Feel it, breathe it, believe it...

Zereissen had an interesting point on how WotLK will change hybrid classes. Now that crit on items applies to both melee and spell attacks... well...

Feral druids with 20% crit on starfire? Boomkin with 25% crit in cat form? Ret pallies crittin those emergency heals? And them damn judgements?

And more importantly... shammies... who are really the only class that need to deal both magic and physical damage. Specifically enhance shammies. When I run recount on unbound in enhance spec, she's dealin about 20% of damage shock wise.

Then there's elemental devastation, a talent so friggin useless I'd take wand spec over it. Its in the elemental tree... and it gives ya a minor hike to melee crit when you crit with a spell.

Since enhance shammies crit on shocks about every horde EotS win, well... thats not real useful. But if enhance shammies start getting +crit to spells as well as start stacking int for the new int=ap talent... things will get interesting. Also there's a new shammy spell that can auto crit.

This also radically screws itemization. Before, given a choice between +crit and +agil, I'd go +agil. It now takes 22 points of +crit to gain 1% melee crit fer a shammy. And 25 points of agil, which also give armor and dodge...

However, come Wrath of the Lolking, this changes. +crit will affect spells and melee... and shammy agility based crit is gettin nerfed into line with hunters... i.e. 40 points of agil for 1% melee crit.

Shammies are gonna start avoiding agil like mages avoid spirit, and dwarves avoid baths.

I can't help but think that this is all to make deathknights viable. Since they have to be able to crit with magic and physical attacks in pretty much the same way enhance shammies do. God forbid the flagship class of the new expansion be unviable... and if that means givin shammies a break... well, we'll just nerf the hell outta them some other way! like, um makin shamanistic rage so useless we'll go back to speccing nature's swiftness again. Oh, hey... they did!

Give me steam!

Get a life with this dreamer's dream...

Um... geekmeter, 10/10.

Click on link at yuir own peril.

Steampunk meets Star Wars and Justice League.

And, ah... why the hell is my Shammy wearin a mail dress? I doan spend enough time hatin Blizzard fer gratuitous insults...

My head is giving me life or death but I can't choose

Still gonna be weekend after this before I can see Batman.

In the meantime, a friend of mine recommends this book.

Umm... Arena is really beginning to be as drama filled as the world of raiding, and who the hell needs that?

And, uh, OMG, what have I done?

See... Melvin can't be troubled to look up stuff online. He'll pester me about it, but won't actually do anything himself. he has since resigned himself to a world of suck in arena, stuck with chars that aren't goin anywhere.

His lastest brilliant scheme? Loading up on +15 sta gems... "it's like having to kill me twice!"

His latest uber arena team? Prot pally and sl/sl lock. "They spend so much time trying to kill the pally, they ignore me!"

But... where I went wrong... I kinda got too excited about the fake talents BRK linked a while back.

And I kinda showed them to Melvin. Who, you might have guessed, can't understand how such things must be taken with a grain of salt...

And who is now leveling a hunter.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You're my experimental game..

So i gotta steal a pally and fly to Blade's Edge fer some experimentin. Arena theory and all...

The question... do auras and totems obey LOS? Or can I place a totem under the bridge and windfury that worthless warrior?

Other questions that I'd like answered...

When I respecced Mabd to BM... my cast time on SS and AS went down to 1.1 and 2.2 secs, respectively. How come I've never noticed this before? BRK... do freaking hunter attack speed talents/gear (i.e. quivers) affect shot casting speed or cooldowns?

And second... how the hell does a SL/SL lock dps? I gotta friend who's gettin horrible results in arena and instance running. He can't even beat a pally tank. Whats the strategy via Arena and PvE? Any tips, Braids?

You can never go back to the scene of a perfect crime

Ima not above stealin stuff. Like this. Enjoy.

