An Enhancement Shaman's Blog

I'm Terrible

2009-11-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

Mostly at posting. I may try and fix that. I haven't been playing the pony a whole lot. I now have a DK and priest at 80, and I'm working on a Warlock to be my Jewelcrafting bot. 3.2 has been kind of a downer in our guild and around Azeroth as a whole I think. I'm looking forward to 3.3 and the random dungeon feature. I would like to gear up the priest, and badges are sexiness. Plus, Drill likes Tier 9, yes he does. I wonder how they're gonna dish out Tier 10 for me . . . .

My Plans for 3.1

2009-04-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics says I haven't had a hit since April 6. Ouch. I guess that's what I get for posting so little. Truth be told, I think we were all a little burnt out on old content and kind of slowed down. But now there's new stuff, shiny stuff! Time to dive in!

First off, what did you do first when the servers were finally active? Me, I popped on over to Ironforge and bought me a little dual-spec goodness. It tasted sweet in my mouth. I am now an Enhance/Restoration Shaman, possibly I should change the header. Naaaaaa. I still love hitting things with sticks. I'll only put on that silly Spellpower gear if the guild makes me, but then it's coming off like pants covered in acid. Acid pants. It's happend before . . . *shudder*

Next up, ARGENT TOURNAMENT! Now, I haven't done dailies in . . . months. I hit Exalted with Hodir sometime in February and they were the last Northrend faction to get to that lofty point (aside from the Frostborn and Explorer's League, but I don't have the fortitude to do their dailies everyday). So since then, I've had no reason to do dailies aside from extra gold, and I figured my time was better spent elsewhere. Now I have new dailies, and Silver Covenant rep to get! Yay! Looks I'll be doing the same few quests for three days until I'm an Aspirant. Then who knows what from there. Wowinsider already has a guide, so I won't be doing one, but seriously check out that place if you haven't. It's a mad house about now.

Now for Ulduar. My guild, unfortunately, is not ready. Without even a 10-man Malygos kill under our belts (we actually haven't tried >_< ) we are woefully unprepared and undergeared. It will be a while before we march on the gates, but I have faith that we will someday.

Go forth! Enjoy patchiness.

I'm a Champion!

2009-04-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

I have accomplished something that most people already have, but I'm still proud of it. I am a Champion of the Frozen Wastes as evidenced by this screenshot:

As you can see, it was The Oculus that got me over the hump (the Heroic Achievement was below it, but got knocked off the list). A clear of my very first Eye of Eternity ever and then a run of the dreaded Oculus got me over the hump. The fact that it was last should clue you in on how much I absolutely despise that place. Some guildies helped me run it to get the achievement. They also thought it would be funny to put me on the red drake. They're bastards. But loveable bastards. Now, Drillpress, Champion of the Frozen Wastes sounds lovely and all, but I think I'd like "Drillpress, Badass of Northrend" much better. I'll be lobbying for that title.

The Obligatory Add-on Post

2009-04-07T15:35:00.001-07:00

Everyone has to have one. I think it’s a rule I read somewhere. So that’s my my UI above. I think it’s pretty. It took me some tweaking, some cajoling, some whispering of sweet nothings to get it like this in a way that I like it. I used the screenie from my first downing of KT because I’m still pretty proud of that, and because I’m apparently top DPS. But if you look closely, our raid DPS is terrible, so that’s not saying much. You should open it up in a bigger picture to get the true sense of it. Better yet, open it up in a separate tab so that you can marvel at it while I talk about it. I’ll wait.

Done? Sweet. First, the stuff you can see. In the upper left and right corners is Buffalo. Buffalo keeps my buffs looking sexy and small, and lets me drag them around to where I want them. In my UI, my all-important Shammy weapon buffs are in the left corner so I can’t help but notice when they’re missing. My personal buff are in the usual position of the top right corner and below them (near where the range-check box is at ) is where my debuffs show up if I have any. I find that’s an excellent position for a quick glance to check my polarity or stacks of whatever.

Still at the top, but now in the middle, that pretty blue bar you see that says “8 Orbs Remaining” is my stripped down ShockAndAwe add-on. It’s a very, very handy little bugger if you are concerned with cooldowns and such, but I just found all the bars to be distracting. I keep the shield bar mostly to make sure that I never forget to apply a shield and so that I can refresh Lightning Shield in a lull in my rotation before it goes down in a boss fight. I also use SAA’s handy rotation reminder to let me know when Maelstrom Weapon hits 5 stacks and I can shoot baddies with lighting bolts.

