Random Pictures that Amuse Me

Hey gang!

If you're like me, you Screen Shot anything that you feel is beautiful, Important, or just plain funny. I've accrued quite a few since I switched computers and I figured you might find them at least remotely interesting.

The Staring Contest!

The Gnome didn't feel that it was fair that I tower over her so I decided to stoop to her level. Stupid Gnome tricked me! See that little version of herself? During the second hour of our contest, it ran up & kicked me in the shins. Never Trust a Gnome in a Santa Suit! Especially one who has a Clone!

Buy Mah Fruit or the Humon Getz it!

Apparently Applebough has been getting a little testy with me as of late. You see, I normally just sell my junk that I get from Ice Crown when I return and really haven't looked at his wares since Naxx. I think he's finally had it and grew into a Oak Tree! Last I saw of him, he stomped on a Hunter's Spirit Beast out of rage and the Dalaran mages ported him out. I wonder where they sent him...

 

The No Pants Dance!

So many people were talking about having mana issues and Paladin tanks doing Crazy things in order to keep from going OOM. I took it upon myself to try out a little Experiment if you will. I've heard Rumors RUMORS I SAY! That if you take off your pants, helm, or other pieces of gear and are still over 535 Defense for Heroics, you shouldn't have many problems regarding mana since you are now taking more damage. Needless to Say, I still had to be careful about mana but my Husband had a nice view while I was tanking ;)

Wonder what Priests do when they aren't healing?

I bring you Exibit A Ladies & Gentlemen.

So there you have it! A small taste of what I see on a regular basis in good ol' Azeroth. I hope these don't disrupt your sleeping patterns.

<3 Fuu

Paradigm Shifts

What would you like to see in the next-gen MMO? What problems do you perceive in your current gaming diet that you think could be improved on? I think those are two common questions that most gamers ask themselves on a daily basis. We're always looking forward to the next Big Thing, or trying to come up with ways that it could be "just a little bit better". That, or we're unleashing torrents of QQ. It depends on your preferred method of feedback, I suppose.

Every once in a while, we have some good ideas. Other times, we have ideas that we think are good, but turn out to be pie-in-the-sky dreams. Then there are the ideas that are just bad. We'll have those too. Regardless of which category the ideas are falling under, I think there is one thing we can agree on, and that's that the next big MMO should do some things fundamentally differently than what's already out there. It shouldn't just be a copy with a few tweaks, though those type of games can still be fun. No, to truly be able to call itself the next-generation of MMOs, it needs to be something special. Something novel. Something that engages our imaginations.

Thankfully, it is not my job to come up with the next-gen MMO. From what I know of gamers and gamer culture, I can guess it'll take a truly Herculean effort and some really imaginative ideas. After all, what we have available to us now is pretty darn good. Still, I can't help but have my own ideas from time to time, and I submit one such idea today for your collective consideration.

One of the staples of pretty much any MMO on the market today is the concept of leveling and what that means for a character. Traditionally speaking, leveling is the process by which a character progresses in the MMO arena, becoming more powerful along the way in order to face more epic challenges. There can be caps to the level number, but even then most of the focus is on how to make your character more powerful. That's the key, right? We all want to be the hero. We all want to have the one ring to rule them all, or at least enough purple gear that we can compete at the highest level of content we desire.

It's not that everyone is an elitist, or even a min/maxer.  It's that the game is designed around the fact that everyone wants to get stronger as they play. A game in which you would be doing the same amount of damage months or even years after you started would seem kind of pointless. Or would it? The paradigm in operation here is that character progression almost always equals bigger numbers. Whether it be DPS, threat, damage absorbed, or healing output, we grow our characters to be able to do more. To put up the bigger numbers.

But there are several problems with this approach. First among them: a significant level gap prevents group play. In a game genre that is supposed to revolve around the mentality of group play, this is a major issue. No matter what game you're talking about, a level one usually has trouble keeping up with a level twenty. So much trouble that it is often unreasonable to expect those two people to be able to play together. Several games that I know of have tried to remedy this with things like bonus experience for a friend to quickly decrease the game or some sort of "sidekick" option whereby the higher level character is modified to be equivalent to a lower level in power (or visa versa).

A second major problem is that this requires a high amount of tuning on the end of the developers. Stats have to scale. Health has to scale. Boss and dungeon difficulty all have to scale, and as we've seen in WoW, sometimes when you get to those higher levels, things don't scale as anticipated, creating tuning on top of tuning. I've actually always wondered just how much time and effort goes into understanding and tweaking the math in a game. I mean, as players we do enough of that ourselves, but I have to believe the developers exponentialize our efforts. (Yes, I just made that word up.)  

