Tuesday (7 Feb) - The Grind Continues
The reset on Tuesday opened up the lfr once again for Wild and JB to pound through and collect their valor points and, hopefully, get a piece of gear or two. JB still has to get herself out there, but Wild pounded through all eight lfr Dragon Soul bosses on Tuesday night.
The battle was memorable only because Wild and the rest of the raid suffered through not just one, but two bad tanks. Wild rarely complains about tank troubles, as long as the tank is sincere and trying his best. Everybody has to learn sometime, and the lfr is the right place to get in that practice. That wasn't the problem. We started Siege of Deathwing one tank short, but it was easy enough to plow through at the start. Midway through the trash mobs on the second boss, we got our second tank, however, we killed the boss without him because while he was technically in the raid, he had not zoned in yet. We waited for him while killing trash, but he never responded and never zoned in and we kicked him. We got a new tank fairly quickly, and swept through the rest of the Siege.
Wild immediately queued up for Fall of Deathwing. We had some very weak DPS, managed to get through the first two bosses, but one tank got so frustrated about how long it was taking, and he bailed on us. We waited a bit, and got another tank, but oddly enough, he had the same issue as the tank in the Siege - he was in the raid, but not zoned in. We sent him Summons twice, and the talk started about kicking him. Whether coincidence or because he saw the talk of finding another tank, he did finally zone in. This tank immediately demanded that he be given the lead tank role. The tank we did have was doing a good job, however, and the raid leader told the new tank "not likely" and wouldn't do it. The new tank got pretty irate about it, but he was ignored and we started in on the third boss.
Wild started the fight main healing this new tank, but I realized halfway through that the tank was taking almost no damage. Wild shifted all his healing to the other tank (as well as continuing a steady stream of raid healing has I always do), leaving just a single HoT ticking on the new tank. When we finished up the third boss, Wild checked recount to see if anyone else had been healing him, and the answer was no. Apparently this guy was mad that he hadn't been made lead tank and so had simply stood around doing nothing.
Unfortunately, our other tank had to leave. We got a another tank, but the "make me lead tank" idiot began demanding the lead tank role again and even showed us his uber achievements in completing both normal and heroic Dragon Soul. He immediately began making caustic remarks about the tank that had just joined us. When a vote popped up asking if Wild wanted to kick him, it was an easy choice. He was gone, we got a new tank, and we started in on the final encounter.
We wiped twice on the final encounter, as the low DPS took too long to kill things, but we finally took him down on our third try.
Wild got his 500 lfr valor points for the week, enough to get to 2200 VPs to buy anything he wanted from the VP vendor. Wild, sadly, doesn't think there is anything left to buy that he needs. But he'll check on that at some point before the night's raid.
Wild did get a drop, though. [Ledger of Revolting Rituals] is an i384 off-hand to replace Wild's current i378. It's a relatively minor upgrade and Wild will have to do some reforging as it will drop Wild's +haste rating below the minimum 2005 I need. It's still a nice pickup. Sadly, it's the ugliest piece of gear Wild has ever equipped. That's one piece of gear Wild is definitely going to mog (mm, I hope off-hand gear can be mogged). Wild had a shot at a shoulders token, too, but didn't win it.
As for healing the lfr, Wild has settled into a routine and doesn't pay that much attention to healing numbers. Wild did lead all healers in the Siege. In the Fall, however, there was another druid healer in the raid that did tons more healing than Wild did, and Wild wanted to know why. The short answer was that it wasn't his gear, which was better, but not that better. On a spell by spell basis, Wild's heals were not too far off from the other druid's. The big difference was quantity. That other healer cast a third more heals than Wild did. Perhaps Wild is not pushing himself hard enough. Food for thought.
There are signs that we are getting a little more organized with our raiding. Two recent posts on the guild website reiterated guild policy. The first regarded raid signups, which have been sloppy and getting worse. It might help ensure that guildies that Accepted on the raid calendar actually show up, but it won't help the problem of players signing up as Tentative and then deciding they don't want to go even if they're in game. The second post asked raiders for the days and times they are available to raid. I would guess they want to see if a better day/time might get more guildies to come to the raids. I'm betting fewer than fifteen guildies respond. Am I jaded or what?
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Sunday Special (5 Feb) - Reins of the Raven Lord
Sunday Special (5 Feb) - Reins of the Raven Lord
There are hundreds of different kinds of mounts in Azeroth. The most common are the mounts that first become available to players when they reach level 20. It used to be level 40, and that is when Wild got his first mount. Actually, Wild didn't get his first mount until level 43, because he did not have the gold to buy it until then. Each major city offered a particular type of mount. Wild's home city was Thunder Bluff, and his first mount was a great, rhinoceros like beast called a Kodo. Wild was extremely proud of his Kodo. These common mounts came in different colors for variety. As the game progressed more common mounts were added, including flying mounts. Mounts were so popular that more and more were added, and greater and greater challenges were designed to get the rarer ones.
There are many players who collect mounts and spend much of their time doing whatever is required, for however long it takes, to get them. These players are crazy, of course ... well, not really, but seriously, you can only ride one mount at a time. If you are a mount fan, though, there is nothing more impressive than seeing a player on a mount you know took incredible skill, persistence, and even luck to acquire.
Wild has never been much of a mount collector. Wild's kodo served him well throughout vanilla wow and into Burning Crusade. His first non-kodo mount, if Wild's recollection is sound (an iffy assumption) were the Kiraji bug mounts in the An'Qiraj raid. Wild has several of them, and they are truly cool. Unfortunately, they can only be used inside that one raid. Maybe one day Blizz will set them free to roam all of Azeroth.
Wild collected many other mounts over the seasons, although there were few that he actively went after. One such mount was the great mammoth sold in Dalaran. Wild had to earn reputation with the city of Dalaran and pay a steep fee to acquire it. Wild wanted the mammoth because it came with an extra seat, so Wild could give another player a ride. It also came with a repair npc so that Wild could repair his (and everyone else's) gear anywhere in the world, so long as it was somewhere he could mount up.
