Third 90 and more to come I suspect

My Druid ding’ed 90 in WoW last week, which makes a tally of three level ninety characters: a Death Knight, a Warrior, and a Druid.

Next will be my slowly leveling Shaman who is now level 71 (the toon in the top left if the image below) and a long time lost Shadow Priest who is level 82 (bottom left character).

In my character list I also have a handful of 85s and then each class smattered down to a lowbie Monk at level 13. I do not really want to repeat the 85-90 grind so many more times, but the leveling path in Pandaria is so fixed there is little choice. Perhaps I could level by only queuing in Dungeons and just farm my way through the Pandaria starting area for materials to sell. That will only be moderately dull as well but will ensure my lowbies have the ability to increase their professions.

The Wrath of the Lich King content on the baby Shaman is sensational by comparison to 4x more Pandaria zones and a Cataclysm story.

If I cannot raid regularly in 5.4 due to work & life, then I might as well start working on these alts. Getting through the levels is something I can do whilst also being interrupted, and it is not “hard” content to do.

AFK, Real World Crit my Gamming

Its been a long time since I posted regularly, and by golly gee its been busy – both in game and out.

I’ve been planning a huge life event (because you can’t say wedding without somebody charging you a 200% bullshit surcharge), changing to a new and exciting job, and also burning time on trying to find a house to buy. By comparison a Sarth 3D kill will a tank and healer AFK, and 3 screen-lickers is easy.

But you don’t read a wow blog to ponder my real life ramblings, so straight to the wow goodies:

A new Guild

After much nashing of teeth and requests, I’ve moved 3 toons into Insidious of Nagrand. The members are almost all people I knew before joining, and it is great to have a few of the wow circles I know combine into a guild. Darn good people really help the game stay fun.

I am a very happy player at the moment with the guild.

General Instance Grind is dull

I am sick of running heroics. Period. Five level 80 characters means a heroic is dull and old content. That goes double for OCC due to the suckage of players and stupid fight mechanics, and triple for HOL and and HOS which just take too damn long.

That said, I’d do any of them with a good set of players and enjoy it; just wish that the Pug system could allow some team matching based upon likes as well as dislikes.

Warlock love

I dusted off my Warlock recently and in the free time I had between jobs, I now have a Level 80 toon who is hopelessly under-geared. It is frustrating to be a solid level 79 who can top the damage and scream flaming death at everything one day, but at 80 then be reduced to a total scrub again.

Thus begins the gear grind on my 5th level 80 character. He has over 100 recent achievements, but the good ones are:

• Level 80 (duh!)
• 1500 quests (when did that happen?)
• The regular Dungeon Master (all the LK normals complete)
• Heroic UP: Girl Skadi and Lodi Dodo at once – which is easy now with 264 epic toons to run with.
• First item of the T9 badge set – and the dread that all the others will take months to get.
• Looking for Many award.
• A stack of H runs, gear updates, and wasted money on ilevel 200 gear.

Death Knight, still darn fun

• DPS gearset is looking OK. T10 in four places now, with three items the “Santified” upgraded T10. Just need to replace my Helm, Neck, and Ring – and I’m golden.
• Tank set is a little more work, but still ok. I have a T10 Glove from VoA that is altogether pointless unless I also grab another T10 item – which will be soon. T10 Shoulders for Tanking look average, but will at the very least get me the first set bonus.
• Took the time to actually get the Weekly Raid, Daily quests, and the VoA all done in one week – which for me is a twice a year thing given the time that takes and the amount I play.

Druid, Bear is for Tank, but Boomkin is feathery fun.

