Talents/Glyphs:

So, you’ve hit 85. Wondering about a spec, right? Well, it would appear that your choices are pretty limited. Not really. There are a lot of talents that are mandatory, but the optional talents have kinda fell off the way. Here is what I am running with now: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhMZcGbMsdfoGo:dMb0cmzmM.

• Ancestral Resolve doesn’t really seem worth it still, though there are some fights in normal/heroic that I’d like to have it in.
• I’ve heard Telluric Currents is good for downtime during healing, but since people are still adjusting to the game/mechanics, you might not have that much downtime. It is a net gain of mana, but is really only usable during downtime.
• Totemic Focus increases the duration of totems, including Mana Tide Totem, so you get a little bit extra time with the increased Spirit.
• Cleansing Waters is very useful now. There seems to be a lot of Curse/Magic debuffs in 5-Mans and the reduced mana cost/heal is a nice combo.
• Focused Insight… you tricky bastard, haha. If you toss a Flame Shock, you are reducing your next heal by about 1000 mana and increasing its effectiveness by 30%. I’m sure it’ll be more effective when I get into raiding, but for now, I skipped over it. I forget to do Unleash Life as it is, haha.
• Ancestral Swiftness is useful for the instant Ghost Wolf during fights that require movement. Also a 15% speed increase frees up a criterion for Boot Enchants, though I don’t know what I want to do with my boots at this point.

As far as Glyphs, they are still pretty cut and dry. Take Water Shield if you are having Mana problems (which I’ll discuss later). Earth Shield is to be kept up at all times, so increased 20% heal is a no-brainer. As far as Earthliving, you are buffing one of the few HoTs that we have. Earthliving has always been there… not really reliable, but he’ll help you move out if you offer him pizza and beer. Increased Riptide duration is good, because you’ll be using Riptide a lot for all sorts of situations. Major Glyphs are pretty easy, too. The only one that I am stuck on is Totemic Recall. To lay down Totems (Stoneskin, Flametongue, Healing Stream [glyphed], Wrath of Air), it costs 5737 [talented] mana. Totemic Recall will give back 1434 mana normally, 4303 when glyphed. If you find yourself laying down totems every pull, this might be a good choice for you. If you have a Paladin running Resistance Aura, you can probably sub it out for Healing Stream glyph. Also, you’d have to remember to pull up your Totems, which I forget. Haha.

1. Prime: Earth Shield, Earthliving, Riptide or Water Shield
2. Major: Chain Heal, Healing Wave, Healing Stream or Totemic Recall

Stats:

Our stats are in a state of disarray. Haste has gone from the stat to stack to the stat to avoid. Not really avoid, but if you have it on gear, it’ll be better suited to be Reforged to either Crit or Spirit. Same thing with Mastery. Mastery isn’t something we can rely on. It is like Crit from Wrath. It’ll come from gear, no reason to stack it. The boosted heal is great in clutch moments, but for a decent amount of an encounter, it isn’t worth it to stack it. Spirit has become our greatest stat. Well, at least until you reach about 3000 casting/combat regen. You don’t need that for normal 5mans. It gets better for Heroics, and is essential for raids. If you are thinking about stacking Haste again, you will find yourself sooner out of mana with little to no regen to bring yourself back up. Once you hit the 3k mark, you can probably stop reforging to Spirit and lean more towards Crit, then maybe Haste.

1. Spirit is our best stat until around 3000 combat regen.
2. Haste isn’t to be stacked anymore, as it works directly against new healing mechanics (50% healing vs 100% healing).
3. Crit is still working for us for Ancestral Awakening, Improved Water Shield, Ancestral Healing.
4. Spirit > Int/Crit > Haste > Mastery

How to Heal:

How do I heal? Things have changed in our healing game. A lot of people hate Healing now. That was my first reaction. I didn’t like it, was gonna go full-time Elemental. Then I saw the DPS queue was 30m and gave it another chance. Find your tank, put Earth Shield up on them. If it falls off, put it back up. Don’t recast it with more than 2 stacks left. You’ll waste Mana. During combat, keep Riptide up on the tank. Use Healing Wave to keep them up. If a DPS takes damage, put Riptide on them and maybe throw a Healing Wave. Riptide, Earthliving and Healing Stream totem will bring them back up if they avoid avoidable damage. If the tank is taking lots of damage, throw a Greater Healing Wave. If they are taking lots of damage quickly, throw a Healing Surge. Hopefully they have the smarts to pop a CD to help you out.