In any case, these problems all stem from the same thing: In MMOs, the current design for progression is to increase in power over time.  My suggestion is that we change that.  What if, instead of power, we just got faster at our skills?  Let's say you're a caster.  When you start this theoretical game, you have a bunch of skills, but they all have cast times.  Maybe you have a few basic instant cast spells, but all of the cool stuff takes you time to cast.  From a story standpoint, this is understandable since as an early student of something, it would take you longer to make sure you got the incantations, or hand gestures, or whatever right.  Let's say you're a melee class.  Perhaps then you would swing your weapon a lot slower, and also take more time to execute your special combos.  Once again, this makes sense as maybe you don't have the strength or familiarity with the weapon yet to be efficient.

Then, as you progress, instead of increasing the damage, you increase your speed.  Things that used to take three seconds to cast, now take only two.  Combos are preformed more fluidly, back to back.  Maybe you can start chaining things together better, where before it was longer between spells or moves.  You would do more damage because you are faster, not because you have bigger numbers. 

This would allow for a whole different type of tuning and a different type of grouping.  Instead of a low level being utterly worthless in a group to a high level, they might actually be able to do some damage.  Sure they'd be slower, but the abilities they could use would still hit for full power.  Maybe they could just be on CC or some other sort of utility, while the higher level takes the brunt of the damage responsibilities.  In my eyes, it opens up all kinds of new design options.  How would you handle gear?  How would you handle new abilities that could be learned, or end game design?

I would imagine that by the time you're a "master", or at the end game, that you would still feel pretty powerful because you'd have all these spells that you could work together, chain together quickly, and feel like a badass.   After all, in fictional stories, isn't that how wizards and battlemasters progress?  Their sword doesn't suddenly strike for more damage (though they may have gotten physically stronger, and maybe that could be taken into account).  A fireball is a fireball.  It's going to burn the target either way.  What happens is they usually get better at what they're doing, so that it takes less effort.  They're quicker, they're better at combining their abilities to succeed, and yes, they learn more powerful spells.  You could still integrate the more powerful aspect, but it wouldn't have to be the main driving force.

Any good WoW caster can tell you: haste is addicting in the game.  It's something we love to get, even when it's not necessarily the best stat.  Why?  Because there's just something fun about being able to do our usual spells faster.  It's the same reasons some of the most exciting cinematic fight scenes are when the hero slices through a whole host of enemies in an eye blink.  It's action.

Maybe the idea is bad, or pie-in-the-sky, but maybe it's good too.  The point here is that for any next-gen MMO to feel novel, we're going to have to see some sort of paradigm shift.  The developers of this theoretical game are going to have to take an old, accepted mechanic and turn it on it's head.  But when they do, oh boy does it open a world of opportunities.  Sometimes I get excited and impatient just thinking about it, and apparently I'm not alone.  I mean, just listen to the QQ :-). 

Happy Birthday Bloggers

Funny story, so S&S double-dinged on the 18th right?  Well, I beat them by one day and dinged on the 17th.  How 'bout them apples.  I think I may have known that her birthday was so close to mine, somewhere way in the back of my mind, but there's always that one second of "ZOMG, you're b-day is right before mine!", especially when you just read about it. 

So anyways, from one birthday boy to another birthday couple: Woot for almost always having a long weekend near our b-days :-).

(Yes, I used to always tell people who forgot about MLK day that we got the day off because I was born.  "Check your calendar.  Monday. Off.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.")

I'm apparently in the middle of a bracket too.  Can I still turn exp off?  I don't see any advantage to letting it continue to run...

AI: Spiritmastering at 35

Aion had been taking a back seat, writing wise, since WoW introduced the last major patch. Game-time wise wasn't much different, but I was logging some good weekend hours to take advantage of the double exp offered. That promotion is over now, but I still am spending a lot of time in Atreia on the weekends.  Having hit 35 now, it seemed like a good time to update my Spiritmaster guide.  As usual, I start with a copy/paste and add or rewrite from there.  So here we go.


Stigmas
At 35, you will have 3 stigma slots open. Here's what I'm currently using:

• Ignite Aether I - Extremely useful, instant cast removal of three buffs.  Great for PvE (i.e. mobs that do the temporary stone skin thingy) and PvP (who isn't buffed out in the Abyss?)
• Absorb Vitality III - Hits for a good amount plus returns you health.  A great spell to have.
• Sigil of Silence I - This is great for finishing off both monsters and other players.  Being able to silence spellcasting for a bit is a great utility to have on top of removing buffs. 
  

Spell Usage
When attacking a PvE mob, I lead off by sending in my pet with an abilities or two (more on pets later). Then I put my dots up. From there, I move to nuking or utility spells. Your dots are Erosion and Chain of Earth. The nuke spells are Flame Bolt and Ice Chain.  Since Ice Chain and Chain of Earth share a cooldown,  you usually have to choose between the two.  Normally I lead off with Chain of Earth and then would utilize Ice Chain later in my rotation. 