The one mount that Wild most wanted, however, eluded him - the Raven Lord, which is one of the most rare and difficult mounts to acquire. Today, there are probably rarer mounts, with more difficult challenges. However, the Raven Lord is wreathed in a rich history and is still sought after even today.
In the Burning Crusade expansion came a dungeon called Sethekk Halls. The bird dungeon, it was sometimes referred to, because it's denizens included many and varied birds, and it was peopled by birdmen. Sethekk Halls was neither the hardest, not the easiest, of the BC dungeons, but it had it's challenges. It was also where the great elite bird, Anzu, held court. The druids had a unique, very challenging quest line that ultimately led to Anzu. A druid who could successfully complete the quest chain and defeated Anzu had a rare chance to win the Reins of the Raven Lord. Only druids could win this mount. Wild did complete the quest chain, of course, and killed Heroic Anzu many times in five man groups. The Reins never dropped.
Later on, all players were given the chance to defeat Anzu and win the Reins, not just druids. However, a druid who had completed the quest chain had to be in the group, or Anzu would not appear. Wild got invites all the time to join groups hoping to win the Reins. Not only did Wild not win one, no one in any group he was in ever saw one drop.
More time passed, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion arrived, and players grew in strength to the point that Heroic Sethekk Halls could be two manned, and soon even soloed. It remained a difficult dungeon, though, for a couple of reasons. First, anyone wanting to battle Anzu still had to be a druid, or bring a druid with him. Second, the birdmen filled the dungeon in large numbers and had a particularly vicious stun that could not be interrupted or broken. Chain stuns by several mobs could still get a player killed. Third, Anzu was the second to last boss and was located very deep in the dungeon. Even a successful run to Anzu took a lot of killing and a lot of time. Wild and a shaman friend tried many times as a twosome. The Reins never dropped.
Wild eventually became strong enough to test Heroic Sethekk Halls all on his own. It wasn't like Wild went after Anzu every day. There were periods where he was busy raiding and leveling and the Raven Lord was far from his mind. But Wild always eventually came back to Sethekk Halls, for a day or a week, seeking that elusive mount.
Solo, Wild went stealthed catform for the first part of the dungeon, avoiding combat. However, the first boss, Darkweaver Syth, could detect stealth and Wild had no choice but to battle him and the five adds that he Summoned. It was a tough battle, but Wild got better at it over time. Then there was a very long stretch in stealth that Wild had to navigate. Mobs packed the place, and birds flew around everywhere. Wild's stealth would hide him, as long as he did not get too close. There were times he did, and Wild would have to fight. Wild did not always win. There were so many mobs.
Players going after Anzu also learned a trick. There was a backdoor out of the dungeon, but it only opened when the last boss, Talon King Ikiss, was killed. So Wild would stealth past Anzu and into the Talon King's chamber and kill him, which opened the back door. What this did is that if Anzu killed Wild, I didn't have to stealth all the way back through the dungeon again to take more shots at him. And honestly, when Wild first started soloing Anzu, Wild died - a lot. Killing Anzu was not just overwhelming him with over-powered gear. Anzu had two phases, one where he could be attacked, and a second when he was immune, and great gobs of ravens descended on Wild. All the ravens had to be killed to knock Anzu out of his immune phase. The ravens could stun, too, and killing those ravens took time. There were raven statues in the room, each of which offered a buff to help Wild in the fight, but still, it was a difficult fight.
On Sunday morning, 5 Feb 2012, Wild made his umpteenth foray into Heroic Sethekk Halls. Wild no longer bothered with the back door. At level 85, dying to Anzu would have to be a rare combination of multiple stuns that kept him from healing himself far longer than likely, and Wild didn't worry about that.
For the umpteenth time, Wild slew Anzu. And this time, the Reins of the Raven Lord dropped.
The Raven Lord is a level 40 mount that cannot fly. But she's a beautiful bird, and every druid should have one. Now Wild finally does.
There are hundreds of different kinds of mounts in Azeroth. The most common are the mounts that first become available to players when they reach level 20. It used to be level 40, and that is when Wild got his first mount. Actually, Wild didn't get his first mount until level 43, because he did not have the gold to buy it until then. Each major city offered a particular type of mount. Wild's home city was Thunder Bluff, and his first mount was a great, rhinoceros like beast called a Kodo. Wild was extremely proud of his Kodo. These common mounts came in different colors for variety. As the game progressed more common mounts were added, including flying mounts. Mounts were so popular that more and more were added, and greater and greater challenges were designed to get the rarer ones.
There are many players who collect mounts and spend much of their time doing whatever is required, for however long it takes, to get them. These players are crazy, of course ... well, not really, but seriously, you can only ride one mount at a time. If you are a mount fan, though, there is nothing more impressive than seeing a player on a mount you know took incredible skill, persistence, and even luck to acquire.
Wild has never been much of a mount collector. Wild's kodo served him well throughout vanilla wow and into Burning Crusade. His first non-kodo mount, if Wild's recollection is sound (an iffy assumption) were the Kiraji bug mounts in the An'Qiraj raid. Wild has several of them, and they are truly cool. Unfortunately, they can only be used inside that one raid. Maybe one day Blizz will set them free to roam all of Azeroth.
Wild collected many other mounts over the seasons, although there were few that he actively went after. One such mount was the great mammoth sold in Dalaran. Wild had to earn reputation with the city of Dalaran and pay a steep fee to acquire it. Wild wanted the mammoth because it came with an extra seat, so Wild could give another player a ride. It also came with a repair npc so that Wild could repair his (and everyone else's) gear anywhere in the world, so long as it was somewhere he could mount up.
The one mount that Wild most wanted, however, eluded him - the Raven Lord, which is one of the most rare and difficult mounts to acquire. Today, there are probably rarer mounts, with more difficult challenges. However, the Raven Lord is wreathed in a rich history and is still sought after even today.
