I will add to the plethora of "shattering" blog posts today by adding my own, albiet short.
GOOD RIDDANCE THE BARRENS!!
That is all. have a great time enjoying the changes everyone!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
My Warrior is Slacking Off
I decided the other night to get dual spec talents for my warrior in order to dps for simpler dungeon experience (kinda). when leveling my warrior up to 60, i was fury, and that was boring. now, in arms, its a little less boring, but still boring nonetheless. upon hitting 60, he began tanking for a while and that's what he remained- a tank. he's been working hard on his rotations since the patch and have come to a point where everything flows really well. all the abilities have a specific order and all the emergencies and contingencies have been thought out (what to do if this, what to do if that, etc).
And tanking hasnt really changed in the past 10 or so levels. even with the addition of shockwave and intervene, there isnt much else to do besides what i've always been doing. Charge, roar, cleave, rend, t/c, cleave, shock, cleave/tc/dev/shieldslam, etc, for mutli mobs. For bosses, it would be charge, roar, shieldslam, rend, devx3 (for simplicity, i use cleave to dump range and not HS). in fact, i might do that also with my dps spec as well.
in any case, tanking requires checking my surroundings, my team, my pulls, my mob group mix, etc. tanking also involves keeping aggro, so i have my taunt button at the ready. i quite often use it since i have been in various instances where the dps would attack immediately after my charge. i usually wait for a thunderclap at the very least. anyway, no good to be playing aggro tag with other dps the entire fight, especially when my own rage bar depends on it. after so many levels of this, im glad that i have finally gone back to dps. its so much simpler. pulls dont rely on me at all. the only time i really have to think is when i know there are some interrupts that must be performed. otherwise, i charge, get behind my target, and cut them from behind. tab to the next mob, slash slash slash.
that's basically it. easy. i am slacking off. and it feels good. that is, until i partied with a group in Anh Kahet. It was a bad experience all around. there was a DK tank (clearly new, as he was very timid during his pulls), my girlfriend healing, me DPSing as my warrior, a mage and a paladin.
in terms of damage the paladin did decent damage along with the mage. i was down there in dps with the tank is. this is mainly due to me not having a clue how to play my warrior. before we queued, i went to dragonblight to do those "wanted" quests. i started off doing 400 dps fighting Dreadtalon in dragonblight. Gigantaur was more tank-n-spank and i got 500 dps out of him. By the time i got to the undead dragon person i was doing 600dps. my gf healed me the whole time, of course, and she lost most of her mana on every fight. she lost all of her mana on the undead dragon. i forgot her name. sarathsa, or something.
anyway, i did a little more than 1.1k dps with the mage leading at about 1.5k dps. instance went by slowly due to several bad pulls by the tank. overall, only one person died. we killed all the bosses. i had a great time even though the bad tank kinda stressed us all out. also, the mage was trigger happy and would pull unaggro'ed groups to us. he would reply with "oops!" and such. clearly not used to waiting on tanks, i guess.
so my night ended pretty well. we did a couple of quests to keep ourselves going along since i no longer tank. or at least, i wont tank for a while. its quite.... intensive. i think tho, with trying to figure out my buttons, macros, rotations, and procs, i still figured that it might be just as much work as tanking. okay, maybe more. but when i do get it down, its down. and i wont have to really think anymore when doing dungeons. yay. so burnt out on tanking.
And tanking hasnt really changed in the past 10 or so levels. even with the addition of shockwave and intervene, there isnt much else to do besides what i've always been doing. Charge, roar, cleave, rend, t/c, cleave, shock, cleave/tc/dev/shieldslam, etc, for mutli mobs. For bosses, it would be charge, roar, shieldslam, rend, devx3 (for simplicity, i use cleave to dump range and not HS). in fact, i might do that also with my dps spec as well.
in any case, tanking requires checking my surroundings, my team, my pulls, my mob group mix, etc. tanking also involves keeping aggro, so i have my taunt button at the ready. i quite often use it since i have been in various instances where the dps would attack immediately after my charge. i usually wait for a thunderclap at the very least. anyway, no good to be playing aggro tag with other dps the entire fight, especially when my own rage bar depends on it. after so many levels of this, im glad that i have finally gone back to dps. its so much simpler. pulls dont rely on me at all. the only time i really have to think is when i know there are some interrupts that must be performed. otherwise, i charge, get behind my target, and cut them from behind. tab to the next mob, slash slash slash.
that's basically it. easy. i am slacking off. and it feels good. that is, until i partied with a group in Anh Kahet. It was a bad experience all around. there was a DK tank (clearly new, as he was very timid during his pulls), my girlfriend healing, me DPSing as my warrior, a mage and a paladin.
in terms of damage the paladin did decent damage along with the mage. i was down there in dps with the tank is. this is mainly due to me not having a clue how to play my warrior. before we queued, i went to dragonblight to do those "wanted" quests. i started off doing 400 dps fighting Dreadtalon in dragonblight. Gigantaur was more tank-n-spank and i got 500 dps out of him. By the time i got to the undead dragon person i was doing 600dps. my gf healed me the whole time, of course, and she lost most of her mana on every fight. she lost all of her mana on the undead dragon. i forgot her name. sarathsa, or something.
anyway, i did a little more than 1.1k dps with the mage leading at about 1.5k dps. instance went by slowly due to several bad pulls by the tank. overall, only one person died. we killed all the bosses. i had a great time even though the bad tank kinda stressed us all out. also, the mage was trigger happy and would pull unaggro'ed groups to us. he would reply with "oops!" and such. clearly not used to waiting on tanks, i guess.
so my night ended pretty well. we did a couple of quests to keep ourselves going along since i no longer tank. or at least, i wont tank for a while. its quite.... intensive. i think tho, with trying to figure out my buttons, macros, rotations, and procs, i still figured that it might be just as much work as tanking. okay, maybe more. but when i do get it down, its down. and i wont have to really think anymore when doing dungeons. yay. so burnt out on tanking.