The utility spells consist mainly of your stigmas, as listed above. You have acquire the ability to heal your pet, and summoned servants.  I like throw a pet heal if the pet needs it and immediately follow it with an Absorb Vitality, healing me for what I threw at the pet. This seems to work pretty well. Also, I like to use the combination of Summoning Alacrity (a skill you gain that makes summons instant cast) and summon one of my servants (depends on pet choice).  I tend to get a servant set up before I move to nuking.  Finally, applying things like Stone Skin or having the pet Re-taunt the mob if I'm using it as a tank also fall under the utility banner.

So for a PvE mob, my thinking goes basically like this:

1. Send in my pet.
   
2. Dots! And a Servant if Alacrity is up.
   
3. Check if any of my utility is needed.
   
4. Deal Damage with nukes and pet abilities.
   

During my damage dealing, I'll always keep an eye on what's going on to be ready if my utility is needed (i.e. dispelling that annoying stone skin buff on mobs).  I usually only use a servant if alacrity is up, and generally don't refresh it because it seems like stuff dies to quickly for two rounds to fully complete. 

It seems that Spiritmasters can really eat through the mana, so I try to be conservative when running instances and such.  The addition of Spirit Absorption to our ability pool really helps with this though, and if you use that, then a pet heal, then absorb vitality... it's almost like free mana.  Almost.

For Crowd Control abilities, it's important to note that we have both Root and Fear.  Root is great in PvE as long as the mob isn't ranged.  We're not the CC masters that Sorcerers are, but a well placed root can help things out quite a bit.  Fear is okay in a PvE when you have tons of room (where things won't aggro), but it's great in a PvP situation since it allows you to go to town on an otherwise controlled individual.

Pet Choice
By the time you hit 35, you should definitely have each pet (hopefully higher ranks too). A couple of the pets are drop dependant, but if you haven't gotten the drop for at least rank one of each pet, you should probably pick it up at the auction house. This will give you four spirits:

1. Fire Spirit - After getting rank 3 of this guy, I've been using him as my main tanking mob when duo'ing with Fuu, my assassin counterpart. He has a strong taunt and pretty decent survivability. At this point, he's probably out 80% of the time.  Until I get other rank 3's, he'll be my go-to spirit.
   
2. Wind Spirit - After getting rank 2 of this pet, he's was main consideration for straight DPS. His survivability and taunt are weak, so don't use him as a tank. He can put out some good damage though, so in a group environment where I'm with a tank and a healer, I'll use this guy if I don't feel like going Fire with the higher rank. I probably pull this guy out 15% of the time, leaving the other 5% split between my last two pets.
   
3. Earth Spirit - This spirit is stuck at rank 2 and for a while he was my main tanking consideration. His shield ability is pretty handy, giving him above average survivability, however his taunt isn't as strong as the Fire Spirit's. Thus, the only reason I might use him right now is in a group that lacks adequate CC. He might be able to output decent DPS while allowing a temporary tanking of a renegade mob. I haven't really had reason to use him yet. Once I get rank three, I may pull him out to tank a bit just for kicks.
   
4. Water Spirit - I've still haven't gotten rank 2 of this spirit yet, and it's too expensive for me to justify right now. He happens to be our lone ranged pet and is drop dependent. I tended to use this guy in large scale PvP encounters, but haven't really been in one for a while now. It's nice to have him sit back and pop damage on melee classes, goading them into getting close enough for a Templar to yank or for someone to root. Also, the ranged nature can keep him off of a player's radar longer than a pet that's gnawing on said player's leg. Plus, in PvP, taunting doesn't matter, so the weak taunt doesn't matter, though he is a bit of a glass cannon if he gets focused on.

That's all the pets I've picked up at this point in time. Higher ranked pets are looming on my horizon, but I'll probably still pull the spirits out in the same situations. The percentage of usage probably reflects my percentage of type of gameplay more than anything, but it should give you a small idea of how often I'm using certain pets. It was great when they made our spirits able to fly too, and spirit speed is definitely a consideration when trolling the abyss.  I don't want to have to re-summon all the time, so I usually run with the wind spirit since he can keep up the best.

The pet abilities I mentioned using above vary based on the pet you're using. Basically though, I try to use the Thunderclaw as a "pet attack" in my rotation above. The set up abilities include the two that are on longer cooldowns (one's a buff and the other is a debuff) and the taunt. I obviously only use the taunt when I'm using my pet to tank, and in that case it's often what I lead off with. Then, I'll only reapply when I see the mob running at me, leading to a little bit of a ping-pong effect. The other abilities I just try use when they are off cooldown, being sure to save the increased drop-rate ability for boss fights when applicable.

A small side note: I choose which servant to use based on which pet I used. Most of your pets weaken your target to a specific school of magic that is aligned them. Thus, my theory is that it helps to use the same servant, since you'll get more bang for your buck. It's hard to really test any of these theories since I don't have a damage meter like I do in WoW, but it seems to make sense from reading the tool tips.

