I found myself, like many people, waiting and staring at their e-mail accounts waiting for that “Cataclysm Invitation” letter, but of course all I got was spam mail. However, I have come to a point now that I really don’t care. I get frustrated by bugs and poor mechanic structure anyway. And there’s nothing like falling in love with something and then having it change on you.  So, I’d rather just read.

I have come to the final decision that I’m going back Badger Bear/ Oomkin Boomkin for cataclysm. Yea, I have been getting back in the swing lately, but have been ran into by being sick or in pain, or throwing myself back into that disappointment that I faced back in TBC. But as you probably have figured so far, I always find my way back to the Druid, some how. I guess my hindsight is too good. Memories of Dancing as a Boomkin in UBRS, I haven’t seen happier times since.

I have come to the conclusion I will do it as long as I try and trick myself into playing something else. We should play what we enjoy and what we are good at. If both fall into the same class, more reason to stay. To all those who told me “Bear tanks suck! Warriors and Paladins (now DKs) are better!” or “You should do something else Like Healing!” go fudge yourselves. The Happy Badger is here to stay!

Ak did make sure that I researched all my options. I’d have to say I’m not exactly pleased with the Bear changes but not discouraged either.

Talents look awesome besides Pulverize. There would have to be a few conditions to meet before it would be viable. Reason is Lacerate (Dot) at 5 stacks is a vary nice consistent threat generator.  To remove this, it would have to give you enough threat to counter the time rebuilding the Lacerate stack. (Lacerate Applying produces less TPS than that of Lacerate Dot). To me, this could be a really good Devastate ability for Bear tanks.  Applying Lacerate, you can continue using lacerate ability in your rotation, but use Pulverize in the form of a reapplying effect with extra threat and damage.

Wonder if I made sense saying it that way. I’m saying, still have us stack lacerates the old fashion way, but after we reached 5 stacks, we use “Pulverize” which instead of consuming the lacerate stack, reapplies the effect as if we smacked them with an insta-5 lacerates. Pulverize would only refresh, not add to the stack. Ugh, I’m probably sounding off.

I heard thru the grapevine that Tanks will be doing less damage in cataclysm which forces tanks to fight for threat. I agree with this, taking Less damage and holding agro should be the only 2 concerns of a tank (besides NOT standing in fire).

They also said that they wanna get away from the “Mashing buttons” problems of tanking currently. Honestly, I feel the only time I “mash buttons” is when I’m AoE tanking. Yep! Swipe + Maul(Glyphed) and maybe a Zerk + Mangle combo or all together. But single target tanking for the Bear to me is not per-say in any way Mashing. Having 6 abilities or Spells in your rotation isn’t really mashing, You still have to go threw a sequence of events to produce  a good amount of threat. But if they want to go down the route of adding more spells to our arsenal, have ‘em Add to it, not take away!

How would this take away you ask? Many people along the grapevine have said this would be the rotation if Pulverize would be viable. Mangle + Faerie Fire (Feral) + Lacerate(to 5) (throwing in Mangle and FFF when off cooldown) + Pulverize. Rinse and Repeat. That’s less of a rotation that we currently have for single target tanking. It’s more “mashing” prone, and to be honest, boring.

I’ll stop complaining about this, It could change! Right?

Another ability that I was very excited to see was called Skull Bash. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but I guess we are moving in the right direction. Reading what it says, it seems like the they changed the old Feral Charge. And Split it in two spells. Yep, the the new Feral Charge will not longer interrupt the target.

I was hoping for a ranged Silencing ability like the rest of the tanks. It’s kind of annoying to be in UP. Pulling those groups before the last boss, you pull with FFF and duck around the corner, and watch the DPS run past you into the room with the mobs. Complete /faceplam.

It doesn’t hurt me in the way is I love my Feral Charge! To the point I use it In combat and just for kicks. (charging after being punted back, mid air, makes me a happy badger… really! Ask Ak!) It has set me on a coarse that says only good tanking classes have it! Yes, pig headed of  me to say something like that but well, what I say in my mind is fine. AND! I tank along side Ak quite a bit (he’s an awsome tank regardless of the class he plays so far he’s done Warrior, DK, Paladin, and dipped in to the Badger world just a bit) and his main tank is a paladin! The girliest of ALL tanking classes! (YEA! you herd me!)

Even though, there’s a lot of things on our Christmas wish list. I’m hoping at least a few will be answered some day. Until then, we will just have to continue to be as resourceful as we have always been.

Until next time!

PS: Besides being a Enhance Shaman or Priest just doesn’t tickle me enough to write about.

I researched.. I found out new blogs that maybe would help me out. All I found was misleading. I should have had known better!