In the Burning Crusade expansion came a dungeon called Sethekk Halls. The bird dungeon, it was sometimes referred to, because it's denizens included many and varied birds, and it was peopled by birdmen. Sethekk Halls was neither the hardest, not the easiest, of the BC dungeons, but it had it's challenges. It was also where the great elite bird, Anzu, held court. The druids had a unique, very challenging quest line that ultimately led to Anzu. A druid who could successfully complete the quest chain and defeated Anzu had a rare chance to win the Reins of the Raven Lord. Only druids could win this mount. Wild did complete the quest chain, of course, and killed Heroic Anzu many times in five man groups. The Reins never dropped.
Later on, all players were given the chance to defeat Anzu and win the Reins, not just druids. However, a druid who had completed the quest chain had to be in the group, or Anzu would not appear. Wild got invites all the time to join groups hoping to win the Reins. Not only did Wild not win one, no one in any group he was in ever saw one drop.
More time passed, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion arrived, and players grew in strength to the point that Heroic Sethekk Halls could be two manned, and soon even soloed. It remained a difficult dungeon, though, for a couple of reasons. First, anyone wanting to battle Anzu still had to be a druid, or bring a druid with him. Second, the birdmen filled the dungeon in large numbers and had a particularly vicious stun that could not be interrupted or broken. Chain stuns by several mobs could still get a player killed. Third, Anzu was the second to last boss and was located very deep in the dungeon. Even a successful run to Anzu took a lot of killing and a lot of time. Wild and a shaman friend tried many times as a twosome. The Reins never dropped.
Wild eventually became strong enough to test Heroic Sethekk Halls all on his own. It wasn't like Wild went after Anzu every day. There were periods where he was busy raiding and leveling and the Raven Lord was far from his mind. But Wild always eventually came back to Sethekk Halls, for a day or a week, seeking that elusive mount.
Solo, Wild went stealthed catform for the first part of the dungeon, avoiding combat. However, the first boss, Darkweaver Syth, could detect stealth and Wild had no choice but to battle him and the five adds that he Summoned. It was a tough battle, but Wild got better at it over time. Then there was a very long stretch in stealth that Wild had to navigate. Mobs packed the place, and birds flew around everywhere. Wild's stealth would hide him, as long as he did not get too close. There were times he did, and Wild would have to fight. Wild did not always win. There were so many mobs.
Players going after Anzu also learned a trick. There was a backdoor out of the dungeon, but it only opened when the last boss, Talon King Ikiss, was killed. So Wild would stealth past Anzu and into the Talon King's chamber and kill him, which opened the back door. What this did is that if Anzu killed Wild, I didn't have to stealth all the way back through the dungeon again to take more shots at him. And honestly, when Wild first started soloing Anzu, Wild died - a lot. Killing Anzu was not just overwhelming him with over-powered gear. Anzu had two phases, one where he could be attacked, and a second when he was immune, and great gobs of ravens descended on Wild. All the ravens had to be killed to knock Anzu out of his immune phase. The ravens could stun, too, and killing those ravens took time. There were raven statues in the room, each of which offered a buff to help Wild in the fight, but still, it was a difficult fight.
On Sunday morning, 5 Feb 2012, Wild made his umpteenth foray into Heroic Sethekk Halls. Wild no longer bothered with the back door. At level 85, dying to Anzu would have to be a rare combination of multiple stuns that kept him from healing himself far longer than likely, and Wild didn't worry about that.
For the umpteenth time, Wild slew Anzu. And this time, the Reins of the Raven Lord dropped.
The Raven Lord is a level 40 mount that cannot fly. But she's a beautiful bird, and every druid should have one. Now Wild finally does.
Wild and his Raven Lord
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday (2 Feb) - Frustration Across the Board
Thursday (2 Feb) - Frustration Across the Board
Nothing could stop JB's determined march from the moment she turned level 85. Her totally focused goal - a spot on a guild Dragon Soul raid group - seemed in her grasp. All she needed was a drop or two from the LFR DS, prove her DPS level was sufficient, and she could get her Raider rank in the guild, making JB eligible for guild runs.
Nothing in game could keep JB from that goal - so the game itself derailed her.
On Tuesday night of this week, JB entered her first lfr DS. It was the first half run, Siege of Deathwing. JB helped kill all four bosses, getting her first clear of Siege. On Wednesday, JB was anxious to get the second half of DS completed, the Fall of Deathwing. JB queued up . . . but there was something odd about it. The Looking For Raid feature is so powerful because it taps many realms and servers, not just the local server, Silvermoon. Because there are literally hundreds of thousands of potential raiders, I've never heard of an LFR queue that didn't start with at least a few raiders. Most of the time the raid is already at least half full or more the moment you join the queue. Wild has never had to wait more than a minute or two for the queue to pop and raiders to start filing into DS.
When JB queued for the lfr DS, she noted that she was the ONLY person in the queue. She can tell this because the lfr provides a count of all queued raiders, counting tanks, healers, and DPS. JB's queue count was:
0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS (JB was the lone person)
JB waited a full five minutes, but the numbers stubbornly stayed right where they were. Of course, JB left the queue and tried re-entering several times, but got the same result. She logged out of game, came back in - same result. She asked guildies to check - they had no problem queuing in and got into the raid. I logged Wild in game, thinking maybe it was an account issue. Wild had no problem getting into an lfr raid.
At a loss at what to do now, JB logged a ticket with a Game Master (GM). The average time for a response is 19-24 hrs. JB caught a break, though, and about thirty minutes later a GM whispered JB.
JB and the GM talked for 45 minutes, trying everything he could think of. It was a long list. Nothing worked. The GM even passed the ticket to another GM to see if he'd missed anything. No clue why this was happening. Finally, they gave me the dreaded "I don't know what else to do answer" - You need to wipe your cache, WTF, and Interface and then login to get a clean load. JB knew that this would mean rebuilding her laboriously and lovingly designed user interface - hours and hours of work. The GM assured JB that this would solve the problem, though. JB asked if the ticket would remain open, and the answer was no. It would work, he said.
So I made a backup of the three files and then deleted them. The game came up fine, although the screen looked very sparse and uninviting in the default user interface without a single addon or adjustment.
JB crossed her dual blades for luck, and queued for the lfr DS.