I believe that in order to walk through grief, fear, loneliness, despair, confusion and anger without recourse to drugs, alcohol, over-eating, over-sexing, or the endless mind-numbing distractions provided by Western culture, one must become a spiritual warrior. I further believe that the pay-off for enduring suffering, for soberly embracing the inevitable bouts of emotional pain that life brings, is wisdom and serenity in the face of calamity. But make no mistake here, the path of the warrior is treacherous and cannot be walked alone. To survive, he must have brothers and sisters-in-arms to carry him when he buckles. When we lived and died in small tribes, this principle of mutually supporting one another through the trials of life was deeply woven into the fabric of the group mind. With the advent of towns and cities we were forced to live with the daily dilemma of being desperately alone and yet desperately needing one another. Which is why we are, by design, always seeking new tribes. With that in mind, I humbly offer a simple guideline to evaluate the efficacy of any tribe you might encounter on your path to becoming a spiritual warrior: if they ask for your money or access to your crotch, run away. If they ask for your money, smile unceasingly, never blink, and guarantee to make you a demi-god, running away will not suffice. Change your mailing address and briefly reconsider drugs, alcohol, food, sex and TV.

I'll just sit tight, through the shadows of the night, And let it ring for evermore

So... Iva been puttin off updatin my email with Blizzard. Not a good thing. My old email has been obsolete (and unaccessable to me) for 2 years.

So I called Blizz customer service 4 times over past coupla months. And each time I gotta "all circuits are busy" message. Nice to see where the monthly fee aint goin...

So I got on today... 20 min wait.

So, I'd figure I'd do a blog entry while waiting.

First... the music... first tune was the arena one theme from Diablo 2. Hit me like a stack of bricks... damn I loved that game.

Second... we gotta new Cafeteria where I work. People who actually know what the hell they're doin, AND who want to make money, took over the cafeteria from the incompetent idiots running it when I first got here.

Like... who the hell puts pigs feet asa entree item inna government building? And they used cheap paper plates, instead of the styrofoam takeout trays everyone else on planet earth uses for takeout food.

So the new system... cafe, charge by weight, and at 2pm, prices drop 30%.

They sell outta everything. And the food quality is excellent. They makin money hand over fist. Another sayin whose origin I've no clue about. I'da ask BRK, but ima kinda scared what he'd say...

And they respond... when they first got here, they priced their 20oz drinks at 1.79. The vending machine outside the cafeteria sell soft drinks for... 1.35. Within a week, the cost of soft drinks in the cafeteria was down to 1.39, and their fountain drinks had dropped in price to match.

It's been amazin watchin the new cafeteria in operation.. like watchin a shark dropped into a new aqarium... lethal, efficient, and suckin my money right outta my wallet. It's even cheaper than the tourist trap area across the street. /sigh

Fresh german chocolate cake? Ima doomed.

Still on hold after 30 min, and I ran outta things to say...

Oh yeah, the nutcase is back, crashing at my pad. He doan know how to use my television remote and leaves the tv on all the time. And he doan know how to lock a door.

But what's worse...he applied for public assistance. Guess who's address he used?

Yep. Ima doomed.

Hey man, nice shot!

Ouch.

This is why leaving comments on strange blogs is sometimes a bad idea.

A few things. Xian is to Christian as Xmas is to Christmas.

He gets to use House, but I doan get to use Star Trek?

And the point of Job is that bad things happen to good people because God's plan is beyond both our understanding and our idea of morality. Job is my fav book of the bible... he really shouldn't have gone there. Job is the Judaic answer to the problem of theodicy.

Oh, and... Mabd is now BM. Now to just get a pally to bubble the kitty. People aint stupid... they see the pet chewin stuff up, they know who to go for.

Still, bein able to weave them steady shots inna 2.17 auto shot set up leads to... interesting... results. And when I pop rapid fire and IAotH pops...

Rawr!

Still miss my MS crits tho. And imma convinced that my time in the desert that is the MM build helped my kiting a great deal :)

With the lights out, it's less dangerous

Umm... 200th post.

State of the blizz.

First... seriously... multiqueuing may have been a good idea once. And it probably saved AV during the alliance QQ fest. But right now it's killing us.


I went 3-15 in AB over the weekend. I was in teams that started with more than 10 toons only 4 times.

Why? Cuz everyone horde side is queuing fer AV at the same time.

What the hell is the point of the deserter debuff if people can just opt outta BG for another?

I was in kara with another mage. Boots of the Dark Coven dropped.