I found out my Rotation was wrong, my glyphs wear wrong, and my main hand was wrong, and you know if I DPS better with an addon helpin’ me out.. I’m gonna stick with it and try not to be bad ass. ‘Cause I’m far from bad ass.

I had been running around for maybe the last few months with Abomination Knuckles in my main hand. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a very nice fist weapon. Stats are just inline with that of what an Ehance Sham needs. (still wonder why it’s 1 weapon and it’s name is plural). However, I had  Frost Giant’s Cleaver sitting in my bank. I actualy replaced this with the Abom Knuckles. Thinking the stats where better suited for me, completely looking over one tiny but big factor.

Weapon damage is probaly one of the biggest things for ehancement shaman. Regardless of the stats. Why?

• Increases general white damage (witch is Number one damage out putter for Ehance Shams)
• Increases Windfury proc damage. That’s a number 2 or 3 on the list.
• Increases Mana Gain from Shamanistic rage.

I mean… those are a few of the most important factors of the spec, and I was a Nublit. I’m too ashamed to post numbers here…  but I went from 10k easy to 8… just to give you an idea.

Another thing I had been doing wrong was running around with Windfury Glyph, i had originally had flame shock glyph. With the DPS loss from having the Abom Knuckles in my main hand. I thought maybe something had changed. So this is what I researched. Everyone (but mmo-champion and EJ) said Windufry Gyph was better. How wrong I was to fallow. It was better way back when (Ulduar/Naxx days) and I knew that. /facepalm

With that done, I dropped flame shock from my rotation, and dropped Shock and Awe as well. Witch in the end left me to, Forgot magma totems, flame novas, Shields, and screwing up my rotations big time.

I guess, it all leads to a domino effect. from now on I think I’ll be more careful and less head over heels for upgrades, I’ve learned my lesson.

From Inside the Raid is well my therioy crafting that takes place while I’m in a raid. Hopefuly I get it done with all bad jokes and sex talk. From Inside the Raid also comes via Itouch. So I’ll try to correct some of the spelling, but well Ipod spell check is a bit, Lacking. And YAY for random Screen shot, we where actualy on Blood Queen, was too busy typing to take a screen shot of that though. >>; and don’t mind my DPS.. that was from a fail attempt.

One thing I have always hated was waiting around for raids to start.

I knew that pre expac blues were coming. I never thought that it would start six months before.

So the teal question is; why?

Are other realms feeling this too?

Well in thought this could be more then just pre-expansion blues.

I, myself, am feeling rather borde of the current icc. 25s are just for gear and 10s are for progresstion. Well, yes the idea is to progress threw 25s as well but there is less headache in 10s as we all should know.

Besides some encounters are easier in 10s than 25s and Vic verse. Running both in one week dose seem to make this less enjoyable.
Anyway that dissution is for another post.

Back to the topic. What are all the possibilities that could make a guild or a realm drop in population?

1. Fatige. My biggest poblume with this expantion. At frist blizz had the idea. 1 big raid and 3 siders. After that we only had 1 true raid. This leaves out options, thus in the end
   raiding becomes mundain.
2. Holiday. When things that involve out door activies, most big winter holidaies and all of summer holidaies.
3. The release of something that will put all that has been done up untill that point pointless. Like, normaly but not sacluded to expantions. ‘cuase why continue to work for somthing when it
   well be unessisary.
4. Extream failure. This is normaly only effects raids. Normally regards progression nights.

Like all guilds, I think, the last one could be put on us. It’s purly up to the person to deside how much “failire” (Yes, those are really sapposed to be Air Quotes…) one can take.

The biggest reason I think this is happaning is becuase too much ICC. I mean, at least for myself, I raid at least…(Moment to count) 5 nights a week. 3 in 24s and 2 in 10s.
So for Icc bordum I think that’s at least the biggest case. I wish there was more todo these days.

That’s it for today.

Oh the biggest reason there hasn’t been any posts for a while is becuse they get to about 95% completion and then I forget about them. Sorry all!

Gotta Love when new features are released you can’t use them… Specialty the ones your the most exited about.

Lets start with the fact I got Sero to Northrend! Yay go me… and so I have spend countless hours looking up what to do with her next. I have to say that Shadow Priest and Lock have been probably the easiest to level classes, it’s almost boring.

Dot Dot Drain…Drain… Life tap.. start again. but well it’s fast and I’m showing a bit of interest in the class it’s self. I hope it get’s a bit more interesting when I actually have to worry about DPS.

I herd that affliction is the highest dps, but ranked one of the hardest spec/classes to play. I guess I’ll just have to check it out a bit more to come to a conclusion.