Monday, November 15, 2010
My Rogue Feels Like a Cow
I have been playing my rogue a bit more often lately. So far, it feels like before. But there's a difference. I cant really put my finger on it. It seems more... fun. I think it is because im doing more damge. actually contributing to kills, things like that. when i first entered outland i put away my old rogue for something better, something more fun. i leveled everything else besides the rogue. she was just a placeholder then. today, she has more gear and much better dps. she started off subtlety years ago and changed to combat when a friend suggested that it would give me more dps. at that time, say level 60, i was in groups where everyone had a friggin AoE except for me. actually, its still true. I still do not have any AoE abilities, and im 66 now. So since patch 4.0.1, and the forced reset of all my talent specs, i decided to abandon combat and return to sub. after all, it was one of those assassin-like specs, more so than assassination.
Then i remembered why i like my rogue to begin with. it was because i was sneaky. i would pop up out of nowhere and attack something. it would be dead before other mobs would notice me. going stealth and sneaking my way to a quest objective was quite fun, even if i get almost zero experience from killing mobs. i would get the experience from turning in quests, and at a faster rate than someone who had to kill through an entire camp of, say, trolls in order to get to a box, or the head of a boss, or something like that. and if the boss has goons with him? ignore them and kill the boss. vanish after you loot the head. like those ninja movies, for sure.
anyway, it reminded me of when i first leveled my tauren druid. she was somewhat of a bulky character. she had hooves so being sneaky was a little difficult to do. but when she turned into a cat, she sneaked around better than most rogues. cats have this innate nature in them. they take each step with care and caution. they make sure they cannot be heard and lie in wait. patiently. unmoving. then at the right moment, they pounce on their victims. that's how cats play. that's how my druid was able to level her clumsy self to 80 with little difficulties.
and as i play my rogue, i am reminded of my druid. then i realized just how similar the two classes are. it made me felt like i was back on my cat, playing my first level 70 character (also my first level 80 when wrath came out). i was back to sneaking around and killing things. i was back to doing single target dps madness. it was fun, but i realize it will have its niche and one day i will leave it for a different character. but playing a druid cat did teach me a few things about myself.
1. I preferred the safety of stealth (even though sometimes i do get caught).
2. I like the feel of questing as a stealthed assassin. It makes me feel like im playing Metal Gear Solid, or Socom, or Tenchu.
3. I like to see big numbers. Coming out of stealth with an Ambush that takes most of the enemy's health away? that's awesome. doing a finishing move with an overkill of several thousand health? awesome still.
4. I like having emergency buttons. being able to incapacitate people even during a fight? awesome to the awesome. having abilities on my druid like maim helps buy me time. having sprint is awesome when i just need to run away. blinding opponents is wonderful. vanish is even more awesome. all of these things help me to survive when my blade just cant kill them fast enough.
It is sneaky. it is stealthy. it is more a mind game than outright dps. a sneaky cow. that's what i was.
Then i remembered why i like my rogue to begin with. it was because i was sneaky. i would pop up out of nowhere and attack something. it would be dead before other mobs would notice me. going stealth and sneaking my way to a quest objective was quite fun, even if i get almost zero experience from killing mobs. i would get the experience from turning in quests, and at a faster rate than someone who had to kill through an entire camp of, say, trolls in order to get to a box, or the head of a boss, or something like that. and if the boss has goons with him? ignore them and kill the boss. vanish after you loot the head. like those ninja movies, for sure.
anyway, it reminded me of when i first leveled my tauren druid. she was somewhat of a bulky character. she had hooves so being sneaky was a little difficult to do. but when she turned into a cat, she sneaked around better than most rogues. cats have this innate nature in them. they take each step with care and caution. they make sure they cannot be heard and lie in wait. patiently. unmoving. then at the right moment, they pounce on their victims. that's how cats play. that's how my druid was able to level her clumsy self to 80 with little difficulties.
and as i play my rogue, i am reminded of my druid. then i realized just how similar the two classes are. it made me felt like i was back on my cat, playing my first level 70 character (also my first level 80 when wrath came out). i was back to sneaking around and killing things. i was back to doing single target dps madness. it was fun, but i realize it will have its niche and one day i will leave it for a different character. but playing a druid cat did teach me a few things about myself.
1. I preferred the safety of stealth (even though sometimes i do get caught).
2. I like the feel of questing as a stealthed assassin. It makes me feel like im playing Metal Gear Solid, or Socom, or Tenchu.
3. I like to see big numbers. Coming out of stealth with an Ambush that takes most of the enemy's health away? that's awesome. doing a finishing move with an overkill of several thousand health? awesome still.
