Firstly, a note about Ulduar – we did FL again last night. Seven guildies, three from another guild. I was raid leading (only one boss, yes, but people still expected me to know what to do! D:). Two of the people from the guild hadn’t done it on Monday.

We one shot him. With one systems over load. It took two on Monday night. That’s just a slap in the face, but it was also very nice. The annoying Offhand dropped again, as did an MP5 trinket, which I’d much rather have seen replaced with the Pyrite Infuser. –halo-

Tonight we had a surprise Malygos raid. I think we gave it five or six tries before calling it. The fight is… interesting. We didn’t have a DK or a non-healing druid to position the sparks, which made it difficult to pile multiple sparks on top of each other, and prevent them from reaching the boss – added consequence of me not wanting to Heroism unless everyone had at least one stack of power spark.

We made it to phase three twice, both times also reaching the enrage timer. The problem was DPS in the first phase, due to lack of spark control, and the first time we did the second phase, other melee not getting on discs. Aside from enjoying Enhancement Shaman, that’s the other perk of having made it my main… I get to ride discs on Malygos!

Our last try went depressingly well. We’d piled two sparks on top of each other, I’d used Heroism, looked like we would make it before the enrage timer (assuming we were able to handle phase 3) and then… we let a spark slip through and catch Malygos. Even though I immediately smacked a Maelstrom enhanced heal on the tank, and started a second normal cast to try and help the healers, the tank went down, and so did the rest of us. We had to call it at that point, but next time, Aspect of Magic? We’re gonna getcha.

As much as other people may hate vehicle fights (though the Malygos thing I like isn’t a proper vehicle), I really enjoy the crazy stuff I get to do in these fights. On Flame Leviathan, I am catapulted onto the top of a giant tank, and I smash up one of the turrets (and usually aid the other DPS by zapping theirs when mine is down), am picked up by a motorcycle, then get back on my Demolisher and begin lobbing mortars at the thing again. On Malygos, I get a floating disk, and chase mobs about the sky, beating them to death.

Those things are incredibly awesome.

-

Random Picture – was flying into Coldarra for the raid earlier, and caught this shot

I think that’s pretty nice, don’t you agree? (Reflection is cheating, added by Live Writer, heh.)

It’s been a while since I did a UI post, and it has been through a fair bit of change since then – what with the changing to shammy and all.

Unfortunately, GIMP doesn’t seem to have basic draw shape tools which are handy for such posts, so the quality is low from going via paint. Yay Paint!

So, combat related addons on screen.

1. Totem Timers – Pretty standard Shaman addon. It can be used on it’s own for placing totems, but I still have my main ones (and a set of secondary totems, set to shift) keybound. I use it mainly for placing totems I rarely use – resistance totems for example – and to keep track of what totems I do have down.

2. XPerl – in the form of a single focus frame. This is all that remains of my XPerl. I usually focus the main tank as a DPS, so I can /assist their target. On fights where I need to DPS adds an OT picks up, I focus the OT. On boss fights where I am healing, I focus the boss to watch for nasty spells.

3. Grid – a pretty standard addon for end-game healers, but also very nice for any other player, as it makes incredibly efficient use of space. For healers, it can be set to show all sorts of things – an example is highlighted with a purple circle. That brown dot tells me Earth Shield is not active on the target.

I don’t need to know this on Enhancement, but I do on Resto. It’s not the best way to keep track – I have to set it to appear for all tank classes, so it will show even for Tree druids, for example – but it does help. It also shows the value of incoming heals, which is handy to avoid multiple healers wasting mana. Plus, it does lots more.

4. Big Wigs – keeps track of boss abilities. Again, another very standard add for raiding. DBM is another favourite, but I found it too spammy for my liking.

5. MetaHUD – here things get messy, with addon overlap. The Health and Mana bars, as well as target name and debuffs, are provided by MetaHUD, which replaces the usual Player frame. Like grid, this makes efficient use of space, and when you get used to it it’s incredibly easy to keep track of health and mana.

6. Omen – threat meter. Need I say more? I watch my cooldowns like a hawk on the action bars, which is why Omen is located directly above.