I also found out what Weight scaling is all about. I didn’t really get it all at first, but it took me looking in to level 80 warlock gear to really figure it out. I normally just threw any old gem in to my gear as long as it matched.  I guess it really doesn’t really matter all too much to the person who doesn’t care about 1/100 of a dps. But one should always try to maximize his/her potential right? right!

So I spent about 2-3 hours punching numbers in to both my cell calculator and my computer. Don’t ask me why both…. seemed more…productive. I can just tell you this.. I can’t effing wait till Cataclysm now. Not having to waste such time on trying to Min-max my gear will be a god send. I could have been doing something more productive like…. like…. watching cute puppies on Youtube! THINK OF THE PUPPIES! “/clear throat” What I ment to say was like using such valuable web space and time trying to maximize your UI or rotation, or even getting out of your chair.

And trust me a lot of UI’s I have seen… omg…how can you SEE?! all you see is your buttons.. damn..

Back to something less….yea..

Another thing I have been waisting my young life on is reading the Crap that players seem to drag in to the wow forums on a daily basis.

Witch just means that 95% of all complaining is QQ.

People complaining about the Stat changes in Cata (Cataclysm) saying it’s going to take the skill out of playing. Math isn’t a skill. Time isn’t one either.

People whining that Horde is Better then Ally.. or vise versa…

One class is OP… like Druids and Paladins.. Well… bout flippin time druids are.. and dammit why couldn’t I stay a druid… Any one wanna adopt a Bear tank?

That there dps is too low and so they roll Enhancement shamans, and use Fast off-hands and Dual windfury…
Sorry that one went a bit to ..personal.

Or Raid leaders who whine about one person not doing well enough. when they tend to put double standerds on you.
“I want you doing 7k dps….but don’t die, and dispel, interrupt, and run around nakid.”

but I guess the stupidity about people thinking other people are stupid.. or undeserving. Will continue to go on and on forever. At lest I get a good kick out of it!

Lastly I leave you rogues with.. I’m sorry you had to be come dinner! >)

• Dailies
• Alt Leveling
• Working on Off Set
• Rep grinds
• Professions
• Achievements
• and much more

I will admit. I have been making quite a good number of gold since I no longer have to pay the 100g repair bill (on a good day).  But who actually thinks doing those kinda things “fun”.  It’s kinda masochistic. I will be honest here, it really isn’t that much difference to do your dailies every day then to raid. Only thing that makes one better than the other is [Epics].

So how dose one manage to get these things done with out pulling their hair out?

Looking at the gold.

I find if I look at it any other way, I end up not doing it at all. Look at this, I’m not yet exalted with Sons of Hodir. Why? I hate their dailies. I have always looked at it as, I need to get to exalted. Rather then, I’m making 13g a quest, and plenty of meats, eternals, and grays to boot. So when I actually get down to doing them, I don’t watch my reputation bar go up, I watch my pickets fill.

Of course there are other ways to build up my reputation with Sons rather than doing their ridiculous dailies, that is if you want to spend days grinding any old Monster out in Storm speaks. Cause we all know 95% of your realm’s population is doing the same thing you are at the exact same time, unless it’s an ungodly hour, the other 5% is in your guild. Or Spend a good chuck of your change at the Action House to have some one do the work for you.

However, I’m cheap, broke, and lazy. Also a pack rat… /clear throat.

So I have stocked up about 400 some Uldar relics from the time I started doing Sons’ quests. I figure that I have about 2 more days of dailies to do before I can turn them all in to get exalted and then those half defrosted giants will be out of my life. Unless I manage to get back in to raiding.

Your Eye on the Prize.

Only way I can possible bring my self to do achievements is if it has something interesting. Such as the Skunk Pet. I think hes probably the cutest thing in wow right now. So, slowly but surely I’m stacking up other pets I find cute. (3 left! woot!)

I do like however that achievements really don’t have any item that effect’s game play. Such as Gear or the ability to purchase gear. I don’t think blizzard wants us to spend ungodly amount of hours on achievements.Witch people do any way, but if the BiS item comes from some kissing 2,000,000 random people. Only the stupid would go for it, we all know you can get the plague that way. Yep it’s called the “50-year-old-virgin-in-his-mother’s-basement-eating-hot-pockets” plague.

I also use this for grinding reputations such as the Wintersabers. (I wish they would make it as easy as the new raptor but any way). I keep my eye on that purple kitty…that I want to…okay that’s not right.. It looks cool we will leave it at that.

Don’t do it alone.

