Friday Funnies? We'll see

I'm thinkin' just a short post about something I find entertaining. Now if I can only think of something entertaining... Maybe I'll drift off about our raid last night until something strikes my fancy/funny bone.

Oh, I have a question for you. Last night we were downing Yogg-25, which we have 1 or 2 shotted for the last 4 weeks or so, and we just couldn't down him. In phase 1, one of our warlocks kept pulling agro on the adds (since he's affliction). Now, we have told him to relax on dots before, just shadowbolt/drain soul, whatever, just don't pull agro. Well, after the 3rd time it happened, we said goodbye and brought someone new in. Got it that next attempt. So, does that seem fair in your eyes? It sucks since this warlock has been faithful for a long time, but he knows the fight and what he shouldn't be doing. What are your thoughts?

Oh here's something I find, at least personally, very amusing. One of our holly pallys will be getting the legendary next week, giving we can get 2 shards on the way to Yogg, what's fo funny about that? It's funny because he is sporting the same shield as I am, that Naxx 10 bs off of Maexxna (Aegis of Damnation). Our guild cleared naxx 25 a little more than 20 times, never seen a Voice of Reason once. In fact, as a guild, we have only ever seen 4 spell power shield drops -- 2 Aegis of Damnations, 1 Shield of Assimilation, and a Pulsing Spellshield from XT. There are 3 of us who want spell power shields in our core 25 man runs, and 2 of us still have the Aegis of Damnation... Our guild apparently has bad luck with that kinda of stuff. Is there anything you have been looking for still for several runs (its an ok to QQ!?)? I know back in naxx 25, all we got was the gun and the axe for the most part, never saw Calamaty's Grasp either, wierd how that stuff happens. Anyway -- I strayed away from my point -- I think it's funny that someone will have a legendary weapon, and a Naxx 10 shield... maybe I'm alone in that.

My mind has pretty much gone blank at the moment while I sit here chatting away with a friend who moved to Japan (Not Ixo, although that would be sweet). All I can really think about is how I'm excited for It's Always Sunny to come back in the fall.

Hmm... the classic fallback -- hopefully this is familiar to you and not a bunch of jibberish.
“Baba Booey! Baba Booey! Howard Stern's penis! Baba Booey! Baba Booey!”

Double Post Day? It's not gonna be a tradition

Alright, I know I already posted something today, but I wrote that I wrote yesterday when I was still unsure of how to take the new about the heirloom tome of flying. I'm sure by now you have all formulated your own opinions, jumped on your respective like it, love it, hate it bandwagons, and are good to go. Turns out that I'm no different.

Overall, I like the idea, it is necessary to already have an 80 to be able to purchase this heirloom. Now, personally, I have my last 3 or 4 alts on my main's server down in that 30-40 lets to some pee vee pee in STV (besides the lv 75 warlock). Oh wait, you don't get any honor when you're 80 there? Wierd, with all the alliance camping that area I thought there must be some sweet rewards.

So am I going to ever buy this heirloom tome? No, probably not. I think when I get my 4th 80 I will have more than enough work on my hands than the amount of time I have to play WoW. Do I think its a good idea? Well, I could be elitist and say everyone should go through all the trouble I went through with each of my characters, or at least the second 2 times I leveled through Northrend on my DK and rogue, but I just don't feel that way. I wish I would have had it, but I understand why we didn't. The one plus is that, this time, on my lock, I don't need questhelper, I don't need to look up anything, or even read quests -- I know where that shit is, I know it like the back of my hand (insert 90's sitcom joke -- "Hey, what's that on my hand?!").

So I say congrats to those of you who are months behind in leveling alts, taking your precious time, and reaping the rewards as blizz nerfs not only raid content, but also leveling content. JK! See, I could pretend to have that attitude, but I'm all for anything that makes leveling quicker. I'd be ok if they let me start at 79 with nothing explored, you need to get enough xp in that last level that you could learn what ever you needed to know about that class.

Enjoy the double post... It will only happen randomly

Along with the upcoming hard mode guides, I think I might have a conversation with myself about how I feel about the current state of resto shaman and the upcoming changes and what they will do for us.