4. I like having emergency buttons. being able to incapacitate people even during a fight? awesome to the awesome. having abilities on my druid like maim helps buy me time. having sprint is awesome when i just need to run away. blinding opponents is wonderful. vanish is even more awesome. all of these things help me to survive when my blade just cant kill them fast enough.
It is sneaky. it is stealthy. it is more a mind game than outright dps. a sneaky cow. that's what i was.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tankin and Spankin
For the last couple of weeks, my gf has been leveling a priest. I got her started with the basics (look for cloth gear with int, spell power, spi, stam, ignore the rest for now) and saw her heal more and more. now she's more pro than before. now she's healing bad tanks and just complains about them behind the screen (but will keep them alive anyway just to get the instance over with) like its normal. We talked about holy and disc and how they're different and all that. she chose Disc because i chose disc... on three of my priests. Yes, there're three disc priests. dont ask. i just like them.
anyway, she got her priest leveled up to about 60 when i decided its finally time to break out my old tank and practice a little. He's a burly orc warrior, with massive teeth and a dogface stare, ready to kick some butt. i started off looking at my reset talents. as i stared at the new tree, i realized that it was pretty much a no-brainer what i should get: more survival, more threat, more rage, better mobility. i wasnt able to get shockwave tho, as it was one of my favorite spells. i'll get it at level 67.
i then got all my new spells at the warrior trainer and then started on part two of my night: macros.
it didnt take long before i realized several things about the macros. its not different from before. just about every spell i used before was still there. nothing has really changed except for my macro to shockwave. that just gives me a red question mark. i'll get that spell soon enough so i didnt bother changing it.
i went into ragefire chasm and started running around to practice. there were two people hoping for a run, so i took them with me. they dinged in the two runs i was there. grats to them. after two runs i got used to the buttons, made some changes in my macros and decided it was time to take on some more solid content.
seeing that my gf was 60, we started the night in ramps. i grabbed, and grabbed and grabbed. it was fun. almost chain pulling, but making sure that the current group was just about dead before i moved on to the next group. most of the night, i was at near full health. of course, i was 65 doing a 60 dungeon.
several tries at ramps and then blood furnance, i ended the night at 66, almost 67 (and ready to do some durnhold, save my hero thrall, keep runs). he's not really my hero. he's my orc's hero. he'll be a warrior just like... wait... thralls a shaman. nevermind.
my gf got from 60 to.... 61! yep. rocked. but i knew that once i hit 69 or 70, i wont be able to do randoms with her anymore. i can, however, queue up for specific dungeons with her. that sucks. the extra bonus exp will not count since im too high level? really? that's really sad. anyway..... i got on my rogue (who's level 61 as well, who i havent played since forever. to put this into perspective. she has slow riding, which was about 90gold at level 40, back in the days. and at level 60, we would get journeyman, fast land riding for about 600g. that, i would not pay for since i wanted to stop playing my rogue. yea, thats how old this rogue was. wasnt played with for a long while). i got on and repsec'd subably, made some macros for stealth, openers, finishers, and combo point makers. then i configured my buttons to just the way i liked it.... and queued up with my gf. at the start of the day, at level 61, i was doing about 500 dps.
okay i lie. i started off doing about 350dps. then, as i got the hang of it, ended the instance with about 500dps. several quests and several instances later, i was doing slightly more damage. it wasnt until late last night, about level 65, with several dungeon pieces (mostly gemmed with delicate bloodstones (yes, just bloodstones)) that i finally broke 1k dps. 1k dps!! wtf??? yes. its awesome. then by the end if the instance, it leveled out to about 800-900 dps. not bad for a 65. what happened is this. i found out that my biggest damage came at the beginning of a fight, and only coming out of stealth. so i wait for the perfect time to shadowstep, then ambush (3cp), someone will crit (4cp) and i will simply do a backstab (5cp).... then finish with Evis. they die. in about 6 seconds i just did 10k-12k damage. the rest of the fight has me applying backstab+evis, or hem+rupture.
there really isnt much else to do because after the first mob dies, everyone else is at about 1/2 health anyway. there is absolutely not enough health or time left to get a full stack of combo points to really do anything useful. and then there's the bosses. =] love those fights.
anyway, hopefully spending some time as a rogue will help me with my paladin dps. lol fat chance. but will hope.
as for my warrior, this was how it was played for the several instances that i actually tanked.
for trash, i would charge in and rend immediately. then thunderclap to apply rend to everyone (and slows them), then cleave. thats it. all done. actually i'd demo shout at times, shieldslam as often as possible, revenge when proc'd, shield slam when proc'd, thunderclap on cooldown (unless i see more mobs coming into the picture, i can save it for them) and cleave to dump my rage.
on bosses, i charge, shield slam, devastate, rend, devastate, devastate, revend on proc, shield slam on proc, keep sunders up (and increase my threat lead) with devastate.
i find that devastate is pretty useless with trash unless its one of those "theres nothing left to press" situations. trash dies quickly enough. healer has no problems healing me, and i rather save my global cooldown for some more aoe moves than a single target move. that said, devastate the boss, cleave the trash.