0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS
Fail.
Sigh. JB logged a second ticket. I restored the backup files and was back where I started.
The response from a GM on the second ticket came in the mail since JB wasn't in game when the GM worked it. The canned response went over the same things that had already been done the first time, which JB had clearly spelled out in the second ticket. The GM suggested it was just a matter of being patient while the queue filled. JB's response to that was pretty pointed: "It is not about waiting for the queue to fill. Whenever I queue I get a queue screen that says 0/2 0/6 1/17 - ALWAYS. And those numbers never change no matter how many times I try. I have done everything that the last two GMs asked of me, including a complete wipe of the cache, wtf and interface. Its still the same problem. I really need some help here."
Last night JB went to bed late without an answer.
On Friday morning JB had a response waiting for her. Here is the sentence that first caught JB's eye: "We have not yet heard of this issue!" Great, JB has uncovered a new bug, never before seen among the 11 million players in WoW. Wish that had been a winning LOTO ticket; the odds are about the same.
So, what's next? The issue has been forwarded to the Blizz Quality Assurance team, who will "attempt to reproduce the issue." If they discover something, it will be forwarded to the Development Team, who will then "determine a fix and apply it to the game as soon as possible."
JB will soldier on, getting what she can from the Twilight dungeons and the VP/JPs she can get from that.
Update - I tried a test this morning. I logged both JB and Wild in game. Wild invited JB to group with him. As the group leader, Wild then queued into the LFR. It worked. JB got a working queue. It's a work-around, but better than nothing. I have no confidence that Blizz will bother working on a problem that affects just one player, so this may be the best JB can do.
Nothing could stop JB's determined march from the moment she turned level 85. Her totally focused goal - a spot on a guild Dragon Soul raid group - seemed in her grasp. All she needed was a drop or two from the LFR DS, prove her DPS level was sufficient, and she could get her Raider rank in the guild, making JB eligible for guild runs.
Nothing in game could keep JB from that goal - so the game itself derailed her.
On Tuesday night of this week, JB entered her first lfr DS. It was the first half run, Siege of Deathwing. JB helped kill all four bosses, getting her first clear of Siege. On Wednesday, JB was anxious to get the second half of DS completed, the Fall of Deathwing. JB queued up . . . but there was something odd about it. The Looking For Raid feature is so powerful because it taps many realms and servers, not just the local server, Silvermoon. Because there are literally hundreds of thousands of potential raiders, I've never heard of an LFR queue that didn't start with at least a few raiders. Most of the time the raid is already at least half full or more the moment you join the queue. Wild has never had to wait more than a minute or two for the queue to pop and raiders to start filing into DS.
When JB queued for the lfr DS, she noted that she was the ONLY person in the queue. She can tell this because the lfr provides a count of all queued raiders, counting tanks, healers, and DPS. JB's queue count was:
0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS (JB was the lone person)
JB waited a full five minutes, but the numbers stubbornly stayed right where they were. Of course, JB left the queue and tried re-entering several times, but got the same result. She logged out of game, came back in - same result. She asked guildies to check - they had no problem queuing in and got into the raid. I logged Wild in game, thinking maybe it was an account issue. Wild had no problem getting into an lfr raid.
At a loss at what to do now, JB logged a ticket with a Game Master (GM). The average time for a response is 19-24 hrs. JB caught a break, though, and about thirty minutes later a GM whispered JB.
JB and the GM talked for 45 minutes, trying everything he could think of. It was a long list. Nothing worked. The GM even passed the ticket to another GM to see if he'd missed anything. No clue why this was happening. Finally, they gave me the dreaded "I don't know what else to do answer" - You need to wipe your cache, WTF, and Interface and then login to get a clean load. JB knew that this would mean rebuilding her laboriously and lovingly designed user interface - hours and hours of work. The GM assured JB that this would solve the problem, though. JB asked if the ticket would remain open, and the answer was no. It would work, he said.
So I made a backup of the three files and then deleted them. The game came up fine, although the screen looked very sparse and uninviting in the default user interface without a single addon or adjustment.
JB crossed her dual blades for luck, and queued for the lfr DS.
0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS
Fail.
Sigh. JB logged a second ticket. I restored the backup files and was back where I started.
The response from a GM on the second ticket came in the mail since JB wasn't in game when the GM worked it. The canned response went over the same things that had already been done the first time, which JB had clearly spelled out in the second ticket. The GM suggested it was just a matter of being patient while the queue filled. JB's response to that was pretty pointed: "It is not about waiting for the queue to fill. Whenever I queue I get a queue screen that says 0/2 0/6 1/17 - ALWAYS. And those numbers never change no matter how many times I try. I have done everything that the last two GMs asked of me, including a complete wipe of the cache, wtf and interface. Its still the same problem. I really need some help here."
Last night JB went to bed late without an answer.
On Friday morning JB had a response waiting for her. Here is the sentence that first caught JB's eye: "We have not yet heard of this issue!" Great, JB has uncovered a new bug, never before seen among the 11 million players in WoW. Wish that had been a winning LOTO ticket; the odds are about the same.
So, what's next? The issue has been forwarded to the Blizz Quality Assurance team, who will "attempt to reproduce the issue." If they discover something, it will be forwarded to the Development Team, who will then "determine a fix and apply it to the game as soon as possible."
JB will soldier on, getting what she can from the Twilight dungeons and the VP/JPs she can get from that.
Update - I tried a test this morning. I logged both JB and Wild in game. Wild invited JB to group with him. As the group leader, Wild then queued into the LFR. It worked. JB got a working queue. It's a work-around, but better than nothing. I have no confidence that Blizz will bother working on a problem that affects just one player, so this may be the best JB can do.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wednesday (1 Feb) - JB's Test
Wednesday (1 Feb) - JB's Test
The RG2 raid filled on time Wednesday night, a raid which included our former raid leader, Bd, back from his RL crisis and playing WoW again. He did not ask for leadership of the raid back, and Vl remained our raid leader. Bd also expected to have to earn back his tanking role, but one of our regular tanks was pressed into service in the G1 raid on Tuesday night and wasn't available. That left a spot open for Bd. Wild really hates other raid groups poaching our raiders, and Wild will have a talk with the player about making a commitment to our raid. This is our third straight week of fielding a raid and we should be recognized as a real, honest to goodness raid group again.