Nice boots... ton of sta, int, and +spell damage.

And spirit.

So the other mage asked me if that was worth rollin on. I said something disparaging about spirit.

He then asked that, if spirit is so bad, why is it on pve set gear (like tier 4).

I started thinking about it. Back when tier 4 was put into the game... spirit was for a crappy arcane talent, mage armor, and evoke.

Now its for mage armor anda marginally less crappy arcane talent. Spec considering how int works with spirit to scale mana regen.

Ima usin Mage Armor on most boss fights with mage. Even with frost channeling and clearcasting... she needs the extra mana regen.

But ima wondering howa deep arcane build would fare in the mana regen game...

And lastly... you people are lettin me down. I said Mabd is goin back BM.

TALK ME OUTTA IT. FER TEH DARK LADY'S SAKE!

These seconds when Im shaking leave me shuddering for days

Next post will be my 200th. Ima thinking...

Deathmatch! A play in one act!

K... did an insane amount of arena this weekend. 2v2 with my frost mage and a ret pally.

3v3 with my resto shammy, arms warrior and ret pally.

Anda 5v5, mm hunter, arms warrior, demon lock and 2 holy palys.

First... the ret pally was a bit too heavy on the ret and too light on the dps.

Second... the 5v5 was a freaking blast. We made it to 1574 before dropping 4 to teams with gladiators in em. The gnome rogue with the twin blades of azinoth was ADORABLE tho.

(You knows yuir in trouble when you see 5 peeps on bears charging ya.)

Some lessons learned this week. Including one INCREDIBLE THING that I never knew before. The pvp trinket does not blow the GCD, nor does it count as a spell.

So you can use it while in ghost wolf or kitty cat form. You can use it while mounted. And you can use it in a variety of ways...

Warriors can macro the trinket and bloodrage together.
Mages can macro the trinket and AE.
BM hunters can macro the trinket and BW.

Along these lines, Ima working on an macro to remove ice block and blink at the same time.

Some news... found a new arena partner fer Mabd. She'sa goin BACK TO BM! And itsa about freaking time. BM is just easier. Still...ima gonna miss the 2k MS crits. And scatter shot. And silence. /cry

And Ima gonna miss the 200 kills per AB.

Oh, and I found someone else for Herk to hate.

Herk... buddy... I got some bad news, some worse news, and some terrible news.

I found us a threes partner.
Hesa noob ret pally tryin to get arena goin fer his char. He's (by his own admission) tryin to master ret dom, and still has some learnin to do.

Thassa bad news.

He does... however... have two other chars, both floatin around 1700 arena right now...

Thassa worse news

One of the alts is an arms warrior that got his season 3 weapon last season ona arms warrior/ ret pally/ resto shammy team.

Thassa terrible news.

You up for bein the taz onna arena team?

In related news... Unbound finally got to heal her first instance.

Kara run.

With only one other healer. (A tier 5 coh priest)

One wipe. On illhoof. Cuz the priest got sacced three freaking times. And I ran outta mana keepin her alive. I swear... awesome dps, but it couldn't focus fire fer shit. Curators flares and demon chains lasted way too damn long.

Also, weak lock. That ran outta mana halfway through the fight.

We got him on second try, tho that time it was Unbound he hadda boner fer. When you only runnin 2 healerz in Kara, you can get hosed by illhoof's choices. Unbound had to reincarnate to keep the fight goin.

I think I did well... keepin up the party when the priests shackle broke and she got one shotted during moroes. Kept things goin till she could get the battle rez and inervate.

Still... itsa hella stressful.

Which leads to the last idea. We have reached the point where once fearsome content like kara and gruul can be conquered by.. well.. the Melvins of the world. Welfare epics can keep em alive through mistakes, and they can play but doin no more than spamming two to three buttons.

Maj was inna kara that wiped on prince... by that point, Maj anda ele shammy guildy were responsible fer over half the parties total damage. The prot pally tank was third. Skipped Illy and netherspite, killed nightbane.

With only two real dps.

The prot pally anda holy priest were very good. But really... that crap level dps... no way we shoulda been able to make it that far.