish in order to reset the boss, making it so she begins in which ever phase the raid desires. The imbues on her axes shows which phase she will begin with.)
Starting with the lightning phase:
- Using wolves as an opened: don't do it! As you can see in the video above, I opened up with my wolves and they weren't up for the first stun after the lightning phase. Begin with your usual opener, sans wolves.
- Once you hit lightning phase, complete your usual task. Whether you're chaining the lightning or hanging out in the middle like I usually do, roll your cooldowns to help your healers out. This phase is incredibly healing intensive, so do what you can.
- When the phase ends and Hagara is stunned, pop your wolves and get your rotation rolling once more. Be sure to babysit your Searing Totem, as it might not track back on to her right away.
Starting with ice phase:
- You *should* be able to open with your wolves and have ample time to have them off of cooldown before finishing the ice phase. I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure on the timing of this as my group always begins in lightning phase, so toy with it a bit to be sure.
- Whether your group runs around the outside like mine does, or if they dodge the wall by dipping into the bubble, it matters not. If your group runs like mine does, be sure to always at least get your Flame Shock up on the crystal, if not also drop a Searing Totem by it (Stormstrike + FS the crystal if possible as you run by, to ensure the totem will attack it). If you're dipping, you should have no issue more or less getting your usual priority rotation in.
- As soon as the last crystal dies, pop your wolves, use Spirit Walk, and send your dogs after Hagara asap while you yourself run over to her as well. If you're super savvy, you can pull off of the crystal and start moving a bit before it dies and let the DoTs finish it off.
If your group starts with lightning phase, you should have your wolves out for two of the three stunned phases. If you're the hero/lust/warp popper, try to pop it just after your wolves are out (timing is everything there!). If you're not, try to make sure that they're out just before the designated hero/lust/warp popper does their thing. Ideally you'd want someone else to pop hero/lust/warp for the first stunned phase, so that you may pop hero/lust/warp on the second stunned phase for your dogs alone. That's in a perfect world though; do what you can.
Dealing with Frostflake:
Being the sexy shaman that we are, handling Frostflake ain't no thang. While we can't dispell it with our spec, we're also not greatly hindered by its effects. Someone drop some snow on the ground in a bad place? No problem! We're not drastically slowed by it so long as we're in puppy form. Have to run the bebuff into the bubble, which slows us down? No worries, it won't (shouldn't) drop the debuff off of you, but it also can't put its slowing effect on you, nor will the bubble slow you down (I was playing it safe in the video, since shape shifting for druids WILL remove the debuff). Seriously, if you have insta ghost wolf, as you should as enhancement, the ice phase and dealing with Frostflake is very, very easy.
Get Frostflake, run into the bubble, be dispelled (or Shamanistic Rage if you've glyphed it, or use Earthbind Totem if you've had to spec into Earthen Power for whatever reason), run back out.
Dealing with Ice Lance:
Ideally you should never really have to worry about Ice Lances. However, if you run with a melee heavy comp, or if your ranged are just terrible with soaking them, you will have to be aware of their presence. Try to never take more than three stacks if possible; any more than that and it starts to really hurt (8+ will more than likely kill you). If you find yourself soaking Ice Lances, either reposition yourself so that another melee takes it or have a rogue Smoke Bomb the area if several melee are taking Ice Lances. Despite the fact that Ice Lances can hurt a lot with the more stacks you receive, it is still better for you to take them than the tank. Preferably though you'll always have someone else who is able to take a few for you while your stacks drop.
Hagara: The Short Version
- Start in lightning phase. Do NOT pop wolves at the start.
- DPS to lightning phase. Kill add. Do your job (either run lightning or look pretty in the middle); pop defensive/self healing cooldowns.
- Pop wolves when Hagara's bubble disappears. Hit her as hard as possible while she's stunned!
- DPS to ice phase. Move to designated pillar (ice crystal).
- Go through your rotation if you're dodging walls; Stormstrike and Flame Shock crystals + leave a Searing Totem if you're running around the outside. Lava Lash + Earth Shock if there's time. Lightning Bolt or pop an emergency Greater Healing Wave if you have 4+ Maelstrom stacks.
- Pop wolves at the end of the ice phase, again hit her as hard as possible while she's stunned (pop your pot if you haven't already just before you pop your wolves for this; pop hero right after wolves are out if it hasn't been done already).
- Repeat until she's dead. Collect loot.
Loots:
Shoulders of the Corrupted Protector - Turn this token in to receive our BiS shoulders, Spiritwalker's Spaulders.
Signet of Grasping Mouths - Despite having to less than idea secondary stats on it, this ring is still one of our BiS pieces.
Treads of Dormant Dreams - Another item with not one, but two less than idea secondary stats on it. Still a BiS item, still super sexy with all that haste begging to be reforged and two delicious red sockets waiting to be filled with Delicate Queen's Garnets.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A
trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj,
Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer
is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral
dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a
Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they
all have it.
There you have it folks, Heroic Zon'ozz and Heroic Hagara in a nutshell. If you've spotted a mistake, need anything clarified, or feel like something needs to be added, please do not hesitate to speak up! Comments and questions are always welcome.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
How To Enhance: Heroic Morchok & Heroic Yor'sahj
Did your guild just down Madness of Deathwing on normal? Are you finding yourself looking at the Morchok/Kohcrom twins in the face on heroic and scratching your head a bit? Have you been working on heroic modes for a while, but are new to the ways of the enhancement shaman and are looking for a few tips? Murgleglrgl and baby murlocs on top? Well, I have just the post for you!
At the time of writing this guide, it is the first week in which the 20% Dragon Soul nerf has been active. Provided your group has decent gear and at least an inkling of coordination, everything up until heroic Warmaster Blackhorn is (or should be) an absolute cakewalk. If you are the raid's swing healer, like myself, everything should be more or less two-healable now (provided your main spec healers are semi geared and on their A-game), which means you get to rock the sexy numbers on the DPS charts instead of the HPS charts. Yay!
Here are a few tips and tricks for the first two fights to do just that: rock the charts. By rock the charts I mean live and put out a few shiny numbers along the way.
This video above is from when Dragon Soul received its first nerf (I believe anyways), which was a whopping 5%. As you can see I'm on the Morchok side, which out of the two twins is definitely the more active side. You can also see that I'm crystal soaking, which means a TON of movement for me. Not a big deal, really.
Morchok's side is thus for crystal soaking: stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal, etc until the Black Blood phase, then stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal etc until either another Black Blood phase happens or the boss dies, whichever happens first.
Kohcrom's side is more of a stomp, stomp, crystal, stomp, stomp rotation, if memory serves. Much less movement, much more of a snoozefest!
Can an enhancement shaman soak stomps? My answer to this question is: probably. I believe that soaking is still better left up to shadow priests and rogues, or even a boomkin/plate dps if your (10 man) composition is missing one or both of those classes/specs, but now with the nerfs you should be able to safely soak stomps as enhancement. This is provided that you and your healers are semi geared though, and your healers are on the ball with topping you off prior to a stomp. I'd highly recommend trying to soak on Kohcrom's side first, as that is the easier side to heal. I'd also definitely recommend utilizing a rotation of Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed Stoneclaw, that is) to help out on reducing your damage taken. Bottom line: test it out and see if you and your healers can handle it. Upside to soaking stomps though? You don't need to run around like a loony toon to soak crystals. Soak one or the other, as trying to swing both could potentially have some not so desired consequences (see: death).
If you'd like a more in depth help guide to this encounter, please take a look at my original heroic Morchok guide. The information found there is still valid, but don't bother swapping out the Windfury glyph for the Feral Spirit glyph unless your healers tend to fall reeeeally behind, and only if you're saving them as a healing cooldown for some odd reason. The standard Prime glyphing of Lava Lash, Windfury Weapon, and Stormstrike should be more than sufficient for this encounter.
Loots:
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Sporebeard Gauntlets - If for some reason you can't get your mits on the heroic tier gloves, these are your next best bet. They're better than the normal mode tier gloves, but not quite as good as the heroic tier gloves. BiS for hunters, second BiS for us.
Heroic Yor'sahj ain't no big thang if your group knows what's up. If you need an overall strategy how-to guide, head on over to this Icy-Veins over view. I am going to assume though that you are already at least semi-familiar with the encounter.
Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)
Glyph Changes:
If you're sitting on the boss - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're moving to oozes - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're sitting on the boss - Major: Remove Ghost Wolf and use Chain Lightning
If you're moving to oozes - Major: Remove Stoneclaw and use Chain Lightning (assuming your healers are good and you're not getting pounded on too hard by the adds).
Some of these glyph changes are highly dependent on your group composition, the raid's general dps output (if there's a lot of high AoE dps output in your raid, Flame Shock and Chain Lightning may not be worth the swap; I know it really isn't for my 10 man group because everything dies so quickly), and the capability of your healers (for the last suggestion).
Totem Changes: None, kind of.
If you're in a 25 man, swapping out Searing Totem for Magma Totem during a double black phase (yellow ooze + black ooze = nom AoE damage potential for you!) could very well yield a dps increase. This again is dependent on how high your raid AoE is though. If the adds die quickly and there's no overlap between the first set of adds and the second, you may be better off with sticking with good ol' derpy Searing Totem.