• Also got VoA and weeklies done, and slowly bumped my Boomkin set to mid 4.5ks, which is ok.
• Then got into my guild’s ICC 10 man run, and replaced 4 items in one night. Now the Boomkin set is in the health 5250 range, and the Tank set ios around the same level. So in one or two runs my Druid has comparable gear to my DK (dk = 5.45/5.1 vs Druid = 5.25/5.2).
• Boomkin is fun, and the form is so cool that it makes me behave like a stupid kid. Silly jokes in raid chat, bouncing while dps’ing, and altogether strange behaviour is what the CritChicken does to me.
• I love the Starfall change.
• I can’t wait for a UI element that will make detecting the procs faster. I know it won’t help my dps (as I have been known to faceroll when tired), but will certainly make me feel guilty about it.
• I think getting runs will be easy now should I choose, as 5.2 seems to be the sweet spot for getting invites at the moment.

Next update will either be really soon. or another month away. No idea – we’ll see.

Hope the bosses drop all the good stuff for you, and you find a game ticket on the train.

Insane alt-a-holic rules

There are some things I’ve been doing with Alts that will drive me insane eventually.

Having one DK character active was a tad dull, so I added a Priest as another. Then I found that my second choice of toon was interesting for a short time, but not fun overall, so I added a Druid instead. Then decided to add a lowbie alt Hunter to be silly on; and then was impressed by a Tank I saw and added my old Pally.

But having seen a DK, Druid, and Pally tank, I felt like I was missing out on having a Warrior, so pondering starting a Warrior. But my Shaman also has ok gear as heirlooms, and the Mage will get some play soon.

So Death Knight, + Priest, + Druid, +Paladin, + Hunter, + Warlock, + pondering a Warrior or Shaman, + Mage afterward…

Yes, I’m an Alt-a-holic again. So now I need a rule set for what to play.

Patch 3.1 spec for Shadow Priest

There is not a huge list of talent changes for the Shadow Priests in 3.1, which means that the standard choices remain almost unaffected. I will not be initially buying dual spec, as I have to save up the cash. So when I have a 2nd spec to worry about I’ll post that. I’m thinking a heavy Disc build, but will have to see what the community thinks of the Holy changes.

My Shadow Priest is wearing crappy gear, and in no way represents the typical gear level, stats, or itemisation needs. Thus if you are well geared you will want to consider some serious changes. This spec is more for a Shadow Priest who is still getting to, or just questing at 80.

DPS: 14/0/57 Shadow with Inner Focus and no Shadow Affinity

Epic Flying Priest

I could not help myself, or stand to crawl through the air when I knew that a faster option was available. Yeira the (soon to be Shadow) Priest has her epic flying skill, and a new Blue Gryphon.
Anyone got any change?

Flying Priest

Once more my Priest can fly very very slowly while leveling. Hindsight tells me that I should not have blown all that gold on the epic flying skill for my Druid, Paladin, and Warlock. The need for gold will keep me doing my daily quests in a quasi-regular manner.

But then I treat hindsight like I treat my sense of right and wrong; like a red headed child whining at my hip for attention. /slap and move on. Fun to be had, and nobody like a know it all.

If/when I get the epic flying skill, I think Yeira won’t be treated to some silly strange or expensive mount. It’ll be something functional and inexpensive. Mortigen the Death Knight is the glamour whore who gets the good stuff.

Question: What spec to level as a Priest?

An open question to the Priest and/or wow player community: What spec to level from 70 to 80, and is a version of Disc a valid choice?

Certainly not pure Holy, as the damage output is pretty low. And the popular wiki/blog opinion from the 60-70 days was to take Shadow with a smattering of other talents. OK, but maybe Wrath has changed that.

Then a mate said yesterday, why not choose a Discipline built and mix in some holy. It works for pvp. Which makes sense as pvp is all about doing damage and surviving, which sounds to me also like a blueprint for pve leveling: get kills without dying.

It also got me thinking that a dps priest can fight for instance spots like anyone else, but a healing priest can pop into LFG and get runs very very fast. A lot faster than a Death Knight, as most groups already have at least one plate wearer, and often a DK.

So should I spec Dis/ Holy, and ping the instances to get my levels? Certainly will get some good drops if every day I’m in an instance.

If you’ve done this, or know of some stories of success and failure, I’d love to know about them. Your advice is appreciated and needed.

