WoWGrrl's World » cataclysm

Cranking The Shaman Up To 80

Valdesta — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:11:18 +0000

My Resto/Elemental (dual spec) Shaman has been lounging around in Dalaran in the low 70s for far too long, I've decided.

Not that I want to raid with her or anything much (although I have some friends brand new to raiding that I could join on this toon with, for sure), but just that I want to get her to 80 and have that part be done with.

I want to have her be one of the ones ready at the gate for the release of Cataclysm and its new 80-85 instances.

And who knows, she could be my next "main" raiding toon - depending on what the team I'm in currently values the most at the time.

Bear Won't Drop His Fish!

I know that sounds like I'm letting others decide what toon to play, but that's only partially true - if a toon makes it to 80, that means I have gotten significant joy out of playing it, and not just for a short period of time, either. When WoTLK was rolling in, I made a similar decision between my Mage and Priest and it was largely influenced by the fact that the guild I was aiming to get into for WoTLK (the one I'm in now) had lots of Mages and very few Priests.

Burning Off Rest Bonus

Since my toon has been largely only doing occasional dungeon PUGs (and none in the past 3 weeks at all), she hasn't advanced very quickly from level 70 when I first started into the Northrend PUGs. And of course, she's fully rested, and has a couple pieces of Bind On Account gear as well.

All this adds together to the fact that she has a billion quests that she can do - and many of them that are so fast to whip through because they're a level or so below her - and a lot of rest bonus to burn up.

I spent a couple of hours recently just questing with her, flitting from place to place, delighting in the fact that the last 3 toons that went through these quest series did it when flying could only be obtained in Northrend at level 77.

But then again, with all the flitting around, I'm not getting the incidental experience the others got just by having to battle their way through to the quest object, and then battle their way back out. Thank goodness for lots of quests, and rest bonus ;)

Right now she's at 74, soon to be 75. I only play her once or at most twice a week, however, so it'll take a while to get to that 80 point.

But she's on her way, instead of sitting around in Dalaran twiddling her Troll Toes.

What Toon Will You Play In Cataclysm?

Are you someone who's called the same toon "your main" since you started playing the game, or have you swapped around between characters?

Do you see yourself keeping your current "main" for Cataclysm, or do you think you might take the opportunity to switch to something new?

My Circle of Healers Contribution

Valdesta — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:26:18 +0000

I haven't written for a while, I apologize! The Muse went on vacation and instead the Work-a-holic moved in for a while and I've been cranking out behind-the-scenes work.

I'm always on Twitter, tho, so if you want to follow my adventures there or send me a message, that's the best place :)

Now, on to the show!

I was inspired by Divine Aegis, who in turn was inspired by World of Matticus and Miss Medicina.

Flaming Toilet Seat heads towards Priest

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Shrimproll, Discipline Priest 57/14/0.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
25 player PvE raid healing.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Power Word: Shield! It's part of the concept of why I originally switched to Discipline after having leveled from 28-80 as Holy - the shield is a fun and challenging defensive maneuver to put into place strategically to stop damage from happening in the first place (and as Disc it's a better shield).

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Holy Nova. I probably could have made some good use of it during leveling up but I just never thought about it, and it's never become part of any of my rotations anywhere, ever.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
We can be any race we want to be! Seriously... Shaman, Druid and Paladin are all otherwise restricted, at least until the xPac changes come into play.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Raid healing. I agree with Divine Aegis that we're horrible for the whack-a-mole game and our Prayer of Healing is completely slow and dumb compared to Circle of Healing.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Healing the tank who is taking the most damage, whether that be the MT or the OT in this case. Alternatively, I'm an excellent Dispeller on all of my toons that can do so, and I love the challenge of being a fast dispeller under pressure.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Difficult to say because I've had limited healing experience on everything else but Priest. But truthfully, I enjoy healing on my Shaman as well and would probably like healing on my Paladin too - I like discovering and exploring contrasts in life, so the contrasts between the different "types" of healing would rank right up there.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Druid, because I'm forced to be a big fat Tauren that takes up way too much screen space. WTB Goblin Druid!

What is your worst habit as a healer?
Again, I'll go with Divine Aegis and agree that Tunnel Vision is sometimes a problem with all I have going on in my Interface. WTB a bigger monitor?

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Floor priority.

In fights where being spread out is of utmost importance yet the raid needs to still be fluid and move around from the things we're spread out FOR: DPS who won't stop DPSing for a second to re-locate themselves after they've piled on top of a healer, or Healers who won't stop healing for a second to re-locate after piling onto a DPS.

Which peeves me the most at the time depends on whether we're battling against keeping the tanks up (a la Heroic Northrend Beasts and Thorim when we were first taking him down) or whether healing is more slack and it's a DPS race.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Disc is an odd beast. I don't think you'd really want to carry 2+ of them in your 25 player raid - at least I've generally only seen one Disc Priest per raid, whereas bringing multiple Holy Priests/Paladin or Resto Druids/Shaman seems to work out fine. I guess the raid only really needs one damage mitigator.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Recount, Wow Meter Online uploads and World of Log uploads, and just by running PUGs on a semi-regular basis, to get a feel of how I stack against the general population and not just within our tiny little raid group.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That just because we suck on the meters, we suck period. But hey, their loss.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
As for all healers: When to get into the battle yourself. When is "too soon" to start healing, especially when a pull is a little bit chaotic or a DPS pulls aggro early in the fight. Many healer deaths result from "too soon healing aggro".