7. Bartender4 Action Bars, augmented with OmniCC – some people condense their bars right down… I still like to have lots of stuff shown. These are basically scaled down versions of the bars I had in my last UI post, so I could fit the chat window into the corner, nice and snug. OmniCC shows a big, easy to read number for any ability currently on cooldown.

8. Recount – Again, pretty standard. Some people don’t show this on boss fights. I do, not so much for the amagad lookitmuhdeeps! but to make sure I’m actually doin’itrite.

9. Simple Buff Bars – To purge the chunky default Buff/Debuff bars. Not much to be said except that doing AT dailies with that setup is a pain, as the “Bested City” debuffs take up a lot of space.

10. Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text – Orange box, plus the text in the centre of my HUD, plus the orange dots. Shows incoming and outgoing damage and heals – and it fits very snugly over my MetaHUD bars, which is very nice indeed, and the reason it has replaced SCT for me.

However, now that I’ve been raiding on Shaman, I’ve realised that I need to nix Aura Gains (Centre). Those take up a lot of space and I don’t like them or need them. The cooldown alerts (top) will need to go, too. I watch my cooldowns like a hawk – I don’t need to be told when abilities are available.

11. Shock and Awe – Enhancement Shaman addon. Does a lot of things – shows cooldowns of main abilities, tracks Maelstrom procs, alerts me when Shields and weapon enchants aren’t present. It also does another thing, but if you need to use that function, eugh. I have it set to show only my Maelstrom Procs, and Feral Spirit bar – this bar segments when your wolves are up, showing the time remaining before they despawn.

Misc things that aren’t labeled or shown.

• SexyMap (Top Right) – I like having a pretty map. So what? The map looks different depending on character. As you can see, on Ellaria, it’s pretty simple… glowing white ring with an elemental icon in each corner to represent being a Shaman. Faulsey has an aiming reticule overlaid and pawprints up the side to represent BM Hunter.
• Chatter (Bottom Left)– more options for customising the basic chat frame.
• FuBar with GroupFu and MoneyFu (had more before, but those weren’t updated for 3.1 last I checked, top) – GroupFu mostly fills the role right-clicking my own frame did, as far as leaving parties etc are concerned. MoneyFu gives a handy breakdown of how much I’ve made in a session/day/week. Also shows random AddonFu’s.
• Player EXP Bar (Green bar next to Map)- small, easy to move bars for Exp, Reputation and pet Exp. Used because MetaHUD means no XPerl Exp/Rep bars, and the bartender ones are horrible.
• Atlas Loot – In game loot browser, I use this to set wishlists of what I want from bosses.
• Auction Lite – doesn’t do all the stuff Auctioneer does, but nonetheless works very well as a nice little auction addon, plus it shows vendor prices in item tooltips.
• Livestock – Mount and Pet manager. I use this for random mount macros.
• Baud Bag – condenses bags into one big bag, which I can keep nice and tidy with great ease.
• eCasting Bar – my Quartz replacement. I have no idea if Quartz has been updated by now, because this works just fine. Shows own cast bar (relatively useless for Enhancement, handy as Restoration), target cast bar (always, always handy) and Focus cast bar (handy for healers focusing on boss).
• Outfitter – changes armour and weapons. With 3.1, it can be set to change automatically if you have dual spec and switch specs. Very handy.
• Rating Buster – breaks things like Crit Rating or Strength down into what they do for your class. Somewhat annoying for an enhancement Shaman, as it does not, by default, show Physical stats for Shammies, so I had to set that up myself. When you’ve got it tweaked, though, it’s wonderful.

Jeez, I really use a lot of addons, don’t I?

I just like tweaking with my UI, to be honest. While I consider things like Omen, MetaHUD (due to being so used to it, I can’t really go back to normal unit frames with ease), Bartender and OmniCC essential, I can live without most of these.

I just don’t like to.

Things I need to know likerightnowomg as DPS are in a column roughly in the middle of the screen – Bigwigs on top, my main action bars at the bottom, with HUD and Omen in between, and debuff bars sneaking in on the right. Grid is off to the side – it’s easy to consult when needed, but I don’t need it to be centre screen all the time. Same with Chat. Map, Buffs, secondary action bars and Recount are on the other side because, again, I don’t need these to be right in the centre.

