Archive for November, 2006

Patch 2.0: Windfury and rockbiter at the same time? Maybe the enhancement tree isn’t as pointless as I thought….

Okay, let me dispense with my personal bias and own up to my own whiney behavior as related to the enhancement tree for shaman talents… I thought it was going to be the most awesome thing ever to be able to run into a fight with a 2H weapon sporting a healthy windfury buff and lots of strength/agility gear. For a short while there it was but as other players gained more power from their own talent trees I couldn’t blindly fly into a melee situation and hope to prevail (or even live). I think this is a good thing because you have to learn how to use your talents and spells rather than simply click and auto-strike, dropping a shock every once in awhile. But to me, the enhancement tree seemed to cost too many talent points and provide too little reward or leave too few talent points left over for totem and spell talents. But still, melee is fun.

The new classes of shamans in the guild seemed to have learned this much sooner than I and are currently having fun with their ‘toons in dungeons and on quests, showing admirable maturity and understanding of the class. It won’t be long before I’ll be asking Maanae, for example, how to get some part of the class tweaked for certain effects. The mere fact that I’ve spent over 200gold all told to re-spec Ungulataur over and again tells you that I love the shaman but I’m never truly comfortable with my build.

Well, all bets are off with the next patch and I don’t mean the BC expansion pack. Guess what, dual-wielding is on the test realms right now. Yes. Dual-Wielding. For shamans. It will only be available as a talent point in the restructured talent trees (no, I doubt it will be on the Restoration tree ) but I have the feeling that I will need to reconsider my recent scoffing at the enhancement tree as this seems like a part of Blizzard’s overhaul of player balance in PVP. So to those considering the Enhancement tree, please do it and have fun with it and ignore my bitterness about the whole utility of it. Changes are coming that will make me eat my words (at least I hope so) but most importantly, we’re not a guild that tells people how they need to play their character. I feel like I’ve crossed that line a few times between advice and condescention. Spec the way YOU want to play and teach me, the old stuck-up battlecow, a thing or three about how to play the class. What weapon type and buff works best in the main hand? What off-hand weapon buff is better in what situation? These are just a few things that we get to figure out when the patch drops. With two 1H epic weapons in my inventory, I’m sure glad I held off on spending the big Gs to enchant them.

Congrats to everyone involved with downing Drakk. Even though we didn’t get to play with our new kiting strategy, the quick-thinking and fast reactions of the hunters kept him busy long enough for the rest of us to take out his guards before focusing on the big conflag-spamming pussycat himself. Greater fire resist and smart players saved the day. I think we also found that even shamans that aren’t full Resto-spec can be useful. It was a helluva fun way to get some pretty decent drops, complete some quests, and spend some quality raid time with a great guild.

So if Patch 2.0 hands shamans an undeserved but completely welcome cookie for their enhancement-tree loving selves, I may have to come full-circle back to the tree that started it all. I for one, having eaten my words, can’t wait.

One of our newest members, Quantix, was the bodyguard for the Mid-Night run of Zul’Farrak — pre-empting the scheduled run of Razorfen Downs. Oddly, although it had won the votes, only one person signed up, and everyone else was eager to hit ZF instead. Oh well. Kids these days…

On a completely different note: You may have seen Sagaris around recently, and not been aware that there were two high-level warlocks around (you may not have known there was even one). Sagaris is one of the founding members of Hellfire Club, there at the very beginning to sign the charter.

The very small guild had no problem breezing through every instance with a Fury Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, and 2 Warlocks. That is, until entering The Temple of Atal’Hakkar where they discovered that merely offensive domination of an instance would no longer work.

The Rogue became a Mage (with a brief stint as a Hunter). One Warlock became a Priest. The other Warlock became a Rogue. The Warrior went Protection. And the Hunter stopped running instances…

Enough history. In Scholomance, the recently un-retired Sagaris was joined by instance-virgin Hooves, helm-hungry Bomosnipah, first-down Paed, and “Give me Deathbone or give me death. Wait…” Skykomish. Having a warlock around again… Health- and Soulstones FTW!

The new kids cleaned up. Sadly, there was nobody to disenchant, so breaking protocol, we greeded rare BoPs.

