Decided to start a shaman today. Figured for fun I'd track how long it takes to go every 10 levels.
1-10: 2 hours, 39 minutes, 42 seconds.
Feb 7, 2009
Feb 6, 2009
On Mage Changes
So, it seems like almost every class is undergoing major changes, well, except for one...us mages. Here's what the developers posted last night regarding mage changes:
Oh wow, a whole 4 changes? Thanks! Of the changes, only the first one really matters. I'll have some sort of replenishment skill - will it be castable? Passive? I would guess castable since it will replace Improved Water Elemental. It will be a nice bonus, but they'll really need to change mana regen if I ever need to use this spell. I'll probably just throw it into my all-in-one macro and whenever it's available, it'll be used.
Frost mage "shatter combo" in PvE, bleh. No one raids frost, and I doubt a shatter combo buff will get anyone to change their minds. Survivability for Fire Specs in PvP will be nice. I know I've been PvP'ing some on the weekends and I get blown up pretty fast by almost anything that can get a hold of me - Death Knights, Arcane Mages (blast their Slow and Improved Counterspell), etc. A bit more survivability will be nice.
And lastly, making spirit more "useful and interesting"? No thanks. Spirit gear goes to healy types. I don't want to fight them over items. Hopefully they don't make spirit a required stat for mages as this will just throw in one more stat into our calculations and just end up making us take items that should have gone to healers.
As for the other changes, it's more of the same - making the game easier for noobs of all types. QQ...I lose a bag as a hunter. Well that's the way it's always been. Now they're taking away ammo? Why even have any consumables? Let's just give everyone everything free. Makes sense to me. Perhaps items shouldn't break with deaths. Perhaps everyone should be able to make high-end food with a skill level of 1. It's getting pretty lame around here to see the dumbing-down of the game continuing.
* Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
* We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.
* We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.
* We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.
Oh wow, a whole 4 changes? Thanks! Of the changes, only the first one really matters. I'll have some sort of replenishment skill - will it be castable? Passive? I would guess castable since it will replace Improved Water Elemental. It will be a nice bonus, but they'll really need to change mana regen if I ever need to use this spell. I'll probably just throw it into my all-in-one macro and whenever it's available, it'll be used.
Frost mage "shatter combo" in PvE, bleh. No one raids frost, and I doubt a shatter combo buff will get anyone to change their minds. Survivability for Fire Specs in PvP will be nice. I know I've been PvP'ing some on the weekends and I get blown up pretty fast by almost anything that can get a hold of me - Death Knights, Arcane Mages (blast their Slow and Improved Counterspell), etc. A bit more survivability will be nice.
And lastly, making spirit more "useful and interesting"? No thanks. Spirit gear goes to healy types. I don't want to fight them over items. Hopefully they don't make spirit a required stat for mages as this will just throw in one more stat into our calculations and just end up making us take items that should have gone to healers.
As for the other changes, it's more of the same - making the game easier for noobs of all types. QQ...I lose a bag as a hunter. Well that's the way it's always been. Now they're taking away ammo? Why even have any consumables? Let's just give everyone everything free. Makes sense to me. Perhaps items shouldn't break with deaths. Perhaps everyone should be able to make high-end food with a skill level of 1. It's getting pretty lame around here to see the dumbing-down of the game continuing.
Feb 4, 2009
About Last Friday...
So last Friday, I've just awoken (wow, that's an odd word), and I have my flasks, my food, and my gear repaired, ready to take on Malygos and get my new necklace. But we usually start with Sartharion so I flew down to Wyrmrest Temple to start summoning players in once our group was formed. Then I'm told...we'll be doing Malygos first. Oh good! I have the blue gem for my neck piece (which reminds me, I need to put a +19 spell damage gem in there) and I can equip it for a Sartharion raid. So I hop on the nearest red drake and fly over to Coldarra. Upon arriving there, I'm told, nope - Sartharion first because Aravic is specced for tanking so I hopped on my own Armored Snowy Griffon and flew back.
But then...Aravic is going to spec DPS and let's go to Malygos first so we can down him and spend the rest of the night on Sartharion with one drake. WHAT? Fine. Red Drake, take me back to Coldarra. I arrive, and we quickly explain the fight to Dylana, our third healer for the night, and a new hunter we have picked up from the looking for group channel. After one wipe due to everyone getting used to healing assignments, picking up discs, and using the domes, we assemble once again and quickly take him down just as he's about to enrage (actually, I think he did enrage, but our DOTs killed him just in time). So I get the lovely new neck piece, Weser picks up Black Ice, and we head back to the Wyrmrest Temple.
So here we are now, ready to tackle Sartharion with one drake up - Tenebron this time around. Our first attempt, we decide to have Weser tank Tenebron, EleazarJr will pick up the lava blazes and the whelps, and Aravic will tank Sartharion himself. This doesn't work due to an equipment malfunction and Weser gets crushed by Tenebron leading to a wipe. We then try to have Eleazar tank both Tenebron and the adds, but this just takes too much work running all over the place picking up the blazes and then having to round up all the whelps. So we try another new strategy - Eleazar will pick up all the adds and tank them and Aravic will tank BOTH Sartharion AND Tenebron.
