I’d Rather Be Wowing!

I’ve been thinking of redoing my talent tree. The way it is right now, on my discipline tier, I have PW:S(1/3) and Martyrdom (2/2). I felt that my shield is quite weak as it is right now. Martyrdom rarely procs on me, and even when they proc, they usually went to waste. I’ve been thinking of moving the 2 points to PW:S.

/mathmode on

*Disclaimer: I can’t do math *

PW:S absorb 1265 damage as of patch 2.3 (According to Wowhead - I wish the patch note would spell it out) but it benefits from 30% of +healing damage that you have (according to wowwiki). with my current +healing, the absorption is (1265+ 0.3* 667) = 1465. Ugh. Maxing Improved SW:S, gave me an extra 15% absorption, which is only another 220 damage (additional 146 damage from previous build). Now, is it worth it? Probably not, that’s usually 1 extra hit that I can take…but unless I want to put my points to Silent Resolve, I don’t see any other choice.

/ mathmode off

Another change that I would like to make is to put more points on Improved MB. I currently put 2 out of 5 points in it, which translates to 1 sec reduction of MB’s cooldown (from 8 sec to 7 sec). Now, the problem is, I don’t have many potential points that I can cut from the shadow tree to put there. If I’m putting more points in MB, it seems reasonable that I should put more points in Shadow Power (currently 2/5).

Current available candidates to take points from are Improved VE (2/2), Shadow Weaving (4/5). Improved Psychic Scream (2/2) and Silence (1/1). At least until I can get more +hit gear, which means I can start taking points off Shadow Focus.

• Imp VE is the likeliest candidate to take at least 1 point off. I don’t use it that often except on bosses. Taking the points off means 5-10% reduction on the heal that I provide, which translate to minimum 50h per sec. It’s not too bad, since I’m not supposed to be a healer to begin with. I think my paly healer would miss it though

• Shadow Weaving is important for my overall dps. The current point allocation is on my comfortable level - it has a good chance to stick the debuff. When I was reading shadowpriest forum, it seems that the minimum recommended point is 3/5. On the boss, the fight is long enough that I can see that taking one point of it probably won’t mess up on ensuring the buff is always there and stacked maximally. But on trash, I usually end up with only 3 stacks, I’m not sure what would be the impact of only having 60% chance of debuffing.

• I desperately wants to keep Imp PS. My guild’s 5 party group is usually scarce in CC. One of CC that we do is chain-fearing. It’s not the best strategy, but it works. It also save my butt during farming or dailies. In term of raid, it’s not particularly useful. And I want to be more serious in that.

• Silence is conditional, as in the case with Psychic Scream. It has some usefulness during farming. It’s great for PVP. It’s also great for instance run for pulling caster or recovery after the MC on the caster breaks. But, to get Silence, I need to put all points in Imp PS. It’s a great skill which I use quite frequently. I admit that there’s way to get around not having it. So, is it a good enough skill to put 3 points into?

*Confused*

Got the topic from Blog Azeroth. There are so many wonderful blogs listed there that I don’t feel worthy about showing my blog Anyway…here is my entry.

The class that I play the most is a shadow priest. I love the contradictory concept of priest dealing the damage instead of healing them. But what I enjoy the most from playing a shadow priest is its versatility. It is versatile because shadow priest is strong and tough enough that I can do most of the things that I need to do, such as leveling and farming, on my own efficiently. When put in a grouping circumstances, shadow priest provides some utility to the group other than just pure damage. It allows me to make my groups, guildies, or some random strangers that I passed by “tougher” by giving them Fortitude buff. When killing mobs, my misery talent helps the other dps-caster shines with providing them 5% more damage (and more if you are a shadow damage dealers like warlock *cough*). I also love to provide some efficiency for my fellow mana users by providing constant mana return, allowing them to stay useful longer. When my dear healers fall behind, I can alleviate their burden by providing quasi HOT to all my groups or popping out my shadow form to provide emergency healing.

Paladins prior BC, before they were buffed to be viable in healing and protection, they were known to be the utility class in the raid. Their existence is to help raid runs smoother. They run in the background, rarely being pat in the back since they don’t top damage meters or healing meters . But good raid members would acknowledge that the successfulness of a run may be due to a skillful paladin.

To a certain extent, that’s how I think about shadow priests as they are now. Although some would top damage meters, others are content to be the 3rd in the group but knowing that they provided more, although unseenable and uncreditable to them, to the group overall DPS. Although mocked and avoided in most group because of the lack of CC and healing capability, we cheered when someone somewhere recognized us and gave us a chance for what we are capable of doing.