This same goes for a lot of daily grinding, achievements, leveling, and grading gold. Don’t do just one thing. If you really do wanna get that Epic Fishing pole. Do another reputation while your at it, or do a few achievements at the same time. Level with a friend. Having bigger number returns in more than just one area will make your task of killing 20 million furbogs less daunting. cause not only will you be getting a nice shiny purple kitty but you will also get a trinket of just sheer enjoyment value out of it as well, and an achievement to boot.

If your leveling alts. Grab friends or just talk over vent/teamspeak. I have had plenty of fun running friends alts through instances, or having them run me through a few. Or just picking on some one on vent untill I’m blue in the face.  It really dose take your mind of your mundane tasks.

Don’t Do it unless you really need to.

With the new championing from tabards has made these dailies much more enjoyable. Because well.. I don’t have to do as many, if at all, as long as I’m doing a heroic or level 80 instance.  Witch means I can hang with friends or meet new people along my boring path of redundant tasks.

At Least learn to laugh at others. Like Meleeing warlocks.

Later intarwebz!

“PLEASEEEEEE !! Someone do this, so sick of spamming several buttons and making decicions while in combat at the same time as I am supposed to read raid chat and answer and keeping track of healt/RP and what the boss does and what others do … As you can see it is an mission impossible for a human
to play a game that needs that much attention ..” – Def Knite

Like many other people at WoWI, I thought he was joking. In the post he was asking for a UI to act like a Bot. To basically do his rotation as a human would, while he did every thing else. It’s a shocking state to see this since well.. I do all those things with one hand behind my back and a sandwich in my mouth, while watching tv. Okay maybe not the Watching tv thing.. I tend to zone out when I do that. One replier did state it perfectly we will call him LeetMage

“I suggest turning off the TV shows. Stop trying to play your gaming console at the same time and just focus on your raid/group” – 1337|V|463

Thanks leet mage.. You rock!

P.S. Can’t wait till I can play!!!!

Whoa I’ve been so out of the loop lately when it comes to WoW. With All the moving and lack of net. sigh. Normally I’m on top of the latest news and gear going around. Most of the time I know what I want from each instance, but I really don’t even know what gear drops in TO(G)C.

What dose this mean for me? More math then I thought, but since I won’t be able to get WoW for a few more days. I suppose I have plenty of time to figure that all out before I relapse in to a 4-year-old addiction.

What did I do with my time before I had internet, phone, or TV, oh dear faithful Interwebz? Warcraft and simulators… but I only have a few. Total snewz zzz. For some odd reason I can’t get past one scenario in warcraft 2. Damn Alliance B*st*rds…wait…/clear throat

Since I already stated my interest in what has come in 3.2, which was really just the totem bar (Thank The Loot Gods!) .  I here the Enhancement shamans are still Sub par to Elemental Shamans.  Blizz still thinks they are on track. Explain the DPS difference then huh?! I get hazed all the time to switch.. I’m just not interested.

I was a tad bit concerned with the implementation of Axes for Rogues (That sounds kinda catchy). I loose a lot of good weapons to them as is. They want my fist weapons, then they wanted my maces. Now I have nowhere to run from them. Enhancement shamans really don’t have any gear to call thier own. After clear thought and meditation I realized there really isn’t much Axes I want any way… they can fight with the hunters on that one.

I wish they would give me a chance to snag a mace or a fist weapon, so I can push my DPS a tad bit and I wont me mocked as much.  I fear the day when my Raid Leader comes to me and says “your dps just isn’t enough Vel“. I don’t think a witty sarcastic joke would win me any props then.

As for the guild I am proud to say they have gotten down a lot of new bosses since my leave of absence. I still feel they are coming though, sooner or later! I just wish I could have been there for the epic first time kills.

I will probably be spending the rest of the time, playing on my little trial account mage (Ima gonna cry when I gotta give her up) and finding out what gear Vel needs. With the way loot works in my guild I wont be getting much of any thing for a bit (even though I think I can argue it  but I just wont). I’d rather just learn the fights, I don’t know.

For now, I’m off to play around on Chardev.org. 2nd most visited site for me next to wow head. hehe!

Adios Interwebz!

With the resent change to the Jewelcrafters Gem’s I find my self with having to do some more math…  I had my self sitting before I left wow at 27 expertise with the Unleashed Rage talent… Now I’m sitting at 28 with out it… rawr? hardly. Besides the fact I lost most of my socket bonuses with the switch of Prismatic to color.

I’ll admit it.. I flamed the thought of me losing the functionality of Prismatic Gems. I really didn’t wanna load my self up with blue gems, since I really didn’t see any need for Ap+Stam gems. I would rather have put my Expertise gems in my Blue sockets and fill the Red up with agility and as I got more Expertise form gear, I would replace them with more Agility Prismatics.  Let’s be honest though, Socket bonuses just are not all THAT great. I know Ak with his Rogue doesn’t always fallow them any way.