one other thing, my gear is made for questing. my spec is for questing. i leveled up as prot for a while and it was awesome. even in outland, lack of defense gear is not doing any harm to me. i'll save the dodge gear for later, when i hit 70 and have to get the cobalt set. my design before was this, to allow myself to be hit more, thus gaining more rage, but also being able to heal myself as i fight. this worked well, but those days are gone. now that i am doing dungeons regularly, i dont want to be hit more to gain rage. i'll be hit plenty, so i'll have to slowly switch over to more mitigation, avoidance, and stamina gear. my talent tree is not as customizable any more, so im stuck with a cookie cutter spec. thanks bliz. now we're all the same.
anyway, thats just my update. it feels like the weekend but its not... yet. have a great weekend everyone!
anyway, she got her priest leveled up to about 60 when i decided its finally time to break out my old tank and practice a little. He's a burly orc warrior, with massive teeth and a dogface stare, ready to kick some butt. i started off looking at my reset talents. as i stared at the new tree, i realized that it was pretty much a no-brainer what i should get: more survival, more threat, more rage, better mobility. i wasnt able to get shockwave tho, as it was one of my favorite spells. i'll get it at level 67.
i then got all my new spells at the warrior trainer and then started on part two of my night: macros.
it didnt take long before i realized several things about the macros. its not different from before. just about every spell i used before was still there. nothing has really changed except for my macro to shockwave. that just gives me a red question mark. i'll get that spell soon enough so i didnt bother changing it.
i went into ragefire chasm and started running around to practice. there were two people hoping for a run, so i took them with me. they dinged in the two runs i was there. grats to them. after two runs i got used to the buttons, made some changes in my macros and decided it was time to take on some more solid content.
seeing that my gf was 60, we started the night in ramps. i grabbed, and grabbed and grabbed. it was fun. almost chain pulling, but making sure that the current group was just about dead before i moved on to the next group. most of the night, i was at near full health. of course, i was 65 doing a 60 dungeon.
several tries at ramps and then blood furnance, i ended the night at 66, almost 67 (and ready to do some durnhold, save my hero thrall, keep runs). he's not really my hero. he's my orc's hero. he'll be a warrior just like... wait... thralls a shaman. nevermind.
my gf got from 60 to.... 61! yep. rocked. but i knew that once i hit 69 or 70, i wont be able to do randoms with her anymore. i can, however, queue up for specific dungeons with her. that sucks. the extra bonus exp will not count since im too high level? really? that's really sad. anyway..... i got on my rogue (who's level 61 as well, who i havent played since forever. to put this into perspective. she has slow riding, which was about 90gold at level 40, back in the days. and at level 60, we would get journeyman, fast land riding for about 600g. that, i would not pay for since i wanted to stop playing my rogue. yea, thats how old this rogue was. wasnt played with for a long while). i got on and repsec'd subably, made some macros for stealth, openers, finishers, and combo point makers. then i configured my buttons to just the way i liked it.... and queued up with my gf. at the start of the day, at level 61, i was doing about 500 dps.
okay i lie. i started off doing about 350dps. then, as i got the hang of it, ended the instance with about 500dps. several quests and several instances later, i was doing slightly more damage. it wasnt until late last night, about level 65, with several dungeon pieces (mostly gemmed with delicate bloodstones (yes, just bloodstones)) that i finally broke 1k dps. 1k dps!! wtf??? yes. its awesome. then by the end if the instance, it leveled out to about 800-900 dps. not bad for a 65. what happened is this. i found out that my biggest damage came at the beginning of a fight, and only coming out of stealth. so i wait for the perfect time to shadowstep, then ambush (3cp), someone will crit (4cp) and i will simply do a backstab (5cp).... then finish with Evis. they die. in about 6 seconds i just did 10k-12k damage. the rest of the fight has me applying backstab+evis, or hem+rupture.
there really isnt much else to do because after the first mob dies, everyone else is at about 1/2 health anyway. there is absolutely not enough health or time left to get a full stack of combo points to really do anything useful. and then there's the bosses. =] love those fights.
anyway, hopefully spending some time as a rogue will help me with my paladin dps. lol fat chance. but will hope.
as for my warrior, this was how it was played for the several instances that i actually tanked.
for trash, i would charge in and rend immediately. then thunderclap to apply rend to everyone (and slows them), then cleave. thats it. all done. actually i'd demo shout at times, shieldslam as often as possible, revenge when proc'd, shield slam when proc'd, thunderclap on cooldown (unless i see more mobs coming into the picture, i can save it for them) and cleave to dump my rage.
on bosses, i charge, shield slam, devastate, rend, devastate, devastate, revend on proc, shield slam on proc, keep sunders up (and increase my threat lead) with devastate.
i find that devastate is pretty useless with trash unless its one of those "theres nothing left to press" situations. trash dies quickly enough. healer has no problems healing me, and i rather save my global cooldown for some more aoe moves than a single target move. that said, devastate the boss, cleave the trash.
one other thing, my gear is made for questing. my spec is for questing. i leveled up as prot for a while and it was awesome. even in outland, lack of defense gear is not doing any harm to me. i'll save the dodge gear for later, when i hit 70 and have to get the cobalt set. my design before was this, to allow myself to be hit more, thus gaining more rage, but also being able to heal myself as i fight. this worked well, but those days are gone. now that i am doing dungeons regularly, i dont want to be hit more to gain rage. i'll be hit plenty, so i'll have to slowly switch over to more mitigation, avoidance, and stamina gear. my talent tree is not as customizable any more, so im stuck with a cookie cutter spec. thanks bliz. now we're all the same.
anyway, thats just my update. it feels like the weekend but its not... yet. have a great weekend everyone!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
On Victoria Secret gear.