I forgot until just now, then kids started acting out again last night, you know anal this, anal that, chuck norris is your mom and stuff, so I'll just share a tidbit so you can all feel my pain, although this one isn't as bad...

Chuck Norris.. the man who destroyed the periodic table, because only he recognizes the element of surprise.

Edit: It's the second post of the day, but it seems to have pushed back the rest of the posts a day

The Ideas Keep Rolling

I was considering some sort of epic math post, showing the best rotations, glyphs, totems, etc. for an elemental shaman. Then I thought about it, started work on it, and now I think I'm scrapping it. At least for now, unless someone expresses some interest. Maybe even just a simple one if I decide to find some time at home to look up links over to EJ, then I won't even have to do any of my old math. Of course, that hinges on how quickly we finish 25 man Ulduar and our 10 man hard modes Ulduar whichever week that comes up.

Since I'm unsure of where exactly I want to go with this blog, I am still starting random posts and leaving them during random breaks in the work day. I wonder sometimes if they are even appropriate, or if they have been run into the ground, all sorts of things like this. Hopefully, that doesn't happen, and instead you enjoy a different viewpoint.

So, just some general thoughts about what's coming up in 3.2, and what people are up to maybe? What are you doing in the game right now? Are you making preparations for anything?
I know personally, I have abandened almost all of my alts for the time being, save for my level 75 warlock who I somehow just lost the passion to level a few weeks ago. I started him during one of those close to burnout phases. Stress as an officer will do that to you, and like so many others, I rolled an unknown alt that I practically powerleved with some heirloom stuff. I'm not sure exactly how long it took me, but I know I raced to Northrend within 2 weeks time. It was quite peaceful really, like fishing, but less annoying.

There was just one problem, just as when I go fishing, I was down in the officers channel on vent chatting away without thinking about the fact that I wasn't online that anyone knew of. Well, one thing obviously led to another, and my alt had been found, and at that moment the fun successfully was executed from that character. I think I was actually going to enjoy being unguilded and working on starting a new character from scratch. Now what I'm left with is a level 75 warlock sitting in moaki harbor with 3 full bars of rested. I logged in tuesday night, switched specs to destro, and did a couple quests before raid, it's possible the entertainment might be back... only time will tell. Maybe it's time to wait until earlier flying mounts, new heirloom items, and faster reg mounts to get back into leveling. On that same notion, the couple other level 30-40s will have to wait.

I think this post is just turning into a general to know me a little bit, so I'm going to roll with that. If you saw my UI, you saw my main Rabidkoala (I'm not much on RP names, more like, ridiculous names -- don't let that lead you to think I'm 12, I'm totally 13/f/cali like all the other female belfs!). Anyway, I still want to do some work on the UI, I don't know if I'm ever satisfied. I might go back to xperl, or I might just go try something new altogether. I haven't found the perfect UI yet, but its fun seeing what people's mods have created. I may have a masters in statistics, but programming WoW addons is over my head. For now. Maybe someday I'll look into it, but it seems doubtful, I'll probably stick with appreciating other people's work. Anyway, I have a couple other 80's -- My TBC main was the second character I got to 80, an undead rogue named Foodstamps, not to be confused with the jerk mage Foodstamp who came along after me... Anyway, main's switched since I liked healing, then our guild needed caster dps, not heals, so I was forced into elemental, and been there loving it ever since.

I also have a lol DK like everyone else. At least I use mine for tanking if that means anything. I think the only reason I even made it to 80 was because of how fun it was to pull around 6-8 mobs and kill them with full health at the end. It was ridiculous! If I didn't have so much random naxx 25 gear and stuff like that, I would consider rerolling him just to go through all the again, plus the starting area is amazing.

Upcoming plans: Hardmode guides, including FL+4, XT, Thorim, Hodir, 3 Tree Freya, General, and hopefully Firefighter on Mimiron soon (need to finish Firefighter to learn more about it...)

That looks nice...

I figured one thing a lot of people look for when playing is a way to clean up their UI. There is nothing wrong with playing with the original UI, clicking on your spells, and keyboard turning for some people. If that's what you like, more power to you, WoW is just a game and the only thing matters is that you are enjoying it.