Totem twisting between your usual earth totem (Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, whichever your raid needs, if any) and the glyphed Stoneclaw totem can be handy for those moment when it's a purple + black phase and the adds are beating the crap out of you.
Should I stay or should I swap? No one likes to have to switch between adds. However, unless your group is somehow lacking a rogue or a kitty druid, chances are pretty good that you'll have to switch over to the oozes. Personally, I'm almost always having to swap to the oozes (though with the recent nerfs I may no longer need to do this), while someone else (generally a hunter, the rogue, or when we were two tanking it, the tank who currently did not have the boss) works on the mana void, if it's up.
AoE, how do I do it? During black phases, you should never physically swap to the little crazy elephant-looking dude adds. Keep your focus on the boss and use your AoE rotation from there. What's the optimal way to AoE as enhance? Well, let me tell you.
Flame Shock (keep FS as high on the duration as possible, for the FSs that are spread will take on the duration of the parent FS; the FS glyph makes this a bit easier to deal with, but was only really necessary for me to glyph back when I was running 25s. Never spread a FS with less than 10 seconds on it, if possible. The standard FS/ES/FS/ES rotation *should* in theory be sufficient, but watch it just in case.)
Lava Lash when there are four or more adds within a 12 yard radius
Unleash Elements
Fire Nova
Chain Lightning as soon and as often as possible
Stormstrike and Earth Shock as fillers
Unleash Elements will not be up for every Nova that you do, but it will "super power" your Nova when you are able to use it. Also, I tend to hold my Maelstrom stacks as we're going into the black phase, likewise with Lava Lash, unless I'm sure that it will be up in time for when the adds finally arrive to the boss. Timing is everything when it comes to properly AoEing, and that timing is all the more crucial when you're running with a well geared and capable group that can AoE the crap out of crap reeeeally quickly.
Loots:
Leggings of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier pants. BiS, super sexy. You may raid pantless out of game, but don't pass these bad boys up in game! Turn this token in to purchase your Spiritwalker's Legguards.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Moving forward: Besides Morchok, at this point every encounter up until Ship should be one tank, two healable for a team of 10. The only encounter that *might* still require three healers would be Zon'ozz, but with the newly instated 20% nerf our team was able to two heal that encounter with few mishaps (mmm, gotta love ball bugs). After healing some of those heroic fights for so long, the transition back into dps is a bit of a disorienting one. If you're dpsing as enhancement for the first time, don't lose heart! It will take a few pulls to really get into the groove of a some of those fights, as it does with any role.
While I've written a giant wall of text already, the best advice I can ever give is this: Know your rotation, know your tool kit, know the encounter. The rest just takes practice in order to put the pieces together properly.
Never let your axes go dull or your wolves go hungry.
At the time of writing this guide, it is the first week in which the 20% Dragon Soul nerf has been active. Provided your group has decent gear and at least an inkling of coordination, everything up until heroic Warmaster Blackhorn is (or should be) an absolute cakewalk. If you are the raid's swing healer, like myself, everything should be more or less two-healable now (provided your main spec healers are semi geared and on their A-game), which means you get to rock the sexy numbers on the DPS charts instead of the HPS charts. Yay!
Here are a few tips and tricks for the first two fights to do just that: rock the charts. By rock the charts I mean live and put out a few shiny numbers along the way.
This video above is from when Dragon Soul received its first nerf (I believe anyways), which was a whopping 5%. As you can see I'm on the Morchok side, which out of the two twins is definitely the more active side. You can also see that I'm crystal soaking, which means a TON of movement for me. Not a big deal, really.
Morchok's side is thus for crystal soaking: stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal, etc until the Black Blood phase, then stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal etc until either another Black Blood phase happens or the boss dies, whichever happens first.
Kohcrom's side is more of a stomp, stomp, crystal, stomp, stomp rotation, if memory serves. Much less movement, much more of a snoozefest!
Can an enhancement shaman soak stomps? My answer to this question is: probably. I believe that soaking is still better left up to shadow priests and rogues, or even a boomkin/plate dps if your (10 man) composition is missing one or both of those classes/specs, but now with the nerfs you should be able to safely soak stomps as enhancement. This is provided that you and your healers are semi geared though, and your healers are on the ball with topping you off prior to a stomp. I'd highly recommend trying to soak on Kohcrom's side first, as that is the easier side to heal. I'd also definitely recommend utilizing a rotation of Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed Stoneclaw, that is) to help out on reducing your damage taken. Bottom line: test it out and see if you and your healers can handle it. Upside to soaking stomps though? You don't need to run around like a loony toon to soak crystals. Soak one or the other, as trying to swing both could potentially have some not so desired consequences (see: death).
If you'd like a more in depth help guide to this encounter, please take a look at my original heroic Morchok guide. The information found there is still valid, but don't bother swapping out the Windfury glyph for the Feral Spirit glyph unless your healers tend to fall reeeeally behind, and only if you're saving them as a healing cooldown for some odd reason. The standard Prime glyphing of Lava Lash, Windfury Weapon, and Stormstrike should be more than sufficient for this encounter.
Loots:
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Sporebeard Gauntlets - If for some reason you can't get your mits on the heroic tier gloves, these are your next best bet. They're better than the normal mode tier gloves, but not quite as good as the heroic tier gloves. BiS for hunters, second BiS for us.
Heroic Yor'sahj ain't no big thang if your group knows what's up. If you need an overall strategy how-to guide, head on over to this Icy-Veins over view. I am going to assume though that you are already at least semi-familiar with the encounter.
Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)
Glyph Changes:
If you're sitting on the boss - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're moving to oozes - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're sitting on the boss - Major: Remove Ghost Wolf and use Chain Lightning
If you're moving to oozes - Major: Remove Stoneclaw and use Chain Lightning (assuming your healers are good and you're not getting pounded on too hard by the adds).
Some of these glyph changes are highly dependent on your group composition, the raid's general dps output (if there's a lot of high AoE dps output in your raid, Flame Shock and Chain Lightning may not be worth the swap; I know it really isn't for my 10 man group because everything dies so quickly), and the capability of your healers (for the last suggestion).
Totem Changes: None, kind of.
If you're in a 25 man, swapping out Searing Totem for Magma Totem during a double black phase (yellow ooze + black ooze = nom AoE damage potential for you!) could very well yield a dps increase. This again is dependent on how high your raid AoE is though. If the adds die quickly and there's no overlap between the first set of adds and the second, you may be better off with sticking with good ol' derpy Searing Totem.
Totem twisting between your usual earth totem (Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, whichever your raid needs, if any) and the glyphed Stoneclaw totem can be handy for those moment when it's a purple + black phase and the adds are beating the crap out of you.
Should I stay or should I swap? No one likes to have to switch between adds. However, unless your group is somehow lacking a rogue or a kitty druid, chances are pretty good that you'll have to switch over to the oozes. Personally, I'm almost always having to swap to the oozes (though with the recent nerfs I may no longer need to do this), while someone else (generally a hunter, the rogue, or when we were two tanking it, the tank who currently did not have the boss) works on the mana void, if it's up.
AoE, how do I do it? During black phases, you should never physically swap to the little crazy elephant-looking dude adds. Keep your focus on the boss and use your AoE rotation from there. What's the optimal way to AoE as enhance? Well, let me tell you.
Flame Shock (keep FS as high on the duration as possible, for the FSs that are spread will take on the duration of the parent FS; the FS glyph makes this a bit easier to deal with, but was only really necessary for me to glyph back when I was running 25s. Never spread a FS with less than 10 seconds on it, if possible. The standard FS/ES/FS/ES rotation *should* in theory be sufficient, but watch it just in case.)
Lava Lash when there are four or more adds within a 12 yard radius
Unleash Elements
Fire Nova
Chain Lightning as soon and as often as possible
Stormstrike and Earth Shock as fillers
Unleash Elements will not be up for every Nova that you do, but it will "super power" your Nova when you are able to use it. Also, I tend to hold my Maelstrom stacks as we're going into the black phase, likewise with Lava Lash, unless I'm sure that it will be up in time for when the adds finally arrive to the boss. Timing is everything when it comes to properly AoEing, and that timing is all the more crucial when you're running with a well geared and capable group that can AoE the crap out of crap reeeeally quickly.
Loots:
Leggings of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier pants. BiS, super sexy. You may raid pantless out of game, but don't pass these bad boys up in game! Turn this token in to purchase your Spiritwalker's Legguards.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Moving forward: Besides Morchok, at this point every encounter up until Ship should be one tank, two healable for a team of 10. The only encounter that *might* still require three healers would be Zon'ozz, but with the newly instated 20% nerf our team was able to two heal that encounter with few mishaps (mmm, gotta love ball bugs). After healing some of those heroic fights for so long, the transition back into dps is a bit of a disorienting one. If you're dpsing as enhancement for the first time, don't lose heart! It will take a few pulls to really get into the groove of a some of those fights, as it does with any role.
While I've written a giant wall of text already, the best advice I can ever give is this: Know your rotation, know your tool kit, know the encounter. The rest just takes practice in order to put the pieces together properly.