Just below that is a little warning that our fearless mage leader is getting frost blasted. That’s Deadly Boss Mods. Everyone who has ever raided should have it. You already know all about it.

If we continue moving south and slightly right, those four bars right above my HUD will become the focus of your sight. Those are a piece of Yet Another Totem Add-on, or YATA as it is affectionately known. Well, as affectionately as you can be with software. Which is a surprisingly large amount. Anyway, that part right there gives me a little display of what totems I have out and when they’ll despawn. During long fights, this keeps me from letting totems disappear and the raid losing buffs, so it’s very handy. When I use a totem with a cooldown, like one of my elementals or Stoneclaw, another bar will pop up on the left side reminding me of the cooldown before I can use the totem again. The other part of YATA is below the achievement notification, so sorry about that. In short, it’s a four button bar with all of my totems sorted by class in cascading menus. It keeps me from having to have all fourteen thousand totems on a bar somewhere.

My HUD is the venerable ArcHud. I dislike Blizzard frames and every unit frame that resembles them. They are aesthetically unappealing under most circumstances and I have trouble with the placement. Enter ArcHUD. It’s small, minimal, and fades into the background when I’m just walking around. Couldn’t ask for anything more.

So then, at the bottom, from left to right. Omen3, another raiding staple, useful when I play a game of “Steal aggro from the tank.” Sure the tank gets mad, but he just wasn’t working hard enough. Then, Grid. Frickin’ love these raid frames, mostly because they’re small and gorgeous. They show me everything I need to know, which is health levels, people with aggro, and debuffs I can take care of. It’s all I need to know, and it’s what I get in a great little package. My chat pane uses Prat 3.0, mostly to make it prettier and easier to follow. Then there’s SimpleMap in the middle. Just a minimalistic and movable minimap. Next, Recount, another raiding staple if you want to feel good about yourself or realise how much you suck, or tell someone else how much they suck. I mostly use it to make sure my DPS is where it’s supposed to be. If it’s not, I check to see if my fishing pole is equipped and that usually fixes it. Then, Bartender4. The buttons I MAY need during a fight are big and noticeable and hard to miss when I click them. The buttons in my rotation or that I’m sure I’ll use are hotkeyed. I skin all the buttons with ButtonFacade to make them prettier.

That’s all for what you can see, and this post has gone on long enough. I’ll post another one with the mess of add-ons I use behind the scenes later. Until then, feel free to ogle my UI with lust. Do it. I mean, if you want. But you should. You REALLY should . . .

Fixed?

2009-04-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Gnomeaggedon let me know that my comments/rss wasn't working. Hopefully I've resolved it. It meant a new layout, since apparently mine sucked, but hopefully people can actually leave comments and subscribe to the RSS now.

So You Want To Be A Guardian of Cenarius?

2009-04-03T22:08:00.001-07:00

In my quest to be a Loremaster/Seeker, coupled with my love of collecting nifty looking sets I have been on the path to get my Dungeon 2 set and doing the quests that accompany that. One quest in particular sends you out to Silithus for some cinders from the Duke of Cynders. This requires some work and farming, so I decided to take the incredibly long route to my goal and raise my Cenarion Circle reputation to Exalted while I was out there. I did a lot of research and trial and error to try and figure out the best way to get my rep up as fast as possible and I figured I might throw my suggestions up here in a way that will hopefully be helpful to others. Oh, and this guide assumes you are not running AQ over and over, just thought I’d mention that. First of all, do your non-repeatable quests in Silithus. This part is kind of unnecessary if you are not concerned with Loremaster/Seeker as it will send you in circles around Silithus and be slower than the prescribed grind. If you simply want Exalted, skip the table below. If you are concerned with achievements as I was, then these are the quests that will count towards both achievements in the zone or for the faction. Cross them off after you finish them :-)