In my opinion though, no matter how well you can click, you will see an improvement, no matter which of the 3 roles you are currently fillings, be it dps, healing, or a tank, with an efficient use of key bindings.

I get a lot of questions while playing about my keybindings, and these are here just in case you can't make them out in the screen shot. Keep in mind, these are merely my suggestions.

3 Quick Rules:

1) Stop keyboard turning. The only thing you will possible need anymore is a key binding to go forward, and 2 to strafe. You can keep these at q w e, move them to a s d, wherever is comfortable. The point of this is to get you from using a and d to turn, which is slow to do and even more painful to watch. Unless its in arena, and you're melee dps on someone doing it. Right click your mouse and rotate, its tough at first, but the benefits are tremendous.

2) Keep everything home. If you're hands are going to be by the asdw keys, don't put spells out of reach of them that you are going to be using. I wouldn't want to bind lightning bolt to 9, flame shock to 1, and lava burst to 5. I know that sounds silly, but you should have heard some of the ridiculous keybindings people told me about. I'm going to assume you stuck with q and e as strafe, clearing up A and D. A and D should be bound to the meat of your rotation, they are easily spammable now. Make use of the shift key, hitting shift-A or shift-D is just as easy. This should fill up almost any class' rotation. How many more keybindings you are going to need depends a lot on your class. I recommend not going past the 5 for any of those "oh shit" buttons, and then keeping it withing the t-f-c line. This may not seem like a lot of keybinds, but when you factor in the ability to shift- or ctrl- letters to binds, you shouldn't have any problem.

3) If you have a mouse with buttons, use them. Just as hitting the A and D key are easy, using the buttons on the side of your mouse are easier. If you have them, make use of them. You're hand is going to be on it anyway.

Addons Used:
SpartanUI - Gives the general layout
Bartender - The bars inside SpartanUI (comes with SpartanUI but doesn't need to be used)
Grid + Grid Quickhealth (Raid frames + Quick Health grabs health updates from the combat log rather then the ui for faster health updates)
Clique (For when healing gets lazy, although mouse over macros generally are superior)
Quartz (Cast bars and debuffs on a target)
Elkano's Buffbars (Self buffs and debuffs w/timers)
Miks SCT (I prefer it over the WoW standard text)
Omen (Necessity for anyone, at least some time of threat mod)
Recount (To feed your dps e-peen)

I have a couple other addons that I make use of but these are purely for daily things such as questhelper, auctioneer, and gatherer. On a side note, my omen pops up where my recount is during combat, and my recount is set to hide on combat. Are there addons you couldn't live without?

Edit: Also, just noticed that 2 of my bars are missing. Above Bar1, normally I keep a couple totem macros and some specific mouse bound totems in there along with some randomly used spells and my bar at the top of the screen which contains potions (speed, health, mana), food, and health stones for the F1-F5 keys, which are easy to hit since I play on a laptop... oh well.

Filling In...

Seems like it has been almost a mass exodus of people leaving the wow blogging world, of those that around, only a handful are regular updaters. This isn't to knock down those that are, I am happy you are still around and enjoy reading every one of you. My largest complaint was the lack of a regular shaman perspective for me to find while I'm sitting at work, someone to bounce ideas off. Hopefully, someone else has been looking for that so I don't just post complete ramblings here every day to amuse only myself, although that's the most likely outcome of this I'm sure.

This blog is going to be solely focused on wow, that much I can guarantee. The topics might be somewhat random depending on whats going on or what I am currently working on, but I like to think that they will be mostly based on my current main, my level 80 ele shaman (I have dual specs into resto pvp or pve most of the time even though I'm terribad at pvp, but occasionally I'll throw on a couple axes and go to town as enhance).

I'm hoping what eventually comes through here is my sense of humor, some guides for Ulduar on 10 man hard modes (our 25 group may not quite be up to par for this) from a resto or ele shaman perspective, and other random nonsense that will hopefully at least entertain you.

"Paper is fine, nerf rock." - Scissors