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
Low overhealing, as I've always used recount to evaluate my performance there, even when I was holy healing in BC. Lots of dispelling. Most of my healing on one or two targets, and a very very slim percentage on the rest of the group. Low number of deaths in comparison to my peer group.

Haste or Crit and why?
Haste to 10% and Crit to the roof. Crit is where all of our great stuff lies in Discipline, but a bit of haste is required so the casts aren't all uber-slow.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Druid, because our raid is notoriously short on Tree Druids.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
Healbot is my primary healing addon, and I run it on DPS toons as well, to keep a quick eye on raid status. Obituary is an addon I use to report death blows to me so I know "what killed X". Trinket and Power Infusion macro that boosts a nearby caster guildmate and then activates my trinks for more throughput.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Keeping haste at around 10%, the rest of everything goes to Intellect which translates into a bigger mana pool, plus increased mana regeneration rate and Critical strike.

Tag, you’re it!

Achievement Chasing: Classic Dungeonmaster, Lil’ Game Hunter

Valdesta — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:51:19 +0000

As of the time of this posting, my main character - an Undead Discipline Priest - has 4695 achievement points.

Shrimproll's Achievement Summary

I've completed 451 of 986 Achievements that are currently available in-game, and as you might be able to see from the screenshot of my Achievements Summary page, they're pretty spread out amongst the sub-categories.

Personally, I think it's a pretty decent number of achievement points, but I know if I reviewed the folks in my raid team I'd find that I've only got an average number of points.

Who's got the most in our guild? I think it's the Pally Tank with 7780 achievement points as of today's posting, but I didn't go through every guildmate to be sure.

Shrimproll's Current Achievement Goals

These days I'm working on the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement, with a side of Lil' Game Hunter.

Classic Dungeonmaster has me going through all of the Azeroth 5-man dungeons and defeating the final bosses, whereas the Lil' Game Hunter achievement has me collecting 75 non-combat companion pets.

To note, both my other 80s have already gotten the Classic Dungeonmaster achievements - being DPS it was easy for me to solo all of the bosses and instances required for the task. But until recently, I hadn't done much as a DPS spec on my Priest, and therefore had avoided many of the dungeon achievements I hadn't gotten through normal play.

But recently I decided to drop my Holy off-spec (Disc being my main spec) and pick up Shadow. And what better place to practice the absolute basics of Shadow Priesty spells and abilities than low level dungeons where nothing could hurt me?!

Classic Dungeonmaster Progress

Partway through September 2009, I decided to nail down all the Classic Dungeonmaster achievements because it seems to me that those dungeons are going to change come the Cataclysm expansion, and it's probably a good idea to get the achievements done now.

Plus, this toon has a decent number of Raid achievements but isn't terribly well-rounded when it comes to the rest of the Achievements available to do out there. (I blame it on the alt-o-holism)

So I looked at my list, and started from the easiest that was undone - Wailing Caverns - and worked up from there.

Travelling Vendors Rock!

Progressing through the majority of the dungeons, I passed by most of the mobs without aggro'ing them, and only stopped to Mind Sear a group to death when I had gathered up a large following. I looted everything I killed, of course, but left much of the instance untouched.

I still made hundreds of gold with very little effort, and even got a few Bind on Equip blue/rare drops that earned 50-100g just by themselves!!

Wailing Caverns, Shadowfang Keep, Deadmines, Blackfathom Deeps, Scarlet Monestary, Blackrock Depths, Gnomeregon, and the Stormwind Stockades I did by myself over the period of three different days when time allowed.

Then, I started to turn to my friends to see who else needed these achievements. This resulted in me running one of my friends' alts through Zul'Farrak to get us both the achievement, and then later that same friend joined me on his level 80 to make quick work of nailing down the three wings of Dire Maul.

Now, the only ones left to do are Lower Blackrock Spire, Scholomance and Stratholme.

I finished up the Scholomance key (Skeleton Key) quest chain after we finished up Dire Maul, and as a bonus got The Keymaster achievement, too!

Lil' Game Hunter Progress

I love pets. Pets are a lot of fun. Pets entertain me when I am bored. In game, and out.

Shrimproll currently has 65 unique companion pets, plus an Unhatched Jubling Egg which I got from the Darkmoon Faire carnie and is due to hatch in just over 6 days into another pet to add to my collection.

Enchanted Broom Companion Pet

At 75 pets, the Lil' Game Hunter achievement is accomplished and players receive a pet as a reward - a cute little fawn deer via the [Little Fawn's Salt Lick].

If you're still approaching the 50 pet marker, you'll be looking forward to a [Reeking Pet Carrier] which of course encases Stinky the skunk pet who has a special relationship with black and bombay cats.

It looks like it'll be quite a bit of luck in farming, money to pay others who have had luck in farming, and time in order to get to the 75 pet marker. All of the pets I can buy from vendors are purchased, and I'm not a big fan of the Tournament dailies... so that leaves watching the Auction House and trying to farm for occasional pets on my own.

That is, once I get the Worg and Spider pets from Lower Blackrock Spire.

When's Children's Week again?? :) :)

What Achievements Are You Working On?

I'd love to hear from you, especially if you're a fellow WoW blogger - I'm looking for new links to populate my Links page!

What achievements are you working on, and how many points do you have on your highest-achieved toon?