Shaman Leveling
As I posted yesterday, I leveled my Shaman quite a bit lately. This weekend I did a lot of instances with her, both as Elemental and as Resto. Although I mentioned last week that the addition of an extra totem bar is helpful, I'm still finding I have some issues with totem management.
One thing that would make it easier would be to organize totems by the element, not by the spell category. I mean, really, who cares if Stoneclaw is under the Elemental tab? It's more useful for me to know that it is an Earth totem. Organizing them by element would make it much easier to see which choices I have for each category. Hmmm...I wonder if there's an addon for that.
When leveling I go Elemental spec and put down Magma (fire), Stoneskin (earth), Grounding (air) and Healing Stream (water). I've been wondering lately if the Grounding one is a waste of mana though. It's only useful when encountering spellcasters. When I'm fighting melee, it's just a waste of mana. But, Windfury totem is useless to me, since I don't melee. Since they're currently my only air totem options, other than Sentry and Nature Resist, which also have narrow uses, I'm wondering if I should just leave the air totem slot blank while leveling and cast Grounding totem as needed?
Then when I'm in instances (as DPS) I don't put my totems down right next to the battle location. (Should I be placing them closer?) So, Magma totem is a waste, unless the melee comes closer to me. Searing totem is unpredicatble, so it's too risky to put it out (isn't it?) So, should I put down Flametongue to help out with Spell damage? For earth I've been placing Strength of Earth, but it only benefits melee party members. For air I've been placing Windfury, which I think is a no-brainer. Then for water I've been placing Mana Spring.
So...it seems like I pretty much have my sets arranged. But then we hit mobs that inflict diseases or poisons. I'm concerned that I'm wasting mana putting out my regular totems then quickly casting Cleansing Totem. It seems to me that mana regeneration is less important than the quick removal of disease/poison effects. So, what do shamans normally do about this? Do they leave the water spot free then cast the totem that works best for the situation? Or do they cast their standard set then use additional mana to replace the water totem when necessary?
Yeah I know, not big problems in the scheme of things. But, I like efficiency, and I feel I'm not being efficient.
Also, I read on some blog somewhere that while soloing it's a waste of time and mana to put totems down most of the time. I'm not sure if that was written before it was possible to cast all 4 at once or if that's just a general rule that still applies today. Are the totems really helping me out that much against single mobs? I can see that against multiple mobs every little bit helps. But against single mobs are the totems a waste of mana?
On another note, I splurged and bought the mail heirloom chest piece for her. She had been wearing the leather one that was a hand-me-down from my druid. But, since there's nothing else to do with my emblems of triumph, I decided to spend them frivolously. The only real change, other than additional armor, is replacement of spirit with mp5. Mp5 is better for Shamans, so I expect to see improved mana regen. Next up, I might splurge again and get her the mail shoulders for the same benefit, replacing the leather ones her druid sister gave her.
Paladin Leveling
I've also been leveling my Paladin lately. There are a few interesting things to note about experiences with her.
- Retribution Tanking -- I had been queueing in LFG as DPS, noticing that it's a lack of tanks that causes the long wait. Then in one group I noticed that the tank was an arms or fury warrior, can't remember which, but definitely not prot. He performed fine. Then, when I was in another group the tank (bear) asked if I would tank in his place. He had been tanking all day and wanted a break. I pointed out that I was Ret, but he said I'd do fine and the healer said the same. I've been queueing as Tank or DPS since. And, although I've lost aggro on a few occasions, I'd say I've been tanking succesfully. I'm not sure at what level that will change.
- Heirloom Items Snob -- In another group in Scarlet Monastery I ran across a jerk. He was a druid healer and felt it necessary to comment on the cloth heirloom shoulders I was wearing. I explained that I only had one pair of shoulders that I was sharing with all my leveling alts. But he pressed on, stating in a nutshell that I was fail for wearing cloth and not spending the emblems on mail/plate shoulders. At first I tried to make him understand why I made the decision -- I only had enough emblems to buy one item and it made since to choose the lowest common denominator, e.g., the one that any toon could use: cloth. But, he didn't seem to care. He was just a jerk getting his rocks off criticising me for my gear choices. I gave up and put him on ignore. The very first cross-server ignore. The nice thing about the new LFG system is that I'll never have to be in a group with him again!
- I pulled her out of her guild. It was one of those guilds that recruit in trade. I joined it several months back just for the heck of it since she is one of my unknown toons. But, on New Year's eve I couldn't take the atmosphere anymore. It was a positive one, don't get me wrong. But so friggin sappy and juvenile that it was hard for me to enjoy it. I don't like being in guilds where everything said in guild chat is a sexual inuendo. But, this was the opposite extreme. Some of the members talked about God and Jesus quite often (I have nothing against Christianity) and most of the members were in junior high and high school. I could be their mother! It just wasn't the right fit for me. So, now I'm guildless. I'm considering putting her into my Priest's guild. But, that would leave only one toon (my warlock) that is completely unknown. I do like to hide every now and then....