Me: So whats going on?
GF: So im 59 and a half from doing quests in Hellfire Peninsula. A got a hat, some armor panties and a slutty top. and i got killed by some human paladin.
Me. I guess panties and slutty tops are too naughty for paladins.
I still say... keep the slutty armor coming. VS catalogs are all the rage anyway. i love when mine come in the mail... that and fredericks and venus. yea, i get those. so what?? what i see in those catalogs are things i might buy for my gf.... and me.
Besides. isnt the next expansion like... submersed under water or something? or at least a zone or three? why not give us all bikini armor?
PS. I'd totally love to see a tier set named after VS. Talk about "expose armor" and all that.
GF: So im 59 and a half from doing quests in Hellfire Peninsula. A got a hat, some armor panties and a slutty top. and i got killed by some human paladin.
Me. I guess panties and slutty tops are too naughty for paladins.
I still say... keep the slutty armor coming. VS catalogs are all the rage anyway. i love when mine come in the mail... that and fredericks and venus. yea, i get those. so what?? what i see in those catalogs are things i might buy for my gf.... and me.
Besides. isnt the next expansion like... submersed under water or something? or at least a zone or three? why not give us all bikini armor?
PS. I'd totally love to see a tier set named after VS. Talk about "expose armor" and all that.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Small update
Hi readers.
Just wanted to give a small update on how things are going with me. I spent most of the night last night doing laundry so when i did get to play, it wasnt to heal on my shaman or to finally spec my druids. no, it was to get on my paladin, Devynity, and run through ZG for the two mounts. gotta say it was kinda fun for two people. my girlfriend came along. im glad she got to "discover" how hard some of these things can be. enjoy it cos that's how some fights are like later on in raids. but anyway, every boss has their own "mechanic" and so we walked into ZG without much knowledge of anything (only i knew about the healing) and walked away with the annoyed look of dont-ever-wanna-do-that-again.
but it was great to see my gf yell ohshit so many times... until she realized somewhere halfway... that she should just get used to it and deal with the consequences when it comes. as paladins, we had plenty of tools to overcome both of the boss encounters. it was an experience in learning not to panic and learning to queue up your countermoves should you need to.
and that's essentially what we did. i went as ret and my gf went as prot. we walked up to the raptor boss and promptly hacked and slashed him down. then i realize i should be attacking the raptor first. sure thing. next, we had to deal with the fears, which was fine. wait til it wears off, heal to recover and then continue burning him down. it became almost clockwork after the... fifth fear. then on the sixth fear, we aggroed a group. panic again, but this time it wasnt so bad. my gf got aggro and i slowly burned the adds down one by one before i went back to the boss. my heals were expensive, but after about two hits, i was back to full mana. so it wasnt so bad. finally, the raptor boss died but he didnt give up his mount. /sad
the zulian tiger boss was next to go down, but he had goons. so i figured it would be much better for me to go in as holy (which may or may not have sped things up). my gf stay prot to tank all three of them. it was fine in the beginning, but i was surprised how fast her health was going down. i was spamming exorcism and casting holy shock and judgement on cooldown. my Word of Glory was used to heal us primarily, but sometimes i had to use holy shock to heal. we burned the bosses down slowly, but it took us a while to time the attacks so that they would all die close to the same time. there were about five ressurections, so it did take us a while to get it down. my gf had a good time learning to read nameplates to switch targets, and for once, burning down bosses isnt the priority here. the priority is in switching targets, interrupting heals and staying alive over the course of a long fight. because really, if every fight was tank and spank, who'd want to play wow? anyway, no tiger. /sad
tonight, we're gonna go to kara to kill attumen and midnight... to get midnight.
and then we're headed off to magister's terrace for some more really hard "know your shit" kinda fights. that, and to get a chance at the white hawkstrider and pet phoenix.
and then... one more... ravenlord mount from heroic sethekk halls.
hopefully, someone forms a "for the horde" raid too.
now, all i have to do is read up on how to get the kara key....
Just wanted to give a small update on how things are going with me. I spent most of the night last night doing laundry so when i did get to play, it wasnt to heal on my shaman or to finally spec my druids. no, it was to get on my paladin, Devynity, and run through ZG for the two mounts. gotta say it was kinda fun for two people. my girlfriend came along. im glad she got to "discover" how hard some of these things can be. enjoy it cos that's how some fights are like later on in raids. but anyway, every boss has their own "mechanic" and so we walked into ZG without much knowledge of anything (only i knew about the healing) and walked away with the annoyed look of dont-ever-wanna-do-that-again.
but it was great to see my gf yell ohshit so many times... until she realized somewhere halfway... that she should just get used to it and deal with the consequences when it comes. as paladins, we had plenty of tools to overcome both of the boss encounters. it was an experience in learning not to panic and learning to queue up your countermoves should you need to.