A Humble Offering	Abyssal Contacts	Brann Bronzebeard’s Letter
Deadly Desert Venom	Noggle’s Last Hope	Noggle’s Lost Satchel
Dearest Natalia	Into the Maw of Madness	Breaking the Code
Unraveling the Mystery	Glyph Chasing	Desert Recipe
Sharing the Knowledge	Kitchen Assistance	Aurel Goldleaf
Dukes of the Council	Bor Wildmane	Signet of the Dukes
Goldleaf’s Discovery	Lords of the Council	Bor Wishes to Speak
Scepter of the Council	The New Frontier	Rabine Saturna
Wasteland	The Spirits of Southwind	Hive in the Tower
Umber, Archivist	Uncovering Past Secrets	Under the Chitin Was…
Scouring the Desert	Securing the Supply Lines	Stepping Up Security
Secret Communication	A Reliquary of Purity	Shards of Felvine
The Perfect Poison	The Twilight Mystery	The Deserter
The Twilight Lexicon	A Terrible Purpose	Twilight Geolords
Vyral the Vile	The Calling	Armaments of War
Wanted: Deathclasp

Now for the grind. From here on out, we have a couple choices:

Option #1 – The Twilight Hammer/Abyssal Council grind.
Option #2 – The Field Duty/Allegiance to Cenarion Circle grind.

The route I took, and the route I’m pretty sure everyone will agree offers the best Rep:Time ratio is Option #1. The reasoning behind this is that Option #2, while a viable option, just requires too much time for too little reward. Field Duty will get you Logistical, Combat, and Tactical assignments which you can complete for badges as well as 150 rep per completed quest. One of each of these badges will net you a cool 1000 rep for turning them in for [Allegiance to the Cenarion Circle]. Unfortunately, these assignments took me a bit more far and wide than I thought efficient. Combat Assignments sent me to kill a large amount of mobs, usually 30. Not terribly difficult, but some targets such as the Hive’Regal Burrower are not the densest of groups and will take quite a while to kill several of them. Logistical Assignments will send you to the AH mostly, or at least that was my experience. You spend money for mats that they happen to call for, which is another reason why I avoided this route. Tactical Assignments can actually supplement Option #1 as some of them will have you kill various Templars, but it will also send you to far and sundry locations to meet with people. So we’re going to put Option #2 to bed, simply because it’s too much expense and running around for too little reward.So here then is the Step-by-Step for Option #1 which you will ride all the way to Exalted.The cornerstone is going to be killing Twilight Hammer Cultists. Tons of them. If you have an AoE, congratulations, you’re way ahead of the game. I farmed the two camps at 39.44 and 26,33 as they were the easiest to go back and forth between and had easy access to a town if I needed to empty my bags or turn things in. The drops we’re concerned with are [Encrypted Twilight Texts], [Twilight Cultists Mantle], [Twilight Cultist Cowl], and [Twilight Cultist Robe]. Always keeps these drops.The main source of reputation will come from the Twilight Hammer Cultists themselves and the Encrypted Twilight Texts. Each Cultist you kill will net 10 rep apiece which will add up quickly, and each stack of 10 Texts you hand in will net another 500 reputation. While you are farming up these Texts, you are going to use a set of secondary drops to give you some auxiliary rep to shorten the process. Cultists will occasionally drop uncommon items that are part of the Twilight Trappings set. When you put on a full set, you can summon an Abyssal Templar from a Lesser Wind Stone at the Cultist camps and get an [Abyssal Crest]. For every three of these Crests, you can turn them in with a [Large Brilliant Shard] for a [Medallion of Station] which can be worn along with another set of Twilight Trappings to summon an Abyssal Duke from a Wind Stone. From the Dukes you will get [Abyssal Signets] which can be turned in three at a time with 5 Large Brilliant Shards for a [Twilight Ring of Lordship]. While wearing this along with a Medallion of Station and Twilight Trappings Set you can summon an Abyssal Lord who will drop an [Abyssal Scepter] . I tell you all this because, for the completionists, you’re going to need two Abyssal Scepters, one to complete [Humble Offering], and one to complete [Scepter of the Council], both of which count toward the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement. So the progression will look something like this:

Purchase at least 18x Large Brilliant Shard.
Kill Twilight Hammer Cultists, collect Encrypted Twilight Texts and pieces of Twilight Trappings set.
Use full sets of Trappings at a Lesser Wind Stones and collect 12x Abyssal Crests.
Turn in12x Abyssal Crests w/ 4x Large Brilliant Shard for 4x Medallion of Station.
Use 3x Medallion & 3 more sets of Trappings to use Wind Stones and collect 3x Abyssal Signet.
Turn in 3x Abyssal Signet w/ 5x Large Brilliant Shard for 1x Twilight Cultist Ring of Lordship.
Use Trappings set, Medallion, and Ring at Greater Wind Stone, collect Abyssal Scepter.
Repeat

If you go through these steps twice, you should have more than enough reputation for Exalted from mob kills and rewards from quest turn-ins. I even had some left over pages at the end, but their existence is based on the RNG, so you may see better or worse results. I hope this is helpful, I put a bunch of work into it. If you have some comments on how I can make it better, please feel free to let me know.