Old Guild Leader Strangeness
So, my old guild leader is acting strange again. The other day he sent me an in-game mail wishing me a happy Christmas. How nice. Considering we rarely talk any more, I thought it was a nice gesture.
Then out of the blue this weekend he sent me a Whisper saying, "LOL As much as things change, they stay the same." Having no idea what he was referring to, I asked him what he meant. He responded saying that I (me) had once again left a decent guild of fun people to join a raiding one. He, of course, is referring to my recent movement of my mage from one guild to another. Despite knowing I didn't have to explain my actions to him, I responded, saying I only moved guilds to follow two in-game friends. His response was, "If you say so."
Where does this animosity come from? He is so bitter about people having different ideas of what makes the game fun. He continues to like leveling alts and helping people level theirs. He enjoys questing and profession leveling. That's great. I'm happy for him that he continues to find those aspects fun and rewarding. I do too, on a certain level. I'm still leveling toons and I like to help people out when I can. But...and this is a big but...I do love raiding. So, why does he act like it's a negative thing??? He seems to forget the reason I left his guild in the first place was because he raged one night in guild chat after having /gquit a week or so before. I didn't leave to raid. I left to get away from the atmosphere he had created. But, regardless, I enjoy raiding. That's how I want to spend my time in game. I have every right to focus on those areas of the game I find most enjoyable. Ugh! He can be so difficult.
ICC 10 (Priest)
Since my regular 10-man team did ToC 10 without me this week (I was too tired to join them), I found another group to go with this past weekend. It was mostly alts from the guild with a couple non-guildies. It was tough, but I can happily say that we cleared it. Woot! I got the Soulcleave Pendant off the last boss. I have to admit I felt a little guilty taking it. The other toons were alts that will most likely never have access to 25-man gear. Whereas, I will be raiding in 25-man so I will have access to better gear. But, on the flipside, I might be asked to sit in future raids, so I never know from week to week if I'll be in or out. Also, there's an argument to be made that it's better that a main gets it because it will help with progression. Anyway...I got it. And I like it. :)
ToGC 25 (Priest)
On Sunday we had a big moment in our guild. We one-shotted Heroic 25 Faction Champs!!! We went from constant wipes to one-shotting it. Woo hoo!!!!! How exciting!!!! Twins was another story, but who cares. We got past a big stumbling block.
Success of Other Guilds
So, our success on faction champs made me curious how we stood on wowprogress.com. Our standing has gone up one slot, since we're only the 4th alliance guild on our server that has beat them. That's fun to know. Then, I looked on pugchecker.com to get an idea how many times the top guild on our server has cleared the place. I was surprised to find out they have full cleared 25 ToGC 11 times as of last week. 11 times. I'm not going to do the math, but my guess is that means they've pretty much done it since the beginning.
It made me wonder, how do they do that? We only just got past faction champs and we have gear from 10 and 25-man ICC. We're one of the top guilds with very skilled players.
So what do they have that we don't? Did they go into it with better gear? Possibly, because they cleared 25-man Ulduar several times, including killing Algalon. My guild only did a full clear on 10-man. So perhaps their gear going into ToGC was already better than ours. Well, no perhaps about it, they definitely had better gear. And I'm assuming they had better gear going into Ulduar and even going into Naxx.
But gear can't be the only thing.
Persistence is another factor. Perhaps to maintain their #1 ranking they try for hours and hours on end. There's no telling how many hours they spent going at it. Though, the limit to number of attempts each week does come into play. So, clearly they didn't spend too many hours, though maybe more than we did. We keep our raiding schedule very tight. We only raid 4 hours three times a week.
Skill must be the other factor. But honestly, is the skill difference between us and them so big? Having run with this guild for over a month now, I'm very impressed with the level of skill. But, maybe there are levels of skill within the guild and I'm just not noticing which members are not as skilled as the others. And perhaps the core members of the #1 guild are all on the same skill level?
For those people who read this blog and find it fun to criticize me, please refrain from doing so this time. I'm not obsessed with being the best of the best. I'm very very happy with the guild I'm in and our successes. I don't have any desire to be in the top guild because I know the pressure they're under to maintain that spot. All I'm pointing out is that they have cleared ToGC 25 11 times and we have not even cleared it once. I'm trying to understand what the difference is between us and them. Considering we're the fourth most progressed alliance guild on the server, we clearly know how to get things done.
OK that's it for now. Tonight a new wing of ICC is supposed to be opening. I really hope it's true and that I get a spot in the raid! If not, I'll level my shaman while wishing everyone luck with the new content.
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