In battling Dragon Soul, however, we looked a lot less like a fully functioning raid. Morchok went down without much fuss. We then spent the rest of the evening wiping 6 times against Ozz and 4 times against Yor.
On the positive side, we made progress on both bosses, our raid composition is firming up, and raiders seemed happy and determined to make it work. Now we need to keep the momentum growing, and we have all Thursday night to take down another boss.
The raid leader, Vl, has given Wild charge of the healers. Even so, after our raiding night ended, Vl might have been a little surprised when Wild asked to speak with her about healing. She was doing a raid debrief with the tanks, and Wild waited patiently for that to finish.
Wild has been waiting to see Vl flourish as a healer. I've been reluctant to assign her to tank healing because her hps was quite a bit below the other two healers, no matter who they were. Despite some gear improvements, though, on Wednesday night her numbers were only half what Wild and our priest, Pl, did. Wild dug through the recount stats. What immediately jumped out at me was Vl hardly used the AoE heal Wild Growth. WG is the MAIN HEAL for a raid healing druid, and she wasn't using it. That made me wonder if anyone had ever spent time with her talking shop about druid healing. Her druid was her second main; her first main was a DPS.
Wild and Vl talked. I asked if she had someone to talk to about healing. Nope, she didn't. I asked if she used an addon like recount, which Wild used to monitor how I and the other healers were doing. She used a similar addon called skada. What did it show her, Wild asked? Vl could see that her healing was well below the other two healers, but didn't know what to do about it. We spent the next half hour talking about spell priorities, how to use spells to proc Harmony and how important that was, the proper use of lifebloom, haste mechanics, what efflorescence was (she didn't know!), and a lot of other things. All this information got a little overwhelming, so we focused on the main things she should practice on for Thursday night. Her gear is definitely good enough, but it was really focused more toward tank healing than raid healing, which is all she was doing. She really wanted to tank heal. Inwardly, I was a little reluctant, worried about the impact on the raid, but agreed to see how she would do. I worked with her some more on tank healing mechanics, and will be watching closely during the raid. Wild will give himself raid healing duty so I can help with the tank healing as well. It might even work out better this way. Both bosses do a lot of AoE damage, and keeping raiders alive may be a harder chore than keeping a tank up.
So what's this about a test? It started with a simple request. JB knew that the guild sometimes ran Firelands raids on Friday and Saturday nights for anyone that wanted to see the content and have some fun with guildies. The problem was that JB couldn't sign up for them. JB did not have the guild rank needed to access the raid calendar. I probably approached that a little nonchalantly. After all, Wild had Raider rank in the guild, why not JB? She was my alt. I could also mention that given how hard it's been to fill guild raids, so having JB available for fill in should be a good thing, right?
It doesn't work quite that way. Even alts have to prove themselves before being allowed into guild raids, or given access to the raid calendar. Ok, so what needs to be done? Poor Bd got the question. Welcome back, Bd, I need some guild officer help.
Bd directed JB to the Raider Bill of Rights. There were the expected requirements for being ready to raid, on time, properly geared/enchanted/gemmed etc. JB had all that down. Minimum ilevels and DPS were also stated there that JB would have to show she could meet. Ok, JB told Bd, but the information was based on the Firelands: i355 gear, 12k dps on the raid target dummy. Bd was surprised it hadn't been updated, and got that fixed right away. The Dragon Soul minimums: i365 gear, and 15k dps on the raid target dummy (self buffs only, no flasks or food buffs, and no bloodlust either).
JB's equipped gear is i366. Barely there, but there nonetheless. JB practiced on the target dummy to see how she would do before she would ask to take her test, which is five minutes attacking the dummy doing at least 15k dps. After several practice runs, JB was just barely able to hit 15k dps, but there was little to no cushion. JB didn't think that was good enough, at least for DS, and would go after a couple more gear improvements to make that a solid 15k plus.
The Firelands are a different story. JB hasn't caught up with Bd since her practice on the dummy, but she still believes she should get access to the raid calendar since they are running FL raids and JB is more than qualified gear wise for that!
JB isn't waiting around, though. She's headed back into the Twilight dungeons and lfr DS.
The RG2 raid filled on time Wednesday night, a raid which included our former raid leader, Bd, back from his RL crisis and playing WoW again. He did not ask for leadership of the raid back, and Vl remained our raid leader. Bd also expected to have to earn back his tanking role, but one of our regular tanks was pressed into service in the G1 raid on Tuesday night and wasn't available. That left a spot open for Bd. Wild really hates other raid groups poaching our raiders, and Wild will have a talk with the player about making a commitment to our raid. This is our third straight week of fielding a raid and we should be recognized as a real, honest to goodness raid group again.
In battling Dragon Soul, however, we looked a lot less like a fully functioning raid. Morchok went down without much fuss. We then spent the rest of the evening wiping 6 times against Ozz and 4 times against Yor.
On the positive side, we made progress on both bosses, our raid composition is firming up, and raiders seemed happy and determined to make it work. Now we need to keep the momentum growing, and we have all Thursday night to take down another boss.
The raid leader, Vl, has given Wild charge of the healers. Even so, after our raiding night ended, Vl might have been a little surprised when Wild asked to speak with her about healing. She was doing a raid debrief with the tanks, and Wild waited patiently for that to finish.
Wild has been waiting to see Vl flourish as a healer. I've been reluctant to assign her to tank healing because her hps was quite a bit below the other two healers, no matter who they were. Despite some gear improvements, though, on Wednesday night her numbers were only half what Wild and our priest, Pl, did. Wild dug through the recount stats. What immediately jumped out at me was Vl hardly used the AoE heal Wild Growth. WG is the MAIN HEAL for a raid healing druid, and she wasn't using it. That made me wonder if anyone had ever spent time with her talking shop about druid healing. Her druid was her second main; her first main was a DPS.