PvP Encounters
For small scale encounters, Dots are my best friend. I try to Chain of Earth anything right away and then hopefully get a stun out of the chain. If that happens, I might throw in a nuke, depending on the situation. If not, Erosion is quick on the heals of CoE. At this point, I usually check to see how much my initial salvo hurt them for. By that, I can usually judge how much of a chance I have. At this crucial point, it's fight or flight. Either way I probably have to keep the player away from me, but if I'm doing zippo damage, I'll probably just run for it, saving my root spell for if they catch up to me.

If I'm hitting them for a good chunk, I might try to get some distance and pull out one of my servants to bother the player. Other than that, it's time for fancy evasion and keeping those dots refreshed. If I get enough space, I'll try to throw in a fire chain. This strategy has served me well, keeping me alive most of the time, if not always victorious.

For a large scale encounter, the difference is that you're going to have to really pay attention to your range. The LAST thing you want to do is get yanked into the fray by some over-eager Templar. Thus, I usually hang back, looking for the opportunity to slap a dot on someone. Most players seem to dance back and forth, so I find it advantageous to focus on one person and nail them every time they get too close, leading off with my CoE to slow them. Sometimes, this delays enough that our Templar will yank them and then they're in bad shape.

A final tactic I mentioned a bit earlier is to send you pet in to annoy a player. For melee, it's particularly effective if you use your water spirit. Some players see a spirit and run out to kill it, forgetting that they've just brought themselves within range of our Templar. It's annoying as a melee to have to sit there and let someone's puny water spirit take pot shots at you. Also, just the general harassment effect of it gives me pleasure, even if it doesn't really kill anyone. Getting in their heads can sometimes goad a player into making a tactical error.

To be honest though, I'm still learning a lot about this part of the game. I've been involved in a lot of PvE, a moderate amount of small scale PvP, and just a handful of large scale PvP encounters. I really enjoy the large scale stuff, but it just doesn't always happen and even then frame rates can be iffy (and I'm on a good machine!).  I'm not sure what happened, because the frame rates I get in large scale stuff tends to vary with each patch.  Previous patches I'd been easily able to join in huge battles and not have massive lag, but right now I can't without getting abysmal (ha, pun) frame rates.  I'm hoping they continue to work with the game engine to find a solid solution, but, for right now, there are plenty of other things to do.

Wrap Up
So here's hoping that some of this experience finds other Spiritmasters out there and is of use. If you're a spiritmaster, please leave me your thoughts. Have you found some of these tactics useful? Do you know of ones I didn't mention. With such a young game, class specific help seems hard to find, but I'd like to at least relate what I've learned through experience and research here.

19 Elemental Shaman Twink: Update

Hey Gang!

I wanted to give you an update on my level 19 Elemental Shaman Twink. Once I hit level 19 I road the boat to Stormwind and found the creepy rogue in the corner and payed my 10g dues and shut off my precious XP gains. Now the fun begins.

I warn you, this is quite long and informational. If you aren't really in to Twinks or shaman, I suggest you just click read on your feed reader and look for another days post :P

This is the gear I'm currently wearing:

Flying Tiger Goggles- I dropped leatherworking and picked up Engineering for the ability to wear the Goggles. Other than these, the only other viable helm available to anyone at this lvl would be the Fishing Hat from the Stranglethorn Fishing Tournament. It is extremely hard to win especially on a pvp server. A lvl 19 in stranglethorn is like bait if you don't have bodyguards to protect you from certain death.This is a wussy way out if you ask me :)

Thick Bronze Necklace- Since I have a Jewelcrafter, I made myself the +3 Stam necklace. I've looked at other twinks and this is pretty much the norm. I'll poke around and see if any of the instances offer anything better for me in terms of drops.

Aged Pauldrons of the Five Thunders- I ended up buying the pvp BoA pieces that are made for Shaman. Some people say that you are not a true twink if you have BoA gear. They are probably correct in that there is most-likely something better out there but I doubt that they have +Resilience on anything that is level 19 or lower.

Mystical Vest of the Elements- I used some of Fuu's endless supply of Triumph Emblems and downgraded them to Heroism for the PvE chest. This is a pretty decent Piece of gear for this level. I've been really trying to only gear with Leather for the +armor on them verse a Cloth piece but the major problem is you will mainly find +Int, +Spirit, +SP, on Cloth while you find +Str, +Agility, on Leather pieces. My previous chest was actually a really decent green that I found on the AH but it was cloth. Once I purchased the BoA, it was leather but if I remember correctly, I actually lost some stats. Over all though, I'm happy that I bought it.