Never let your axes go dull or your wolves go hungry.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Moar work? Okie dokie...
Right, I have a blog and whatnot that I've been neglecting, don't I?
I assure you all that I have not fallen off of the face of the planet as far as blogging is concerned, I have not forgotten about Heroic Dragon Soul enhancement guides (to be coming very soon I hope, with video), nor have I completely dropped the leveling guide.
The truth is, I've been incredibly busy within WoW itself. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I'm sure you are aware of how much I've been raiding, both with my home server guild and with Twitterland Raiding. I'm also now in the MoP beta (Sazzination on Lost Isles, Alliance), but unfortunately I haven't had a ton of time to do any testing. Though, I have had time to start up a TLR guild on beta called Twitterland Raiding, which all of you beta goers are more than welcome to join!
On top of raiding like a fiend, I've been doing a LOT of video recording and editing. Some of which I'd like to showcase now. Feel free to subscribe to either channel, or just watch Twitter/the Facebook pages for when new videos are posted. Or don't, I'm fine with that too! : )
Twitterland Raiding <---Youtube Channel
SerenitySaz <---Youtube Channel
^ Still very excited about that one. H-Spine is HELL. Heroic Madness should be taken down this week and a video for it should be up by next week.
^ A not so sketchy version of Path and I duoing Kael'thas in Tempest Keep. With both of us in Dragon Soul gear we should be able to easily solo this guy, but we keep running together because it's our thing. Still no Ashes Al'ar, qq.
I'm really hoping that once some of the progression dust settles with my guild and Heroic Dragon Soul that I'll be on a somewhat calmer schedule, though we're still farming Heroic Firelands for legendary pieces for our boomkin and mounts from Heroic Ragnaros (there's a video for that too!) for our members, that I'll be able to have a bit more time for the MoP beta and for blogging.
Until that time comes though, please feel free to bug me on Twitter or come hang out with myself and the other fine Twitterland Raiding folks in one of our many cross-realm raids (Battle Tags, are you here yet?!), or come hang out in the beta if/once you have your invites!
Stay sexy, my friends.
I assure you all that I have not fallen off of the face of the planet as far as blogging is concerned, I have not forgotten about Heroic Dragon Soul enhancement guides (to be coming very soon I hope, with video), nor have I completely dropped the leveling guide.
The truth is, I've been incredibly busy within WoW itself. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I'm sure you are aware of how much I've been raiding, both with my home server guild and with Twitterland Raiding. I'm also now in the MoP beta (Sazzination on Lost Isles, Alliance), but unfortunately I haven't had a ton of time to do any testing. Though, I have had time to start up a TLR guild on beta called Twitterland Raiding, which all of you beta goers are more than welcome to join!
On top of raiding like a fiend, I've been doing a LOT of video recording and editing. Some of which I'd like to showcase now. Feel free to subscribe to either channel, or just watch Twitter/the Facebook pages for when new videos are posted. Or don't, I'm fine with that too! : )
Twitterland Raiding <---Youtube Channel
SerenitySaz <---Youtube Channel
^ Still very excited about that one. H-Spine is HELL. Heroic Madness should be taken down this week and a video for it should be up by next week.
^ A not so sketchy version of Path and I duoing Kael'thas in Tempest Keep. With both of us in Dragon Soul gear we should be able to easily solo this guy, but we keep running together because it's our thing. Still no Ashes Al'ar, qq.
I'm really hoping that once some of the progression dust settles with my guild and Heroic Dragon Soul that I'll be on a somewhat calmer schedule, though we're still farming Heroic Firelands for legendary pieces for our boomkin and mounts from Heroic Ragnaros (there's a video for that too!) for our members, that I'll be able to have a bit more time for the MoP beta and for blogging.
Until that time comes though, please feel free to bug me on Twitter or come hang out with myself and the other fine Twitterland Raiding folks in one of our many cross-realm raids (Battle Tags, are you here yet?!), or come hang out in the beta if/once you have your invites!
Stay sexy, my friends.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The Temple of the Lost Star
Trinity Tonks quietly made her way down the damp, stoney tunnel. Carefully she placed one leather booted foot down in front of the other, for the path before her was uneven and the torch that she held seemed to shed almost no light in the cursed pathway. Down and down she traveled, wandering further into a hidden tomb that had long thought to be only legend. Many adventurers had spent their lives searching for the treasure of this tomb in vain, only to have died in disappointment.
The slender, dark-skinned rogue moved her way around century old cobwebs and dusty animal bones with an unnatural grace. Further she descended down that narrow, stoney pathway. The air was chilly, a stark contrast to the dry, desert air of the entrance to the tomb. The sweat that had clung to the rogue's hair and trickled down her breast an hour before now chilled her to the bone, yet on she descended.
Several more hours passed and Trinity's torch had finally sputtered out. Her instincts told her to panic, but the young rogue managed to keep her calm. She continued on by touch, though she hadn't traveled far when the wall suddenly fell away from her touch.
A faint, eery singing slowly crept its way to her ears. Blindly she withdrew her daggers as the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Forward she crept, stone crunching beneath her feet. Suddenly a shaft of bright light erupted from the ceiling of the cavern, nearly blinding the rogue. Trinity blinked fiercely, trying to get her eyes to adjust. Surrounding her were tables laden with treasures and large, juicy fruits. The singing became louder as two rows of women clad in green feathers all but floated into the chamber from another entry point. Upon entering the chamber, one row of the feathered women floated off to the left, while the other two the right. Ending the procession was a large figure that had the body of a man and the head of a black jackal.
"Welcome to the Temple of the Lost Star," said the beast in a deep, growling voice. "We have been expecting you."
The demigod grinned. The rogue fell to her knees and wept.
I should have put something here when I originally posted. This random little story is brought to you by a challenge that Big Bear Butt threw down a bit over week or so ago. Some pretty interesting posts have popped up from it, so I definitely encourage you to check around for them!
The slender, dark-skinned rogue moved her way around century old cobwebs and dusty animal bones with an unnatural grace. Further she descended down that narrow, stoney pathway. The air was chilly, a stark contrast to the dry, desert air of the entrance to the tomb. The sweat that had clung to the rogue's hair and trickled down her breast an hour before now chilled her to the bone, yet on she descended.
Several more hours passed and Trinity's torch had finally sputtered out. Her instincts told her to panic, but the young rogue managed to keep her calm. She continued on by touch, though she hadn't traveled far when the wall suddenly fell away from her touch.
A faint, eery singing slowly crept its way to her ears. Blindly she withdrew her daggers as the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Forward she crept, stone crunching beneath her feet. Suddenly a shaft of bright light erupted from the ceiling of the cavern, nearly blinding the rogue. Trinity blinked fiercely, trying to get her eyes to adjust. Surrounding her were tables laden with treasures and large, juicy fruits. The singing became louder as two rows of women clad in green feathers all but floated into the chamber from another entry point. Upon entering the chamber, one row of the feathered women floated off to the left, while the other two the right. Ending the procession was a large figure that had the body of a man and the head of a black jackal.
"Welcome to the Temple of the Lost Star," said the beast in a deep, growling voice. "We have been expecting you."
The demigod grinned. The rogue fell to her knees and wept.
I should have put something here when I originally posted. This random little story is brought to you by a challenge that Big Bear Butt threw down a bit over week or so ago. Some pretty interesting posts have popped up from it, so I definitely encourage you to check around for them!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Then and Now
A couple of weeks ago Vidlaya over at Manalicious put forth a really neat topic: your character then and now. This topic just oozes nostalgia, and I'm a sucker for the past. Long time readers probably know that already though.
When I first started playing World of Warcraft, I was pretty much Queen of the Noobs, if there ever was such a thing. I was one of those who put talent points in all three trees, insisting that points were well spent when put into the shorter cooldown duration for Reincarnate (I died so often you see, it was handy to have so long as I had remembered to restock my Ankh collection). I preferred to wear a shield instead of properly dual wielding, again in the mindset that it would help me live longer. Stats didn't matter to me, the only thing of value that determined if I equipped something was if it had more armor than my current item. CC wasn't an acronym in my vocabulary, clearing out mobs wasn't something I did well prior to going after a quest objective, and more than once I ran out of a cave with my eyes squeezed shut and a pack of bad guys on my tail, the whole while my brain screaming "NONONO DON'T LET ME DIEEEEE!!!!" as I continued to aggro more and more angry dudes with blunt weapons.
I had a lot of broken gear pieces while I was leveling up. Anything I looked at wrong seemed to kill me. Spirit healers were my bffs. Later on I'd become the good luck charm in my guild; the running joke was "If Saz dies, we got this kill in the bag." Generally, it was true. If I died within the first minute or two of an encounter, the group would get the boss down.
At some point during my rather lengthy leveling career, I learned to take screen shots. It became an obsession. Being the screen shot hoarder that I now am, I have hundreds upon thousands of images of young Saz from the days of the Burning Crusade. I have shots from my early raiding days up through the present. I am, however, incredibly lazy. Instead of digging through those thousands of images to find the perfect ones, I'm just going to post my handy dandy screen shot based video. It essentially shows Saz's growing up period (minus the little fiasco with a guild called Heaven's Blades...I think I was in there with my group for less than a week personally), from her days of wearing a shield as enhancement while leveling up because it would "make me die less" to popping achievements like candy on both Saz and Kelebek in the later months of Wrath. It's a video of my world from almost the time I rolled my shaman on Aggramar to the point where I was forced to quit for many long, agonizing months.