Wild and Vl talked. I asked if she had someone to talk to about healing. Nope, she didn't. I asked if she used an addon like recount, which Wild used to monitor how I and the other healers were doing. She used a similar addon called skada. What did it show her, Wild asked? Vl could see that her healing was well below the other two healers, but didn't know what to do about it. We spent the next half hour talking about spell priorities, how to use spells to proc Harmony and how important that was, the proper use of lifebloom, haste mechanics, what efflorescence was (she didn't know!), and a lot of other things. All this information got a little overwhelming, so we focused on the main things she should practice on for Thursday night. Her gear is definitely good enough, but it was really focused more toward tank healing than raid healing, which is all she was doing. She really wanted to tank heal. Inwardly, I was a little reluctant, worried about the impact on the raid, but agreed to see how she would do. I worked with her some more on tank healing mechanics, and will be watching closely during the raid. Wild will give himself raid healing duty so I can help with the tank healing as well. It might even work out better this way. Both bosses do a lot of AoE damage, and keeping raiders alive may be a harder chore than keeping a tank up.
So what's this about a test? It started with a simple request. JB knew that the guild sometimes ran Firelands raids on Friday and Saturday nights for anyone that wanted to see the content and have some fun with guildies. The problem was that JB couldn't sign up for them. JB did not have the guild rank needed to access the raid calendar. I probably approached that a little nonchalantly. After all, Wild had Raider rank in the guild, why not JB? She was my alt. I could also mention that given how hard it's been to fill guild raids, so having JB available for fill in should be a good thing, right?
It doesn't work quite that way. Even alts have to prove themselves before being allowed into guild raids, or given access to the raid calendar. Ok, so what needs to be done? Poor Bd got the question. Welcome back, Bd, I need some guild officer help.
Bd directed JB to the Raider Bill of Rights. There were the expected requirements for being ready to raid, on time, properly geared/enchanted/gemmed etc. JB had all that down. Minimum ilevels and DPS were also stated there that JB would have to show she could meet. Ok, JB told Bd, but the information was based on the Firelands: i355 gear, 12k dps on the raid target dummy. Bd was surprised it hadn't been updated, and got that fixed right away. The Dragon Soul minimums: i365 gear, and 15k dps on the raid target dummy (self buffs only, no flasks or food buffs, and no bloodlust either).
JB's equipped gear is i366. Barely there, but there nonetheless. JB practiced on the target dummy to see how she would do before she would ask to take her test, which is five minutes attacking the dummy doing at least 15k dps. After several practice runs, JB was just barely able to hit 15k dps, but there was little to no cushion. JB didn't think that was good enough, at least for DS, and would go after a couple more gear improvements to make that a solid 15k plus.
The Firelands are a different story. JB hasn't caught up with Bd since her practice on the dummy, but she still believes she should get access to the raid calendar since they are running FL raids and JB is more than qualified gear wise for that!
JB isn't waiting around, though. She's headed back into the Twilight dungeons and lfr DS.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Tuesday Maintenance (1 Feb) - JB Disses Hunters
Tuesday Maintenance (1 Feb) - JB Disses Hunters
The Tuesday maintenance was a special one to "improve game performance and reduce the size of the install on your hard drive." It took about fifteen minutes. There have been complaints about increasing disconnects in raids and dungeons. Otherwise, I haven't seen any problems, but anything that gets rid of un-needed clutter on my hard drive is a good thing. There was also a patch significant enough to require re-signing the ToC, and that took all morning to complete.
One of the things I've learned about the shaman class is that every player complains about the terrible itemization of enhancement shaman gear. There are two mail armor wearing classes - shaman and hunters. Since JB is competing with hunters for that gear, I thought I'd learn more about what hunters want, and how their stat priorities on gear compare to shaman.
Enhancement shaman stat priorities are as follows:
Agility - our main stat for dealing damage, we get as much as we can
Hit Rating - Shaman have very high requirements here, 20% for hitting with our melee weapons, and 17% for hitting with our spells. These percentages MUST be met above all other things when fighting raid bosses because misses are a dps loss.
Expertise - this stat helps us avoid being dodged or parried, which is also a dps loss. Shaman have to have 25/26 exp (equal to 541 exp rating) to overcome this (not to mention attacking from behind, not in front).
Mastery - our best secondary stat, first choice after the above three.
Crit - a very small benefit, but mostly useless
Haste - absolutely useless. Even the most efficient use of our spell priority rotation leaves gaps because of cooldowns and not enough spells to fill the holes. So speeding up the spell casting with haste has no benefit at all; all it does is widen the spell gap when we can't cast spells.
Things are a bit different for hunters. I'm using the Marksman spec as the example since that is most favored by raiders.
Agility - at the top of their list as well as for enh shaman
Ranged Hit - Nearly all damage from hunters come from their ranged weapon (bow or gun). Where shaman need 20%/17% to hit with weapon/spells, hunters need just 8% hit to never miss their target. A recent change for hunters allows them to shoot their ranged weapon no matter how close they are to the target, so they never need to use that "stat stick" hand weapon they carry around.
Attack Power - equal to about a third of one point of agi, AP isn't available much anymore and generally only shows up in enchants, not gear.
Crit - This is important to hunters, and they get a lot of benefit from it.
Mastery - Mastery is not as good as crit, but it's useful to hunters as a proc which adds an extra bow/gun shot to whatever ranged spell is being used.
Haste - This is a complicated stat for hunters. Similar to druids, hunters have haste caps to deal with; but unlike druids, the affect is different with different spells. The bottom line, though, is that haste speeds up shooting and that is ALWAYS an increase in dps.
Shaman HATE hunters because Blizz itemizes mail armor gear for hunter use, so nearly all gear an enhancement shaman sees will have one or both of haste and crit as secondary stats, which shaman don't want and reforge if they can.