1. Earth Shield and Riptide up at all times on the tank.
2. Healing Wave is used for everyday damage.
3. Greater Healing Wave is to bring up a tank who can stand to live for a few more seconds, but needs to be brought up.
4. Healing Surge is to bring up a tank who is about to die in the next second.
5. Chain Heal is to heal 4 targets that are close to one another. With such large health pools, it barely makes a dent and has gone from “CHspamtodatop” to “Hmm… I’m oom now, great.” It can get the ball rolling on Earthliving for targets close to one another, but you can’t spam it willy-nilly.
6. Healing Rain is our new spell at 83. I love it, despite the huge mana cost. In conjunction with Healing Stream Totem, it can weather (lulz) overall AE damage. Plus it is not channeled and can proc Earthliving. If you try to chain spam it, you’ll be out of mana. Best used for upcoming AE damage, gotta have people grouped a bit and remind them, “It is okay to stand in the rain.”

New Mechanics Kill:

Ever hear “Don’t stand in the fire”? This is avoidable damage. If you see something on the ground that is purple, black, red… it is probably gonna deal damage to you and others. Move. The damage that you’ll incur to yourself by standing in bad is probably a bigger detriment than the heal that you were casting. If that is not the case, pop Nature’s Swiftness and heal them or use our 85 ability, Spiritwalker’s Grace, and cast while moving.

See that? That on the ground? That is excess Stupidity on the ground. Feel free to move out of it to be less stupid. Or stand in it and marvel as I don’t heal you.

In Wrath we had our tool box but we only used maybe a Hammer and Screwdriver. In Cataclysm, dust off your awl, hacksaw, etc. You get the analogy. Expand your action bars, take off things that don’t need to be there (mounts, companion pets).

The name of the game is making sure people don’t die. Health pools have more than tripled for DPS since Wrath. This is to give Healers more wiggle room. You can keep DPS at 50% health. There is no definite mechanic in a fight that will kill them that is unavoidable. The tank is your priority, once they are well off, feel free to heal the others. They should be able to keep themselves alive.

We also gained Bind Elemental, so we can now CC 3 different creature types: Elemental, Beast, Humanoid. Hex is great because it can take a bit of damage and not break, just not too much. The long CD and short range make it a bit less desirable for every pull. Put it on your bars and remind people that you have it. Without Hit, it may miss. Do your part to help. Hex, Bind, Wind Shear.

Go forth and heal Azeroth.

Toolbox: Our spell book has grown a tiny bit.

• Greater Healing Wave: This is our bomb heal. It has a long casting time, heals for a lot, and costs around 3-4 times more than Healing Wave, yet only a slight bit more than Healing Surge.
• Totem of the Tranquil Mind: Concentration Aura, basically, yet 5% less. Odd.
• Healing Surge: This is what Lesser Healing Wave has been renamed. It costs about 3 times more than Healing Wave, gets there around .8s faster, and is about 2-2.5x more potent.

As far as these spells go… you’ll pretty much be doing the same thing until Cataclysm. CH spam is a lot better now that all HoTs from Chain Heal (Earthliving, Chained Heal) can crit and are affected by Haste. Also, Chain Heal hits four people without a Glyph, and the Glyph increases the potency of the bounces, yet drops the first heal by 10%.

In dungeons and the few raidsI have done since the patch dropped, I have been pretty much doing the same thing. That is the thing. Shamans haven’t changed that much. Mana is less of an issue for Shamans after switching to spirit. I now have about twice of the in-combat regen that I used to. Heroic Saurfang used to push my mana to the limit and the other night, I ended with 50% mana. This can also be attributed to the Chill of the Throne being gone, so there isn’t as much splash from Mark of the Fallen Champion, but even so, I was basically trying to burn my mana.

To accommodate the new spell, I have altered my mouse setup. Left Click is now Healing Wave, whereas it used to be Lesser Healing Wave. Healing Surge is now ScrollUp and Greater Healing Wave is ScrollDown. In a dungeon/raid, I can move over grid and just flick my mousewheel up to drop some really quick and hard healing on people extremely quickly.