Shadow priest is a team player that provides support to the star players in the team but when needed they can stand on their own two feet. That’s why I enjoy playing shadow priest (that and shadowform aura on any mount, but especially Elekk, is so freaking awesome!).

Continuing from Thursday’s smooth run in Kara, we tackled two new bosses yesterday. I think everybody was in a high spirit because of how well we did. From the three guilds that make up our run, two of the three Kara groups were new (one of the group was us). The other group were stucked on Maiden this week from having done so well last week (they one shotted Moroes when we stucked on him for a bit). I think that they rotate their members quite frequently, while us, not really having much freedom for changing the group make up, has been running with the same group make up for almost two weeks. I think that it’s certainly help because we have gotten to know each others’ strength and weaknesses - what to expect from each member - not too mention the experience that each brings to the table.

Unfortunately next Thursday I won’t be running because of work conflict *cry*, so they are most likely will bring a hunter from our guild who just recently turned to 70 (he still needs the last 3 steps for getting keyed). In general, it’s always a great thing to have someone to experience new content. Not too mention, it will help him getting the gear and the experience in case one of the dps-er cannot make it to the run.

Well, enough rambling and on to the glorious moments of downing the bosses. We managed to one-shot the Curator. I was assigned to be the hateful bolt soaker. I love it. I got to stay with the boss the whole entire time instead of chasing the flares. Shadow priest’s ability is gimped against mobs that need to go down fast since we don’t have burst damage (our Mind Blast is not spammable) and our dots to them were a waste of mana (the mobs were usually or need to be killed before the dots finished ticking). I just kept VT, VE, and SW:P up the whole entire time, do MF to the Curator when I don’t have to refresh them (MF is the most mana efficient spell) during flare time and do MB during evocation. Every caster in the group loves it because I got to replenish their mana the whole entire time, and they were giddy when their mana bar went back up fast during Evocation. Don’t forget to use your shadowfiend during evocation. I used it on my 2nd once when my mana bar is a bit low and the mana returned usually fills 4/5th of my entire bar.

What I don’t like on being the soaker is that I had to wear my arcane resist gear. My dps drops (ooh…I got my new robe, btw - more story of that later) from 900 to 680-something. Also, when the flare respawned, they sometimes hit me and interrupt my MF. Arggh…it’s so frustrating when MF just ticked for one, and you wasted the rest of the two ticks because of interruption. The curator dropped Gloves of Fallen Champion and Staff of Infinite Mysteries. The gloves went to the shaman and the staff was DE-ed (both I and the mage have the gladiator staff - well actually the mage just got the staff yesterday too and he was pissed , and the holy priest doesn’t think he needs a dps set ).

Shade of Aran, on the other hand, was a much tougher encounter than Curator. I died the first time I was in Kara with the other group (that was my only death) - so I’ve grown to hate the fight. Yesterday, I think we wiped 4 times before managed to down him. After understanding the fight and the mobility that it requires, I have to say that this is one of the funner encounter in Kara.

There were two main difficulties that we faced from Aran. First, for the melee characters, it’s rather hard to notice when Arcane explosion is going to take place because they didn’t get sacked in as the casters. Even with our yelling in vent, sometimes people were late to run to the wall. Dispelling/cleansing the slow effects can help mitigate such mistakes.

Aran spawn elementals when he’s down to 40% of his health. We were having problem with the elementals because they often spawned when we were in flame wreath, which is sucks because we generally couldn’t do anything while being bombarded with frostbolts. We finally learn to control, in a sense, the spawning of the elementals. When flame wreath is about to cast, or is being cast, while he is getting closer to 40% in health, it may help to slow down in the DPS so that he would only spawn them when the flame wreath disappear. Also, and more importantly, focus fire on each elementals since they go down rather fast.

The key to this fight is in paying attention. Having CT_Raid and Deadly Boss Mob certainly helps. When blizzard is about to cast, pay attention to where it lands first. If you are close to it, go toward the center. Although you may get silenced, but it’s better than laying on the floor. If you are not closed to it, cast your spell while once in a while, move at the same direction as the blizzard, then cast again. Not being closed to the center helps when Aran is casting flame wreath afterward. Otherwise, you’ll be stucked with silenced and not being able to move - aka gimping your dps. With the same token, when flame wreath is about to cast, move backward to your comfortable range and start dps-ing him like crazy.

Using all these strategies, we finally downed him without a death. It’s such a great feeling. Aran dropped Drape of the Dark Reapers and Saberclaw Talisman. What a good day for Melee dps-er Our hunter got the Talisman and our fury warrior got the back piece. And we posed for screenies.