It works pretty well for me, but I’m sure Nibuca would have a heart attack just looking at that mess! –grin-

Logged on tonight after work, and was asked if I could come help on Gothik by my GL. He suggested the group kind of sucked, so it would probably be that one boss – but hey, raids reset tomorrow, so I took the chance. So there were three of us from Soul Haven, with seven randoms.

Gothik went down on our first try, with ease. The Horsemen we wiped on at first, because the back tanks weren’t entirely sure on what to do. Second try we got them – I popped Heroism at start and we beat Korthazz down entirely before moving onto Rivendere and the rest.

Using the porter to the centre, I discovered that was the last wing they had needed to complete before opening the Frostwyrm lair, where we one-shot Sapphiron. Unfortunately, he didn’t drop the cloak again (the cape I have on my now-defunct Hunter.)

So, all that remained was KT. Working on our established pattern for the night, we wiped the first time. Tank got caught in a Shadow Fissure for a bit too long, and the druid healers Combat Rez was on CD. Second try was… fun. My Range warning wasn’t working, so to be safe, whenever frost blast was off cooldown, I hopped back and spammed Lightning Bolt until some poor sap was blasted. DPS took a hit, but it was either that or die, which has just a touch more impact on DPS.

My recent run of poor loot luck ended and he dropped ZE CLAW! (To replace one of my Bra Hands… I love BA chat.) While I miss my Bear Hand, I still have one of them, and paired with Kel’Thuzad’s Reach, I’m looking pretty fierce!

Work was nice this week – since I was working tonight, I’m free tomorrow (Wednesday, raid reset day) and Friday night, and we have raids both nights… Hopefully I’ve shown my worth and get an invite on both nights. –crosses fingers-

Coming tomorrow will be a post on my UI, since it’s had quite an overhaul since 3.0, and a commenter mentioned it last post.

The guild decided to give 10 Man Flame Leviathan a try tonight… It wasn’t pretty.

Firstly, my Demolisher decided to bug out during the Trash – couldn’t fire the main weapon, and no one else who swapped round with me could either. I was able to Ram things, but that was about it. So that ruined my enjoyment of the early stage somewhat.

Secondly, it took quite a while for people to grasp the fight… Myself included. Didn’t realise you had to take out two turrets for a Systems Overload.

There was wipe after wipe after wipe, because of the boss going after Demolishers too often, or people getting caught in corners, or people dying after taking out a turret. Also, a few people were missing a few iLevel 200 items – though there were also plenty with 213’s, so it shouldnt’ have been that much of a problem. In all, it probably took us somewhere between 12-15 tries to beat him.

He dropped two things that made me cry bitter tears. A fist weapon with lovely stats… except the attack speed was too fast. The next was a caster chest piece, that would have made a lovely upgrade to the iLevel 166 crap I have atm… But the Holy Paladin wanted it, so he got it (as he rightly should have!) Wanted loots! D:

Despite all the wipes… it wasn’t actually that frustrating. It was nice to see something new, to experience it shortly after release. And I enjoyed the vehicle aspect of it! Now that we’ve actually got it sussed, it should be easier next time.

We didn’t go any further – the raid was for the sole purpose of getting Leviathan down, as we didn’t have the right set up for a proper boss. We may try again on Wednesday or Friday – I’ve signed up for raids on both those days. But I’d still like to do Naxx. –coughs-

And before anyone says it, yes, FL is easy. Yes, we are nubs. So what? It’s kinda hard if you aren’t use to vehicles.

Note: My Buff bars kinda freaked out in Ulduar for some reason – I do not have Earthliving on my weapon – you’ll notice the second enchant is blank. Hmmm.

On twitter tonight, I’ve been engaged in a discussion about Shaman in comparison to Mages, and why I can’t play one. It’s a combination of two things – mobility and pace.

My reasoning for not being keen on playing mages – or Balance Druids, or Elemental Shaman, or Warlock – is cast times. I cannot stand in one place and wait for a bar to fill up – even on Hunter, even with Serpent’s Swiftness, those 1.5 seconds casting Steady Shot irked me, but it was at least within the GCD. If I have to move constantly or at a moments notice, having instant abilities is hugely important to me. Not to mention it’s just the pace of it – I cast a three second spell, that’s one action over two GCD’s! Talk about slow going!

