So I hit 80 last night. Definitely stayed up too late, I am a dog today at work. I was able to ding with at least 3/4 of Stormpeaks remaining, and all of Icecrown. Now it is time to get some PVP in as well as work on the warrior for my shaman's production professions. Honestly, if you just steadily quest it should not take more than 3 weeks maybe 3 and a half to get to max level. The questing really picked up after Borean Tundra and the first half of Howling Fjord. Quests in the second half of Howling Fjord and Dragonblight really start to weave together and you are able to complete alot of them together. The lore in the Dragonblight was sensational. One cutscene dealing with several in-game heroes was just incredible.
My plan for the weekend and some next week is to both level my warrior and try and knock out any instance quests for as much blue gear as I can get. I hope to help any guildmates with that or any other group quests.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
A Whole New World
Northrend.
What a beautiful and emotion driven continent.
Everywhere there is death, destruction, beauty, humor, and a feeling of epic doom or conquest. It is not perfect, but I am impressed. The graphics have quite a few more particle effects among other improvements.
My good friend and native Muleshoean, Tonkadonk and I are level 77. We really pushed it hard right after release. I will say this, the comfort of having a flying mount again is wonderful. Being able to fly from quest to quest, especially on an epic mount, is dramatically better and more satisfying than ground running from place to place.
The gear reset has been minimal thus far. Just a few things have really been upgrades. Trinkets were the first to go. Other gear slots really have not been changed, I have replaced my bracers and cloak, with a few other debateable items in my bags.
I am excited to get some good, solid instance groups together in the coming weeks once more people get levelled. Learning new instaces is a great part of the game and one I certainly look forward to.
What a beautiful and emotion driven continent.
Everywhere there is death, destruction, beauty, humor, and a feeling of epic doom or conquest. It is not perfect, but I am impressed. The graphics have quite a few more particle effects among other improvements.
My good friend and native Muleshoean, Tonkadonk and I are level 77. We really pushed it hard right after release. I will say this, the comfort of having a flying mount again is wonderful. Being able to fly from quest to quest, especially on an epic mount, is dramatically better and more satisfying than ground running from place to place.
The gear reset has been minimal thus far. Just a few things have really been upgrades. Trinkets were the first to go. Other gear slots really have not been changed, I have replaced my bracers and cloak, with a few other debateable items in my bags.
I am excited to get some good, solid instance groups together in the coming weeks once more people get levelled. Learning new instaces is a great part of the game and one I certainly look forward to.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Almost Here
With WOTLK right around the corner I have been fairly inactive. Like Bacon, I too have had a nasty bout with a cold that has really sucked.
I am really looking forward to the levelling experience and all of the things that come with that (skills, new factions, quest rewards, gold..). I am actually looking forward to some of the instancing involved too, during BC most of my levelling was strictly solo or duo.
Obviously I am going to be levelling my shaman first, followed then by my warrior. It will be nice to have a pair of classes capable of everything in the game, tank, healing, cc, dps, utility, etc..
There was some exciting news regarding shaman scaling, seems there will be some sort of stat that will scale with damage, most likely intellect. This is something Elemental Shaman have been clamoring for, since the beginning of time. Seeing a Boomkin bring the majority of our buffs to a raid now and spank the living hell out of us in dps was somewhat depressing (not saying this was a scaling issue but scaling will help narrow the gap some.) Being a utility/dps caster it was rewarding getting whispers from mages and others saying "omg i love you in this raid," "WOW look at my spelldamage!" That feeling has been somewhat nullyfied with overlapping buffs that blot out what my totems do for the raid, to add injury to insult we also still lag behind some in damage. Oh, well, I still have a confident feeling everything will be ok, we lag behind now and I still hold my own.
Raiding in Wrath will be exciting and definitely a solid experience with a pretty much set group of people who know their classes well. The sooner we get started the better IMO. Getting a constant stream of heroics in will also be welcome. There really is little I enjoy more than getting a fun group of friends and knocking out some heroics on a Saturday night.
I am really looking forward to the levelling experience and all of the things that come with that (skills, new factions, quest rewards, gold..). I am actually looking forward to some of the instancing involved too, during BC most of my levelling was strictly solo or duo.
Obviously I am going to be levelling my shaman first, followed then by my warrior. It will be nice to have a pair of classes capable of everything in the game, tank, healing, cc, dps, utility, etc..
There was some exciting news regarding shaman scaling, seems there will be some sort of stat that will scale with damage, most likely intellect. This is something Elemental Shaman have been clamoring for, since the beginning of time. Seeing a Boomkin bring the majority of our buffs to a raid now and spank the living hell out of us in dps was somewhat depressing (not saying this was a scaling issue but scaling will help narrow the gap some.) Being a utility/dps caster it was rewarding getting whispers from mages and others saying "omg i love you in this raid," "WOW look at my spelldamage!" That feeling has been somewhat nullyfied with overlapping buffs that blot out what my totems do for the raid, to add injury to insult we also still lag behind some in damage. Oh, well, I still have a confident feeling everything will be ok, we lag behind now and I still hold my own.
Raiding in Wrath will be exciting and definitely a solid experience with a pretty much set group of people who know their classes well. The sooner we get started the better IMO. Getting a constant stream of heroics in will also be welcome. There really is little I enjoy more than getting a fun group of friends and knocking out some heroics on a Saturday night.