Yes, he's one crazy tank. But it works. Everything is going smoothly - DPS is able to focus on bringing Tenebron down without having to worry about stray lava blazes or whelps from the portal. All we need to do is DPS Tenebron and avoid the fire walls. So Tenebron is in the process of being defeated when...a healer and DPS disconnect. In the chaos of new healing assignments and working on keeping the tank up as he's getting hit by Sartharion and Tenebron, we lose two more DPS - not sure what they were hit by - maybe a stray lava blaze, a whelp, or a lava wall - but we're down to 2 healers, 2 tanks, and 2 DPS. Both tanks have their hands full with Sartharion, Tenebron, and the adds while the healers are both squarely focused on the tanks. Occasionally I would aggro a blaze and have to drag it over to Jr, our pally tank, then hope a heal came in before I got hit by a meteor or another add.
So here we are, with just 2 DPS. Tenebron goes down. I do a little bit of AOE on the adds that Jr has stacked up, but focus mainly on Sartharion. Every time any cooldown is up, I use it. Then, as I see him getting closer to 10% health, I hold my cooldowns in preparation for the quasi-enrage. I knew we wouldn't have the DPS to blow through him in this stage, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that once his initial enrage happens, he calms back down again. So we just had Jr pick up all the extra blazes that spawned, Ivan and I tried to dodge the meteors and DPS all out on Sartharion, and eventually, he went down.
In all, it took us 11 minutes to bring him down. I used my three mana gem charges, conjured a new one, and used two charges on that. I used mirror image a few times and think I even threw in an evocate and an invisibility. It was, quite simply, one of the best fights I've been a part of. The fun in knowing that if I got in trouble, I essentially had to fend for myself, the excitement in knowing that it's just me and Ivan who need to knock down Sartharion and his 7.7 million HP, and the fun in just having to be on top of our games for the full 11 minutes to make this thing work. So we now have the awesome Twilight Assist achievement and though I doubt we'll be doing two drakes this week, I do look forward to the challenge in upcoming weeks.
But then...Aravic is going to spec DPS and let's go to Malygos first so we can down him and spend the rest of the night on Sartharion with one drake. WHAT? Fine. Red Drake, take me back to Coldarra. I arrive, and we quickly explain the fight to Dylana, our third healer for the night, and a new hunter we have picked up from the looking for group channel. After one wipe due to everyone getting used to healing assignments, picking up discs, and using the domes, we assemble once again and quickly take him down just as he's about to enrage (actually, I think he did enrage, but our DOTs killed him just in time). So I get the lovely new neck piece, Weser picks up Black Ice, and we head back to the Wyrmrest Temple.
So here we are now, ready to tackle Sartharion with one drake up - Tenebron this time around. Our first attempt, we decide to have Weser tank Tenebron, EleazarJr will pick up the lava blazes and the whelps, and Aravic will tank Sartharion himself. This doesn't work due to an equipment malfunction and Weser gets crushed by Tenebron leading to a wipe. We then try to have Eleazar tank both Tenebron and the adds, but this just takes too much work running all over the place picking up the blazes and then having to round up all the whelps. So we try another new strategy - Eleazar will pick up all the adds and tank them and Aravic will tank BOTH Sartharion AND Tenebron.
Yes, he's one crazy tank. But it works. Everything is going smoothly - DPS is able to focus on bringing Tenebron down without having to worry about stray lava blazes or whelps from the portal. All we need to do is DPS Tenebron and avoid the fire walls. So Tenebron is in the process of being defeated when...a healer and DPS disconnect. In the chaos of new healing assignments and working on keeping the tank up as he's getting hit by Sartharion and Tenebron, we lose two more DPS - not sure what they were hit by - maybe a stray lava blaze, a whelp, or a lava wall - but we're down to 2 healers, 2 tanks, and 2 DPS. Both tanks have their hands full with Sartharion, Tenebron, and the adds while the healers are both squarely focused on the tanks. Occasionally I would aggro a blaze and have to drag it over to Jr, our pally tank, then hope a heal came in before I got hit by a meteor or another add.
So here we are, with just 2 DPS. Tenebron goes down. I do a little bit of AOE on the adds that Jr has stacked up, but focus mainly on Sartharion. Every time any cooldown is up, I use it. Then, as I see him getting closer to 10% health, I hold my cooldowns in preparation for the quasi-enrage. I knew we wouldn't have the DPS to blow through him in this stage, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that once his initial enrage happens, he calms back down again. So we just had Jr pick up all the extra blazes that spawned, Ivan and I tried to dodge the meteors and DPS all out on Sartharion, and eventually, he went down.
In all, it took us 11 minutes to bring him down. I used my three mana gem charges, conjured a new one, and used two charges on that. I used mirror image a few times and think I even threw in an evocate and an invisibility. It was, quite simply, one of the best fights I've been a part of. The fun in knowing that if I got in trouble, I essentially had to fend for myself, the excitement in knowing that it's just me and Ivan who need to knock down Sartharion and his 7.7 million HP, and the fun in just having to be on top of our games for the full 11 minutes to make this thing work. So we now have the awesome Twilight Assist achievement and though I doubt we'll be doing two drakes this week, I do look forward to the challenge in upcoming weeks.
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