So the question about this being a nerf or not? I dought it. It’s not what I have been doing nor the mind set I was in Pre 3.2 but I’ll cope… That’s what being a good gamer is all about. “adaptability”? any one?

What am I fearing about this change and me having to correct it? Going in to Dalaran.. We lost our only computer that can handle it… Nothing like moving at less then .5 frames per sec. Also the countless hours staring at Warcrafter.net and Chardev to figure out the correct numbers. So I don’t end up putting the wrong gem in an unoptimized spot. I’ve blown 600g that way… not pritty and since I don’t have time to farm gold any more.. even less pretty.

Lil’ Missy? nah no one ever calls me lil’ missy any more these days. I feel old. However I logged on to my Sham Yesterday after the realms were finally back up, I found a letter in my mail box. It was complaining about one of my Fellow Officers.. besides calling Him a chick. It was talking about how I needed to kick him from the girl for his “Questionable Language” Because it’s bad for our guilds image. After mocking him I just deleted the letter.

I wouldn’t kick any one from the guild on that consensuses. besides I’m not even the GM… One they never stated exactly what was Offensive about his speech. My guild has always advertised them selves as an Adult guild, and to be honest I wouldn’t have it any other way. If I can’t say what’s on my mind the way I wanna say it and talk about inappropriate stuff. I just wouldn’t have any fun. Yes.. I have a dirty, vary dirty mind.

If he was cussing some one out in General chat and using racist terms etc etc. I would have defiantly voted for it, but come on people. Other people cuss. Get over it and grow up! If you can’t handle it go play hello kitty island adventure. And of cores send your complaints to the person who can deal with it, and don’t tell them how to deal with it, I don’t tell you to spank your children.

Will we return to raiding? Probably not with our current guild.  With this new change to our lives. We pretty much have like 7 to 10pm to play.. well at least Ak dose. Being the loving wife I am, I go to bed with him. My current guild raids from 7:30 to about 12 or so. That just doesn’t work. Will I miss it? Hell yes! Specially with the Colosseum coming out. I think I’m just going to sit back and mess around with my Lock and Rogue for a while. Regardless of a lot of drama that has happened since my departure. I really don’t think I’m going to be leaving the guild, even though a lot of the people that did leave I became vary attached too. It’s kinda funny how All of the reasons I stay with this guild just ends up leaving eventually anyway. I will just step back for a while. If they decide to kick me, that’s fine with me. I know there is vary little shaman’s left in my guild.. but there was one person who could take my spot. He’s young and has more free time around those hours then I do.I think it is vary funny, that the day I actually want to play for an extended period of time… we have extended maintenance  ’till 5, my time. Fizzelsticks! Yes, my warlock gets her epic land mount and my rogue gets her first mount (I leveled her to 20 to wait for it).  I think right now I’d just rather play.

I guess You all saw this coming. MY take on the Shaman changes for 3.2?

A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

I think this is awesome for all 3 specs. Nothing like me rushing in to attack kologarn’s arm and having to wait till my totems are down and getting “POP HERO!!!!1″ from various people threw out the raid. I almost blew a gaskit on several people for calling for hero.. it always happens while I’m getting set up.  Piffles!

Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).

I find this one to be rather on the interesting side… However it is nice along with this change.

Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.

I don’t think every one really understand my bitching about the shock cooldown problem. it was always “I can interrupt and do damage.. or lessen my threat and interrupt? . . . Damage.” or how i could complain about having to interrupt in the first place. I’m rarely in the top 5 on the dps or damage charts. and when I have to interrupt . . .  The one hit wonder is always above me.

The big reason why I always complained about this was the simple fact is that most interrupts were not “included” in any cooldowns, including GCD(global cooldown) such as pummel, and kick. However in many cases I was forced to interrupt over an arms warrior. Since he “can’t” switch in to zerker stance..since it messes with his “damage”. well.. for all of you out there.. Interrupting Blocks about 50% of our damage out put.. I don’t think going in to Zerker as an Arms warrior would hurt you any more then that!

Other then that really nothing is too spectacular. I’m still really mad about the statement that “Enhancement shaman’s dps is where we want it to be, and elemental is too far behind” load of BS… It’s the other way around blizzard.

I should probably end this here so I have more to talk about later. I am also considering turning this is to a dual purpose blog..? maybe…maybe not.

May the loot gods give you plenty of epix!

Ps: sorry for any bad grammer and misspellings. I tryed to get them all my self, but my editor quit!