Wow…what a long entry

Not too long ago, our guild obtained 2 new members - brothers. They happened to be RL friends of fellow guildies. They are entirely new to the game, although not to MMO games in general. Granted that having noobies in the guild means the guild chat would be bombarded with typical noobish comments and questions - but their presence in the guild have somehow improved my wowing experience. Here’s why I think that’s the case:

1. It’s like going down a (good) memory lane. Hearing about their ooh and aah about an area of the game makes you remember your favorite areas when leveling as well. Hearing about them being smoked by a random group of elites roaming aimlessly makes you remember “the” Mor’ladim that seems to aggro from XX (insert a very large number here) yards away or how the Un’goro’s devilsaurs always manage to get you out of no-where.

2. They are great for boostering your esteem. So, 700g when you’re lvl 70 is not a lot of money. But casually mention that amount to a low level noob and you’ll get a :O reaction from them. Just got a blue or epic item drop? Link it to the guild channel and enjoy seeing them being amaze with the numbers in the stat (even when they are all +spi). You can do the same with your crits amount Everything you have done and owned is still out within their reach. So, they’ll be impressed with you no matter (game related of course). *Evil laugh*

3. By them questioning everything, you can learn about new things. One of the brothers is very observant and very curious. When he found something behaving “oddly”, he won’t hesitate to let us know or open a ticket to the GM. I know at least 2 new bugs that way. Once the GM responded his ticket and communicated with him in game. So he asked the GM, what does a GM look like? The GM answered that he/she can take the shape of anything in the game - they can be the critters or NPCs that you find within the game. I never knew that! It’s kinda cool and disturbing at the same time ><

4. They can be a reason to start a meaningless fun. The noob said, “Oooh..a rare elite, but it’s much higher level than me. I wonder what it will drop?” Not long afterward - a bunch of us ported and flew to Westfall to help him kill the mob. Is it overkill? You betcha! But it’s satisfying when someone just logged in and inquired what we are all doing in Westfall, and when we all said “Party at Westfall”, the person flew there in a heartbeat.

It’s easy to lose the sense of wonderment of the world of Azeroth (and Outland) when you have been playing the game for so long. After so many re-rolling, leveling becomes a chore. The thought of traveling without mounts made me shudders. Being in contact to someone entirely new to the game, that is leveling up his/her characters for the first time can make you realize how you take things for granted.

No instance run this weekend. Our main tank changed his spec temporarily to arms/fury for PVP. He got Despair of R&J opera event and was excited to try it on. Except the part where he spent hours to level up his one hand sword skill (that weapon has a 3.5 speed ><). Every once in a while, he would post his current skill in the guild chat. Too funny.

Other than that, did some productive things:

1. V finally got one more level. She is now 66. The progress is very slow, but then again I’m in no hurry She still need to run Underbog and hoping the plate shoulderpad to drop from the last boss.
2. E’s tailoring is now 375. She is still gathering the mats to make Frozen Shadoweave Robe. She is 8 shadowclothes, 9 primal waters, and 2 netherweb spider’s silk away from it. I was looking at the stat comparison, changing my current robe to this will reduce my int by 20. That’s really sucks.
3. Mystic spellthread is acquired. E’s shadow damage is now 853. I can’t wait until it breaks 900
4. Got exalted with Consortium rep and acquired Design: Relentless Earthstorm Diamond! Finally! I’ve now completed all possible JC recipes from factions.
5. Finally started and finished the quest line to be neutral with the Netherwing faction. We three-manned the group quest with a fury warrior and a MM hunter. Overall, the quests are not too bad, with the exception of the quest “To Netherwing Ledge!” where we have to collect Nethervine Crystal. Argh, the Dragonmaw descendants kept on wiping our arses. But finally, I got access to more daily quests.
6. Trying on the new daily quests. To be honest, the neutral’s daily quests are not fun at all Well, the “not-so-friendly sky” quest is okay, except that if you have more than 2 persons doing the quest, you need to claw your way for the kills. The “Netherwing Crystals” is even more tedious. 40 crystals! Are you kidding me!? And it’s not like they drop on every mobs there are. They really are quests fitting for a grunt. Luckily I’m 1k away to being friendly. And that means access to better daily quests

Not really a progress, but I saw firsthand the coolness of multi-boxing. A was pvp-ing with her lowbie mage. I, having some work due shortly, had to take the pleasure from just watching her play. Then, in AV, we saw a warlock and 4 mages, all have similar name. The 4 mages did arcane blast at the same time and completely obliterated A (which doesn’t take much, I must add), sat down, drink, and stood up at the same time. That was so cool! I know it takes some skill and organization to control multiple characters at the same time.