• Left Click: Healing Wave
• Right Click: Chain Heal
• Button5: Earth Shield
• Button4: Riptide
• ScrollUp: Healing Surge
• ScrollDown: Greater Healing Wave

Much of the synergy that existed before is still around. Riptide/Chain Heal still procs Tidal Waves, which now hastens Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave, still giving the crit chance of Healing Surge. Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, and Riptide 100% proc Improved Water Shield, Healing Surge at 60%, and Chain Heal [bounces] at 30%. Nature’s Blessing is the new version of the old Lesser Healing Wave glyph, yet it now applies a 15% increase to all direct heals on an[y] Earth Shield’d target. So, you can Riptide a Tank, if Earth Shield is up you are getting a 40% boost on CH, which will disseminate to the bounces at a larger rate from the Glyph of Chain Heal. Speaking of Glyphs…

• Prime Glyphs: Earth Shield, Earthliving, Riptide, Water Shield

1. Earth Shield: Increases the potency of Earth Shield by 20%.
2. Earthliving: Increases the potency of the Earthliving HoT by 20%
3. Riptide: Increases the duration of Riptide by 40%.
4. Water Shield: Increases the passive mana regeneration of Water Shield by 50%.

• Major Glyphs: Chain Heal, Healing Wave, Healing Stream Totem, Totemic Recall, Stoneclaw Totem

1. Chain Heal: Decreases the direct heal of Chain Heal by 10%, but increases the potency of the subsequent bounces by 15%.
2. Healing Wave: Heals you for 20% of the total healing from Healing Wave.
3. Healing Stream Totem: Basically merges the Healing Stream Totem and Elemental Resistance Totem into 1 totem.
4. Totemic Recall: Causes your Totemic Recall to return 50% more mana from recalled Totems.
5. Stoneclaw Totem: Places an absorb shield for 4x the shield it puts on the Totems. (Early reports say it is a 16k bubble at 85, yet less useful at 80)

As for Minor Glyphs, take what you want. They are mostly for fun, with the exception of Glyph of Renewed Life, unless you want to always carry Ankhs with you. Haha. The choices are relatively straight forward. What is a bit less straight forward? Talents.

There are a few talent specs out there right now. The problem with the Restoration tree, not so much a problem as an irking, is that you are required to take an oddball talent in order to go down. You’ll see what I mean. I’ve spoken before, but here are the oddball/situational talents:

1. Ancestral Resolve: Reduce damage taken while casting by 5-10%. If you aren’t casting, you aren’t getting this buff. If you are chain casting, it is great for AoE heavy fights or right before a huge AoE hit and you can’t get out soon enough. 20k drops to 18k, which could save your life, especially if you time the heal to land right AFTER the AoE hits. Back to full, baboom.
2. Focused Insight: After casting a Shock spell, reduces the mana cost of the next heal by 25-75% of the Shock’s mana cost and also increases the effectiveness of the heal by 10-30%. This is gonna be great for Healing Rain, I can feel it. Right now, you lack the Hit rating, so you can’t really rely on it to be there when you need it. But, if you cast Earth Shield, Riptide, Earth Shock, Chain Heal on a tank, you are getting about 70% improved Heal, unless they don’t stack like that.
3. Cleansing Waters: Reduces the mana cost of Cleanse Spirit by 20-40% and if an effect is dispelled, heals the target for X amount. We got gimped in this. We can only cleanse Magic and Curses now. If we still had Poison/Diseases, this would be amazing. On H Rotface the other night, I was feeling it hard. I’d see a ridiculously long uptime of the disease and could really do nothing about it except cue up vent and say, “Could you guys get on top of that, please?” If you don’t have anything to dispel, this talent goes to waste.
4. Telluric Currents: Casting Lightning Bolt refunds 40% of the damage done as mana. I have heard that this is really good now, but isn’t as good at 85. Once again, if you lack the Hit rating, you can’t count on it, but you will just be spamming LB to get mana back, so there isn’t really cause of concern. Also, this talent is just out of reach unless you take one of the above talents… so, why is it on the list?

This is what I am using currently: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhZcGbMsdfoGo:dMb0mczMc. Blessing of the Eternals lost the 4% crit, but it is still useful, though a bit less so. At 85, I am gonna pop over to Elemental and grab Acuity for the 3% crit and then I might go forAncestral Swiftness or maybe jumble some things to max out Focused Insight.

