Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Thank you!


Thank you to Raptorbane, for my awesome banner. Shes working on little button pics that are lightning bits. Many happy times for some Kiomi. The pic is so, so awesome! Better then I hoped. Rapa is made of win.

A small update. Its the general opinion of everyone alive that i really should shed some crit for spell damage. I'll try doing it a percent or two at a time, so I can really watch how it effects my already sad mana efficiency. First step, getting some more gems, all Crimson Spinels, to do some regemming. When i get around to pvp'ing for the neck piece (bracers are on ice till I get an arena team with a half decent rating) I'll gem that all damagealicious. More later, its almost bedtime.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Love: Its what makes a Subaru a... Tank?

In all my years (yes, years) of WoWing, theres really nothing I've ever found I love more then a good tank. I've been a little nostalgic lately. Thinking about 'back in the day' moments. What Lucifron was hard and the words Chromagnus, and broze/blue used in the same sentence struck fear into the hears of casters everywhere. When 5 spell damage on a Tier item really was pretty good. In all this, fron my first RFC run (I started as horde) to the last Hyjal run I was in, nothing has stirred my heart to true devotion then a good tank.

Yeah, this might seen to be off from Shamanism, but not so! What are Ele Shammies known most for? Our great, big, steaming crit rating. Crit can be directly liked to threat. big crit, big threat. Lots of crit? You get it. Or so I hope. Enhance shammies aren't spared from this. nothing says aggro like a string of Windfury crits! I've said a few times, a guild is only as good as its main tank. you can interchange 'Guild', with 'Raid', 'Heroic', '5-man'... You live and die by your tank. Crappy tank, crappy run. Period. I was a tank for a year and a half, I know the stress involved. So, ladies and gentlemen of the DPS roles, please, let us take a moment to really think about those badtions of power and defense rating we cower behind. Over whose shoulders we shoot our magic missiles.

A moment of realism. 9 times out of 10, if you died in a fight, its probably your fault. Very few things really can be blamed on 'luck'. Even fewer can be blamed on tanks. It takes alot to prove a bad tank to me. most warriors, but the very best, look like crap in a H. SH run with 1 CC. Paladins never look good in a fight with mana burns. And some bear tanks... well.... I can't name off a specific kind of fight that bears flail in. But I've seen bad bears!

To truely know if your tank sucks would require seeing them in their best light, and they still fail miserably. With tanks in my guild, it takes multiple nights of raiding for me to judge one way or another if they need help.

This is my small, "Dear god I love you... I just crit 9 times in a row" post. I know 5 tanks who I really, fully trust. 2 of them I wouldnt hesitate (and I do) open up my first CL with Elemental Mastery and heroism up, and never worry. G and also G my friends who can sustain 1-1200TPS.

This post was prompted by my scrrenshots folder. I have a few of my favorite warriors doing 1200 TPS+, all on different kinds of fights, including right after busting sheeps. I don't have any with Surania in them, but I dont need screenies. I've had a love/hate relationship with his threat since the day he pulled Fish Boss off me in ZG. Memories =) I hated him that day, but the day I didn't stop DPSing through Leo's whirlwind and really wasn't worried about the pick-up... Mmm. Good tanks my friends, good tanks.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Questions, comments, aches or pains?

Hello again! Hoping this will only turn out to be a quick update, and a question to be posed.

On the glove front, I've got all the mats, including sun motes! I'm a very lucky Shaman, when I announced my primal farming spree, 4 of my guildies pitched in to help farm and even donate primals from their own stocks, I'm more grateful then I can say, that would have been SUCH a long ordeal without them. We did a Sunwell Plateau trash run and got 6 'motes, which the guild bank gave to me, as I was the only one who had all my mats. Swoot! Now I'm just waiting for the tailor who can make it.... the only one Ally side... to log on. Guh. On the gear front, that leaves me to farming honor for the two new S4 pieces I need. Not actual arean gear, mind you, thank god. Just the bracers and neck piece. The bracers need a, i think its 1525 arena rating. I put together a 3v3 that I respec resto for. I'll prolly make some posts on my experience as a pvp-healer. Lets face it, pve healing isnt that involved. More involved then what I do, but I'm not sure I could put together an interesting post about healing in SSC. I've done it, more times then I'd like to admit, as I'm the first person to respec if we're down a healy bit, but I just don't think I can make it interesting.

I mean, I could hell about max heal crits, but thats not as fun as massive 5k chain lightnings.

I've seen those. Before the coeficent nerf, when I was only in T5/ZA badge gear, I actually was seeing 4k crits. Then they nerfed me, and in my gear now a 4.5k crit is damn impressive.

Thats all on the gear front, for now. I do have a question to pose, and I REALLY want oppinions. A friend suggested needing only 35% crit, which is even lower then our occasionally misguided friends at Elitist Jerks suggest. My personal philosophy has alway been upwards of 42%. But he made a good point for a lower crit rating. Before the "change" to clearcasting, every crit would put up the buff decreasing the mana cost of your next spell by 100%. It was a beautiful thing, and the crux of our very existence. The whole reason for a massive 50% or even more crit rating. More crit directly meant more clearcasting. Hokay. The talent was changed. On each crit, your next two spells have their mana cost reduced by 40%. Does this mean we need roughly half the crit we needed before? My thought was, fuck it. Keep the huge crit rating. Clearcasting will be up almost constantly. Right? Well, yes. The buff is up almost constantly. My Shaman compadre points out, that second charge of clearcasting is almost always being "wasted".

Spell 1 crits
x2 clearcasting buff
Cast spell 2 (spell uses 1 charge of clearcasting, 1 charge remains.)
Spell 2 crits
x2 clearcasting

Theres our problem, as he puts it. That second clearcasting charge was never used. In reality, does it matter? I don't really think so. Thats not what he's getting at. If, say, you dropped your crit chance to a number where critting twice in a row was not the norm, you would use both charges of clearcasting. Replace all the crit you drop with spell damage. The idea is, you don't lose precious mana efficiency, but gain spell damage. Spell damage that will directly increase your DPS and damage done. Its an interesting idea. I would love to test it out, but I don't have the gold to change all my gems, let alone change them all back if the idea flopped.

So my call for opinions! Please, I'd like to hear what people think about the above crit rating proposition. I'll be more tempted to try it if it isn't just one person poking me to try it. Doesnt even need to be opinions from other shamans. Any decent player could grasp the idea and give me their 2 copper *cough Surania cough*

Cheers!