Food for thought, salty goodness?

About a week to go till the 70+ run begins and the choice between 1st and 2nd is still hard. Pally and Druid both still rock, and even my hunches change from day to day. I’m torn and confused. Druid Cat dps output is not high, and I attribute that problem to the lump between the keyboard and chair (me). Pally multi-mob grinding seems awesome and even the *adjustment* in the patch will not totally diminish that role.

Not that it counts as much, but the 3rd and 4th spot of Warlock and Shadow Priest are affected by all sorts of rumour and hearsay,  and while they’re not in the real running, I like to watch them. Especially on the back of the 3.0.3 changes. My initial impression of Warlock and Priest changes from 3.0.3 is that Warlocks did not get as much love as Shadow Priests, and SPrs are getting very serious play at 80. I’m glad both got some love.

Image gallery of distractions

Here are random screenshots of what I’ve been up to for a few weeks. Nothing too leet-sauce here, just stuff that gave me a giggle. On the left is may tag image for all the bear posts I might one day do.

Shadow Priest Talent Build

An attempt at a Shadow build for level 70s. (Edit: As 3.1 is fast approaching, consider this spec out of date. I’m sure the basics will be ok, but I’m not claiming this is accurate anymore).

I wanted the Silence ability, but need to know if it is worth sacrificing the points from other areas; at the moment its not.

Dispersion is not worth the last point in a tree as far as I can tell (Dispersion is wonderful, I was wrong), and I’m happy to be wrong later. It would be a far more affective ability if it also reduced the Threat the Priest has on the target too. Then I can see it as a great way to ramp up your damge, then take a short breather while your mana pops up 36%. That will hopefully stack with the mana return you’re normally getting and the Meditation and TV abilities. In its current form its crappy.

Update: Adding the spec I’ll go with till further notice. Whats different?

– no reduced threat, my gear is not putting me anywhere near threat capped and unless you’ve broken +1000 damage you won’t be either from what I can tell.

– no increased range on shadow spells, mostly in runs its ok to be far away. Only in a few fights I can think of its a real issue, and in those you just need to move like the melee dps (murmur, prince, etc).

– added back in Silence, and so happy about it. Doing the Sunwell Attack Plans against casters is easy mode with silence. I can see why people roll Blood Elves.

– Added back in Dispersion, as its proven to be a good toy and I think I’ll get real milage out of it.

Musings on SPriests

In selecting the winning toon to level to 80, I’m doing some runs with each to see what they are like.

This will tell me which is more viable and fun for my playstyle. Here are my musings on Shadow Priests using the current (soon to be re-worked) talents and specs.

Caveat – I know its all about to change, this will be useful to act as a comparison after the “v3.whatever” patch is made live. Go read Dwarf Priest for a great summary.

Priest Shadow Silence

I found shadow priests a strange breed. To be efficient the need mana regen, which requires 13 points out of their tree, and to do passable damage they need to avoid any “non-damage” talents. And to have any hope of not pulling aggro, there is 3 more talent points. Every class has some of this, its hopefully intentional.

Its also redundant. To play at all you need to spend them, which means you’re not really choosing your style, you’re making up a toon much like every other Shadow Priest. This does not make you feel very talented.

However one of the most interesting non-damage talent is Silence, which takes 3 talent points to get because its hidden behind the fear ability. Grrrrr, I can’t even see a reason for this in PvP builds, which I suppose is what Silence might be for, but thats forgetting that so many caster mobs in soloing are rendered useless when silenced, so its darn handy.

Omen2 – Aggro for everybody

The new version of Omen is out, and by golly its good. Not only has it got new eye candy affects which make silly folks like me drool, but it also makes it easier to watch what type of aggro you like; aoe, one target, etc. I use a threat meter even while soloing on my Warlock, as any pet user should. And Omen allows you to walk the aggro line when doing DPS and maximise your damage without potentially dying.

Take a look at the WoW Insider post about it – nice screenshots and details. Then if you don’t already use it hang your head in shame until you do.