Lich in a Barrel

2009-03-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

So recently (read: Sunday) I was involved in my first Naxx25 kill of Kel'Thuzad. It was a glorious moment. It was the second time our amalgamation of guilds was able to defeat him and it occurred in only two attempts. I was very happy. Oddly enough, I apparently have never downed Gluth and Thaddius so I received no achievements. On a theoretical level, I feel I have it, and that's enough for me.

I feel like there's no substance to this blog. I tell you my exploits, which is fun enough for me as I'm getting a little record of Drillpress' endeavors, but there isn't much to make other people read it. That is, if other people even COME here. I am unaware of a way to check and see if this blog is actually trafficked, I have come to doubt it. I feel maybe I should peruse the interwebs and poach things, as I myself am not very creative, but then I'm a leech on the community istead of an addition. Nuts.

Well, here's the only thing I could think of to be gimmicky, music. I loves it. I try to have it whenever I possibly can. So here's the first installment of Music to WoW By. In this instalment, Music To Raid By:

1st, Puscifer's "The Undertaker" - The perfect trash-clearing song. Steady beats with a droning guitar and droning lyrics, this baby lulls you into a comfortable rhythm as the insignificant peons fall dead at your feet. Also, as a Tool/APC fan, I'm obligated to like this band.

2nd, ASHES dIVIDE's "Sword" - Start this baby about one minute before your boss pull. Picture yourself unsheathing your weapons as the strings begin. You gently caress your blade while the violins strain and his gently lyrics coincide with your slow-motion charge at your enemy. The steady calmness of the song is not for frentic fights, but rather steady drags. Set this one aside for use with Patchwerk or Loatheb. Let it drive you on, help you continue the fight as it swells, and let you revel in the fallen enemy as the piano slowly takes you out.

3rd, Innerpartysystem's "Don't Stop" - You'll see the pattern here as a tend to like to calm myself a little before a boss fight. Start this one a little before the pull too. Unlike the other two though, this one drives. Hard down beats will set the tempo of your rotation and keep you pressing on and moving until breakdowns force you to revaluate your position or visualize yourself in the flurry of battle as a great camera pans around the maelstrom that envelopes everyone around you. But this will stop in time for the camera to zoom back in and allow you to finish strong, right up to the killing blow.

Well, that's all I have for now. Tell me what you think about my little segment. Heck, tell me if you read this blog at all. For now, I must work on real people things. Real people things are dumb.

TL;DR

2009-03-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

I got in to one night of a Naxx 25 and got to clear two wings before we quit, which was pretty cool. I finally picked up my shiny [Totem of Dueling] and a [Depraved Linked Belt], so I count it as a HUGE success. I lost enough hit to drop me to 300-ish, so it's back to [Elixir of Accuracy] for me. :-/

Sickness has kind of enveloped my life for the last two days. I've been more sick in the 10ish months I've had this new job than the last ten years of my life combined. I can only assume the work is sucking the will to be healthy directly from my mucus membranes and then laughing maniacally as each new malady overtakes me.

I'm hitting enter twice and starting new paragraphs for each of these little subsections as if that justifies my non sequiturs. Unfortunately I'm simply to lazy and sickish feeling to write some reasonable transitions, so you get to suffer from my lack of literary prowess.

I'm supposed to run an MC fun run tonight. For this I am excited. Raiding with little to nothing at stake seems to bring out the silliness in my guildmates, and it is this silliness that makes me love them. Unfortunately it isn't welcome in our Naxx25 runs as we fuse with another guild of like-minded "casualistas" for the undertaking as we can't quite muster up the numbers to conquer the dread citadel on our own. This leads to lots of silence which makes me uncomfortable. It's in those moment I turn to my wife and ask her some inane question simply so I can hear noise. Speaking of my wife, if anyone would like to donate to a fund I have dubbed "My Pocket" in order that we might purchase a viable platform for her to join me in my WoW adventures on, that would be most appreciated. She has the desire, but we lack the means. Curses to being poor and happy.

