December 28, 2009

It was Christmas weekend, so most of my time was spent with family and friends. (ment) But, I did get some opportunities to play.

Shammie Girl on the Rise
I decided to burn through the rest XP I had on alts. Once I got the paladin's out of the way, I switched to my shaman. I put myself into LFG and a few minutes later I was in a group. What fun!

She was enhancement when I started off and I had been using the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper. It's not actually optimized for shamans, but I already had the weapon and it worked fine for her. Anyway...I noticed quickly a few things:

• I don't like melee. Really, I don't. Positioning myself behind mobs is a pain in the butt. I much prefer ranged.
  
• My gear was a mix of spellcasting and melee items -- meaning I wasn't great at either.
  
• Getting into groups as DPS took forever.

So, I made plans to switch her to dual spec Resto/Elemental. Despite my low damage as enhancement, I made it through enough instances to gain 10 levels over the weekend. As soon as I hit 40 I paid for dual spec, sent the axe to my pally and got the Dignified Headmaster's Charge (once again, not the optimal weapon -- a mace and a shield might be better -- but I already had the staff...). I healed or dpsed my way through more instances and quit only 200 xp shy of lvl 42 when I had to switch for raiding last night.

Instances I saw were: Scarlet Monastery (all 4 wings), Razorfen Downs, Uldaman and Maraudon. I got very tired of Scarlet Monastery by the end of the weekend, but there's really no complaining about the amount of XP I got from each run. This new LFG system is great. I remember only a few months ago commenting on how hard it was to find a group while leveling my warlock. That problem is solved with this new system. Though, there is a shortage of tanks, that's for sure.

Speaking of tanks, I ran across several bad ones.

• In a few groups the designated tank was actually a dps in disguise. Most times this lead to disaster, though on one occasion, the skill of the group as a whole made up for it.
• There were a few tanks that were impatient. They'd run into a new area while the healer was still drinking. Then, the usual complaint about lack of heals when he died.
  
• There was one who couldn't hold aggro at all, even though he was Prot spec. He admitted being new to the game and having no idea how to play. (I had a hard time believing that, considering some things he new really well, but whatever.)
• There was the one that went into a room of mobs, aggroed them all, caused a wipe, then laughed and said obscenities to all of us before leaving the party.

I read an article the other day in which someone posited that the negative effect of the new LFG system is the prima-donna attitudes of tanks. I saw that first hand this weekend. Although being a jerk is never excusable, I do appreciate their plight. Until they can get dual spec at lvl 40, being a tank is tough because it's not easy to quest. Killing mobs alone as a tank is a slow process. No wonder so many could-be tanks choose to be dps. And then, when dual specs are available at lvl 40, it's still difficult to choose tanking over dps. At least as a healer/dps I can pretty much share my equipment across specs. Hit rating isn't really required until much higher level, so switching between resto and elemental for me is a simple change of specs. Tank/dps folks must keep two sets of gear. That must be tough.

Anyway, enough about the LFG system. What do I think of playing a Shaman? I love it! The last time I played her I had gotten to the point that I was frustrated. There were too many totems to think about and I was having a hard time killing mobs quickly enough for my tastes. But this time around, I was in the right mindset to figure out how to play her.

First thing was to recognize that my equipment choices (as explained earlier) were the cause of my slow mob killing. Once I switched to Elemental and put on spellcaster items, kill speed went up quite a bit.

Although this didn't come until I hit lvl 40, Call of the Ancestors really helped. Now I have two totem bars. One is for my standard set, the second has some choices switched out. Then, in my regular bars I only have those totems that don't appear in either of my totem bars.

I also removed several of the buttons that I would never use, like Rockbiter Weapon. Previously, I had put every option on my bars so I wouldn't forget they existed. But, I will never use spells such as that, so who cares if I forget about them? My interface is much cleaner now. I feel I have a better grasp of what tools I have at my disposal.

Both healing and DPSing on this toon are a blast (no pun intended). I'll probably never raid with her, but I will enjoy getting her to 80.

ToGC 25 (Priest)
Last night was a raid night and we went to ToGC 25, since it was the only thing we hadn't completed earlier in the week. It went poorly...very poorly. Even though we had a full raid, our top players were not there due to the holidays. It was evident. It took us forever to get through the first two encounters and we stopped after a few attempts on Faction Champs. All was not lost though; I got a Trophy of the Crusade, with which I purchased my final tier item -- Velen's Gloves of Triumph. I had been putting it off, thinking it was only a minor upgrade to Velen's Gloves of Conquest. But, the net effect was higher than I expected when all was said and done. So, it was a good call.

After all the drops I got this week, my loot priority has dropped substantially. That's as it should be. I really made out like a bandit this week. :-) Unless strange luck smiles upon me, I'll need to sit back and accept that no drops will be coming my way for a few weeks. Just in time for the new bosses to be released.

I also purchased the Circle of Ossus with my frost emblems. Another good upgrade for me. I had been indecisive about saving them for tier items or purchasing regular frost items with them. In the end, it seemed like the best choice.

Miscellaneous
I'm considering switching my mage into my priest's guild. I had avoided doing so because I didn't want to lose the connection with the friends from the other guild. But, I've spent little to no time with them the last few weeks. And, when I do switch to my mage, it's to do an "alt" run with my priest's guild. We'll see...