• [Bone Golem Shoulders] needed by Hooves, shafting Bomosnipah.
• [Magister's Mantle] needed by Sagaris.
• [Frostbite Girdle] went to Bomosnipah.
• [Necropile Leggings] needed by Sagaris.
• [Totem of Sustaining] went to Hooves.
• [Bonecreeper Stylus] needed by Sagaris, shafting Paed.
• [Dreadmist Mask] needed by Sagaris.

The loot system has been updated for both of these runs.

Friday Night Fight this week is… you guessed it: UBRS.

This will be our 5th venture into UBRS to slay the dragon… kin. For those who remember, on our second attempt, we were plagued by the Rend Arena Bug, where if you wipe during the event, the instance is locked up and you can progress no further. This bug will be fixed in the patch, although considering how well we can spank Rend now, it’s doubtful we’ll need to rely upon the fix much.

Additionally, we have found out that mind-controlling one of the Scarshield Spellbinders right at the very beginning of the instance will yield the priest in control the ability to buff party members with a 81-83 fire resistance buff. How long this lasts is unknown… but, if we’re unable to drop Drakk conventionally, it may be an option worth pursuing.

• Sign up for UBRS.
• Vote for next week’s FNF.

Due to a last minute vote breaking a 3-way tie, this week’s Mid-Night instance is Razorfen Downs.

Of course, with all the mid-level principles and alts running around, the mid-level instances aren’t restricted to just Wednesdays anymore, and very soon the mid-level characters will be ready to set foot into the well-known territory of high level instances. The first of these instances is usually called Sunken Temple, although the actual in-game name for it is The Temple of Atal’hakkar which is simply too much of a mouthful, so it goes by ST, which is (oddly enough) one of the quests for the area. However, every class has their own special quest, with the reward being an irreplaceable class item. Be sure to track down the quest for your class around level 48, and figure out what the irreplacable reward is, since there will be 3 rewards to choose from, and only one is perfect…

• Sign up for Razorfen Downs.
• Vote for next week’s Mid-Night instance.

About the Darkmoon Faire?

Chances are you haven’t given much thought to the Darkmoon Faire when it comes to town. Maybe you’ve never even noticed it. It only appears outside of Thunder Bluff for one week every other month.

However, everyone can benefit from the rewards available. If you are a Hunter or Rogue, you should be interested in [Amulet of the Darkmoon], a necklace with +10 Strength, +19 Agility, and +10 Stamina, or if you are a Druid, Mage, Priest, Shaman, or Warlock, the [Orb of the Darkmoon] necklace with +11 Stamina and +8 Spirit that increases spell healing and damage by 22. Both require you to be level 60, but you can start collecting the 1200 tickets to buy the items.

Without really going out of my way, I have nearly 500 tickets with Vaharneim and just shy of 100 tickets with Kurdt. I’ve done this by placing requests in GuildAds for some of the following 5 trash items which the Darkmoon Faire wants as turnins:

• [Torn Bear Pelt]
• [Soft Bushy Tail]
• [Vibrant Plume]
• [Evil Bat Eye]
• [Glowing Scorpid Blood]

Maybe neither of the necklaces are all that interesting to you, or perhaps you think it is not worth all the effort and bank space to collect all that stuff to turn in every 2 months… Then perhaps you would be more interested in collecting the cards. There are 4 card decks in the game that can be turned in at the faire for a spectacular trinket.

• The Beasts Deck becomes [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] allowing mana regeneration to continue while casting.
• The Elementals Deck becomes [Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom] occasionally striking a melee target for 200-300 Nature damage.
• The Portals Deck becomes [Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether] which can resurrect you 10% of the time.
• The Warlords Deck becomes [Darkmoon Card: Heroism] that acts like the Crusader enchant, occasionally healing the bearer for 120-180 damage whenever the bearer sucessfully damages a melee target.

To get any of these, you will have to collect the cards. Although you can find cards in the world, the Aces of the deck are relatively rare, and for all cards, it is easier to get them from the Auction House. Keep in mind, however, that an entire deck could cost you as much as 500 gold that way…