and that's essentially what we did. i went as ret and my gf went as prot. we walked up to the raptor boss and promptly hacked and slashed him down. then i realize i should be attacking the raptor first. sure thing. next, we had to deal with the fears, which was fine. wait til it wears off, heal to recover and then continue burning him down. it became almost clockwork after the... fifth fear. then on the sixth fear, we aggroed a group. panic again, but this time it wasnt so bad. my gf got aggro and i slowly burned the adds down one by one before i went back to the boss. my heals were expensive, but after about two hits, i was back to full mana. so it wasnt so bad. finally, the raptor boss died but he didnt give up his mount. /sad
the zulian tiger boss was next to go down, but he had goons. so i figured it would be much better for me to go in as holy (which may or may not have sped things up). my gf stay prot to tank all three of them. it was fine in the beginning, but i was surprised how fast her health was going down. i was spamming exorcism and casting holy shock and judgement on cooldown. my Word of Glory was used to heal us primarily, but sometimes i had to use holy shock to heal. we burned the bosses down slowly, but it took us a while to time the attacks so that they would all die close to the same time. there were about five ressurections, so it did take us a while to get it down. my gf had a good time learning to read nameplates to switch targets, and for once, burning down bosses isnt the priority here. the priority is in switching targets, interrupting heals and staying alive over the course of a long fight. because really, if every fight was tank and spank, who'd want to play wow? anyway, no tiger. /sad
tonight, we're gonna go to kara to kill attumen and midnight... to get midnight.
and then we're headed off to magister's terrace for some more really hard "know your shit" kinda fights. that, and to get a chance at the white hawkstrider and pet phoenix.
and then... one more... ravenlord mount from heroic sethekk halls.
hopefully, someone forms a "for the horde" raid too.
now, all i have to do is read up on how to get the kara key....
Friday, November 5, 2010
CONGRADUATION!!
Grats to my girlfriend, who started playing WoW about two months ago, on finally getting her first toon to 80. Krisseven (yes, the seventh Kriss) hit 80 just last night while on her way to the Storm Peaks to meet me for a quest. well, i got about 25% left to go on my 79 shaman, so we'll be running more dungeons for more gear shortly. she'll probably end up like my latest three 80s, without any emblem gear since we'll not need them any time soon. she'll end up loading up on gear from ToC, FoS, PoS and HoR... and anywhere else. DPS should increase nicely from 1.5k to 2.5k. OR, she will play her alts and forget she even had an 80.
Okay i lie. One of my 80s, Devynity, used his emblems to buy pvp gear. boooooo! it will all be going to waste anyway. but it was fun while it lasted. but really tho, i dont know why, at this time, anyone would want to spend any justice points on anything. perhaps just to be ok geared for leveling in the next expansion, but im pretty sure the ilevel 200 stuff would suffice. im all for delayed gratification. my gf thinks im crazy when, for instance, i eat the best stuff last. she eats dessert first, btw.
One other thing i noticed while DPS-ing with my paladin, the longer the fight, the higher the dps. it is really because it takes forfucking ever to build up combo points. Crusader strike, 4 seconds, crusader strike, 4 seconds, crusader strike, TV!!!!!!! of course, in between CS i judge and watch out for insta-free TV and Art of War procs. but even that gets kinda dull. i miss the old FCFS style of play. =[
again, GRATZ!!!!
Okay i lie. One of my 80s, Devynity, used his emblems to buy pvp gear. boooooo! it will all be going to waste anyway. but it was fun while it lasted. but really tho, i dont know why, at this time, anyone would want to spend any justice points on anything. perhaps just to be ok geared for leveling in the next expansion, but im pretty sure the ilevel 200 stuff would suffice. im all for delayed gratification. my gf thinks im crazy when, for instance, i eat the best stuff last. she eats dessert first, btw.
One other thing i noticed while DPS-ing with my paladin, the longer the fight, the higher the dps. it is really because it takes forfucking ever to build up combo points. Crusader strike, 4 seconds, crusader strike, 4 seconds, crusader strike, TV!!!!!!! of course, in between CS i judge and watch out for insta-free TV and Art of War procs. but even that gets kinda dull. i miss the old FCFS style of play. =[
again, GRATZ!!!!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Shaman going LMN-tal
So there i stand at Death's Rise, looking out into the Northern Sea, wondering, why the hell does it take so long for me to kill something, anything, even a shark?
Then i look to the island that is my bane for the past several hours. wondering why everyone likes standing so close to each other and why there are so many humans with flying mounts just merrily flying around, watching and waiting for someone to come along so they can double--no, triple team them to death. I know my healing is great, and i can survive groups of five or six mobs at once. i'll heal mysel through it, do a shock every chance i get, and drop searing or nova totem when they drop. but that takes time. it takes minutes. nay.... tens of minutes to go through my quest objectives. it is fine when i play with my girlfriend. she grabs everyone on the shore and dps them down by the time i throw her my first heal. but without her, it takes forever. sure, i probably have more survivability than she, but i dont have any way of actually dispatching, incapacitate, or disable any of my attackers in a short time. my battles are all battles of attrition.
and then, only after 78 battles did it ever dawn upon me that i basically have the same gear any other elemental shaman would have for his gear, bsides +Hit, of course. everything else was basically the same. So at that very moment, i went LMN-tal. and it was good. my healing sucked, but i realized that maybe faster questing would benefit me and my gf. instead of relying on her to always kill the mobs, i can suppliment the dps with my own dps and we can kill things twice as fast. although i still do have to make the occassional heal, it isnt as obtrusive as i imagined. there will still be some fights where i would prefer to spec into restoration, but for general questing, some of these abilities rock my socks.