Where that video stops is where I stopped with raiding and World of Warcraft in general for many months, at least actively. I still jumped online when I could, which was rare since I didn't have an internet connection in my house for the first eight months or so that I lived here, but my play time was pretty sparse. It wasn't until one of my friends graciously sent me her old MacBook (yes, the MacBook that I qq about from time to time when my current machine decides to shit out on me) and another lovely fellow decided to buy me Cataclysm in hopes that I'd be the third shaman on his podcast (sadly that podcast didn't live very long...it had such potential!). Thus began my exploration of the shattered world.
Since rejoining Azeroth, I've had a few changes of guilds. I went from my beloved Battle of Serenity, which died while I was away, to a place called Easy Company. Alright, this switch came before I actually came back with Cataclysm, but it's where I was when I did finally come back. Unfortunately this guild too was pretty much dead when I returned, which was sad since I did actually enjoy the, well, company. I then migrated over to a guild called Too Soon Executus, mainly because I had a few friends that moved over there. Too Soon was were I re-cut my raiding teeth. TSE took me in, let me slay Firelands bosses with them, and they were great in their own right. However, I never felt like I clicked with them, nor did we quite do the progression that I craved. It took me a while to decide it, but I finally moved over to my current guild, Evil Deeds Inc. Mmmm, tasty heroic modes.
Today I'm very much a different sort of player/raider/shaman/whatever. The old Saz died to EVERYTHING under the sun of Azeroth, while the current version usually only dies when learning or forgets some vital piece of information randomly. Stat confusion/dismissal and random button mashing gave way to stat obsession and proper rotation. Content to merely step into a raid with real life friends has changed over to raiding semi-competitively with people whose faces I've never seen in person. Even in real life I am a light year's difference away from who I was that day that I rolled a little black skinned draenei shaman, that day when I was wondering "What the hell am I doing rolling an Alliance toon?!"
Yes, changes come. Some are good, some not so good, some are necessary regardless of their good/bad status for the moment. As it stands right now, I'm pretty happy with where my shaman is at for the moment. She's been the link to a certain kind of happiness for me for a very long time now; she was a thread to a blissfully unaware sort of enjoyment way back when, and she's the thread to a somewhat more competitive and aggressive type of enjoyment now. Inadvertently Saz and the world we know as Azeroth has challenged me and helped me in more ways than I can count. I hope for that trend to continue on for many, many years to come.
Fun Random Facts
- I have technically gone through six computers over the years; an IBM that gave my screen shots a square look, a 14" MacBook that I melted the motherboard in, a second 14" MacBook, a hand built machine that I kind of "stole" for a little while, back to the IBM, a third 14" MacBook given to me by a darling friend, and my current custom laptop.
- My UI has gone from ridiculous huge, to cluttered, to standard, to almost fancy, in that order.
- I have been in officially six guilds with my shaman, seven guilds in total if you count the guild that my druid is now in. Most took me several months to switch between because I hate making rash decisions.
- It took me roughly eight months to level Saz from 1-70. The journey from 70-80 took me about three weeks. 80-85 only took me three to five days, if memory serves.
- I went from being an officer, to a recruit, to an officer/raid leader, to a guild master/raid leader, to "friend", to casual raider, to a full time raider who also founded Twitterland Raiding.
- I have always been main spec enhancement with Saz. That said, early on in Wrath while I was trying to lead my guild through a Malygos 25 kill, I readily swapped between restoration and elemental to help balance the group composition. More often than not I ended up raiding as restoration just so that I could actually raid.
- For the vast majority of my raiding career I have been what I call a "lag raider." Most of my raiding experience has been in the frame rates of less than 6. Did you know that you only need 2-3 fps to be able to move out of fire and still pull semi-okay numbers? I rocked that 2-3 fps like a BOSS.
- Due to my "lag raider" tendencies, I tend to strafe, back peddle, and often *gasp* keyboard turn. Why? Well, when you move at 2 fps and you try to mouse turn, things get pretty unreliable. You want to go left by a few degrees? HA, since you moved with your mouse, you just launched yourself 45 degrees to the right and ate the boss' cleave to the face. Strafing and making minor adjustments was always safer and more effective when things weren't predictable. I did however master lag flipping for Sindragosa.
- Saz isn't what I considered my first "main" from back in the day. I have a blood elf warlock named Lusi on Sen'jin that I had been working on when I was asked to come play Alliance on Aggramar. She had made it up to level 25 and until that switch, she was my pride and joy.
- My first character ever rolled was a rogue. I was terrible with her. All I ever wanted to do was run around and pick pocket mobs. I usually ended up in front of them somehow though, staring at their crotches. They never liked that, and generally I was swiftly dealt with. More than once I had been beaten over my undead head with a wooden plank that had a nail through it.
- My first shaman was a troll named Zarifruh, who was just shy of hitting 20 when I stopped leveling her. I tried playing her again a few months back; her gear was so atrocious that I could barely kill the grey level mobs around the Cross Roads.
- Saz was the first character that I rolled on Aggramar and has been my main since the day I rolled her. There had been times when I considered switching to my druid, Kelebek, as a main. I knew that deep down that I could never abandon Saz in any way, shape, or form though.
- While I've tried different hairstyles on Saz, none have stuck like her original look. The only thing that has changed about my shaman over the years visually has been her gear and hair color. Over the years I've experimented some with white hair, pigtails, and the dread lock look, but I always find myself reverting back to the old side part. The darker hair color that she rocks today became a favorite of mine the day that the barber shops became available.
When I first started playing World of Warcraft, I was pretty much Queen of the Noobs, if there ever was such a thing. I was one of those who put talent points in all three trees, insisting that points were well spent when put into the shorter cooldown duration for Reincarnate (I died so often you see, it was handy to have so long as I had remembered to restock my Ankh collection). I preferred to wear a shield instead of properly dual wielding, again in the mindset that it would help me live longer. Stats didn't matter to me, the only thing of value that determined if I equipped something was if it had more armor than my current item. CC wasn't an acronym in my vocabulary, clearing out mobs wasn't something I did well prior to going after a quest objective, and more than once I ran out of a cave with my eyes squeezed shut and a pack of bad guys on my tail, the whole while my brain screaming "NONONO DON'T LET ME DIEEEEE!!!!" as I continued to aggro more and more angry dudes with blunt weapons.
I had a lot of broken gear pieces while I was leveling up. Anything I looked at wrong seemed to kill me. Spirit healers were my bffs. Later on I'd become the good luck charm in my guild; the running joke was "If Saz dies, we got this kill in the bag." Generally, it was true. If I died within the first minute or two of an encounter, the group would get the boss down.
At some point during my rather lengthy leveling career, I learned to take screen shots. It became an obsession. Being the screen shot hoarder that I now am, I have hundreds upon thousands of images of young Saz from the days of the Burning Crusade. I have shots from my early raiding days up through the present. I am, however, incredibly lazy. Instead of digging through those thousands of images to find the perfect ones, I'm just going to post my handy dandy screen shot based video. It essentially shows Saz's growing up period (minus the little fiasco with a guild called Heaven's Blades...I think I was in there with my group for less than a week personally), from her days of wearing a shield as enhancement while leveling up because it would "make me die less" to popping achievements like candy on both Saz and Kelebek in the later months of Wrath. It's a video of my world from almost the time I rolled my shaman on Aggramar to the point where I was forced to quit for many long, agonizing months.
You can really see the changes in computers and my UI through this video.
Where that video stops is where I stopped with raiding and World of Warcraft in general for many months, at least actively. I still jumped online when I could, which was rare since I didn't have an internet connection in my house for the first eight months or so that I lived here, but my play time was pretty sparse. It wasn't until one of my friends graciously sent me her old MacBook (yes, the MacBook that I qq about from time to time when my current machine decides to shit out on me) and another lovely fellow decided to buy me Cataclysm in hopes that I'd be the third shaman on his podcast (sadly that podcast didn't live very long...it had such potential!). Thus began my exploration of the shattered world.
Since rejoining Azeroth, I've had a few changes of guilds. I went from my beloved Battle of Serenity, which died while I was away, to a place called Easy Company. Alright, this switch came before I actually came back with Cataclysm, but it's where I was when I did finally come back. Unfortunately this guild too was pretty much dead when I returned, which was sad since I did actually enjoy the, well, company. I then migrated over to a guild called Too Soon Executus, mainly because I had a few friends that moved over there. Too Soon was were I re-cut my raiding teeth. TSE took me in, let me slay Firelands bosses with them, and they were great in their own right. However, I never felt like I clicked with them, nor did we quite do the progression that I craved. It took me a while to decide it, but I finally moved over to my current guild, Evil Deeds Inc. Mmmm, tasty heroic modes.