As an Enhancement Shaman, everything I do is instant. Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash, shields and totems are, by default, instant. Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are not instant by default, but are made instant via Maelstrom Weapon- unless you are exceptional with the timing of your melee swings in your head (which I am not), then you might cast them with a miniscule 0.4/0.5 sec cast.

The response was that Mage has a larger selection of instant casts than Enhancement Shaman. This is true. Mage, as an entire class, does. But how about Fire Mage? How about Frost Mage? I’m pretty sure both of those are bogged down in cast times. A greater quantity of instant casts does -not- mean you can create a viable DPS rotation out of them alone.

Arcane Mage appears to be slightly different, despite Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles. It apparently is more mobile. I’m sure that’s damn nice at end game… but how do I get there? This distaste for the cast bar monster holds true whilst leveling*. I already mentioned how (at 41) I dropped Boomkin Druid for Kitty – I’m pretty sure Arcane couldn’t be instant-based at 41, which is my “wall” level. I hit it with Hunter, hit it with Druid. Enhancement Shaman blew that damn wall down, because that’s when it becomes really good.

For leveling a Mage, I would have to endure the cast time monster. I do not like the cast time monster. I always wipe against him. I have a baby mage who I play very occasionally, but if I’m casting Fireball due to mana constraints, watching that bar fill up, wait, drop a bit whilst I’m hit, oh finally I’ve done some damage!.. That just bugs me. Arcane Missiles is slightly better, despite the annoying lack of mobility – it at least does damage throughout the cast.

The fact is, I  cannot cast. It’s not my thing. That bar offends me every time it appears on my screen. If I have to level all, or most, of the way to 80 with the cast bar monster… I’m not gonna do it. I endure the cast bar monster as Restoration Shaman because so far, healing only Heroics, Earth Shield and Riptide have done most of my healing. But when boss fights get hairy, casting those life-saving Healing Waves is highly stressful for me, because they aren’t instant! What if they die whilst that stupid bar fills up? Argh!

I don’t like casting, okay? It’s does not suit me. If you enjoy it, good! People can’t enjoy every class and spec in the game – casting classes are the part of the game I don’t enjoy very much.

And since I’ve talked about the playstyle I don’t like, how about you? Perhaps you just loathe melee? Maybe tanking drives you crazy? Is there a class in the game you won’t touch with a 10-foot pole?

* Slight sidetrack – I have to enjoy leveling a class. I think people who, even after leveling a couple of characters, claim to hate leveling, yet continue to do so, are insane. If I don’t enjoy a class whilst leveling, even from an early level, I don’t continue to level it.

Today is not a good day. Not a good day at all.

Firstly, raiding. Some people who signed up but didn’t bother to show up for Friday’s Naxx10 raid were doing The Dedicated Few today. Nice, guys. Jeez, is it too much to ask to have a guild where I can do Naxx10 just once – just once!- a week in the hopes of getting gear so I can finally see Ulduar? –sigh-

Second – Dual Spec. Blizzard, please to be fixing it. I do not like having one of my specs totally reset on me for no reason, especially given I had been using that spec just fine 10 minutes before. It was my Resto Spec, so I was left with three points I had no idea where they were before and was flailseying. Not fun.

Third – I like VH. I do not like running VH twice in one day because of idiot healers. Tank died on last bit of Trash. Boss spawns very quickly. Healer rezzes tank, and the boss aggros. Then the healer casts their AOE buffs. The tank had like 10% health, and you decide to waste 2 GCDs on buffs instead of fucking healing them? You, sir, are a bloody idiot. So we wiped and had to do the whole thing again. Eugh!

Oh, and a minor gripe – the War Mace of Unrequited Love does not exist when I am Resto Spec. I have seen it drop as Enhancement, before I had dual spec, and always with a healer who needed it. Now I am healing and hoping to get it, nothing. S’not fair! D:

Something that cheered me up though was seeing one of today’s search terms. I’m not sure how this found my blog, but it did, and it is hilarious.