Stats:

Haste is still King, if not more so. The haste cap for Healing Surge is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 and any more is only going to benefit Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal, as well as all of our HoTs… all three of them. You will have lost a lot of crit from talents, but it is okay. Crit is still around on gear. If you feel like you have a lot of Spirit, feel free to reforge some of it into Haste. I haven’t gone that far, mainly because it is at the end of the expansion and all of the gear is going to be replaced at some point. Mastery? Don’t bother. The health pools are still small yet and if someone is going down fast, they are gonna go back up really quickly. Intellect is where we get our spellpower from now and it is a Red category gem. It still gives mana too, so congrats on getting a free 6k-10k boost to your mana pool overnight.

Gripes: I find it a bit odd that Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, and Chain Heal all share the same cast time. In this age (between 4.0.1 and Cataclysm), it’ll be most beneficial to just Chain Heal spam, as while costing 2x the mana of Healing Wave, it has a lot more throughput. If they lowered the cast time of Healing Wave by 5s, putting it a bit more in the “mid-range” heal category, I’d be content. Healing Surge at 1.5s, Healing Wave at 2.5s, and Greater Healing Wave/Chain Heal at 3s. The throughput just isn’t there for it to be that slow.

I think that is all that I have, if I remember anything else, I will put it up in the future. Feel free to comment.

A recent Beta build had Blessing of the Eternals stripped of its 4% extra crit, basically making the talent close to useless. The tree is kinda… restricted. Once you hit a certain point after scooping up all the “necessary” talents, you have to choose between some gimmicky ones (heal on dispels, shocks decrease mana cost and increase effectiveness, or reduced damage while casting).

• Cleansing Waters is really only useful when you have something to dispel. Since poisons AND diseases have been taking away from us, we only have Magic and Curse. If there is a bunch of dispels needed, this will be an awesome talent (especially if it can crit, which means procs of Ancestral Healing and Ancestral Awakening, though the latter would probably only happen if it were considered a direct-healing spell once talented).
• Focused Insight sounds good on paper, but without Hit rating on gear anymore, you’d have to spec into Tier 2 of Elemental for any hope of a 100% on this talent. Which means you would be fraught with losing the benefits of going into Enhancement for Improved Shields and Elemental Weapons. The mana cost of the heal will be dropped by 75% of the mana cost of the Shock, which works out to be around 600 (at level 80). If you scroll down the page, you can see mana values (at level 80) for the various healing spells in our arsenal.
• Ancestral Resolve is only good if you are casting a majority of the time. Since Blizzard has stated that they want to move away from spending every GCD casting a spell, this talent becomes a lot more situational. Boss is about to whip out a big AoE or something, you can start casting along with him/her to reduce damage and save the raid. /hero

These talents are situational and best left up to your own judgement. Of course, you can take them all and get something like this: http://www.wowtal.com/#k=fvVzYfIv.9zi.shaman. But then there is Telluric Currents, which sounds really nice, but falls into the same pit as Focused Insight. If you miss, you’ve wasted a GCD and Mana. Also, it appears to be broken on the PTR, haha.

For myself at level 80, just rolling into Cataclysm, I will probably use this spec: http://www.wowtal.com/#k=f1AA7roH.9zi.shaman, until I can get my feet wet with the new system. At 85, it will probably be something like this: http://www.wowtal.com/#k=m1Am7roH.9zi.shaman, with 2 points to play around with. Realistically, you can put them into Totemic Reach, Telluric Currents, drop a point out of Cleansing Waters and buff up Focused Insight, put them into Ancestral Resolve. I will probably go with Totemic Reach, only because I am the only Shaman in my current 10m raid group and it’d help immensely on various fights. I don’t find myself DPSing that often while healing, but it might come up as I near 85 and begin raiding.

Stats have kinda dropped in some areas, yet oddly risen in others.. On live I have around 35% crit, then some 9% that isn’t on the character sheet due to wording. On the PTR, I am at 28.6% crit chance. Mana has increased by about 8k, which is pretty nice. Health has increase by around 10k, which is nice. Mana regen has gone up from around 300mmp5 (with Water Shield) in combat to 533mp5 (with Water Shield) in combat, though Water Shield appears to be broken, as well.

We have been given Concentration Totem, haha. It acts as a Water Totem. Nature/Fire/Frost have been rolled into Elemental Resistance Totem, which is also a Water Totem. Earth has 6, Water has 5, Fire has 4, and Wind has 3. I think some of them should be redistributed.