Inscribed Leather Bracers- I dug up a decent green from the AH. I'm a total Auction House Bargain shopper! Every day that I log in, I'll do a quick sweep of all leather & cloth pieces for level 10-19. If I find a piece that is an upgrade in any way and is at a reasonable price (less than 10g) I'll usually buy it. Though you have to be careful if you are looking for the "BEST" piece gold can buy because someone else knows that it's good for a twink and will jack up the price considerably  ranging from 100-300g. Now, I'm not saying that these pieces are not really good pieces but in all seriousness, I'll be doing a lot of homework on if it is the BiS for an elemental shaman at 19. If it is, and I plan to stay in this bracket for a while, I might invest in them or if they are crafted items, have someone make them for me.

Spidersilk Drape- This was my actual big ticket item. I dropped a whole 50g on the Silken Drap (I'll have to look this up when I get home for actual name & spelling) This is one of the best caster cloaks for this level. A good quality cloak is hard to find and when you do, you need to grab it up like it's going out of style. It is a tailored piece but the mats are retardedly hard to farm and 50g was definatly worth it. I think they normally sell for around 100-150g so 50g was a bargain.

Feral Gloves of the Eagle- I've actually been trying to replace these when I run instances. I've seen a few upgrades drop both Cloth & leather that were complete upgrades but I've lost the roll on all of them. I've also been trying to decide with ones I wanted to go with. There is a wide variety of gloves out there for Elemental shaman. Anywhere from +int & +stam (which I'm actually sporting now) to +SP. There are blues that drop in Wailing Caverns that have +int, +Stam, & +spirit cloth and those are my goal as of right now. I believe that the stats outway the +armor that I would get from a leather piece.

Bright Belt- AH buy. This also seems to drop from a heap of lower instances as well if you want to save some gold.

Bandit Pants of the Eagle- AH buy

Walking Boots- AH buy. I think these are from a Rare Spawn

Rings- One of these babies is from my Jewelcrafter Simple Pearl Ring and the other is with my Honor Points/ Badges from Warsong Gulch Lorekeeper's Ring. I was actually pretty disappointed with what can buy at this level with the millions of HP and Warsong Gulch marks. 1 Ring, 1 Staff, (look up what alliance can buy). Only the ring had potential in all of this. Pretty sad stuff if you ask me. I think blizzard really needs to go back & fluff this stuff up. Especially if you have twinks who have been doing this for so long that their Honor Points are maxed with nothing to spend them on.

Trinket- I bought the Swift Hand of Justice haste trinket. My other slot is currently empty awaiting for the pvp movement trinket. I may buy with Stone Keeper Shards (250) Inherited Insignia of the Alliance  BoA as well.

Sergeant's Warhammer of Healing- I found a nice +SP mace, I think from the AH. Again, good caster weapons are hard to find that aren't staves.

Forest Buckler- I found an awesome Shield for a whole whooping 75 silver on the AH. It's a little squatty thing but it's perfect for my shammy. Gives me more survivability than a Staff.

Enchants:

Helm- None
Shoulder- None
Back - Funny story about this. When I found the awesomely delectable cloak, it was also enchanted for me with +50 Armor. This was truly the best thing ever!
Chest- +100 health
Bracer - +7 Intellect
Gloves- +10 Haste Not really sure what else would be better for me but hey, cast your crap faster can't be a bad thing.
Belt- None
Legs- +16 Armor from the leatherworking Patches
Feet- +5 Stamina
Main Hand- Need to enchant. Just need to find something that's reasonable for a 1 hand caster.
Off-Hand- +HP5 & +MP5

Stats: (as of 01-18-2010)

Unbuffed:

Health: 891
Mana: 1,161
Spell Power: 37
Crit: 7.04%
Haste: 9.83%
Armor: (without my totems) 995
Resilliance: 5

Totally twinked out individuals normally run around 1,600-2000 health which is something that I'm going to aim for if I stay in this bracket. I've found this it's actually funny to run lower level instances with non-twinks because their health is so low. Sad really. I never top Damage charts though because most of the time, I'm ending up healing or things die too fast that it's just too much mana to lay down my searing totem than to just melee things to death.

Professions:

Engineering- For the helm mainly and the bombs that you can make that are quite fun and useful.
Herbalism- Lifebloom, Lifebloom, Lifebloom. This is like an insta HoT that could save your life. Now, I was stupid and forgot to check to see if this worked a long with Gift of the Naru before I dropped my 150 lvl skinning for this. So, if you are a Draeni, skip this one and pick up something else.
Skinning- +Crit which is nice to have for any class at this level because there are few pieces that actually have crit on them.
Mining- +Stamina is the bonus that you receive for this. This is something that's Viable for all twinks if you ask me! edit: for some unknown reason I thought this was +strength. Thank you for pointing this out to me :D
Leatherworking- This was my initial Profession that I chose because I thought I could make some decent blue gear for my shaman. I dug around and really found that, no, this was not the case. I dropped this and picked up Engineering instead.
Inscription- There really isn't much you can do with this profession other than maybe save yourself some precious silver if you want to buy glyphs. I suggest just buying them off the AH or have a friend make them for you.
Blacksmithing- I'll actually have to see if there is any viably stuff that you can craft for an elemental shaman such as Maces or Shields. From what I've seen, no.
Alchemy- This would be a good pair if you choose to have herbalism as your second profession. you can make your own health & mana potions along with some +intellect elixirs if you so choose to have that extra boost. Since Fuubaar is my alchemist, I didn't really feel it necessary to have another.