We came back to Kara, trying to repeat the success that we had last week. And we did awesome! Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, and the new opera event (R&J) were one-shotted. It’s a great feeling.

On the other hand, I messed up on my dispelling task on Maiden yesterday I forgot that I replaced my dispel macro with the regular dispel spell for my previous run. I just realized my mistake after I got the holy fire debuff and my dispelling effort went futile. Argh…luckily we pulled through and downed her. Note to self: Fix the macro and never move it from the bar ever again
Guess what dropped of Attumen? Handwraps of Flowing Thought. And I’m the only one that needs it. The positive: +hit rating and sockets for plus damage increase. The hit rating allows me to switch my waist (still a green, but +20 more dmg than my previous one). The negative: I just freakin put major spell power on that previous glove, thinking that I won’t replace it anytime soon. Without it, I have about the same on my shadow damage when I could’ve gotten more. More money to save.

Another purchase that I bought was Carved Witch Doctor’s Stick with my 25 badges of justice. I was thinking of holding out for my waist gear, but since it was no longer a huge upgrade on the spell damage anyway, I went ahead and buy the wand. My next target would be Icon of the Silver Crescent.

When BC first came out, like many others, I rolled a BE. I’m into aesthetic or pretty things, so the design of BE, especially female BE’s , is very appealing. I play as Alliance ever since I started the game. The only horde class that I ever created was a Tauren, which I managed to level only up to 20 :).

So, here I am, a fresh little BE mage trudging along through the various quests while enjoying the beautiful city of Silvermoon. Until I was assigned the quest to kill Darnassian scouts. I wavered for a little bit of the thought of killing fellows alliance (except they are not really “fellows” anymore), but eventually set out to do the task. It was not so difficult, in a sense, since the scouts are nameless. Not long afterward, however, that I received another quest to kill an alliance figure. A dwarf this time, that was supposed to be a spy.

I just couldn’t do it. That’s just too personal for me. I stopped playing BE or horde in general afterward. Even if I could skip this particular quest, I realized that eventually similar type of conflicts would pop up. And although I never have any “strong” feelings toward the horde faction, most of the time, I never bothered to fight against a horde that I met along the way even when I was still in a PVP server (that - and I realize that it’s all just a game), I was surprised to find myself having such an attachment toward Alliance that would prevent me to kill a mere NPC in the game.

Like it or not, I’ve become attached to my faction. And that kinda closes the other part of the game for me. What’s your attachment stories?

Fires Over Skettis (aka Skettis bombing quest)

Task: In the gist, you need to destroy 20 Monster Kaliri’s Eggs. They can be found on at least three types of places:

1. The platforms of the tall towers. The one directly south of the quest’s giver and the one directly east to this one are my favorite place to start. Each platform can contain 7 -8 eggs and the respawn rate is pretty fast. When it’s not too crowded, it is possible to go back and forth from the two places.
2. The hollow top part of the tree trunks. Each usually contain 3 eggs. There’s a cluster of them on the south east area that I like as a second place to look when the area is quite busy.
3. The platforms of the tree houses where the Arakkoas hangs out. Use caution when bombing these areas since the Arakkoas may attack you. It’s best when the area were just cleaned from the escort quest. There’s usually 4-5 eggs per platform.

Difficulty: Relatively easy. The tricky part is avoiding the Kaliri which may unmount you. You’ll grow to hate those pesky birds. The general trick to outrun them when you got aggro is to fly zig-zag-in higher up direction (pressing button for up/top while alternatively press left or right). Or just unmount and fight them. They are not hard to beat, although their stun is rather annoying. Flying mount makes this quest very easy. So does the days where Kaliri’s Stew is the daily cooking quest.

Reward: 11g 99s + 350 Sha’tari Skyguard rep

Verdict: Definitely do this. It’s fast and if you are careful, it won’t involve fighting any mobs.

Escape From Skettis (aka the escort quest)

Task: Just like the name infer, you are supposed to escort a prisoner down the tree house. Along the way, you have to fight Arakkoas. If you do the escort right after the someone did an escort, you may avoid fighting most of the mobs. The most pull that you’ll have to deal with is 2. But if you’re unlucky, nearby Kaliri may also attack you. There are three locations of possible prisoner’s spawn point (only one prisoner spawn at a time). One is on the tree house directly south of the Skettis camp. One on the east side and another one on the southeast (I’m too lazy to find the coordinates). The tree houses that you are looking for are the tree houses that connect to one other tree house through a hanging bridge while the other tree house has a “stair”/”bridge” that leads to the ground.