Today I'm very much a different sort of player/raider/shaman/whatever. The old Saz died to EVERYTHING under the sun of Azeroth, while the current version usually only dies when learning or forgets some vital piece of information randomly. Stat confusion/dismissal and random button mashing gave way to stat obsession and proper rotation. Content to merely step into a raid with real life friends has changed over to raiding semi-competitively with people whose faces I've never seen in person. Even in real life I am a light year's difference away from who I was that day that I rolled a little black skinned draenei shaman, that day when I was wondering "What the hell am I doing rolling an Alliance toon?!"
Yes, changes come. Some are good, some not so good, some are necessary regardless of their good/bad status for the moment. As it stands right now, I'm pretty happy with where my shaman is at for the moment. She's been the link to a certain kind of happiness for me for a very long time now; she was a thread to a blissfully unaware sort of enjoyment way back when, and she's the thread to a somewhat more competitive and aggressive type of enjoyment now. Inadvertently Saz and the world we know as Azeroth has challenged me and helped me in more ways than I can count. I hope for that trend to continue on for many, many years to come.
March 4, 2008
March 20, 2012
Fun Random Facts
- I have technically gone through six computers over the years; an IBM that gave my screen shots a square look, a 14" MacBook that I melted the motherboard in, a second 14" MacBook, a hand built machine that I kind of "stole" for a little while, back to the IBM, a third 14" MacBook given to me by a darling friend, and my current custom laptop.
- My UI has gone from ridiculous huge, to cluttered, to standard, to almost fancy, in that order.
- I have been in officially six guilds with my shaman, seven guilds in total if you count the guild that my druid is now in. Most took me several months to switch between because I hate making rash decisions.
- It took me roughly eight months to level Saz from 1-70. The journey from 70-80 took me about three weeks. 80-85 only took me three to five days, if memory serves.
- I went from being an officer, to a recruit, to an officer/raid leader, to a guild master/raid leader, to "friend", to casual raider, to a full time raider who also founded Twitterland Raiding.
- I have always been main spec enhancement with Saz. That said, early on in Wrath while I was trying to lead my guild through a Malygos 25 kill, I readily swapped between restoration and elemental to help balance the group composition. More often than not I ended up raiding as restoration just so that I could actually raid.
- For the vast majority of my raiding career I have been what I call a "lag raider." Most of my raiding experience has been in the frame rates of less than 6. Did you know that you only need 2-3 fps to be able to move out of fire and still pull semi-okay numbers? I rocked that 2-3 fps like a BOSS.
- Due to my "lag raider" tendencies, I tend to strafe, back peddle, and often *gasp* keyboard turn. Why? Well, when you move at 2 fps and you try to mouse turn, things get pretty unreliable. You want to go left by a few degrees? HA, since you moved with your mouse, you just launched yourself 45 degrees to the right and ate the boss' cleave to the face. Strafing and making minor adjustments was always safer and more effective when things weren't predictable. I did however master lag flipping for Sindragosa.
- Saz isn't what I considered my first "main" from back in the day. I have a blood elf warlock named Lusi on Sen'jin that I had been working on when I was asked to come play Alliance on Aggramar. She had made it up to level 25 and until that switch, she was my pride and joy.
- My first character ever rolled was a rogue. I was terrible with her. All I ever wanted to do was run around and pick pocket mobs. I usually ended up in front of them somehow though, staring at their crotches. They never liked that, and generally I was swiftly dealt with. More than once I had been beaten over my undead head with a wooden plank that had a nail through it.
- My first shaman was a troll named Zarifruh, who was just shy of hitting 20 when I stopped leveling her. I tried playing her again a few months back; her gear was so atrocious that I could barely kill the grey level mobs around the Cross Roads.
- Saz was the first character that I rolled on Aggramar and has been my main since the day I rolled her. There had been times when I considered switching to my druid, Kelebek, as a main. I knew that deep down that I could never abandon Saz in any way, shape, or form though.
- While I've tried different hairstyles on Saz, none have stuck like her original look. The only thing that has changed about my shaman over the years visually has been her gear and hair color. Over the years I've experimented some with white hair, pigtails, and the dread lock look, but I always find myself reverting back to the old side part. The darker hair color that she rocks today became a favorite of mine the day that the barber shops became available.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
The One That Started It All
I ran across this neat little challenge hosted by Cymre and couldn't pass it up.
I no longer know which screen shot was officially my first. Way back when, I used to rename my screen shots, thus their original file dates became a bit inaccurate. I've also gone through a few computers over the years, so a few images may have been lost in the shuffle.
I do however have a general idea which remaining screen shots are the oldest. Thus, I give you baby Spazm.
This is my mage on March 3, 2008. It was taken at the old inn located in Westfall. I think at that time I found her tailoring animations adorable, thus a screen shot.
Spazm is the second oldest character that I have on Aggramar, with Saz being the oldest. She is currently the lowest level character I have on my home server and usually takes care of all my banking needs. This image, plus several that I took shortly after this one of Saz, is basically what began my screen shot obsession.
You see, when I found out that not only could I take screen shots, but I could remove my UI from my screen shots as well, I started to go crazy with the feature. Everything became that much more adorable to me, that much prettier, that much more desirable to have an image of. It started a craze that continues on today. I haven't tallied the numbers since last year sometime, but the last time I checked I was pushing 20k screen shots total. I'm sure I'm well within the 25k-30k+ region by now.
That guy in the background? No clue who the heck he was, or if he (or she in disguise) still plays or not. He/she is just one of many random folks who have made their unintentional appearances within my various shots.
Show us your very first screenshot from the game. Tell us about it, including the date, what you remember about the photo and who was in it with you. Do they still play?
I no longer know which screen shot was officially my first. Way back when, I used to rename my screen shots, thus their original file dates became a bit inaccurate. I've also gone through a few computers over the years, so a few images may have been lost in the shuffle.
I do however have a general idea which remaining screen shots are the oldest. Thus, I give you baby Spazm.
This is my mage on March 3, 2008. It was taken at the old inn located in Westfall. I think at that time I found her tailoring animations adorable, thus a screen shot.
Spazm is the second oldest character that I have on Aggramar, with Saz being the oldest. She is currently the lowest level character I have on my home server and usually takes care of all my banking needs. This image, plus several that I took shortly after this one of Saz, is basically what began my screen shot obsession.
You see, when I found out that not only could I take screen shots, but I could remove my UI from my screen shots as well, I started to go crazy with the feature. Everything became that much more adorable to me, that much prettier, that much more desirable to have an image of. It started a craze that continues on today. I haven't tallied the numbers since last year sometime, but the last time I checked I was pushing 20k screen shots total. I'm sure I'm well within the 25k-30k+ region by now.
That guy in the background? No clue who the heck he was, or if he (or she in disguise) still plays or not. He/she is just one of many random folks who have made their unintentional appearances within my various shots.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Here's a little something...
Why hello, it's been a while again hasn't it? I assure you that I have not abandoned either this blog or my Feral By Nature project, I've just been really busy. Raiding has been keeping me pretty well occupied, as has the Twitterland Raiding site. Between weather knocking out power, computer reformatting, and a slew of other hindrances, I've fallen a touch behind on things.
There is some good news though! Due to the fact that I had to reformat my computer, I now have the ability to do things that I couldn't before because of a bad image or some such. Meaning, I can now properly edit video. I've even learned how to more or less make them good quality! The only major issues that have shown their head thus far since my machine was reimaged is me crashing (black screening completely, which Windows 7 recognizes as a blue screen event) every time I get east of the temple in Deepholm. Slightly problematic seeing as though I want Aeonaxx with a fierce passion. Last thing I want to do is find the bugger and despawn him because I crash... Besides that one rather large issue, my computer on the whole has been a lot less fussy. It's not perfectly behaved, but much improved.
Aaaaanyways, the point to this post. Not only have I been busy trying to pump out a few videos for Twitterland Raiding, but I'm finally getting around to putting some non-TLR related WoW footage. I still have much to learn, but I'm having fun so far.
The first video I've done up with the new format is of Path and I two manning Kael'thas. We do this every week as an arms warrior and resto shaman, and have been doing this for many months now. Still no mount, but we hope to see the bugger someday very soon!
If you'd like a few more details on how we pull that off, check the video description on the site itself. We could in theory pull that fight off in Kael'thas' room, now that Path is pretty decently geared on his warrior, but we've decided to just stick with what we know. Maybe someday we can be arsed to rework how we do things, but for now this works.
So yes, more videos soon I hope! I'm aiming to put out a few heroic Dragon Soul kill videos from my point of view over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on Twitter/Facebook/Youtube for those. Otherwise yeah, I'm going to get back to doing whatever the hell it was that I planned on doing tonight!
There is some good news though! Due to the fact that I had to reformat my computer, I now have the ability to do things that I couldn't before because of a bad image or some such. Meaning, I can now properly edit video. I've even learned how to more or less make them good quality! The only major issues that have shown their head thus far since my machine was reimaged is me crashing (black screening completely, which Windows 7 recognizes as a blue screen event) every time I get east of the temple in Deepholm. Slightly problematic seeing as though I want Aeonaxx with a fierce passion. Last thing I want to do is find the bugger and despawn him because I crash... Besides that one rather large issue, my computer on the whole has been a lot less fussy. It's not perfectly behaved, but much improved.