I'm done now, I must locate some more medicine that may or may not help any symptoms I may or may not have in an excuse to keep myself drugged and on the precipice of unconsciousness. I am attempting to maintain a persistent zombie-like state.

I'm Bad At This

2009-03-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

I'm ridiculously bad at updating this thing with any real good sense of timing apparently. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have started playing a bit less as work has been a little more involved recently. I haven't really accomplished much at all except that I've started organizing some old-world raids for fun and achievements. AQ-40 got knocked out after wiping a lot on Twins and C'Thun. Turns out those tentacles will get you wherever you are inside the whole freakin' instance. A couple weeks after, we grabbed a bunch of PuGs and got about 28 people inside BWL. It was pretty much super unnecessary and we cleared it out in less than 30 minutes. I had this quest to pick up Lashlayer's head and I totally forgot to do it. I felt very dumb. This Friday MC is on the list. I'm hoping for a guild only run, as it's much more fun without the PuGs and we're not really gonna need a big group for it at all. We shall see. Other than that, I lack major accomplishments. I've been collecting my D1 set for kicks and giggles as well as to do the quests to upgrade to D2. At this point I'm only missing my belt and chestpiece, so I've been soloing UBRS repeatedly, but Drakkisath and the trash mobs are not cooperating. Wish me luck! I'm going back to work now.

Forgive Me Father . . .

2009-03-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

For I have sinned. It has been . . . a bunch of days since my last post. A little over a week in fact. Bad shaman. I healed my first Naxx10 in an effort to get familiar with the mechanics of being Resto in case anyone ever needs to do something silly, like keep them alive. Aside from letting the OT die on our first attempt at Anub'asomethin (It was my first time! Cut me some slack), I did pretty good. I even picked up a [Collar of Dissolution] for the main set which made me happy.

I also was able to wrap up [On Blades Edge] and [Into the Nether] for my [Loremaster of Outland] acheivement. This still leaves me with a little over 600 quests left in Azeroth for the Loremaster title, but I'm less than 300 quests away from The Seeker. Not only that, but I got my 50th pet for Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart . . . er, Pet Smart.

Oh, oh, oh! And i picked up [Fury of the Five Flights] to go along with my [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] so I'm pretty set on trinkets for now.

To Be A Chef de Cuisine

2009-02-27T13:22:00.000-08:00

So I found myself with the only achievement sitting in my Cooking tab left undone to be [Chef de Cuisine] so I decided to do something about it. I had done some random AH poaching in the past as I knew that some recipes were purchasable by Horde only, but I wasn't sure which recipes I hadn't gotten yet. This led to the acquisition of a new addon, Ackis' Recipe List. One click of the newly added 'Scan' button on my Cooking spellbook and I know have a list of the recipes I need and where they come from. Also, these are from an Alliance outlook, so if you're Horde, some of this info will be rather different.

~~Lynx Steak~~ ~~- Horde Vendor. I'll have to buy this one.~~
~~Kaldorei Spider Kabob~~ ~~- Comes from a quest in Teldrassil~~
~~Strider Stew~~ ~~- Another one from a quest, this time in Darkshore.~~
Thistle Tea - Unfortunately, a rogue only recipe
Savory Deviate Delight - It's a world drop. Currently going for no less thank 1k on the AH
Dig Rat Stew - From a Horde-only quest. I haven't seen it on the AH yet, but the PTR notes say it will be easier to attain after 3.1
~~Crispy Lizard Tail~~ ~~- Another Horde-only recipe I'll have to find on the AH~~
~~Undermine Clam Chowder~~ ~~- Bought from a vendor in Tanaris. Not sure how I missed this one.~~
~~Smoked Desert Dumplings~~ ~~- A quest from Silithus will get me this one.~~
Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops - Ugg, a long part of the AQ questline. This one will take work

Sweet, now I have my list, and it's time to get to work.

