The Game Dame

I just realized that in my screenshot meme post, I claimed that you could see my current UI on the epic flyer post. WRONG! I cropped it all out of that photo. So here is the same photo, uncropped, so you can compare and contrast if you like. As I described yesterday, the totem organizer is FloTotem.

My fearless GM, Fikkle, has tagged me in this screenshot meme thing. Like him, I have no subfolders in my screenshots folder. (Organized? BAH hahahaha!) So here’s my sixth image. The little chat is amusing, so make sure you click the image to see the full size picture.

Ah… this picture brings back so many memories. It was taken when Slig was at level 57 in Un’Goro Crater with my very first WoW friend. Monoko and I had met at level 10 killing harpies in Mulgore and leveled together thereafter. I was always so impressed with a warrior’s abilities that when she did something amazing like take on all these dinos at once, I wanted to preserve the moment. (Slig was such a fanboy shutterbug!)

Over time, I learned that my little warrior buddy was a 17 year old girl and I eventually got to know her dad, mom, and sister too. I was adopted into their guild, which had the coolest name ever: “Murloc Stole My Socks.” Unfortunately, the guild was torn apart by politics and ambition. Soon thereafter, Monoko’s mom fell into deep depression — I don’t think the events were related — and I began to feel oppressed by all the attention the family pressed me for on her behalf. It seemed I couldn’t log on without one of them dragging me hither and yon, unable to accomplish anything of my own choosing. Shortly after this shot, Slig began his odyssey of moving from server to server. Dawnbringer is the first server I’ve been happy on since this picture was taken.

And look at that UI! It’s completely different than the one I have now. My current one is much closer to being the vanilla UI, with addons now being mostly about function rather than looks. I do miss the totem/spell organizer called Totemus. (The developer abandoned upgrading it over a year ago.) I’ve never found a better totem organizer that takes as little space. The current one I use is FloTotem, which you can see in action in a shot of my current UI over on my epic flyer post.

As you’re supposed to do, I’m tagging six more bloggers (if I can find that many who haven’t done it already) to go into their WoW screenshots folder, find the sixth subfolder (if you have that many), and post your sixth screenshot:

1. 1. Picklemonkey at Picklemonkey the Shaman
2. 2. Kelly at World of Warcraft, eh?
3. 3. Rakhman at Flame Shock
4. 4. Liz at Chaos Fyurae
5. 5. Goeben at Chain Heal
6. 6. Kinless at Kinless Chronicles

Artisan Riding… 5000 Gold
Swift Purple Wind Rider… 200 Gold
The Right Stuff… Free
Flying 280% faster… PRICELESS!

Smexy top and bottom! Really nothing more to add to that, is there?

Sweet! Just like BRK and BBB, I got a letter asking me for some help. Imagine my delight!

“Hi Natalie. I have a level 30 shaman who I haven’t played much but would like to pick up again. Since I haven’t played her since before the 3.0.X patches, she is currently untalented. I was resto before, but would like to go elemental. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to suggest where to spend the talents, or suggest some sites that I could read which would help me. So much of the information that I find is geared towards endgame, and that helps somewhat, but doesn’t do much for where to put talents while leveling. My gear is mostly spellpower + intelligence based since I was resto, so I don’t think I will need to make many changes there.”

Well, thanks for asking, Little Shaman! It is true that you can find a whole lot of information out there for endgame. And, in fact, everyone and their mother (especially their mothers) has an opinion on how level 80s should spec. Simple Google searches will put you in touch with Elitist Jerks and WoW Insider jerks and lots of other jerks & non-jerks who believe they know more about the game than anyone else. In some cases, maybe they do. In most cases, though, who gives a rat’s patootie what they think? Especially about leveling and helping folks who don’t raid (yet or ever) or people who are simply trying to make it through Scarlet Monestary alive. As such, it is my pleasure to offer you my thoughts on your situation…

Here are two specs for your consideration. I recommend the first one, but you could also opt for the second one.

• Pure Elemental Tree: This build is the one I’d go with for PvE and leveling. It gets you the mana conservation of Elemental Focus as soon as possible. (I hate stopping to drink and I even resent having to carry mana pots. What am I, a Mage? Seriously.) At level 31, I’d take the final point on Eye of the Storm which helps you get your spells off without interruption.