In Summary -
Agi/AP - good for both hunters and shaman
hit - hunters need half as much to get the same benefit as shaman
Exp - hunters don't need it, so it's hard to get for shaman
Crit - nice for hunters, sucky for shaman
Mastery - nice for hunters, wonderful for shaman when they can get it
Haste - nice for hunters, worthless for shaman
So, what's the verdict? JB should have been a hunter. :P
The Tuesday maintenance was a special one to "improve game performance and reduce the size of the install on your hard drive." It took about fifteen minutes. There have been complaints about increasing disconnects in raids and dungeons. Otherwise, I haven't seen any problems, but anything that gets rid of un-needed clutter on my hard drive is a good thing. There was also a patch significant enough to require re-signing the ToC, and that took all morning to complete.
One of the things I've learned about the shaman class is that every player complains about the terrible itemization of enhancement shaman gear. There are two mail armor wearing classes - shaman and hunters. Since JB is competing with hunters for that gear, I thought I'd learn more about what hunters want, and how their stat priorities on gear compare to shaman.
Enhancement shaman stat priorities are as follows:
Agility - our main stat for dealing damage, we get as much as we can
Hit Rating - Shaman have very high requirements here, 20% for hitting with our melee weapons, and 17% for hitting with our spells. These percentages MUST be met above all other things when fighting raid bosses because misses are a dps loss.
Expertise - this stat helps us avoid being dodged or parried, which is also a dps loss. Shaman have to have 25/26 exp (equal to 541 exp rating) to overcome this (not to mention attacking from behind, not in front).
Mastery - our best secondary stat, first choice after the above three.
Crit - a very small benefit, but mostly useless
Haste - absolutely useless. Even the most efficient use of our spell priority rotation leaves gaps because of cooldowns and not enough spells to fill the holes. So speeding up the spell casting with haste has no benefit at all; all it does is widen the spell gap when we can't cast spells.
Things are a bit different for hunters. I'm using the Marksman spec as the example since that is most favored by raiders.
Agility - at the top of their list as well as for enh shaman
Ranged Hit - Nearly all damage from hunters come from their ranged weapon (bow or gun). Where shaman need 20%/17% to hit with weapon/spells, hunters need just 8% hit to never miss their target. A recent change for hunters allows them to shoot their ranged weapon no matter how close they are to the target, so they never need to use that "stat stick" hand weapon they carry around.
Attack Power - equal to about a third of one point of agi, AP isn't available much anymore and generally only shows up in enchants, not gear.
Crit - This is important to hunters, and they get a lot of benefit from it.
Mastery - Mastery is not as good as crit, but it's useful to hunters as a proc which adds an extra bow/gun shot to whatever ranged spell is being used.
Haste - This is a complicated stat for hunters. Similar to druids, hunters have haste caps to deal with; but unlike druids, the affect is different with different spells. The bottom line, though, is that haste speeds up shooting and that is ALWAYS an increase in dps.
Shaman HATE hunters because Blizz itemizes mail armor gear for hunter use, so nearly all gear an enhancement shaman sees will have one or both of haste and crit as secondary stats, which shaman don't want and reforge if they can.
In Summary -
Agi/AP - good for both hunters and shaman
hit - hunters need half as much to get the same benefit as shaman
Exp - hunters don't need it, so it's hard to get for shaman
Crit - nice for hunters, sucky for shaman
Mastery - nice for hunters, wonderful for shaman when they can get it
Haste - nice for hunters, worthless for shaman
So, what's the verdict? JB should have been a hunter. :P
Tuesday (1 Feb) - Dragon Soul Time
Tuesday (1 Feb) - Dragon Soul Time
Where to start? Tuesday night was a night full of highs and unexpected lows.
The First High - On Tuesday night, JB entered the queue for the looking for raid (lfr) Siege of Dragon Soul. JB was only a little nervous. The first boss, Morchok, is well known and JB knew how to handle him even as melee. This was JB's first test of her fully capped +hit and +expertise gear, and it would be against and end game boss.
The Second High - JB did a great job against Morchok, keeping the hits coming on the big beast, running to the safe spots when the black death flowed, and surviving the massive Stomps. JB had killed her first Dragon Soul boss, and was now blooded in two raids, DS and Baradin Hold. Who could have even imagined such a thing as little as a month ago?
A Low - Wild complained often that when Tier tokens dropped, the list of classes that could roll on them so rarely included druids, but always seemed to list shaman. JB can now complain that all three of the tier token drops from Morchok failed to mention shaman, but the druid class appeared on them all. Luck of the dice, and all that. It was even kind of funny, in a way.
Another High - The trash mobs for the second boss, Warlord Zon'ozz, was a rather cheap thrill. I don't think JB's DPS amounted to enough to attract the attention of any of the twisting and twining tentacles and eyes that we were killing. As for the boss himself, the fight was a game of catch between tanks. There was little to worry about when Wild healed it, and not much more to worry about as a DPS. I'm sure there were others doing the necessary things so that JB could focus on her DPS.
A Low that Shouldn't Be - JB won the LFR Tier 13 Gloves token. That should have given JB quite the warm and fuzzy feeling of success. But, JB is already wearing the T12 gloves, as well as the T12 chest, and needs both to get the two-piece buff. With a sigh, JB banked the T13 token. For now. When she gets a second T13, then she'll make the swap. But why couldn't it have been the boots? Or Helm? Or Shoulder?
A Strange One - We killed the trash - a bunch of oozes - and engaged the third boss, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. JB's job was of course to bang on the boss, but also to kill the oozes and other nasties that spawned. About halfway through that battle JB started to wonder why this seemed so easy? Yes, JB was under the aggro radar of the boss and the other beasties for the most part, but there was plenty of AoE and other directed damage that just seemed, well, lessened, than Wild's recollection. The boss died. No loot for JB.
The Last Boss - Raiders had been coming and going throughout the run, and most of the time we had less than a full 25 raiders during the boss fights. The tanks weren't waiting for the spots to fill, and to this point it hadn't mattered. On this last boss, Hagara the Stormbinder, we were down to twenty raiders. We started the fight anyway. JB got in trouble on this one. There are many mobs running around before the boss engages, and they drop a lot of AoE damage. JB got just a little too focused on trying to keep mobs targeted and let the AoE kill her. Once the battle moved out of her area, JB reincarnated and rejoined the fight. I personally like the Hagara fight, and it was fun with JB, too. The battle goes back and forth between attacking Hagara directly, and running around the outer ring of the chamber destroying things while being chased by a wall of ice shards that is instantly fatal if it catches you.