Aaaaanyways, the point to this post. Not only have I been busy trying to pump out a few videos for Twitterland Raiding, but I'm finally getting around to putting some non-TLR related WoW footage. I still have much to learn, but I'm having fun so far.
The first video I've done up with the new format is of Path and I two manning Kael'thas. We do this every week as an arms warrior and resto shaman, and have been doing this for many months now. Still no mount, but we hope to see the bugger someday very soon!
If you'd like a few more details on how we pull that off, check the video description on the site itself. We could in theory pull that fight off in Kael'thas' room, now that Path is pretty decently geared on his warrior, but we've decided to just stick with what we know. Maybe someday we can be arsed to rework how we do things, but for now this works.
So yes, more videos soon I hope! I'm aiming to put out a few heroic Dragon Soul kill videos from my point of view over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on Twitter/Facebook/Youtube for those. Otherwise yeah, I'm going to get back to doing whatever the hell it was that I planned on doing tonight!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Cross-Realm Raiding Wishlist
As many of you probably know by now, this new fangled "cross-realm raiding" feature is pretty neat. It's been something that I myself have dived head first into, going so far as to even creating what is essentially a whole guild-like webpage dedicated to the feature, aka Twitterland Raiding. Over the course of the past month or two, I've had the pleasure of grouping with people from all sorts of servers, all who have either found their way over to Twitterland Raiding through podcasts, WoW Insider posts, through friends, or from Twitter itself. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would ever have the privilege of chatting, not to mention raiding, with some of the blogosphere's and general WoW community's bigger hitters.
Despite my excitement over how well the Twitterland Raiding events have been going and over how much enthusiasm is expressed over both the site itself and how much fun people seem to be having, I find myself still wanting more from this cross-realm feature.
"But Saz," you say "isn't running instances and raids with your cross-realm mates enough?"
No dear reader, it is not. I have had a taste of what could be, and it is glorious. I for once will play the greedy WoW player and (almost, kind of) demand that I want more. You see, for as fantastic as cross-realm grouping is right now, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Let me list out my would-be demands, if I were the demanding type.
1) As of right now, we are missing out on a lot of personalities since many folks in the general WoW community do not feel comfortable with giving out their Real IDs, which is completely understandable. This should in theory be an issue that will be fixed come Battle Tags, but who knows when that feature will officially go live. I suspect it will come once Diablo III is released, but that could be ages away for all we know. In other words, NOT SOON ENOUGH, EXECUTUS!
I'm impatient sometimes, it can't be helped.
2) Cross-realm raiding doesn't mean cross-faction raiding. One of the biggest factors I forgot about when cross-realm raiding went live was the fact that I still couldn't group with my Horde buddies of either real life or from Twitter/blogging associations. There I was, adding Real IDs to my list left and right, only to realize that several of my new friends were strictly Horde only, which is problematic since I'm strictly Alliance only. From a story stand point in the game, I get why we're not supposed to be friends. Horde thinks the Alliance are a bunch of snobby scumbags, Alliance think that the Horde are a smelly bunch of violent heathens, blah blah. That's besides the point though.
This desire kind of mine tears me in two ways: I get why Blizzard would want to keep the "animosity" alive between the Alliance and the Horde, thus disallowing them to run raids together, but at the same time...did the Alliance and Horde not storm Icecrown Citadel side by side? Did they not reluctantly work together to best Deathwing, work to restore the World Tree, fight against the titan creations stored away in Ulduar to save Azeroth? While on many story point levels, yes, we're a bunch of warring brutes who want to annihilate the other faction, we are capable of putting on our big kid pants and banding together to defend our sandbox from a bigger bully.
While I'm sure there may also be some technological issues at hand stopping the two factions from joining up through this new feature, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibilities for Blizzard to pull off.
My Draenei loves to flirt with giant cow people; let her slay baddies along side her Horde peeps!
3) Another huge disappointment with cross-realm raiding is that it doesn't allow us to raid cross-region. US and EU regions are still separate, likewise these two monster regions are severed from many of the newer foreign realms. This I know is probably a huge technology issue for Blizzard, but even if they decide to officially use that word "never" for cross-faction raiding, I do sincerely hope that they eventually allow us to run cross-region. I know far too many EU bloggers and Tweeters, and I'd jump at the opportunity to run with them in a heartbeat.
You see, a lot of the desire for these added features steams from running Twitterland Raiding. As of right now we have some pretty big faction and region unbalances. If I had to take a guess, I'd have to say our population rates US Alliance > EU Alliance - US Horde > EU Horde, with US Alliance being the most populated and active currently. I hate seeing threads/events pop up where only a small handful of people are able to attend, restricted by faction and region. I hate seeing "Why can't we run more raids for x faction in y region?" and being unable to say anything other than "I'm sorry, I don't have any Horde characters" or "I don't have an EU account, please set something up yourself!"
You see, I have this exceptionally strong desire to include everyone. While I know this is on many levels unrealistic, I like to do my damndest to try and make sure no one is left out. Not being able to scoup three of our EU Horde members into a US Alliance run that they'd love to attend breaks my heart a little.
To me Twitterland Raiding has essentially become a way to PuG, but at the same time has this very homey, extended guild-like feel. Everyone is there because they're like-minded in the fact that they desire to run old raids, and their current guild/server can't offer them that. They come for the achievements, the transmog gear, and the mounts, but stay because the company is pretty awesome. Twitter Mumble thankfully doesn't divide up the EU and US folks, nor does it discriminate between the Horde or Alliance. We chat, giggle, complain about how our various guilds are struggling against such and such boss in Dragon Soul; we share war stories, read cooking recipes to each other in sassy ways, bare ourselves in ways we didn't think possible. We group up when we can, forming both large and small groups, depending on who is available. However, there always seems to be one or two people in the Mumble channel who is unable to attend whatever throw together event crops up, all because region and/or faction prevents them from doing so. Off the group goes into another Mumble channel, so as to not disturb any conversations in the main channel with their group chatter, leaving those who cannot participate in the fun to their own devices.
Not cool batman.
So it is in my deepest wishes that Blizzard continues to expand on the cross-realm feature. I love what they've done with it so far, I eagerly await the implementation of Battle Tags (please come soon!), and I really do hope that they are considering the option of expanding our grouping capabilities even further. If this is the type community that comes along with restricted features, I cannot even begin to fathom how epically awesome it would be if we were able to include even more in this loosely associated cross-realm "guild" family of ours.
If we could do this, it would be legen -
...
...
...wait for it...
...
...
- dairy.
What? I said that my Draenei wanted to destroy raid bosses with Tauren and friends. Legen-dairy, geddit? Well, I thought it was almost knee slap worthy.
Despite my excitement over how well the Twitterland Raiding events have been going and over how much enthusiasm is expressed over both the site itself and how much fun people seem to be having, I find myself still wanting more from this cross-realm feature.
"But Saz," you say "isn't running instances and raids with your cross-realm mates enough?"
No dear reader, it is not. I have had a taste of what could be, and it is glorious. I for once will play the greedy WoW player and (almost, kind of) demand that I want more. You see, for as fantastic as cross-realm grouping is right now, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Let me list out my would-be demands, if I were the demanding type.
1) As of right now, we are missing out on a lot of personalities since many folks in the general WoW community do not feel comfortable with giving out their Real IDs, which is completely understandable. This should in theory be an issue that will be fixed come Battle Tags, but who knows when that feature will officially go live. I suspect it will come once Diablo III is released, but that could be ages away for all we know. In other words, NOT SOON ENOUGH, EXECUTUS!
I'm impatient sometimes, it can't be helped.
2) Cross-realm raiding doesn't mean cross-faction raiding. One of the biggest factors I forgot about when cross-realm raiding went live was the fact that I still couldn't group with my Horde buddies of either real life or from Twitter/blogging associations. There I was, adding Real IDs to my list left and right, only to realize that several of my new friends were strictly Horde only, which is problematic since I'm strictly Alliance only. From a story stand point in the game, I get why we're not supposed to be friends. Horde thinks the Alliance are a bunch of snobby scumbags, Alliance think that the Horde are a smelly bunch of violent heathens, blah blah. That's besides the point though.
This desire kind of mine tears me in two ways: I get why Blizzard would want to keep the "animosity" alive between the Alliance and the Horde, thus disallowing them to run raids together, but at the same time...did the Alliance and Horde not storm Icecrown Citadel side by side? Did they not reluctantly work together to best Deathwing, work to restore the World Tree, fight against the titan creations stored away in Ulduar to save Azeroth? While on many story point levels, yes, we're a bunch of warring brutes who want to annihilate the other faction, we are capable of putting on our big kid pants and banding together to defend our sandbox from a bigger bully.
While I'm sure there may also be some technological issues at hand stopping the two factions from joining up through this new feature, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibilities for Blizzard to pull off.
My Draenei loves to flirt with giant cow people; let her slay baddies along side her Horde peeps!
3) Another huge disappointment with cross-realm raiding is that it doesn't allow us to raid cross-region. US and EU regions are still separate, likewise these two monster regions are severed from many of the newer foreign realms. This I know is probably a huge technology issue for Blizzard, but even if they decide to officially use that word "never" for cross-faction raiding, I do sincerely hope that they eventually allow us to run cross-region. I know far too many EU bloggers and Tweeters, and I'd jump at the opportunity to run with them in a heartbeat.
