Weekend (18 Oct) - Catching Up

Weekend (18 Oct) - Catching Up

Here's a bit of catch-up for the weekend:

I must admit that Wild is a bit worried about the guild. Getting fewer than ten guildies to show up on a Friday raid night was really disheartening. I believe the two guild ten man groups are still active, but apparently there isn't enough guildies to fill one more group even on a part time basis or even with alts. During the MM Ulduar raid on Friday, Wild got a whisper from one of the few guildies in game mentioning that despite the size of our guild, we had both been reduced to running with PUGs on a Friday night. He was in a PUG ToC raid. The guild website has gone completely silent. On most days there isn't a single post. Which may be why nothing has ever been posted there about raid changes that were announced in the last aborted 25 man raid. Wild gets questions about our raiding now and then, so not everybody knows what the situation is. I don't really know what the situation is anymore, either, so it's hard to answer.

JB had better news. She was sorting through the AH looking for +hit gear when she saw a truly great price on [Titansteel Spellblade]. This is the same one hand mace that Wild had crafted and used for a very long time. Not only was the price very reasonable, the seller had already enchanted it with the best enchant available, +63 spell power. JB bought it, adding over +200 spell power to her gear in addition to +30 hit and some instant credibility for her level 80 gear set. That purchase, along with the 327 gold it cost to buy the 23 spell upgrades from the shaman trainer when she hit level 80, pretty much wiped out JB's funds, but no other single item could provide as much improvement. Her gear set should be just fine for normal dungeon runs, but JB still has work to do to get her +hit gear.

JB still had one slot in her gear that was embarrassingly out dated. The Relic slot is where shaman put special gear called Totems. Why Blizz would call them that, when it can be confused with the totem spells that shaman cast - well, that's just like Blizzard.

JB's current relic/totem is [Totem of the Storm], which increases Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage by +33. Sounds good, and it is, if you are a level 60. For a level 80, this is a very low quality totem with an ilevel of 65. Other than this piece, JB has no gear below ilevel 138, and she has gear as high as ilevel 200. JB truly needed a better totem for that slot. Some time ago JB planned to address that, but got quickly frustrated when she did some research and learned that shaman totems were heavily weighted toward healing and melee specs, with very limited choices for elemental (ranged caster) spec, which is JB's spec. And a great many of the totems could only be acquired through pvp, or by doing 25 man raids. So JB abandoned the effort. At least for the moment.

That totem deficiency really stands out, now that JB is level 80, and something had to be done. JB went through the totem list again looking for something she could use and would be happy with. And she found something. JB had passed it by the first time she checked out the totems because getting it required special coins associated with pvp. This time she looked harder at it, because she liked the totem enough to check out just how difficult getting it might be. Well, the pvp she would have to do was not in a battleground or arena, but in a pvp "zone" called Venture Bay at the southern tip of Grizzly Hills. The enemy npcs there were around level 73, and there is several daily quests available that earn the coins required. It took thirty coins to buy the totem, so the next step was to find out how long that would take.

To JB's great surprise, she found that she only needed to do three quests to earn 30 coins. JB caught a flight from Dalaran to Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills, and then grabbed her flying mount, arriving at Venture Bay within minutes.

Just accepting a quest here flagged JB for pvp, making her open to attacks not only from the enemy npcs, but also from any alliance player that wanted to attack her. JB was out there on a Saturday night, so it seemed the odds were pretty good there would be other players there. So be it, JB decided, let them try.

In the end it was a bit anti-climatic. Not only did she not see any alliance players, there weren't any players around at all. JB killed alliance npcs, set fire to their buildings, and then killed a level 74 elite ship captain. That got JB her 30 coins, and the totem [Venture Co. Lightning Rod], ilevel 150. The totem (which is not really a totem spell, but a relic) has nothing to do with lightning (ie, a shaman's Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning), but JB will forgive Blizzard their often incomprehensible naming conventions (or lack of naming conventions, to be more precise). The totem increases the damage dealt by Lava Burst by +121. Lava Burst is an elemental shaman's meat and potatoes spell. It's the best elemental shaman totem JB can get until she gets into Ulduar or earns enough conquest emblems to get [Totem of Hex].

JB also got one entirely new spell at level 80, among the other 22 spell upgrades she got from her trainer. The spell is called Hex (which, of course, has nothing to do with the totem of the same name). Hex is a crowd control spell that turns the target into - drum roll please - a frog. Hex affects humanoids and beasts, which give it a pretty good range of targets to choose from, and can be used against alliance in pvp. It's similar to a mage's sheep spell (yes, that one turns targets into sheep) in that the target cannot attack or cast spells while hexed, but unlike the sheep spell hexed targets still have complete freedom of movement. The range is only 20 yards, too, which means you have to get pretty close to cast it. The short range and freedom of movement limits it's usefulness, but hey, it'll still be fun to turn things into frogs! JB is looking forward to testing it out.

With her new gear JB did some testing on the practice dummies in Orgrimmar. On the non-elite level 80 dummy she was able to consistently hit DPS numbers in the 2300-2400 range, much better than the 1700 or so she was getting before. JB then moved to the elite boss practice dummy, where her lack of +hit can result in misses. On average JB missed with her Lightning Bolt about 14% of the time, and about 6% of the time with Lava Burst. That dropped her overall DPS down to around 1900, which would not get her invited to any Heroics or raids, but was still better than I thought it would be.

Coming up - JB and DER take on the Amphitheater of Anguish.