We killed Hagara with twenty raiders. JB should have been ecstatic at completing the first half of Dragon Soul. Sadly, though, the epic feel of that kill just wasn't there. That was an unexpected low for JB.
Why? Two reasons, I think. Ok, just thought of a third. (1) The gear levels of those farming DS have reached the point where the fights, while not trivial, are easier than when we first started; (2) JB's DPS was pretty trivial, so in part JB was carried through this fight. Had all the DPS done the same level of damage JB did (JB's DPS was 18.6; 5 DPSers did over 30k), we would not likely have killed a single boss; and (3) the Tuesday maintenance set the first DS nerf - a 5% reduction in mob/boss DPS and health.
None of that diminishes JB's accomplishment, though. On 3 Jan, 2012, JB reached level 85. JB's interface was a mess, and she knew next to nothing about how to be a DPS in groups. JB's equipped gear score was a modest i321, and she wasn't sure what she wanted to do next, if anything.
On 31 Jan, 2012, a mere 28 days later, JB defeated the first four bosses in lfr DS, the end game raid of the end game for all of Cataclysm, the Hour of Twilight. JB's gear score was i362, a 41 level improvement that had swiftly sped through and beyond the gear level plateaus of i325, i346, and i359. In JB's first dungeon run, she did 8.0k dps. In DS she did 18.6k dps. And she had learned to raid as an enhancement shaman.
Now that is a HIGH.
Where to start? Tuesday night was a night full of highs and unexpected lows.
The First High - On Tuesday night, JB entered the queue for the looking for raid (lfr) Siege of Dragon Soul. JB was only a little nervous. The first boss, Morchok, is well known and JB knew how to handle him even as melee. This was JB's first test of her fully capped +hit and +expertise gear, and it would be against and end game boss.
The Second High - JB did a great job against Morchok, keeping the hits coming on the big beast, running to the safe spots when the black death flowed, and surviving the massive Stomps. JB had killed her first Dragon Soul boss, and was now blooded in two raids, DS and Baradin Hold. Who could have even imagined such a thing as little as a month ago?
A Low - Wild complained often that when Tier tokens dropped, the list of classes that could roll on them so rarely included druids, but always seemed to list shaman. JB can now complain that all three of the tier token drops from Morchok failed to mention shaman, but the druid class appeared on them all. Luck of the dice, and all that. It was even kind of funny, in a way.
Another High - The trash mobs for the second boss, Warlord Zon'ozz, was a rather cheap thrill. I don't think JB's DPS amounted to enough to attract the attention of any of the twisting and twining tentacles and eyes that we were killing. As for the boss himself, the fight was a game of catch between tanks. There was little to worry about when Wild healed it, and not much more to worry about as a DPS. I'm sure there were others doing the necessary things so that JB could focus on her DPS.
A Low that Shouldn't Be - JB won the LFR Tier 13 Gloves token. That should have given JB quite the warm and fuzzy feeling of success. But, JB is already wearing the T12 gloves, as well as the T12 chest, and needs both to get the two-piece buff. With a sigh, JB banked the T13 token. For now. When she gets a second T13, then she'll make the swap. But why couldn't it have been the boots? Or Helm? Or Shoulder?
A Strange One - We killed the trash - a bunch of oozes - and engaged the third boss, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. JB's job was of course to bang on the boss, but also to kill the oozes and other nasties that spawned. About halfway through that battle JB started to wonder why this seemed so easy? Yes, JB was under the aggro radar of the boss and the other beasties for the most part, but there was plenty of AoE and other directed damage that just seemed, well, lessened, than Wild's recollection. The boss died. No loot for JB.
The Last Boss - Raiders had been coming and going throughout the run, and most of the time we had less than a full 25 raiders during the boss fights. The tanks weren't waiting for the spots to fill, and to this point it hadn't mattered. On this last boss, Hagara the Stormbinder, we were down to twenty raiders. We started the fight anyway. JB got in trouble on this one. There are many mobs running around before the boss engages, and they drop a lot of AoE damage. JB got just a little too focused on trying to keep mobs targeted and let the AoE kill her. Once the battle moved out of her area, JB reincarnated and rejoined the fight. I personally like the Hagara fight, and it was fun with JB, too. The battle goes back and forth between attacking Hagara directly, and running around the outer ring of the chamber destroying things while being chased by a wall of ice shards that is instantly fatal if it catches you.
We killed Hagara with twenty raiders. JB should have been ecstatic at completing the first half of Dragon Soul. Sadly, though, the epic feel of that kill just wasn't there. That was an unexpected low for JB.
Why? Two reasons, I think. Ok, just thought of a third. (1) The gear levels of those farming DS have reached the point where the fights, while not trivial, are easier than when we first started; (2) JB's DPS was pretty trivial, so in part JB was carried through this fight. Had all the DPS done the same level of damage JB did (JB's DPS was 18.6; 5 DPSers did over 30k), we would not likely have killed a single boss; and (3) the Tuesday maintenance set the first DS nerf - a 5% reduction in mob/boss DPS and health.
None of that diminishes JB's accomplishment, though. On 3 Jan, 2012, JB reached level 85. JB's interface was a mess, and she knew next to nothing about how to be a DPS in groups. JB's equipped gear score was a modest i321, and she wasn't sure what she wanted to do next, if anything.
On 31 Jan, 2012, a mere 28 days later, JB defeated the first four bosses in lfr DS, the end game raid of the end game for all of Cataclysm, the Hour of Twilight. JB's gear score was i362, a 41 level improvement that had swiftly sped through and beyond the gear level plateaus of i325, i346, and i359. In JB's first dungeon run, she did 8.0k dps. In DS she did 18.6k dps. And she had learned to raid as an enhancement shaman.
Now that is a HIGH.
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