You see, a lot of the desire for these added features steams from running Twitterland Raiding. As of right now we have some pretty big faction and region unbalances. If I had to take a guess, I'd have to say our population rates US Alliance > EU Alliance - US Horde > EU Horde, with US Alliance being the most populated and active currently. I hate seeing threads/events pop up where only a small handful of people are able to attend, restricted by faction and region. I hate seeing "Why can't we run more raids for x faction in y region?" and being unable to say anything other than "I'm sorry, I don't have any Horde characters" or "I don't have an EU account, please set something up yourself!"
You see, I have this exceptionally strong desire to include everyone. While I know this is on many levels unrealistic, I like to do my damndest to try and make sure no one is left out. Not being able to scoup three of our EU Horde members into a US Alliance run that they'd love to attend breaks my heart a little.
To me Twitterland Raiding has essentially become a way to PuG, but at the same time has this very homey, extended guild-like feel. Everyone is there because they're like-minded in the fact that they desire to run old raids, and their current guild/server can't offer them that. They come for the achievements, the transmog gear, and the mounts, but stay because the company is pretty awesome. Twitter Mumble thankfully doesn't divide up the EU and US folks, nor does it discriminate between the Horde or Alliance. We chat, giggle, complain about how our various guilds are struggling against such and such boss in Dragon Soul; we share war stories, read cooking recipes to each other in sassy ways, bare ourselves in ways we didn't think possible. We group up when we can, forming both large and small groups, depending on who is available. However, there always seems to be one or two people in the Mumble channel who is unable to attend whatever throw together event crops up, all because region and/or faction prevents them from doing so. Off the group goes into another Mumble channel, so as to not disturb any conversations in the main channel with their group chatter, leaving those who cannot participate in the fun to their own devices.
Not cool batman.
So it is in my deepest wishes that Blizzard continues to expand on the cross-realm feature. I love what they've done with it so far, I eagerly await the implementation of Battle Tags (please come soon!), and I really do hope that they are considering the option of expanding our grouping capabilities even further. If this is the type community that comes along with restricted features, I cannot even begin to fathom how epically awesome it would be if we were able to include even more in this loosely associated cross-realm "guild" family of ours.
If we could do this, it would be legen -
...
...
...wait for it...
...
...
- dairy.
What? I said that my Draenei wanted to destroy raid bosses with Tauren and friends. Legen-dairy, geddit? Well, I thought it was almost knee slap worthy.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
TNB - The Sazzypants Episode
So you know how I said I was going to be on that thing with the thing with the people? You know, be a guest on one of the Twisted Nether podcasts? This past Sunday that situation happened! Fimlys was charming, Hydra was adorable, and I had an absolute blast.
If you haven't already listened to this week's episode from TNB, you should totally do so! I mean, you get to hear my supposedly sexy voice as I stutter my way through promoting Twitterland Raiding, talking about raiding, and of course the interview about my blogging experiences. It was a definite joy to be a part of the show!
Post-show notes:
Twitterland Raiding is no longer twitterland.enjin.com, it's now twitterlandraiding.com so please update your bookmarks.
This week my guild broke down into two groups, both of which are running heroic modes this week. It's a sad day when a 25 man guild needs to go to such measures, but we're hoping to come back strong into the 25 man scene once again when MoP hits. Until then, progression go!
As hard as I tried to get my love on, and as much as Path helped me, I was still a little under 60 tokens short of obtaining my second Swift Love Bird. Me and my damn procrastination...
If you haven't already listened to this week's episode from TNB, you should totally do so! I mean, you get to hear my supposedly sexy voice as I stutter my way through promoting Twitterland Raiding, talking about raiding, and of course the interview about my blogging experiences. It was a definite joy to be a part of the show!
Post-show notes:
Twitterland Raiding is no longer twitterland.enjin.com, it's now twitterlandraiding.com so please update your bookmarks.
This week my guild broke down into two groups, both of which are running heroic modes this week. It's a sad day when a 25 man guild needs to go to such measures, but we're hoping to come back strong into the 25 man scene once again when MoP hits. Until then, progression go!
As hard as I tried to get my love on, and as much as Path helped me, I was still a little under 60 tokens short of obtaining my second Swift Love Bird. Me and my damn procrastination...
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Final Class Grades: Cataclysm
We're at that time ladies and gents. Dragon Soul is slowly but surely becoming old hat, the stories have been told, and we're starting to hit the pre-expansion doldrums with full force. Cataclysm is nearing its end and there's no escaping that truth. In spirit of this truth, Tzufit from Tree Heals Go Woosh has set up a post asking, in so little words, how fellow bloggers would grade the changes that their character(s) have experienced in this expansion. Check out the original post here. I may or may not skip a few questions, just because I'm lazy like that!
I'm actually going to talk about my two favorite classes/specs in this post, those being enhancement shaman and feral (dps) druid. Feel free to agree or disagree with any of my points, for these are my opinions as I see them at this point in time.
Enhancement: In a lot of ways, yes yes and yes. At the end of Wrath we were plagued with poorly itemized gear (Armor Pen), semi-wonky synergy with our spells, and reeeeally low survivability thanks to an oddly smallish health pool. Thankfully Cataclysm helped to level out health pools, improved upon spell synergy (I still hate Searing Totem though), and Blizz gave us that tasty stat called mastery. AoE at the end of Wrath was alright for this spec, not stellar but I managed to hold my own just fine for the raids I was participating in. With the Cataclysm changes though enhancement became rather frustrating, at least with 4.2 (I missed most of patch 4.1). I loathed AoE situations, especially when the mobs had low HP. I also felt that despite my decent gear, it was much easier to put our numbers with my lesser geared feral. With 4.3 we saw a drastic change with enhancement's AoE system though, and while it's far from perfect (four globals, minus a possible totem switch, to let off ONE pulse of AoE? Granted, it's pretty OP) it's a far cry from the juggling crap we had to deal with in 4.2. I'm definitely finding myself enjoying the current play style of enhancement, regardless of minor tweaks I'd still like to see with the spec.
Feral: Wrath cat > Cata cat. In Wrath feral was a pain in the furry butt. In order to perform well, you had to juggle crazy things such as the ArP cap, crit rating (I think I had 60% or so unbuffed at the end of Wrath, and my druid wasn't all that geared), and an INSANE dps rotation. I loved it. If you could juggle your stats and rotation priority, you could dominate nearly every fight. For Cataclysm Blizzard eased up on the rotational difficulty for kitty. Instead of being okay and pulling mediocre numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling ridiculous numbers, you now can choose between being okay and pulling okay numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling okay numbers. Feral does okay on all single target fights save for Ultraxion (thanks Blizzard for tossing an unobtainable positional requirement on that one), semi-almost okay on target switch fights, and really "meh" on AoE fights thanks to swipe nerfs and severe energy starvation. I love feral to bits, I really do, but my cat has seen very little love in Dragon Soul thanks to the frustrations of playing the class currently. I'm definitely looking forward to what changes that may come around in Mists of Pandaria.
I considered it during Firelands. My druid has always been my next-in-line choice behind my shaman, and honestly I was having a lot more fun as a cat than as enhancement during 4.2. However, I'm glad I stuck to my main of 5+ years, as she's now a blast to play in Dragon Soul.
Enhancement: Consistent damage and while some of our buff utility has been stripped away thanks to class homogenization, we still do bring flexibility to a raid where buffs are concerned. I've already touched on how for a good chunk of this expansion one of enhancement's biggest weaknesses was the class's lack of AoE viability. Now? AoE is one of our strengths, provided of course that the mobs live long enough. While we're still missing out on an on-demand single-target dps cooldown (wolves have been nerfed substantially due to PvP OPness issues), we do provide decent and consistent single target damage.
Feral: Strengths include raid flexibility (kitty/bear tanking), decent burst with cooldowns, and amazing mobility. Weaknesses are sustained (keyword here) AoE, slow ramp up times, and energy starvation. The slow ramp up times cause some fairly serious issues with target switching. Getting to different targets in a quick fashion is not at all an issue, losing refreshes on bleed up time, having to start from square one with ALL of our bleeds (often without cooldowns up since TF is used when available/low energy), and no ability to switched gained combo points during immediate target switches, thus wasting precious energy. Cata cat is a different sort of juggle from Wrath, and unfortunately the Cata raid-target swap juggle yields very little satisfaction for even the best of executions.
For both of my favorite specs I absolutely LOVED the addition of mastery. Sure, I miss ArP as a feral, but over all I approve greatly of this stat. It's potent without necessarily making damage *too* over powered even if one stacks it pretty heavily, which for both characters I do. Alright, so my shaman's AoE might be disgusting with the addition of mastery, what of it? Let me have my fun!
Enhancement: In some respects I think it is quite a bit more difficult for a new level 85 to learn how to play this spec well. Don't get me wrong, you can faceroll with enhancement and still achieve decent numbers, but to properly watch everything this spec has going on (Searing Totem timers, Flame Shock DoT, CD timers, weaving in Earth Shock, survival CDs, pet targets for both wolves and Searing totem ect) can take a few choice tracking addons and a bit of skill. Personally I think it's a good thing. I enjoy a more challenging priority system. If I didn't, I'd go play an arcane mage.
