Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Emalon the Storm Watcher, Dual-spec'd Shaman, and Ulduar
Yay! Patch 3.1 has arrived, and with it, a bunch of joys that I'm only starting to experience first-hand.
Tuesday Raid Night Cancelled
From past experience, our guild has learned that the night after a major patch releases is a really shitty raid night.
Since we're not in the mindset of competing for World Firsts on our Realm, the Officer team decided in their weekly Monday night meeting to give the Raid Team the night off, with plans to resume raids tonight (Wednesday).
So, last night my guildmates and myself spent the evening hopping between all of our various characters, choosing our raiding talent builds over again, and deciding which characters would get the investment of the Dual Spec.
First Attempt at Emalon the Storm Watcher... Thwarted
After a few hours of fiddling around, a group of us gathered to attempt the new T8-dropping boss in Vault of Archavon - Emalon the Storm Watcher - on Normal mode.
New Wintergrasp Portal Spot in Dalaran
Zul'jin had significant problems with its Instance Server on Tuesday night - everyone was talking about it on Trade, so it wasn't a big secret. Plus, we kind of expected it after such a big patch went into place.
This is where I'd like to say I'll bet there were a lot of Blizzard programmers who didn't get much sleep during this, like most, releases - and I thank them for their sleep-related sacrifices that come along with fixing all the extra bugs that spring up when new code goes live
So, we were quite surprised when three of us were able to zone into the Vault of Archavon after only a couple of failed tries!
Two of us stayed in while the third went out to begin summons (at the new summoning stone I heard is there, but didn't actually pay attention to know for sure) with a fourth who was outside the portal.
And then the smoothness of the raid group forming and being able to get into the instance was thwarted.
The two of us who stayed in the instance got stranded there for at least three hours - present on the /who list and you could /whisper us... long after we had both disconnected from the game and re-logged in on alternate characters.
Folks who were outside the instance were fine, and as regular raiders everyone was patient to see if the situation would correct itself enough for one try on the new VoA boss, but as time wore on, people expressed their growing sleepiness, and we called it a night.
What? I Have To Do Quests?
It's nights like Patch night that remind me how dependent I've become on dungeons for my primary source of World of Warcraft entertainment.
Shaman Ready To Heal Blood Furnace
But, I spent some time with my Resto/Enhance Shaman after the thwarted raid attempt, and stumbled my way through figuring some kind of new "spell" rotation while I played using my Enhance spec and mostly-enhance gear.
It's obvious I need some work, and need a few gear changes, too, since I'm still running around with half resto gear on even at the best Enhance Gear setting.
This is my first real "Melee" toon, so I think I've got a lot of learning to do in order to maximize my DPS while also staying alive. And I'm quite sure I need to work for a while on my weapon skills in order to help that.
So, that was the mindset I chose when I headed out into the Hellfire Peninsula to grind out some quests: If I was ever going to go into an instance as DPS, I'd better get some practice in.
At this point my spec is a bit of a mix and jumble in Enhancement, but since it's a new spec to me it'll take a bit for my understanding to solidify, and that's just fine :)
Ulduar in the Evening
Tonight is our first Official Guild Raid into Ulduar, and I'm flying my Holy Priest up to The Storm Peaks as I type this. I've watched some videos and read some strategy guides, and am ready to hop in there and get a little bit crispy with the Flame Leviathan.
Whenever I get a chance, I send out Tweets via my Twitter account, so if you're interested in hearing my silly quips, and asking me questions through that micro-blogging medium, you can follow me on Twitter.
Time for me to finish this up and get ready for a night of raiding!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts:
- Defeated: Emalon the Storm Watcher in Vault of Archavon
- First Glimpses of Ulduar and the Flame Leviathon
- Taking On Koralon the Flame Watcher In VoA
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Our server was unbelievable shaky. I was stranded several times, even on old continents. I followed a lot of your twitters on Ulduar. One day I will see it, but I know that isn't anytime soon. haa.
I'm in the same boat as you (but going the opposite direction) with the dual spec. My enhancement shaman is now trying to heal, and it's kind of laughable. My guildies came with me to Reg VH last night so I could practice, and during the first boss fight I basically panicked and squawked a lot on vent.
You've probably read all this on the interwebs already, but as an enhancement shaman, you'll want to cast Flame Shock-Stormstrike-Lava Lash-Earth Shock, and throw out a Chain Lightning every time you get five stacks of Maelstrom Weapon. At least that's what I do. Any tips for the new resto shaman?
Best of luck in Ulduar.
To Trellis,
As an enhance shaman, you'll probably want to use lightning bolt to pull the monster first. Then start with stormstrike-lava lash-earth shock and just leave the flame shock out, but it's up to you. I find that getting the most Nature spells for my stormstrike is where all my damage comes from and that throwing flame shock in slows that down.
The flame shock used to be the shock of choice before 3.1 I believe, so that's probably where that came from.
But yep, I've read also that Earth Shock is now the Shock of choice.