I am curious to know, if the ass battle searcher returns – what is an ass battle? … Do I want to know what an ass battle is?

Glargh. So last nights Naxx raid, which I was hoping to be the first time I’d make serious progress in Raiding as Ellaria, was called off due to only about half the people who had accepted showing up, leaving me with absolutely nothing to do for a few hours.

Originally planning to work on my mage a bit more, I bought a couple of heirloom items – a staff and the usual shoulders which are now a flat 10% increase to leveling speed as they now affect quest EXP. Realising I really should get around to getting my neglected little level 7 Warlock to 10, I sent them her way first.

Lowbie Warlock is painful. Spells are expensive, and you can’t lifetap because you will die horribly whilst your imp stands there giggling. But the worst was still to come! Oh yes, painful leveling wasn’t enough. The quest to get your Voidwalker makes you walk your tiny gnome self all the way to the far side of Elwynn and back! -grumble-

One death, a long trip back to Stormwind and a dive into some crypts later, I had my voidy.

It’s so good to have something tanking for me now. I put my first point in Demonology, but I’m not sure I’ll stick with that. I’m not sure I’ll even get this character to 20, since I shipped the heirlooms over to my mage soon after.

By the way, Drain Soul? So much fun. -cough- Better not let Erethia see the souls I gathered from the snow Leopards in Dun Morogh…

Omnom souls.

Eh, and since it’s been a little while, some Heroic Achievements from Ellaria.

I’ve now got around half of the Heroic Achievements on Ellaria. All of these were accidents – we weren’t aiming for them. Gotta Go! was a few days ago, just after the patch. On the rocks was today – we killed him so fast that he only used one tomb, right at the end of the fight. King’s Bane was a total surprise – as I was healing, I wasn’t dispelling Bane like I normally would (Yes, yes, bad healer is bad). I guess he never cast it!

Healing is fun and all, but I’ve decided I’m only going to do it when I really want to, at least as far as HC PUGs are concerned. Going LFG as Damage/Healer is basically the same as going LFG as Healer – no one’s gonna take you as DPS! I’ll heal Nexus and HoS, since those both drop healing items that can be used by any healer, so I can’t justify rolling on the item unless I’m the healer. The other items I need I can DPS those instances, since it’s mail stuff, which will go to me for offspec by default, unless another Shaman sneaks in.

Hopefully I’ll see Naxxramas on Monday, and, though this is even more to ask, stuff will drop. Please?

We interrupt this normally coherent blog for this important thought.

OMGWTFFINALLYYESIHAVEAPOLARBEAR!

No more yeti cheese for me, you big blue witches!

It’s taken, what, four months of grinding, and I’ve long since stopped even hoping when I open my spoils… but this morning, I opened them up and squee’d!

Finally omgyes!

It’s really the epitome of a vanity mount, to be honest. Hunter is no longer my main, I fly everywhere, so the only time I’d use him is in Dalaran or when visiting the AH, but damnit, I’m so happy I finally have my bear!

Isn't he just so awesome?

This makes up for the fact I won’t be getting Tournament Mounts on Faulsey, I think. Though I really do enjoy jousting, so I may trundle along on two Champion’s Seals a day, and eventually get something. Want a Darnassus Tabard with my first 50, though.

Tangent: I have a feeling Siha is going to grow to loathe this tournament. She’s an avid collector of both mounts and tabards!

I’ve been iffy on this since the patch hit. On the one hand, utility! On the other hand, I’m a terrible healer, and dual spec is expensive and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it.

Today, I really, really wanted to give healing a try, so I threw in the towel and bought Dual-Spec, Glyphs, Gems and Enchants for my healing set. Came to about 1.9k total, which made me wince. My gear is an amusing mish-mash of “not fit for heroics” and “from heroics” gear, which seems to balance out well enough. I also had 40 emblems floating around, so I was able to replace two of my worst offenders with a nice Totem and Neck. Still got two nasty green trinkets, though.

Resto Ellaria - lolwut?