As far as Healing goes, Healing Surge is what they renamed Lesser Healing Wave and heals for a bit less than Greater Healing Wave does. Cast time values are with 1137 Haste and Wrath of Air totem down. Healing amount values are with 3429 SP (6% from Flametongue Totem).

• Healing Surge (1114 mana, 1.06s at 80): Hit 10k, Crit 15k
• Healing Wave (247 mana, 1.41 at 80): Hit: 7k, Crit: 10k
• Greater Healing Wave (1238 mana, 1.41 at 80): Hit: 13k, Crit: 20k
• Chain Heal (702 mana, 1.77 at 80): Hit (1st bounce): 6k, Crit (1st bounce): 10k
• Riptide (412 mana at 80): Hit: 4k, Crit: 6k, Tick: 1.3k

So as it stands, Tidal Wave procs will haste Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave and increase the Crit Chance of Healing Surge. The 30% haste drops the cast time to 0.825s, which is nice to drop a big heal. Nature’s Blessing is our old Lesser Healing Wave glyph, dropped by 5% yet made to work with all our direct healing spells. Also, it is vaguely worded, so it may work with other people’s Earth Shields.

I’ve only had about an hour with the PTR and since no Cata content is really in there, I can’t really tell you what lies beyond level 80. Curse Blizzard for forgetting all about my Beta invite.

RT = Riptide

CH = Chain Heal

HW = Healing Wave

LHW = Lesser Healing Wave

AA = Ancestral Awakening

I’ve been a Shaman since the end of BC. My raiding experience was lack luster, with maybe two visits to Kara. Enhancement was my spec of choice, mainly because I didn’t think I could heal and I didn’t like Casting. As the expansion rolled over and I began my ascent to 80 (after leveling a DK on another server to 80 in order to win a bet). I hit 80 and things were awesome. Got a friend to craft me a Titansteel Guardian, farmed Heroics for some trinkets. Oh yeah… and that Naxx25 I did my first week of being 80. Snagged some nice gear. Healing was the farthest thing from my mind, until the guild asked me to go Heals. Guaranteed raid spot? Sure, why not? I had to learn and learn quick. Chain Heal spam? Nah… didn’t seem much thought in it, so why bother? Also, it was in 10s, so not really effective.

I stuck with Riptide and Lesser Healing Wave for the longest time, and still do it to this day. Tidal Waves was putting my LHW into “clip your GCD every cast” territory. I welcomed the changes to it. Increased crit? Fudge yeah! Whether you are just learning to be Resto or whatnot, here you go:

Earth Shield should be up at all times. I used a combination of Power Auras and Grid to track if ES is up and how many stacks the person has of it. It is a mana efficient heal and is a set-and-forget.

Know what is going on. If a bunch of Melee got knocked back or are sitting in green/red/blue/black goop, fire off a Chain Heal. If your ranged are taking damage and spread out, launch a Lesser Healing Wave. If Chain Heal isn’t hitting more than 1 target, it is generally wasted. A single LHW has a 60% chance on crit to pop your Water Shield. A single CH has 30% chance on crit to do the same. Increase the bounces, increase the potential mana return. Even if you have to stand next to the person to give another bounce, it may be worth it.

Healing Wave is a great emergency spell. Whether coupled with Tidal Waves (Riptide/Chain Heal), Nature’s Swiftness, or Rapid Currents (Resto 2pc) it can be a quick way to drop 20k-25k on a person, has a 100% chance on crit to pop Water Shield and a crit of that magnitude will result in a massive Ancestral Awakening. The mana cost alone makes it something that you can’t really spam endlessly.

Know your synergies. I’ve talked about it before, but you have to understand the class mechanics. And this also boils over into why I hate Chain Heal spammers.

1. Tidal Waves: Increases the Haste on HW by 30% and increases the crit chance on LHW by 25%. 2 stacks. This buff is procced from Riptide and Chain Heal. A lot of CH spammers I see never take advantage of this, despite having a potential 100% uptime of this buff. Maybe they don’t have the time to think or maybe they don’t want to.
2. Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave: Glyph of LHW increases the healing done by LHW on Earth Shield’d targets by 20%. Any Earth Shield can modify it, not just yours. If you run with more than one Shaman, you can use their ES to give you that boost.
3. Improved Water Shield: Returns mana as if 1 charge of Water Shield had been broken when you crit. Procced from HW or RT (100%), LHW (60%), and from each CH bounce (30%). This is what feeds CH spamming. You can potentially get back 2x the cost of CH in a single CH. Nice, right? Though, the chances of that happening are small.
4. Ancestral Awakening: Bonus heal for 30% of total healing done by a crit from LHW, RT, or HW. It used to be just effective healing. Total is much better, haha. It can also break LoS (I’ve used it to heal people that get left behind before Putricide). Range is 40yds from initial target of heal.