Difficulty: It’s soloable for all dps classes and tanker. Healing spec may want to grab another person to do the quest with.

Reward: 9g 10s + 3 Volatile Healing Pot or 2 Unstable Mana pot + 350 Sha’tari Skyguard rep.

Verdict: The hard part of the quest is finding the prisoner (i.e., one that has not been waited by someone else). If you’re lucky to find one during your bombing quest, by all mean, do it. Otherwise, the sheer amount of time you’ll spend waiting on a respawn point makes this quest not worth doing.

More Shadow Dust (repeatable)

Task: You’ll need to fork over 6 shadow dust that drops off the Arakkoas.

Comment: The drop rate is not so bad. The good thing about this quest is that, each time you turn in 6 shadow dust, you’ll get an elixir of shadow. The elixir allows you to see the (hostile) arakkoa’s spirits for 20 minutes. These arakkoas drop Time Lost scrolls. The scrolls themselves can be sold in AH for quite a sum of g.

Difficulty: The Arakkoa’s spirit usually comes in groups of 2-3. There are some that just walk around. They are actually quite difficult but definitely soloable. Again, probably not for a healing spec (except one with a good +dmg spell ).

Reward: 75 Sha’tari Skyguard rep

Verdict: I won’t go out and farm for shadow dust. But if one happens to drop when you’re killing Arakkoa, I would keep them. Once you have 6, turn them in, go to one of the tree house (pop the pot before you go to the tree house so you can find the safe spot), and farm for the Time Lost Scrolls. Of course, check your AH first to see whether it’s worth it. In my server, these sells quite good, so it’s definitely worth it.

Finally crafted my Frozen Shadoweave Boots. I got it enchanted with Vitality - thanks G (+4mps and +4hps). It is gemmed with Solid Star of Elune (+12 stam) and Don Julio’s heart (+14 spell dmg - exclusive for JC-er). My spell damage is now up to 805. Not too shabby. I am also broke
The last big purchases are:

1. At least 4 Runed Living Ruby (+9 spell damage)
2. Subtlety cloak enchant
3. Mystic Spellthread (+25 spell damage and +15 stamina)
4. Spellpower enchant for bracer (+15 spell dmage)

More money is needed! \Sigh

Finally! After wiping 3 times, Maiden finally lay peacefully on the floor. We didn’t really change any strategy from the last encounters. On the third encounter, one of the healer died because he was out of range from the dispel. We pretty much sure that we are going to wipe again, but we didn’t. Everybody else held up, and she is finally downed.

I did so much better on the dispel, thanks to the macro, and watching the target’s target window carefully. Of course my dps went down the drain. The important thing is that, we can move on. Hopefully next time, things will go smoother.

The next step of our journey is the Opera event. And…we get “The Little Red Riding Hood” event, which means that we have to kill The Big Bad Wolf. Ok, this encounter is not too overly difficult, but it does require some quick reflex (which is something that I sorely lacking). Two things that I, as a caster dps, need to pay attention on this fight.

1. Run like a little girl. Yep, when you are turned into red riding hood a.k.a a female gnome with 50% speed increase, you better run for your life. It’s hard to nail it down the first times, but when you get a hang of it, it is not too bad. The important thing is for you to stay in a range with the wolf at the beginning of the debuff. For me, as soon as I notice that I was transformed, I turned and run. That requires you to pay attention to your character. Make sure that you are not bumping at walls, trees, or cutting corners. We found though, that sometimes, if you have too much of a running start, the wolf will take a short cut and that usually means that he will catch up to you. So, it’s better to make sure that he’s coming straight to you, before taking off.
2. DPS-ing is rather hard without topping the aggro chart because of the fearing and etc. Waiting until the 2nd round of debuff can help the tanker to get some lead. But, I found it useful just to deliver constant damage instead of spiking damage. And when the debuff almost wears off, lay down on the dps.

We had so many wipes before finally downing this bad boy. I think it’s because we have the unfortunate luck of having our MT being debuffed twice in a row, at the initial start if the fights. Other than that, combination of aggro pull and inability to do run without him catching up were our downfall. It’s very hard for the melee dps-er to run successfully when you get a debuff. One time, one of them were even stunned when he got the debuff. One strategy (from one of the melee-er who successfully run out from him several times) is to make some distant when the debuff is coming (regardless who end up to be targeted).

So, my Trial-Fire Trousers dropped, and after some coaxing, the mage let me took it (that and he got 2 drops from Moroes and a random purple drop). I am so happy The Wolfslayer rifle also dropped from the event which was snagged by our hunter.