My suggestion is for an Elemental Shaman would definitely be Engineering for the helm and bombs, and herbalism if you are not a draeni. If you are a draeni, then it's a toss up for skinning, Alchemy, or Mining. It all depends on you and your circumstances.

My spec looks a little unorthodox. This little project was to create an elemental Shaman but the more I keep reading, it's not the "BEST" spec at this level. Actually, if I wasn't so gung ho about being elemental, I would probably go Enhancement. This is why:

Dump my first 5 points into +intellect to reach the second level in the enhancement tree to got to the Ghost Wolf form that makes it instant cast. This, by far, is so OP. The only other class that has a travel form is the druid. Shaman and Druids make some of the best Flag carriers in Warsong Gulch mainly for this reason alone. Speed! get your ass into the other sides Flag room and get the hell outta there asap! The last points are normally spent on lowering the cast time on our only healing spell in the Resto tree.

So, since I am not going this route I wanted to stay in the Elemental Tree and beef spells up that way. I make good use out of my Gift of the Naru as my mobile heal and if I get the chance to duck behind a corner, I can cast my OMG slow heal. It's pretty powerful though if you can get it off. It will pretty much heal you to full if you have caster gear on. Since I usually dont have the luxuray of time, I bandage or if I have a real emergency, I'll pop a health pot so that I can get the hell outta there.

This is what I came up with for an Elemental Shaman Spec.

As you can see, I spread my points out on the top row. I feel that Elemental Shaman are horrible mana suckers. We run oom any chance we get. Running OOM during a BG spells certain death for caster. So I spent them in reducing the costs of my totems and improving my damage done by those spells. I figure if I can burst the player down faster, I'm using less mana the more powerful the spell is. This got me to the second tier so I invested 3/3 in  6% damage reduction. Who doesn't want that in a BG? Yummy stuff let me tell you. That's how I spent my 9 talent points.

Again, I could have spent them differently if I wanted to spec in the best way possible as an Shaman at level 19 but I want to be an Elemental Damn it! Here is my wowhead link if you would like to see it for yourself.

Anyways, this is getting ridiculously too long, even for my own taste. Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, ZOMG L2PvP, you know the drill. Thanks :)

<3 Fuu

When Worlds Collide

Thick, black smoke roiled beside the airship, tracing a path off into the distance where the Horde ship had fled. Fulguralis landed roughly back on the wooden deck and took a mental inventory.  The Dwarf Priest stood over near one of the massive cannons, casually dusting the soot off her robes.  His Paladin wife landed nearby with a fiery flourish and tucked her shield around her back before fetching a small beverage container that had been concealed somewhere inside of her armor.  Taking a quick swig, she glanced around guiltily.

The rest of the group gathered raucously around the Druid of the group, chanting loudly for him to change into a bear.  Fulguralis rolled his eyes.  He had heard rumor about the lack of jetpack design consideration for the bulk of a bear.  It was childish, but all the same the Warlock watched intently from a distance.  The druid held his hands out to silence the group, reaching out to accept a pack from one of the engineers on-board.

A puff of white smoke obscured him for a moment.  When it cleared, a snarling bear stood where the Druid had just been.  Sure enough, the straps of the jetpack, having been designed for bipedal adventurers, did not fit quite properly.  In fact, the pack situated naturally in such a way that the business end of the device was on the butt of the bear.  The group looked on expectantly as the snarling bear turned this way and that, demonstrating the situation of the device.  With a bearish grin, he activated the device.

Fire spewed forth as if originating from within the bowls of the bear.  Literally.  To Fulguralis, it looked like explosive flatulence.  The group roared with laughter and even the Warlock had to snicker.  It didn't get much better that fart jokes after successfully thwarting the plans of the Horde.  Comically, the massive bear zipped around the airship while the group pointed and laughed.  Several of the alliance officers ducked as they nearly got clawed by the buzzing beast.

Eventually, though, the airship found a place to dock on the side of the Citadel and slowed to a stop.  A tortured scream reminded the group that, while fun could be found in adventure, this was ultimately a very serious search and rescue mission.  The smiles drained from the faces of the group, and a look of hard resolve replaced mirth.  It was time to get back to business.