So, here is where you get to synergize: You can RT or CH. If you crit on RT, you get mana back and proc a AA for around 1-2k on a target within 40yds of that target. If you fire off a CH and crit on a bounce, you have a chance for mana return. You have 2 stacks of Tidal Waves. Seeing a tank going down, you cast a hasted Healing Wave (which is bumped even more by the Resto 2pc after RT). Another person needs minor healing, so you shoot off a 25% crit enhanced LHW. It crits and by chance, you get some mana back. Oh, and they have 10% physical damage reduction. Oh, and Earthliving procced, so they have something more to help them along. Snipe heal? RT + LHW for a nice 15k combo with a nice HoT, potential mana back and AA proc.

Knowing your class is the easiest way to heal effectively. If you get bored, you can try and spell your name out with CH.

My account got dropped, turned off my sub

And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there

I’ll tell you how I became the prince of the PrivacyFear.

In west Internetsland, born and raised

On the forums is where I spent most of my days.

Heckling noobs, flaming, man I am so cool

And all shooting down every Patch Note with “QQ”

When a couple of suits, they were up to no good

Started making trouble on the forum boards

I got wind of RealID and my realLIFE got scared

I said, “I’m cancelling my subscription without a single care.”

I whistled for the bandwagon and when it came near

License plate said “RAGE” and had a lolcat in the mirror

If anything I could say that these blogposts were rare

But I thought nah, forget it, let’s rile the PrivacyFear.

I posted up on my blog about seven or eight

And I yelled to the world, “Yo, my thoughts are unique!”

Looked at my fandom I was finally there

To feast on QQ of the PrivacyFear.

———————

Yes, I know this isn’t that funny. It doesn’t stick to the scheme. But I had to get it out of my head.

Also, I didn’t quit WoW. I don’t post on the forums. This change doesn’t bother me at all. Then again, my ethical code has always been questionable at best.

Not saying that I wouldn’t be happy for the person. But, I would’ve known that they were carried. They wouldn’t have put in as much time as I did. As much effort. As much strategizing with the current raid composition that I am forced into using. Back in BC, I started a character after a friend had been playing WoW for months and I beat him to 70. He got me back by raiding SWP and completing it. Though, I know he was being carried along (Enhance DPS wasn’t that good back then). Was I mad? Nope. I wasn’t into raiding. I barely got geared enough in BC to do Kara and I was being carried into it.

When Wrath launched, I made a DK on my home server and transferred it over. Once again, I beat him to max level and joined his guild, raided Naxx, yet was passed over constantly for raid spots so I headed back. He got his Rusted Drake in Ulduar, downed ToGC10/25, and is working on ICC25 hard modes. Do I mind? A little bit. Were I in his position with his raiding schedule, I’d be able to do that to. Yet, when I come home, I am completely run down from work and I can’t sleep, so it forces my sleep schedule away. I raided with my guild last raid lockout 2/4 of the days and did the first 9 bosses in ICC10. I was happy. Blood Queen hadn’t been downed before and Professor Putricide was the guild’s second downing.

The same thing could be along the lines of: You’ve been working on content and the night that you don’t show up or can’t, they go and do what you’ve been working towards. Snagging a progression kill. Downing a new hard mode. Leaves you thinking, “Was I the one impeding progress?” That kind of thing can sit with out, nag at the back of your head. I’ve been in situations where people have been like, “Well, we did it. No reason to do it again.” No joke… and it sucked that I wasn’t there for it and probably won’t get another chance.

I have been trying to work my schedule to be able to down at least Lich King before Cataclysm and I probably will… when the buff is 30%, haha. Will I be mad if I don’t? Not mad, so much as disappointed. I’ve seen the fight. I know the mechanics. My ability to be there is the only thing in question and I feel as if I’m letting people down by not being there. If I end up keeping my job in healthy standing and down Lich King, I’ll be happy. If not, oh well. Maybe next time.