Monday, October 20, 2008
3.0
Well patch day came and went. Interesting talents and abilities discovered, a raid formed and blew through the majority of ZA. Every raid and instance in the game is broken now, with "Instance not Found" errors.
Two things jumped out at me with our ZA raid, 1. Tank threat generation is exponentially higher. (I am not in beta so I have no clue if it still feels this way at 80). 2. AOE Dps/healing clearly rules the day. AOE encounters are most definitely going to be bigger, badder, and more intense, its clear due to blizzards focus on talents, abilities and changes that effect aoe.
Class specific points:
Things are good, and I am frothing at the mouth for my first venture into Northrend.
Two things jumped out at me with our ZA raid, 1. Tank threat generation is exponentially higher. (I am not in beta so I have no clue if it still feels this way at 80). 2. AOE Dps/healing clearly rules the day. AOE encounters are most definitely going to be bigger, badder, and more intense, its clear due to blizzards focus on talents, abilities and changes that effect aoe.
Class specific points:
- I was concerned about my dps as elemental. I ended up bouncing from 4th to (very briefly) 1st and staying mainly 3rd behind our arms warrior and balance druid. There were 4 dps that consistently stayed above 1300. I probably do really really well on 2 and 3 mob pulls due to chain lightning hitting all of the mobs, anything more than 3 and im no where near the others. Fortunately there was a blue post stating shaman aoe is going to be looked at and will be changed to increase shaman aoe effectivness.
- Efficiency: in BC this was my main downfall. Getting dangerously close to OOM too often on boss fights was often times unavoidable. This has dramatically changed. Elemental is now highly effecient both on live and according to multiple sources, on beta. With blizzard constantly pushing haste as an important shaman stat this was inevitable since +haste = OOM. My strategy for now and probably while leveling is to glyph for effeciency (+30% to watershield passive mana regen and -10% cost to lightning bolt) and gear for haste.
Things are good, and I am frothing at the mouth for my first venture into Northrend.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Ducks in a Row
Like most of you I have been working on lining everything up for the upcoming expansion. Mostly this involves professions. I have settled on levelling my warrior second and will do mostly pvp with him. I am a leatherworker and alchemist on my main toon, the shaman. So to compliment those two professions I am levelling skinning and herbalism on the warrior. This should provide some added side benefits in pvp for the warrior which will get an increase in crit and a self-hot.
I believe patch 3.0 is close to coming live. The pre-bc patch that was released prior to BC was six weeks in advance, I feel like the same timeframe will probably be employed here, save a week or two. I am very interested in trying out the new talents. I hope others are as well. Getting a za run together in heroes has been hard for quite some time now, understandably so. Maybe the new patch will provide some much needed incentive to do that. Have a great week.
I believe patch 3.0 is close to coming live. The pre-bc patch that was released prior to BC was six weeks in advance, I feel like the same timeframe will probably be employed here, save a week or two. I am very interested in trying out the new talents. I hope others are as well. Getting a za run together in heroes has been hard for quite some time now, understandably so. Maybe the new patch will provide some much needed incentive to do that. Have a great week.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Its Freezing up here!
My last several days in game have been spent in the frigid lands of Winterspring. I am grinding out the last bit of reputation for my Frostsaber. This has been a slow and somewhat grueling task. At least for the most part I have good people to talk to on vent or a good show to listen to on the tube.
Overall I have really come to terms with my class and how useful it truly is within PVE raiding. Our totems going raidwide will be a huge buff to shaman utility, in my opinion. As well as the change to "spell power" rather than damage vs. healing pieces. This will allow me to heal effectively as well. There is a chance I will be going enhancement to maximize our raid setup. I was asked if I were open to this idea and I most certainly was (provided enh shamans in beta are corrected). Windfury numbers are just plain fun to see explode over an npc's head. However I do still enjoy the shaman pew pew and caster utility elemental brings to the raid. But I am totally commited to seeing all the content possible in the next expansion.
On the pvp front, I still would like to get involved a little more in the coming weeks, especially in the arena. I will probably grind out honor on my warrior and shaman both.
Overall I have really come to terms with my class and how useful it truly is within PVE raiding. Our totems going raidwide will be a huge buff to shaman utility, in my opinion. As well as the change to "spell power" rather than damage vs. healing pieces. This will allow me to heal effectively as well. There is a chance I will be going enhancement to maximize our raid setup. I was asked if I were open to this idea and I most certainly was (provided enh shamans in beta are corrected). Windfury numbers are just plain fun to see explode over an npc's head. However I do still enjoy the shaman pew pew and caster utility elemental brings to the raid. But I am totally commited to seeing all the content possible in the next expansion.
On the pvp front, I still would like to get involved a little more in the coming weeks, especially in the arena. I will probably grind out honor on my warrior and shaman both.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Decisions
Well, I have had alot of decisions to make both personally, professionally and in game!
On the personal/professional side of things. I sold a farm that my family has owned since 1954. That was a tough decision, I essentially grew up there, learned to drive, farm, cuss, even have a dip or two, (which I hated and still do!). Keeping it was just slowly causing it to depreciate so selling it was really my best option.
Onto the game!
I will be staying a shaman, nature is my calling! Lightning bolts are where its at!
This may even be my pvp choice if things are improved. Otherwise it will be my warrior or priest.
See everyone in game!
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