78 levels of restoration, basically. 78 levels of doing nothing but healing and i figured i might as well get a second spec, its only 100gold now!
and after playing 78 levels of Resto, i've come to realize just how awesome elemental is. it is, indeed, LMNOP.
get it? OP?
yea dumb joke. okay but yes....... i can do damage now! gimme some quests to do. dailies would be great!
Then i look to the island that is my bane for the past several hours. wondering why everyone likes standing so close to each other and why there are so many humans with flying mounts just merrily flying around, watching and waiting for someone to come along so they can double--no, triple team them to death. I know my healing is great, and i can survive groups of five or six mobs at once. i'll heal mysel through it, do a shock every chance i get, and drop searing or nova totem when they drop. but that takes time. it takes minutes. nay.... tens of minutes to go through my quest objectives. it is fine when i play with my girlfriend. she grabs everyone on the shore and dps them down by the time i throw her my first heal. but without her, it takes forever. sure, i probably have more survivability than she, but i dont have any way of actually dispatching, incapacitate, or disable any of my attackers in a short time. my battles are all battles of attrition.
and then, only after 78 battles did it ever dawn upon me that i basically have the same gear any other elemental shaman would have for his gear, bsides +Hit, of course. everything else was basically the same. So at that very moment, i went LMN-tal. and it was good. my healing sucked, but i realized that maybe faster questing would benefit me and my gf. instead of relying on her to always kill the mobs, i can suppliment the dps with my own dps and we can kill things twice as fast. although i still do have to make the occassional heal, it isnt as obtrusive as i imagined. there will still be some fights where i would prefer to spec into restoration, but for general questing, some of these abilities rock my socks.
78 levels of restoration, basically. 78 levels of doing nothing but healing and i figured i might as well get a second spec, its only 100gold now!
and after playing 78 levels of Resto, i've come to realize just how awesome elemental is. it is, indeed, LMNOP.
get it? OP?
yea dumb joke. okay but yes....... i can do damage now! gimme some quests to do. dailies would be great!
What happened to Paladin Schmaladin?
UPDATE: They're back! have a good day everyone!
____________________________________________________
Today's a slow day. and when slow days happen (believe me, it doesnt happen often anymore), i tend to browse through all the blogs i usually visit. Well today i caught up on a bunch of blogs but when i finally tried to read blogs on Paladin Schmaladin, i was shown this:
I have two requests.
1. if anyone knows what happened, please reply. that site has been a great resource for paladins for so long, its sad to see it go. maybe they're purging all the old guides. who knows.
2. can someone please show me how to put borders on my pictures? this editor isnt the greatest, but i'd like a definite separation between my blog's background and a gif/jpg i put up.
Thanks all!
____________________________________________________
Today's a slow day. and when slow days happen (believe me, it doesnt happen often anymore), i tend to browse through all the blogs i usually visit. Well today i caught up on a bunch of blogs but when i finally tried to read blogs on Paladin Schmaladin, i was shown this:
I have two requests.
1. if anyone knows what happened, please reply. that site has been a great resource for paladins for so long, its sad to see it go. maybe they're purging all the old guides. who knows.
2. can someone please show me how to put borders on my pictures? this editor isnt the greatest, but i'd like a definite separation between my blog's background and a gif/jpg i put up.
Thanks all!
Monday, November 1, 2010
I have done zilch on my 80s
I just wanted to say that, for about the past month or two, i have done zilch, zero, nada on my 80s.
This is in part due to getting my girlfriend to play. Now she has several characters, six of them being bloodelf warlocks. But she does enjoy playing her paladins. yes, with an S. There are several classes she does get bored of though. She doesnt like hunters and elemental shamans. she likes the melee classes more but sometimes goes and plays her mage. even as a mage, she casts things in melee. no really. that's how you know she's one of those up-close and personal (or in-your-face, depending on perspective) kinda people. She now has a rogue which has leveled past 50 in about a week. she's into combo points and stuff (which i really hate, and hate even more now that it has infected other classes), being sneaky, backstabbing folks, etc. she's dual spec'ed assassination and subtlety (which, after about two hours of practice, she is able to pronounce that word correctly).
"so i am trying out my subly spec"
"its suttleteeeee".
"so anyway, subaly is.."
"SUT-TLE-TY"
"yea subably is great"
Anyway, lets talk about her two paladins.
One is level 78, almost 80. We're getting there. The paladin is paired with my shaman, who's a healer. and i figured i could have simply dual spec'd Resto/Elem and not have to deal with gear changes much. She's dual spec'd Tank/DPS on the paladin. Preferring tanking more since somehow, it does more dps. odd or what? the only problem is that she's never seen many of these dungeons in northrend before, so playing with guys who have played for years is difficult, mainly because no one wants to wait. if that was me, i'd let the anxious dps die. actually i do let them die since i heal on my shaman. Healing on the shaman is quite fun actually. i dont bubble spam. i dont rejuv spam. i only have one shield, my HoT has a cooldown and my AoE heal is limited due to a long casting time and proximity issues. which allows me to THINK. =] Thank you bliz on this one!