Tank: Ever since the first day of the LFD, your queues have been short. You laugh as DPS wait 10+ minutes and healers, while having near instant queues as well, still have up to 5 minute queues on occasion. The easiest way that people have found to make money in real life is to find something marketable and offer it at a fair price. By allowing someone to join your group, you speed along their process, making things go a little faster. With that in mind, a price needs to be settled on. Those that have already taken the initiative have priced out anywhere from 15g to 50g. Taking the 50g model, you are making ~76g just from doing the dungeon for 1 person added to your group! Plus anything that drops and can be sold at a vendor. Simple cash. Simply efficient.

Heals: You are in the same boat as Tanks. You can offer a space in your queue time to speed along things. Most tanks, once you reach an appropriate gear level (not gearscore) that allows you to maintain yourself while not needing to break for mana, will want to chain pull. Chaining an instance is the easiest way to speed things along. Looting while the DPS is fending off those last few mobs also speeds things up. If need be, offer up some of your own DPS to bring down bosses/mobs easier. If you are a Shaman, Wind Shear is awesome for cutting some of the BS (Shadow Blast, I’m looking at you).

DPS: You have the unfortunate situation of having the longest queues. While waiting for said queue, you may find yourself away from the computer. If you aren’t there to click Yus, you will find yourself in an even more unfortunate situation. Here are some simple things you can do:

• Sit in Dalaran and banter back and forth in Trade Chat. This may lead to a drop in your IQ or general mood level and is not recommended if you want to keep your sanity.
• Do some dailies. With the Argent Tournament and the Sons of Hodir around still, you can spend the duration of your queue making a little cash.
• Ask if any tanks or healers are willing to queue with you to speed things along.

General: Be nice to people. If a question is asked, no matter how dumb it may seem, we may have been in that person’s position at some point too. Even if a run goes silent, people will usually thank people for the run. I found this to be an odd practice, as what were you going to do… kick them? If I’m not in the mood for talking, I have a General Macro that I use, very simple, “/p Take care.” You can add in a “Good job.” or something along those lines. A lot of people are in these dungeons to get in and get out. Whenever I am tanking, I ask if people wish to skip bosses. Not even may not be in your position with emblems and may wish to stockpile some more. Better to ask than to have them rant about it and then /ragequit.

Exploits: There are exploits in the game that were mentioned before. These are against the ToS, but aren’t really enforced. I’m not saying to use them, nor do I say that I use them. If a group member plans to use an exploit and you are uncomfortable, ask for it to be done the normal way. Don’t just go along with the crowd if it really rubs you the wrong way.

Have fun and keep blazing… trails.

Running around Dalaran on my Warlock, opened my character frame and I have 1 title: the Patient. Athesh the Patient… nah, I’m pretty impatient on my Warlock. My Shaman has 10+ titles, but I always go naked. My Druid is in the same boat as my Warlock. So, I began to think about something: Athesh of the Nightfall. Sometimes I go Affliction and when I see Nightfall proc, I get happy. An evil smile crosses my face. This led me to think… what are some other titles that go well with certain classes/roles? Champion of the Naaru would be great for any Spacegoats, too bad you can’t really get it anymore. Brewmaster is good for Dwarves.

Roles -

• Tank: the Celestial Defender (Realm First Algalon 25), Stone Guard (No longer available)
• Healer: Elder (Lunar Festival Meta), Matron/Patron (Children’s Week Meta)
• DPS: Grunt (No longer available)

Classes -

• Death Knight: , Death’s Demise (Realm First Yogg-Saron 25)
• Druid: , Guardian of Cenarius (Exalted with Cenarion Circle and Expedition), Starcaller (Algalon 10)
• Hunter: Centurion (No longer available)
• Mage: Chef (Cooking), Flame Keeper/Warden (Midsummer Meta), the Magic Seeker (Realm First Malygos 25)
• Paladin: Crusader (Exalted Argent Champion), the Undying (The Undying Achievement), the Argent Defender (A Tribute to Insanity Achievement), the Argent Champion (Exalted with Argent Dawn and Crusade)
• Priest: Loremaster (Loremaster Achievement),
• Rogue: the Insane (Insane in the Membrane Achievement)
• Shaman: the Astral Walker (Algalon 25)
• Warlock: of the Nightfall (Sartharion 3D 10), the Hallowed (Hallow’s End Meta)
• Warrior: Warlord (No longer available)

So… what are some titles that you’d like to see implemented into the game for your favourite class. I’d love to see Farseer put in.