Feral: So much easier. You can completely flub your rotation, bleed/Savage Roar up times, and still manage to come out okay, provided you aren't purely auto swinging. I suppose in a way this is an okay way to play if you're new to the game, but as an ex-Wrath kitty, I miss having to force myself to play at an insane skill level in order to pull amazing dps. Forcing myself to properly execute everything with my rotation, only to have someone faceroll next to me and only do slightly less dps doesn't compel me to put more time into learning the ins and outs of my character or to spend more time on her. Easier game play only makes me want to faceroll on her once a week and leaves me bored. Again, if I wanted easy game play I'd level up my mage already and play her as arcane.
Enhancement: Yes. This is partially due to improved class mechanics and in part due to my heavier involvement with the inner workings of the class itself. I'll freely admit I was still a bit of a noob at the end of Wrath and I wasn't aware of a lot of things. I hit things with axes/maces, and I was happy. Not having to rely on Searing Totem's horrible AI and being able to AoE off of our fire totem was nice, even if it was far from ideal for our elemental brothers and sisters. While not all of our current mechanics are perfect, our current play style isn't terrible either. For now I shall be happy with what we have and continue to blow up bad pixels in a PvE environment!
Feral: No, sadly. The decrease in difficulty (re: all the QQ in this post) has killed a lot of my love for this class's play style. I still love being feral, love the shape shifting aspect of it and the fluid physical movements of the cat model, and the mobility of the spec. The low potential damage out put and fight-based viability is a bit soul-crushing to me though. I'm really hoping for good things in MoP for this spec. I want to see more glory for all of the raiding ferals everywhere!
So there you have it folks, my opinions on the state of enhancement and feral dps at the end of Cataclysm. Disagree? Wish to talk about the class of your choice? You should do so, and when you're finished you should send a link to your article to Tzufit. If you missed the link to the original post and are to lazy to scroll back up through this post, here's another one. Let the blogging world know what your thoughts on this expansion are!
I'm actually going to talk about my two favorite classes/specs in this post, those being enhancement shaman and feral (dps) druid. Feel free to agree or disagree with any of my points, for these are my opinions as I see them at this point in time.
Do you feel that your class is better (in that it is more fun to play, more effective, etc.) now than it was at the end of Wrath? Do you feel that your class is better now than it was at the beginning of Cataclysm?
Enhancement: In a lot of ways, yes yes and yes. At the end of Wrath we were plagued with poorly itemized gear (Armor Pen), semi-wonky synergy with our spells, and reeeeally low survivability thanks to an oddly smallish health pool. Thankfully Cataclysm helped to level out health pools, improved upon spell synergy (I still hate Searing Totem though), and Blizz gave us that tasty stat called mastery. AoE at the end of Wrath was alright for this spec, not stellar but I managed to hold my own just fine for the raids I was participating in. With the Cataclysm changes though enhancement became rather frustrating, at least with 4.2 (I missed most of patch 4.1). I loathed AoE situations, especially when the mobs had low HP. I also felt that despite my decent gear, it was much easier to put our numbers with my lesser geared feral. With 4.3 we saw a drastic change with enhancement's AoE system though, and while it's far from perfect (four globals, minus a possible totem switch, to let off ONE pulse of AoE? Granted, it's pretty OP) it's a far cry from the juggling crap we had to deal with in 4.2. I'm definitely finding myself enjoying the current play style of enhancement, regardless of minor tweaks I'd still like to see with the spec.
Feral: Wrath cat > Cata cat. In Wrath feral was a pain in the furry butt. In order to perform well, you had to juggle crazy things such as the ArP cap, crit rating (I think I had 60% or so unbuffed at the end of Wrath, and my druid wasn't all that geared), and an INSANE dps rotation. I loved it. If you could juggle your stats and rotation priority, you could dominate nearly every fight. For Cataclysm Blizzard eased up on the rotational difficulty for kitty. Instead of being okay and pulling mediocre numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling ridiculous numbers, you now can choose between being okay and pulling okay numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling okay numbers. Feral does okay on all single target fights save for Ultraxion (thanks Blizzard for tossing an unobtainable positional requirement on that one), semi-almost okay on target switch fights, and really "meh" on AoE fights thanks to swipe nerfs and severe energy starvation. I love feral to bits, I really do, but my cat has seen very little love in Dragon Soul thanks to the frustrations of playing the class currently. I'm definitely looking forward to what changes that may come around in Mists of Pandaria.
Did you switch mains during Cataclysm? If so, why did you make that choice?
I considered it during Firelands. My druid has always been my next-in-line choice behind my shaman, and honestly I was having a lot more fun as a cat than as enhancement during 4.2. However, I'm glad I stuck to my main of 5+ years, as she's now a blast to play in Dragon Soul.
What were your class’/spec’s strengths throughout Cataclysm? What were its weaknesses?
Enhancement: Consistent damage and while some of our buff utility has been stripped away thanks to class homogenization, we still do bring flexibility to a raid where buffs are concerned. I've already touched on how for a good chunk of this expansion one of enhancement's biggest weaknesses was the class's lack of AoE viability. Now? AoE is one of our strengths, provided of course that the mobs live long enough. While we're still missing out on an on-demand single-target dps cooldown (wolves have been nerfed substantially due to PvP OPness issues), we do provide decent and consistent single target damage.
Feral: Strengths include raid flexibility (kitty/bear tanking), decent burst with cooldowns, and amazing mobility. Weaknesses are sustained (keyword here) AoE, slow ramp up times, and energy starvation. The slow ramp up times cause some fairly serious issues with target switching. Getting to different targets in a quick fashion is not at all an issue, losing refreshes on bleed up time, having to start from square one with ALL of our bleeds (often without cooldowns up since TF is used when available/low energy), and no ability to switched gained combo points during immediate target switches, thus wasting precious energy. Cata cat is a different sort of juggle from Wrath, and unfortunately the Cata raid-target swap juggle yields very little satisfaction for even the best of executions.
Did you enjoy the addition of the mastery stat? What did you like about it, or, what would you change?
For both of my favorite specs I absolutely LOVED the addition of mastery. Sure, I miss ArP as a feral, but over all I approve greatly of this stat. It's potent without necessarily making damage *too* over powered even if one stacks it pretty heavily, which for both characters I do. Alright, so my shaman's AoE might be disgusting with the addition of mastery, what of it? Let me have my fun!
Is your class easier or harder for a fresh 85 to learn now than it was at the end of Wrath? Is this a good or a bad thing?
Enhancement: In some respects I think it is quite a bit more difficult for a new level 85 to learn how to play this spec well. Don't get me wrong, you can faceroll with enhancement and still achieve decent numbers, but to properly watch everything this spec has going on (Searing Totem timers, Flame Shock DoT, CD timers, weaving in Earth Shock, survival CDs, pet targets for both wolves and Searing totem ect) can take a few choice tracking addons and a bit of skill. Personally I think it's a good thing. I enjoy a more challenging priority system. If I didn't, I'd go play an arcane mage.
Feral: So much easier. You can completely flub your rotation, bleed/Savage Roar up times, and still manage to come out okay, provided you aren't purely auto swinging. I suppose in a way this is an okay way to play if you're new to the game, but as an ex-Wrath kitty, I miss having to force myself to play at an insane skill level in order to pull amazing dps. Forcing myself to properly execute everything with my rotation, only to have someone faceroll next to me and only do slightly less dps doesn't compel me to put more time into learning the ins and outs of my character or to spend more time on her. Easier game play only makes me want to faceroll on her once a week and leaves me bored. Again, if I wanted easy game play I'd level up my mage already and play her as arcane.
Overall, do you enjoy the playstyle of your class more now, at the end of Cataclysm, than you did prior to patch 4.0 at the end of Wrath? Why or why not?
Enhancement: Yes. This is partially due to improved class mechanics and in part due to my heavier involvement with the inner workings of the class itself. I'll freely admit I was still a bit of a noob at the end of Wrath and I wasn't aware of a lot of things. I hit things with axes/maces, and I was happy. Not having to rely on Searing Totem's horrible AI and being able to AoE off of our fire totem was nice, even if it was far from ideal for our elemental brothers and sisters. While not all of our current mechanics are perfect, our current play style isn't terrible either. For now I shall be happy with what we have and continue to blow up bad pixels in a PvE environment!
Feral: No, sadly. The decrease in difficulty (re: all the QQ in this post) has killed a lot of my love for this class's play style. I still love being feral, love the shape shifting aspect of it and the fluid physical movements of the cat model, and the mobility of the spec. The low potential damage out put and fight-based viability is a bit soul-crushing to me though. I'm really hoping for good things in MoP for this spec. I want to see more glory for all of the raiding ferals everywhere!
So there you have it folks, my opinions on the state of enhancement and feral dps at the end of Cataclysm. Disagree? Wish to talk about the class of your choice? You should do so, and when you're finished you should send a link to your article to Tzufit. If you missed the link to the original post and are to lazy to scroll back up through this post, here's another one. Let the blogging world know what your thoughts on this expansion are!
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