Weekend (5 Feb) - JB Earns Her Stripes

Weekend (5 Feb) - JB Earns Her Stripes

Friday night JB asked guild leader and friend Bd to officiate her formal test determining her worthiness for the rank of Raider in the MM2 guild.

The rules were very specific. JB could use all of her self-buffs except for Bloodlust. JB could not use flasks, elixirs, potions, or food buffs, with the exception of the alchemy flask which, JB being an Alchemist, is considered a self-buff.

JB must attack the Raiding Target Dummy for five minutes non-stop while Bd observed. The minimum requirement was a sustained 15k dps.

JB had been practicing, but when the moment of truth arrived she was a bit nervous. The Dummy couldn't hit her back, of course, but having Bd looking over her shoulder was just as nerve racking as seeing your aggro leap to the top when the dungeon Boss decides to notice you.

JB wondered why they wanted to see five full minutes, but it became obvious. After the bout of nervousness subsided, JB settled into the routine, and her dps started to climb.

When it was done, Bd's first comment was, well, that was interesting. He added, you started out pretty slow, barely topping the 15k mark for the first minute (15.5k dps, to be precise). That was good enough to pass the test, but JB really wasn't happy with that result. Then Bd said that by the time JB hit the five minute mark, her DPS was 18.2k dps. Now that's more like it.

Bd was also struck by how consistent JB's damage was, once I got going. He said that other players he's tested had a lot of low points followed by large burst damage. Melee shaman don't have much in the way of burst damage. We don't even have enough spells to keep a constant stream of damage coming, so the single most damage we do is from "white" damage - simple weapon attacks with no spell buff. We do get some burst, from unleashed flames, but we can't control when those proc. We also have our spirit wolves, the best talent we have - but I had learned that while they were cool looking and fierce, they don't really do that much damage. So, a melee shaman's forte is a very steady stream of damage that doesn't depend on big bursts.

Bd told JB she had passed the test.

JB is now officially ranked as a Raider in the MM2 guild, gets access to the raid calendar, and can sign up for all guild raids. Never in the history of the Wild family have there been two raiding toons at the same time.

JB's issues with the lfr got resolved as well, which was more good news. The group queue idea actually didn't work. JB was able to successfully zone into the raid, but when Wild left the raid the lfr dumped JB back out as well. It might have been a timing issue, but it didn't matter. JB had heard back from another GM asking JB to give the lfr another try.

JB queued up solo with the lfr, and waited for twenty plus minutes - and the queue popped, letting JB into the raid. The raid already had three bosses down, but JB wasn't picky. She stayed, got her Deathwing kill and even picked up an i390 +int dagger that will be a nice addition to JB's pvp healing gear. Late Friday night JB queued a second time to get her kills of the first three bosses in Fall of Deathwing. Everything is fine between JB and the lfr now.

Back to the DS run, the two middle fights in the Fall of Deathwing involve a great deal of movement, and require changing targets at specific times. That's something JB hasn't mastered, yet. Fighting on the back of Deathwing is particularly hard, as the whole screen is constantly lit up by pyrotechnics, the ground is covered in oozes, there are tentacles waving about, and the dam mob targets WON'T STAND STILL! Yes, JB has learned the art of the assist and has her regular targeting button close to hand as well. But in all that fiery, flashing mess, JB half the time couldn't even see which mob she had targeted. Ya know, in melee, you not only have to be facing in the direction of your target, you have to be right next to it, too. Poor JB, raised by a druid healer who could cast his druidy spells with his back turned and forty feet away from his target.

Saturday - So Much For PvP

JB spent a good part of Saturday morning cleaning up the mess that was JB's resto spec. It had been so long JB hardly remembered what her spells were called, much less how to use them. The UI had bits of this and that scattered everywhere, completely unsuitable for use. JB was lacking glyphs and sent Philly off to craft what was needed. I decided not to worry about enchants on gear for the moment. The one exception was her i390 blade. Wild provided the enchant Heartsong. It's the second best enchant JB could have gotten, but Power Torrent cost 2k gold, and Wild was quick to state that he healed with Heartsong until Icecrown Citadel finally gave up the i378 weapon that eventually downed the Lich King.

Armed with her enchanted blade and wearing a full set of Vicious pvp gear, JB joined her first pvp battleground in ... well, she couldn't even remember that last time. The battleground was Gilneas, the BG she was least familiar with. She didn't do too bad, though, and the alliance was terrible. We slaughtered them, and JB walked away with a battleground victory.

JB likes to pvp heal, but there was an ulterior motive, as well. She lusted after the pvp weapons, and figured she could earn one - or even a pair - through battlegrounds. She wanted +agi weapons, of course, to further her raiding aspirations. JB figured it was a grind, but at least she could guarantee that she'd get them eventually. Neither Wild nor JB has seen a single non-dagger +agi weapon drop in lfr DS. There are only two: [Morningstar of Heroic Will], which is a rare zone drop and doesn't drop in the lfr at all; and [No'Kaled, the Elements of Death], which is supposed to drop from the last boss. Who knows how long it would take to get one of those, much less the two she needed to dual wield? Nasty rogues would be rolling on it, even though they had access to several daggers.

After her Gineas battle JB visited the pvp vendors to moon over the weapons. She was in for a rude shock.

First shock - Pvpers now have to earn "season points" before being allowed to buy weapons. One i378 weapon JB saw cost 2450 honor points. JB had over 2300 honor points, but nearly all of them were from prior seasons. She would have to earn over 7200 current honor points before she would be allowed to buy the weapon. Not only that, but JB was already wielding i365 weapons - the i378s with crit and resilience for secondary stats were no better than the ones she already had for pve use.

Second shock - There were NO honor point weapons for sale above i378. The high end weapons (i397) have to be bought with conquest points. Conquest points are earned by doing Arena combat or rated battlegrounds. Regular, unrated battlegrounds give only honor points. There was a chink in this bad news, though. Conquest points can be bought with valor points: 250 valor buys 250 conquest. JB could live with farming VPs to get conquest points, but more bad news was coming.

Third, Deadliest Shock - Buying conquest points with VPs does not count toward the season total, which must be reached before the weapons can be bought. In other words, JB would have to earn over 7200 conquest points in rated BGs before she was eligible to buy an i397 weapon.

Summary: JB is never going to do Arena combat. JB has no interest in rated BGs. Therefore, she will never acquire those i397 pvp weapons. JB's interest in pvp abruptly ended. Sigh.