Edit: So I found most of the ones I needed to buy and quested for the questy ones. I did farm for Deviate Delight for a couple hours, and no dice. I started the quest for the Chimaerok Chops, but I have to kill a dude in BWL before that moves on, so it may be a while. They may even have new recipes out by the time I'm able to get the last 3 I need.

Of The Argent Tournament

2009-02-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

So, something I didn't get into yesterday that is pretty big news and looks amazingly fun to me is the new Argent Tournament. It seems to be being billed as a persistent world event where we help the Argent Crusade build a big ol' arena in which we will engage in mounted combat against . . . foes unknown as of yet. The coliseum itself will be instanced and will not be PvP based, but the building itself will not be coming in 3.1, it will come in a later patch. There seems to be a collection of daily quests already, both focusing on construction of the arena and learning to battle which are already up on the PTR. Makea over at Murloc Queen already has a multi-part walkthrough for the current quests and is updating them very nicely for the new builds as they come out. She has maps and pictures and everything, so I recommend checking that out and being way ahead of the game.

MMO-champion also released some of the new rewards that have been added as of the latest build for the Argent Tournament which are apparently purchased with "Champion's Seals." No word yet on how the Seals are obtained, but it is likely related to the dailies in some way. You can buy tabards, banners, the mounts and pets I mentioned yesterday, some epic weapons, and some rare armor. There are only a few pieces of interest to Enhancers:

Nothing to write home about, mostly for folks leveling up I would guess. Even the epic mace is nothing to write home about. It's not really going to dislodge any raiding maces probably. You may also be able to buy commendation badges to up your rep with the major cities of your faction. Fortunately, as Ambassador Drillpress, I'll get to save mine for mounts.

I'll keep freaking out like a fanboy as more cool stuff comes out.

The Epic-ness of 3.1

2009-02-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

Wow, there's a lot of Patch 3.1 stuff out there now that the PTR has opened up! So, I wanted to do like everyone else and give my little two cents on things that interest me as my club-wielding space pony.

First: Tier 8! I'll probably never see it, but man, it's sexy.

The New Legendary Mace: We're going to be gathering junks of fragment of Val'anyr from inside Ulduar it would seem to put together a new mace. Judging from the tooltip of who it's available to, it will most likely be a healing mace, but I'm hopeful that there will be multiple different versions so that Drillpress will wield a legendary someday.

New Patterns: Some new patterns will be dropping for most professions, but the only ones that seem to be applicable for me will be the Leatherworking ones:

They use Runed Orbs in the patterns, which everyone pretty much assumes will drop out of Ulduar much like the Nether Vortices dropped out of upper level BC raids. The belt is a fairly sizable upgrade over [Torn Web Wrapping] whereas anyone who has [Boots of the Renewed Flight] from Malygos will probably pass on the boots. They're really only a small upgrade from [Pack-Ice Striders] if you can afford the loss to your hit rating. So not all win there.

New Pets and Mounts: There's a ton of them. How to get them is not yet known. Most of the names seem like they'll have something to do with the new Argent Tournament aside from the Spring Rabbit, Plump Turkey, Aquatic Riding Ray, and Mimiron's Head. Expect Mimiron to drop from Ulduar, just from the looks of it, and expect the other ones to be rewards for championing. There also seem to be two new pets for Orphan's Week with a Northrend feel, which would fit with the expansion of the holiday to BC when it dropped.

Dungeon Maps: They've been added to the in-game mapset. Small change, but cool.

Glyph Changes: We have new ones! Of interest to the Enhance kids are:

Glyph of Feral Spirit: Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.
Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

I'm assuming these are all major glyphs as they're fairly significant changes to spells. Feral Spirit looks amazing and may just replace the much-nerfed Glyph of Stormstrike in my book. The other two seem to be purely for PvP, Hex so you can wail on your frogged enemies longer and Stoneclaw Totem so that you can get wailed on longer. This must be part of the "Improving PvP utility" they were talking about. Seriously though, if you weren't using the ghost puppies every cooldown already, now you have to. The guys at EJ had already theorized they had about 30% of our AP, so this glyph would bump them up to 60%. I'm gonna wait for the testing to be conclusive, but I'll tenatively say that this is a very viable glyph for raiders.