As you know, I’ve been in a slump of raiding ever since going back to work. A PuG here, vacation nets me a guild run there. But… it wasn’t enough. The main reason why I left a really old guild to move to Concedo Nulli was for the schedule. The structure. But, when I adopted a new one that was more reasonable (work), I had to leave another behind. For months I had asked to reshift my schedule at work, yet to no avail. A coworker rose in the ranks of his guild on another server, in another faction. 55$. Seemed reasonable at the time. I’d be healing in his 10m on Thursdays and Sundays, maybe even see a LK kill. So, I transferred.

Nagrarok the Troll Shaman was born… well, not really born. I transferred over, did a PuG Patchwerk (it was their weekly, which I was not eligible to do), topped DPS:

After this I texted my friend, "If I'm topping DPS, your server sucks."

I sent a tell to one of my friend’s guild’s officers to get in. Got in, logged off shortly after. Went to bed. Got up, went to work, high-fives were shared. Logged in, did my random heroic. Logged off… it didn’t feel right, really. Went back and saw there was a new Message of the Day, something about how it had been fun, but real life mattered more. Alright, I get it. Someone needs to get bearing on RL and to do that, WoW needed to be quit. The next day I log in to see, “This guild is done. Leave whenever you please.” Fuck… there goes my 55$, right?

Well, we shall see what happens. Today my eligibility opens up for a transfer once again, but my friend may have a plan or the ability to continue to run his 10m. If not, I’ll be heading back to Khadgar eventually… I hate the prospect of 110$ being gone from my bank in the span of 96 hours.

ProTip: When doing a Faction and Server Transfer, delete your namesaving toon first and don’t change your name to your wanted name when doing your Faction change portion. It will still be flagged for changing when you try to log in.

Malygos is mean, covets Magic, and has very stinky breath.

/chalkboard

Good morning, everyone. Today we are going to take a look at the Eye of Eternity, where a big meanie named Malygos is plotting a war against all of those magic users, so it is up to you to stop him. It might be a little scary, I know, but I am gonna explain how to destroy him and save Dalaran! Yay!

When you head inside, you will be on a large circle floating in space. Very pretty. Malygos flies overhead, not noticing you until you shine a big flashlight up at him. You have time to prepare. Hand out cookies and strudel, buff your friends, maybe not that stinky kid. When the time is right, put your key into the big flashlight and bring him down. Since he is a Dragon with bad breath, you will need to face him away from everyone else, otherwise you will be stinky too. Though, you don’t need to worry about his tail. Every so often he will summon a Power Spark to make him even more mean. It is your job to down it… so you can use it!

If the Power Spark is dropped on the ground, you can step in it and become mean! Mean is good! Put more Sparks together and you become super mean! Super mean is awesome! If you have lots of stabber guys, let them in on the meanness. If you have lots of magic guys (who Malygos hates, so they need to be extra mean to him), they can put it where they want. When you have a Mean Puddle or 2 (or stacked), it is time to be Heroic or Lust for Blood (curse you, required Vampire curriculum). But, be careful about your timing. Malygos may suck you up into a tornado and drop you. Very important for your BoobooSquad to be at the ready after this.

Once he has been hurt a lot, he will leave. He will leave because he is scared. His friends will come to his side and circle around you all and they will yell, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The guys in the air will throw milk cans at you and hurt you a lot, unless you are in the magical sphere of lactose intolerance.  Your StabbyCrew will need to steal the floating trashcan lids when you push the bullies off of them. Your MagicCrew will need to shoot at the Milkthrowers. Once all the bullies are knocked down, Malygos will sneak attack. Luckily, there is a teacher nearby.

As you are falling through space, Mrs. Alex S. Sza will show up with the Hall Monitors to help you. It is important that you stick together, there is strength in numbers. Don’t get too close to Malygos… he is stinky. Your StabbyCrew will go on the offensive and repeat the Mantra, “One, One, One, One, One, Two, One, One, Two, One, One, Two, etc.” Your BoobooSquad will go on the Defense and patch up everyone with a little, “Three, Three, Three, (occasionally) Four, Three, Three, Three, (occasionally) Four.” Since Malygos is the biggest bully around, he will single one of you out and call you names. That is when you have to say, “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but Names will never hurt me (press 5 with a combo point active).”

Once the Hall Monitors have had their way with Malygos and take him off to Detention, the nice teacher will hand down a chest full of toys for playtime before naptime.