• A Taste of Enhancement: This build skips Call of Flame for now, saving it for level 75 since some would argue that it doesn’t matter to you until you get Lava Burst — especially if you don’t use fire totems that much. [Tangent: There is a whole school of shamans out there who believe that, for the most part, totems are a waste of mana while leveling. I think this is a load of hooey. Granted, most solo fights don't require them, but there are many times when totems are quite useful even when not in a group. I used fire totems a lot when leveling, especially if I pulled too many mobs, almost like an extra DPS group member.] Okay, back to the spec. In this version you get to build a little into the Enhancement tree for the sake of Intellect, but it takes away some of your Elemental talent points. With this build, at 31 I’d take either Eye of the Storm or Ancestral Knowledge.

You’re dead-on, Little Shaman, as far as which stats to choose on gear. Spell power, Intellect, Crit, and Stamina are great for Elemental shamans. You’ll find that sometimes the cloth item will prove better than the mail item (you don’t need Agility unless you change to Enhancement) but as often as possible, stick to mail. In later levels you’ll have a chance to beef up your Hit Rating and Haste.

As for where to go as you progress further along, you can check out my build on the armory for reference. Some people will argue that Thunderstorm is only useful in PvP, but I disagree. I find it’s a good panic button in PvE when you get overwhelmed with mobs and need to get off a heal or just get the heck outta there. (Note that I only use Thunderstorm in group settings if chaos ensues and a wipe is imminent. God help you if you knock mobs off the tank and into the healer.) If you don’t want to take Thunderstorm, then I’d use that point in Thundering Strikes or Elemental Weapons in the Enhance tree.

As is the nature of the intarwebz, everyone has their own opinion. What advice do you readers have for our Little Shaman?

Click for photo credit.

If you keep up with the forums, you’ll see that Blizzard has posted some of the changes that will be implemented in patch 3.1 (release date unknown). For those of you who don’t, I’ve copied the Shaman changes here, with my comments.

Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning more clear.

• I don’t really get what Eyonix means by saying that the distinction between LB and CL is not currently clear. I mean, what’s to get confused about? One hits multiple targets, the other one doesn’t. It’s not rocket science, people. Adding an extra target doesn’t make it more different. I don’t really like this change because the odds against facing multiple mobs increase along with the number of mobs. That means you’ll need to hit two targets more often than you’ll need to hit three, and so on. There’s no way, even with four jumps, that shamans can compete with other AOE damage classes — even at its fastest it takes too long to cast and it costs over 1/4 of your base mana (again, without buffs, etc.). I’d rather they keep it the way it is. 

Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage.

• Currently this talent improves the periodic damage from Flame Shock by 20/40/60% so, although Eyonix’s comment doesn’t say how much the base damage will be improved, I’m going to assume it’ll be by the same amount as the periodic damage. At level 80, Flame Shock’s initial burst damage is 500 (without buffs or other enhancements), which means that will change to at least 800! 

Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat.

Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%.

• These talents are too far into the Enhancement tree for me to have them specced, but I can’t see any shamans being upset with reduced casting threat or added crit and three extra talent points.

Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined.

• This change surprises the heck out of me but I gotta say I love it! Still, it leaves me with quandary. When there are two shamans in a group, one will drop Mana Spring and the other will drop Healing Stream as their standard water totems. If you have no need for disease/poison cleansing, the only other water totem is Fire Resistance and sometimes that’s just not necessary when fighting mobs that use physical, frost, arcane, etc. damage. So the big question is: Will the new mana/healing totem stack? I doubt it. Now if only they’d replace Sentry Totem with something more useful…

We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

• I’m not much into PvP, as most of you know, and Eyonix’s comment is quite vague, but it would be great to see some improvements here. I hope it means getting a way to avoid stuns. I might even play PvP if I felt I had at least half a decent shot at winning a one-on-one match.

Of course, there will be people wishing for changes that aren’t listed. For example, there’s nothing here except the totem streamlining that helps Resto shaman. But at least we’re not getting badly nerfed. All in all, I like these changes for shamans, so I say bring on the patch!

Bobby McFerrin is a tool. Or at least his label, WMG, is a bunch of tools. Here’s proof.

It was just this harmless video posted on Youtube — now removed, mind you — but uploaded here for your amusement and my pettiness toward them.

Don’t Worry, Be Death Knight

Now what does all this have to do with the Dixie Chicks? Well, I’ve been working for several months on a mini biopic set to the tune of one of their songs. But when I got slapped by Bobby McFerrin’s thugs, I got scared. I do NOT want to upset the Chicks because I am a huge fan. So I decided I could either give up on the movie or write and ask the Dixie Chicks if I could have permission to use one of their songs in my silly movie.

Can anyone help me in that six-degrees-of-separation way? Like you twitter folks?