Class Changes: These are previously undocumented changes showing up on the PTR.
Skills

Bloodlust and Heroism now puts a debuff on you preventing you from using gaining the benefits of them for 10 mins. They now have a 5 min cooldown. (Previously had a 5 min debuff with a 10 min cooldown)

Talents

Improved Stormstrike (Tier 8 ) now has a 50/100% chance to grant you 20% of your base mana when you Stormstrike.
Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects the next 4 nature attacks but only lasts 10 secs now. (Previously only affected 2 attacks and lasted 12 secs)
Unleashed Rage (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent. It now passively increases your agility by 1/2/3% in addition to causing your critical hits with melee attacks to increase all party and raid members' attack power by 4/7/10% if within 45 yards of the Shaman. Lasts 10 sec.
Spirit Weapons (Tier 5) now reduces all threat, just not melee threat.
Toughness (Tier 4) now increases stamina by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of increasing armor value.
*New Talent* Frozen Power, Tier 6, 2 point talent - Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

So, no more fights with two Heroisms unless they are longer than 10 minutes. Ugh. This is a bummer. Why they changed the CD I don't know, as it's really only used in raids anyway. Seems silly, but maybe something will come to light later. Imp. SS is already a decent talent, but these changes will be a great boon for mana regen and make Static Shock and Imp. Shields much more attractive slots for points. The changes to SS are minor but nice, I don't think timing will be a problem, as we always have SS up anyway. The changes to UR are lovely. It was an optional talent previously with the proper raid setup, but as it now gives fringe benefits to us, it may move into the realm of necessary while becoming cheaper in the process. The Spirit Weapons changes is AMAZING. Gone will be the days when I pull aggro from mediocre tanks because my ES and LB crits are conspiring against me. I love this change. Toughness and Frozen Power are more PvP talents, definitely for the Enhance dude who needs to stay alive as long as possible. I don't really PvP, but these seem like must-have talents for any Arena or BG Enhancement Shaman.

More to come!

Oh My, Kurenei

2009-02-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

Well, after my little "I'm focusing on Kurenei" post, I found myself with some time to really get down to it so I headed over to Nagrand and got down to farming. I decided on the Laughing Skull ruins simply because the mobs seemed to be closer together. I tried to pull in at least four in a group, then threw up my lightning shield, dropped a magma totem, and auto-attacked. Each pull took me around 20-30 seconds to down four of them, so within a few hours I had myself a couple hundred Obisidian Warbeads. Aside from the occasional roaming Death Knight I had the area pretty much all to myself so I was pretty solidly able to make full pulls every time. So a few hours and 200 beads later I was able to purchase a full stable full of Talbuks and through the magic of achievements, got myself a lovely new Albino Drake:

Now, getting the Mountain o' Mounts seems like quite the uphill battle, and where I'm going to get another 44 mounts, I have almost no clue. But man, that Dragonhawk looks goooorgeous.

1000 Daily Quests

2009-02-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I just finished up the 1k Daily Quests achievement by wrapping up the daily cooking quest. I hadn't even noticed I was so close. Surprise achievements are the best kinda to get. :) This leaves the general Quests tab looking pretty full, I've just got the two big ones left before I wrap that baby up, but those time sinks are kind of low on my list at the moment. The one I'm probably chasing after the hardest at this point is probably to get Exalted with the Kurenai as I am a paltry and agonizing three whole mounts away from my Albino Drake, so getting those Talbuks would push me well over the top. But we'll see how much bead farming I get in between trying to get my DK farmbot up to 80 so good old Drill can drop herbalism and take up leather working.

Go Play in Ulduar

2009-02-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

Apparently the PTR forums and character copies are up to test Ulduar and patch 3.1. I've never been much of a guinea pig (and I'm not in Naxx-25 purples) so my squishiness and general lack of interest in raiding with strangers means I probably won't go and play in there, but I'm definitely interested to see how Ulduar is gonna play out. As part of a guild who hasn't downed Kel yet, I'm imagining it will be a while before I get in there and see the whole thing, so until then I'll live vicariously through videos :)

He Rises!

2009-02-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided to try and chronicle the exploits of my lovely buddy Drillpress, the Enhancement Shaman. What will be in this blog? I have no idea. Will it be full of Drillpress' epic exploits? Probably. Will it be full of whining about patches? Hopefully not (that's up to YOU Blizzard, don't make me QQ!). You can count on it being very full of totemic joy, windfury crits, and praying for that last tick of Maelstrom Weapon. Until I get around to posting next, g'bye!