First stop was HC Nexus – I’d really like the mace from Keristrasza. Made it through the instance without anyone dying due to having the perfect “newbie healer” party – excellent Paladin tank with a Shadow Priest and Blood DK providing lots of healing to the party. No good for helping me to deal with healing under pressure, but it meant I was able to learn what my spells and talents do, since I’ve never been Resto before.

Me and the Paladin then continued on to UK. I died on the first boss, but that wasn’t my fault… Kinda hard to heal from inside a Frost Tomb, ya know. Aside from that, the instance was uneventful, though the last boss dropped my only upgrade of the night to replace an iLevel 155. Finally, we went to UP.

UP was my first proper test as a healer. The first two bosses are simple, but the third boss, Skadi (The PUG destroyer!) is hellish. Nothing like a long gauntlet with rapidly spawning mobs plus environmental hazards to really test your healer. I somehow managed to keep everyone alive until Skadi arrived, and then live through the fight with him. A DPS died on the boss, but that’s because he was being too friendly with Skadi whilst he was using Whirlwind. Not my fault!

I have to admit, healing was great fun. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I do Enhancement – laser beam heals are cool and all, but give me Bear Hands and Lightning Bolts anyday! – but I’m now confident that I’m at least half decent at healing.

There are some things I need to work on, though.

• Earth Shield – I keep forgetting to refresh this. Classtimers could help if I was constantly targeting tank, but I might still end up missing it. Anyone know of any mods that might help?
• Heroism – As an Enhancer, the best time to use Heroism is just after you summon your wolves, so that they benefit. Thus, in my head, Heroism is inseparable from Feral Spirit, so I just forget to use it. In the Nexus, where I usually use it on three bosses, I remembered on one. In the Utgarde instances it wasn’t so bad as there was an Enhancer doing it for me.
• Tidal Force – I didn’t use this at all tonight. I didn’t need to. In the “OHSHI!” situations on Keri and Skadi, I mashed Nature’s Swiftness and fired off a Healing Wave, which did the trick. I figure this is something I’d use in a situation where I knew a big hit was coming – like a Decimate on Gluth. Pop it just before the decimate, and reap the critty chain heal goodness. But I’m not sure.

Also need to take a look at my Shock and Awe config… it doesn’t like me being resto and constantly goes “-Scrape noise- Missing Weapon Enchants!” and drives me up the wall. -grumble-

Hopefully doing Naxx10 tomorrow, where I will hopefully get a pair of nice bracers, a cloak, and some tier gear. At least one or two of those things would be lovely, please, RNG.

I think the Argent Tournament is very well done.

At Valiant level. The quests aren’t easy, but they aren’t ridiculously difficult either. The jousting (at any level, in fact) is fun to do, as is trampling Scourge under your hooves.

Champion is utterly fucking crap, in my opinion, simply due to the presence of a 3-man daily. Sure, with all the post-patch hubub, it should be easy to group for it… but what about in the future? People are going to be missing out on two Champion’s Seals a day, which will make the glacier-pace grind even worse.  Eugh.

I’ve decided that as much as I want a Hippogryph I’m going to give the Tournament a miss on Faulsey (after I’ve put in another 5 days of Valiant questing for Darny!)… mostly because I absolutely loathe dailies. That’s not really Blizzard’s fault, daily quests just aren’t for me, and the idea of doing 20 days of double-grind followed by 30 days of single-grind, which would include doing the group quest 70 times, makes me die inside.

Instead, I’m going to try* and do the three other Champion Dailies on Ellaria, as it should only take 30 days to get her Turbostrider, because it has flames. Mechanostrider with flames is the perfect mount for an Engineering Shaman, especially given that’s the element I most associate with Ellaria.

Want.

In other news, I have got a sort of casual raiding guild at the moment… unfortunately work chose this week to give me a nice Wednesday shift, which is when the servers reset, and when people like to raid. So I might not even get to do Naxx this week, joy! /wrists

*The key word here is try – I believe I’ve mentioned I hate dailies, yes?
Edit: Oh, and yes, I subscribe to the Lady Jess school of Achieving. Anyone who saw me on BA chat or Twitter earlier would have seen raw Faulsey Fury about how the Argent Tournament in general could gtfo and burn for all I cared. But then I decided I still want my Turbostrider.