The second paladin is a Holy/Tank. More tank, less holy. about level 50 just waiting for paladin #1 to ding. She's liking the healing but does have mobility issues due to not having a shield/rejuv like mechanic, which stays on the targets even when she's not in LOS. I did install Vuhdo for her so things got a lot easier (the easiest being the ability to tell who really needs a heal) since she's able to see the health bars better and can tell who has aggro. Unlike me, she's into the whole combo point/holy power thing. for healing, its just holy shock, holy shock, holy shock, word of glory. that's half of the healing. the other half is Holy Light spam. that's it. i've been trying to get her to use her "hand" spells more but often, they're not needed until level 80. and even then, some people still do not know how to use their spells. but i digress.....
Anyway, so there's an update about me and my gf. we're going to level our DK's next. im blood tanking and she's unholy dps (and still wonders why she's doing 2k dps while her paladin, 6 levels higher, is only doing 1k dps. my opinion: dumb combo points). we're early 70s getting queues for AN and OK, if that gives you some kinda perspective.
And so, this is why for the past two months i've basically neglected all my 80s. It is not why i havent been posting much, however. This is due to moving to a new job environment. Im doing the same thing, just with another team of people (old boss retired, they wanted to keep me in the company so i had to work for another team). Different location too! I'm in the edge of the financial district in San Francisco. Awesome place to be in the early mornings. there's about three coffee shops on every block. and my new team is giving me a lot more to do, so less time blogging. I'll also get to those Patch 4.0.1 changes when i can, but i've been playing more on my shaman to try to get him to 80 these past two weeks that i havent really been able to really write about any other class. oh, and they took away treeform. it almost makes me want to close this blog.
Anyway, im hoping my posting pattern doesnt drop off like it did in october. Six. SIX POSTS!!! grrrr.
This is in part due to getting my girlfriend to play. Now she has several characters, six of them being bloodelf warlocks. But she does enjoy playing her paladins. yes, with an S. There are several classes she does get bored of though. She doesnt like hunters and elemental shamans. she likes the melee classes more but sometimes goes and plays her mage. even as a mage, she casts things in melee. no really. that's how you know she's one of those up-close and personal (or in-your-face, depending on perspective) kinda people. She now has a rogue which has leveled past 50 in about a week. she's into combo points and stuff (which i really hate, and hate even more now that it has infected other classes), being sneaky, backstabbing folks, etc. she's dual spec'ed assassination and subtlety (which, after about two hours of practice, she is able to pronounce that word correctly).
"so i am trying out my subly spec"
"its suttleteeeee".
"so anyway, subaly is.."
"SUT-TLE-TY"
"yea subably is great"
Anyway, lets talk about her two paladins.
One is level 78, almost 80. We're getting there. The paladin is paired with my shaman, who's a healer. and i figured i could have simply dual spec'd Resto/Elem and not have to deal with gear changes much. She's dual spec'd Tank/DPS on the paladin. Preferring tanking more since somehow, it does more dps. odd or what? the only problem is that she's never seen many of these dungeons in northrend before, so playing with guys who have played for years is difficult, mainly because no one wants to wait. if that was me, i'd let the anxious dps die. actually i do let them die since i heal on my shaman. Healing on the shaman is quite fun actually. i dont bubble spam. i dont rejuv spam. i only have one shield, my HoT has a cooldown and my AoE heal is limited due to a long casting time and proximity issues. which allows me to THINK. =] Thank you bliz on this one!
The second paladin is a Holy/Tank. More tank, less holy. about level 50 just waiting for paladin #1 to ding. She's liking the healing but does have mobility issues due to not having a shield/rejuv like mechanic, which stays on the targets even when she's not in LOS. I did install Vuhdo for her so things got a lot easier (the easiest being the ability to tell who really needs a heal) since she's able to see the health bars better and can tell who has aggro. Unlike me, she's into the whole combo point/holy power thing. for healing, its just holy shock, holy shock, holy shock, word of glory. that's half of the healing. the other half is Holy Light spam. that's it. i've been trying to get her to use her "hand" spells more but often, they're not needed until level 80. and even then, some people still do not know how to use their spells. but i digress.....
Anyway, so there's an update about me and my gf. we're going to level our DK's next. im blood tanking and she's unholy dps (and still wonders why she's doing 2k dps while her paladin, 6 levels higher, is only doing 1k dps. my opinion: dumb combo points). we're early 70s getting queues for AN and OK, if that gives you some kinda perspective.
And so, this is why for the past two months i've basically neglected all my 80s. It is not why i havent been posting much, however. This is due to moving to a new job environment. Im doing the same thing, just with another team of people (old boss retired, they wanted to keep me in the company so i had to work for another team). Different location too! I'm in the edge of the financial district in San Francisco. Awesome place to be in the early mornings. there's about three coffee shops on every block. and my new team is giving me a lot more to do, so less time blogging. I'll also get to those Patch 4.0.1 changes when i can, but i've been playing more on my shaman to try to get him to 80 these past two weeks that i havent really been able to really write about any other class. oh, and they took away treeform. it almost makes me want to close this blog.
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