As one, the group left the relative safety of the airship and stepped onto the Citadel platform.  Steel rasped loudly as weapons were unsheathed in unison.  Warily, the adventurers spread out, anxious to get on with the next challenge to bar their path.  Fulguralis hung to the back and side of the group as he watched his wife stalk forward with a stout, Dwarven Warrior at her side.  Small particles of shadow seemed to swirl around the Warlock's hands as he prepared to launch an attack on anything that moved.

"Pssst!" The tap on his shoulder made him jump.

Fulguralis spun swiftly to find himself face to face with a rather odd pair of Gnomes.  "I almost killed you, right there, you have no idea!" he whispered threateningly.  One Gnome stood a step or two in front of the other, and the looked an unlikely pair.  The one in front had a long, white mustache, curled on both ends, and green eyes glinted with mischief.  The second Gnome was staring intently at his own feet, his clean shaven face laden with thick, round spectacles.  "Who the fel are you?" Fulguralis asked.

"Why sir, we are but two simple travelers, sent to aid you on your journey," Mustache said with a dramatic gesture of grandiosity.

Fulguralis eyed the Gnome back suspiciously, "Who sent you?"

The Gnome looked puzzled for a moment before answering, "I know not, my Liege.  My colleague here," he gestured towards Glasses, "is a studied disciple of the Light.  We go where he is called."

"I think he's had a bit too much Light," Fulguralis said, observing the absurdly thick lenses.  "Are you his keeper?"

"You could say that," Mustache replied.  "I prefer to think of myself as an Adviser.  I've studied long and hard in the King's library and traveled abroad gaining the knowledge and wisdom of the Ages."  Fulguralis stared blankly at the Gnome, still not understanding.  Why here?  Why now?  Seeing this, the Gnome continued hastily, "I am The Mouth, and he is The Hand."

"Mouth and hand of what, exactly?" Fulguralis asked.

"Why the Twisted Nether, of course," Mustache answered.

"I want nothing to do with the Nether," Fulguralis declared, turning his back on the travelers.

"That would be most unwise, good sir," Mustache explained, spreading his arms.  "Not all of the Nether is tainted by evil.  We come to offer guidance."

"I don't need guidance," the Warlock replied, keeping his back turned.

"Look, if you want to defeat the Deathbringer that will, in a few scant moments, make an appearance upon that raised dais, you might pay heed to the advice that the Wisdom of the Ages has to offer," Mustache said with a trace of annoyance in his voice for the first time.

"How do you know what will come through that door?" Fulguralis asked over his shoulder, one eye on the strange pair.

"It is of no consequence.  The Circumference of Time stretches beyond this place, driven by a force that is not of this world.  Even if I could explain, the words would fall upon deaf ears.  My mission here is simple: you must take this, and make use of it as the Mighty Blue Creator wills."  Mustache gestured to Glasses, who produced a rumpled sheet of parchment from a concealed pocket.  Gigantic, magnified eyes focused on the Warlock, and hesitant feet brought the paper within Fulguralis's reach.  He snatched the gift from a trembling hand and looked at it skeptically.

"What is this?" Fulguralis asked.  He got down on one knee in order to view the document and so that Mustache could peer over his shoulder.

"Why, it is a strategy!  Tailored for your group!"

Fulguralis saw a rough sketch of the room they now stood in.  On the dais, several pictures were drawn, symbols that obviously represented a few members of their group.   The placing of his wife and her Warrior counterpart were rather obvious.  There was an archer for the Hunter and a Totem for the Shaman.  For the Warlock and Mage, however, the pictures looked the same.  Then there were two symbols that seemed to represent the healers, though one seemed as if it were a mistake.

"Okay, I understand most of the symbols here, but why are there two Warlocks.  We have only one in our group, me."

"Ah, the other is the mage," the Gnome said a bit bashfully.  "You know, Warlock, Mage.  What's the difference really?"  A small geyser of fire erupted under the Gnome, sending him jumping into the air.  "I'm sorry, sir!  Really!  There is much difference!  I misspoke!"

"Hmmph," Fulguralis grunted and the geyser went away.  "I see a red cross, which I take to be one of our healing members, but what is this last thing?"  Fulguralis pointed at the other red symbol.

The Gnome frowned, "Why the Priest, of course."  He then squinted over the shoulder of the warlock as if noticing something for the first time.  Turning to Glasses, he abruptly smacked the timid Gnome upside the head.  "You dolt!  I told you to draw something Priestly, not something Panty.  Oh dear!  My apologies good Warlock.  I swear the strategy is valid, despite my colleague's poor hearing."

Surprise washed over the Mustache's face as Fulguralis doubled over, shaking with laughter.  "Thanks you two... Ha!  Panty!  You may... go now!"  The Warlock could hardly talk between bouts of laughter.  "We will... take this... under adv... isement.  Priestly Panties!  Ha!"

Mustache looked at Glasses, who merely shrugged and walked back towards the airship.

"Hey!  Jessabelle!" Fulguralis shouted with mock innocence.  "I have a present here for you!"

Castsequence Random

I was going to post something really ranty and negative about the whole Elephant of DPS is easy.  After I'd written it though, I decided it was not worthy of posting.  Believe it or not, that doesn't often happen for me.  When blogging, I'm pretty much a stream-of-consciousness writer.  A lot of times I'll do research and grab links and what not, but for the most part, what you get is me sitting down for a half hour and pounding something out that's on my mind.  I also write fiction on the side, and that process is totally different.  I'd like all the extra time and thought makes my "serious" fiction better than my IC Friday posts, but there are definitely times when I feel like all the time spent editing is a waste, because just writing roughly isn't always a bad thing.

Writer's Corner aside, I didn't want to completely scrap all of what I'd done, plus I have a few other random thoughts bumping around that aren't really worthy of a full post of their own... so today is going to be a bit random.  So, in the form of a list, here are my random thoughts.  Make of them what you will.

• We took a group into Nexus last night.  We ran with four DPS and a tank.  No healer, No problems.  Healing must be easy mode (/sarcasm).
• The most important part of any group in any game is what we, as players, make of it.
• In the world of MMOs, diversity is King.  Sure you can do stuff with all one type of player/class, but the games are designed with teamwork in mind.  Good teamwork will always make things easier.  That, and uber gear.
• Couldn't the reason there are more DPS than tanks simply be because that is how the game is designed?  Let's look at it this way: pretend each class has three spec trees and each spec tree represents one role.  (In other words, ignore any "extra" specs, no matter how viable to cap each class at three possible spec roles).  In that case there would be four tanking trees, five healing trees, and twenty-one DPS trees.  That means there is slightly more than a 4:1 ratio of types of DPS compared to types of tanking/healing.  Groups are traditionally 3 DPS, 1 Tank, 1 Healer.  Thus, at best, a 3:1 ratio.  Is it really any wonder we have extra DPS and not tanks and healers?  Couldn't the reason for the perceived shortage of those roles be simply "working as intended"?
• Sort of in support of the above, in Aion it can be tough to find any specific role at various times.  It's as common to see LF tank as LF DPS as LF healer.  The ratio is a bit better, plus the groups are made of 6 people there, which greatly improves the ratio as well.  Maybe it's all just simple math and game design.  Maybe the simple solution isn't to create incentives or change mechanics, but to just add an extra slot in groups.  That would probably require a lot of instance tuning though, or maybe just a huge health buff for baddies across the board?
• I think feelings of stress and responsibility completely depend upon the mechanics of the fight itself.
• If you choose a role, realizing the belief is that it will be more stressful, you shouldn't be rewarded for making a free-will decision.  Also, perception isn't always reality.  Rewarding for reality is one thing, rewarding for perception is quite another.
• As much as I dislike Hunters, a good trapper is still a gem to have in a group.  Similar with a mage who knows wtf they're doing.  Warlocks don't get cool slowing abilities.  Everything's immune to fear.  WTB warlock AoE slow.
• I have respect for good players, not particular roles.  I dislike a bad tank as much as a bad healer as much as a bad DPS.  When I find a good player, I enjoy playing with them, no matter what toon they're on.  Some players may be good only in one role, and that's fine, but the point is that they're a good player at something, the role doesn't really matter.  After all, practice enough at anything and you can eventually become an expert in it.  It's called the 10-year rule of expertise.

Okay, all the above is well and good and contains the basic points I wanted to get across, but the next part is really the part that is going to make this worthy of posting.  Or something like that.   I finally got my first Emblem of Frost upgrade on my warlock: the T10 pants.  I had been rocking the T7.5 pants, and while the hit is totally a waste for me, the remaining stats are worth it on the T10 piece.  Since I'd been anticipating replacing this piece, I hadn't gotten epic gems for it yet.  Now, I'm all epic gemmed out.  What I wanted to share today as a good reference for Affliction Warlocks is how simple your gem choices are.  So this is the useful part of the post.  (I can't like to WoWhead from work, so I'll go back and add that later tonight).


Affliction Warlock Gem Choices

• Red Slot - Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP). 
• Yellow Slot - Rigid King's Amber (20 Hit) until cap, then Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste).
  
• Blue Slot - Purified Dreadstone (12SP/10Spirit)
  
• Meta - Tireless Skyflare Diamond (25SP and run speed inc) or Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (21Crit and 3% Crit Dmg)

That's it.  It's that simple.  Also, this is assuming you are OCD like me and desire to match the colors for the stat bonus.  To be fair, you'd really have to calculate the DPS gain of the stat bonus against the DPS gain of using the correct gem to make the best decision.  I prefer to follow the color pattern though as variety is the spice of life.  If you don't care about colors, go with the +23 Spellpower for everything.