A New Macro

With my recent addition of the Gown of the Spell-Weaver, I've been able to replace my Mark of the War Prisoner with the Sundial of the Exiled. Combined with the Embrace of the Spider, I no longer have trinkets that need to be "used."

Another issue I ran into was that my Improved Mana Gems did not stack with the Mark of the War Prisoner "on use" so I had two different buttons to click - now that I've replaced the trinket, I have one macro which just allows me to go all out:

/use [button:1] Mana Sapphire
/cast [button:1,target=player] Combustion
/stopcasting
/cast [button:1,target=player] Icy Veins
/stopcasting
/cast [button:1] Mirror Image
/stopcasting
/cast [button:2] Conjure Mana Gem

Since Mana Sapphire is first in the macro, it shows you how many charges you have left on the gem. It will quickly use your Mana Sapphire for Mana Surge, Combustion, Icy Veins, and Mirror Image (I used button:1 so it works only if you left click on the macro).

At the end, there's a Conjure Mana Gem spell if you right click (button:2) which will summon a new Mana Sapphire if you're out or refresh the charges on your Sapphire if you have used charges (which you should always do if you have two pieces of Tier 7).

Sarth, Maly, Naxx

Last night, our ten man team got together (well, 9 of us for the start), and we quickly downed Sartharion (no drakes) and Malygos with 9, then hit up Naxxramas. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter with 9 and then added our last DPS for the rest of the run. We cleared all four wings except for the Four Horsemen before our quitting time and there were a few upgrades handed out, but most notably, I received the Gown of the Spell Weaver! Currently, it's the best chest piece in the game for me (which is odd that there's no heroic item better).

With the exceptional amount of spell hit on the Gown, I was able to quickly port to Dalaran and buy a Sundial of the Exiled to replace my Mark of the War Prisoner. Right now I'm a little under the hit cap and I'd be at or above the hit cap if a shadow priest or shaman joined our group. But I'm ok with the slight hit chance. Pouring over my Patchwerk numbers from last night, I had one Frostfire Bolt miss and one Living Bomb miss. The Living Bomb isn't a bit deal since it's easy to recast, but losing Frostfire damage sucks. So I might throw an extra hit gem in my gear to get me a little higher.

Our 25 man raid tonight is cancelled due to key players being out of town, so maybe we'll finish up Naxxramas from last night, or I'll just be searching for that last candy to complete my Fool for Love achievement which will put me that much closer to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been (would give me 4/7 complete).

On Loot

BigBearButt posted something that really struck a chord with me today:

I wasn’t planning on rolling on anything when I went in. I’d rather not roll on loot until I feel that I’ve done MY best to be at the max I can be first. If other people did their best to gear up and I didn’t, why should I get their only possible upgrades?

He was talking about his hunter that has been brought along to a couple Naxx raids which he hadn't played in a while and felt bad that he hadn't done his best to gear up in preparation for serious raiding.

But his loot philosophy is one that I wish more people would follow. I have no problem losing a roll to someone who needs an upgrade. I do have a problem when someone wins a roll and they are able to replace a level 76 quest reward item with a 25 man Naxx item that I needed. Also, while I don't mind passing to regular raiders that I run with, I hate being in PUGs or joint efforts and asked to pass an item for the "good of the raid."

Hypothetical: I'm running with Tier 7 shoulders, Tier 7.5 drops from Loatheb. I win the roll and I'm asked to pass to a Death Knight in a level 77 green item because "he needs it more than me." Well, whose fault is that? If he were sporting a heroic shoulder piece or something similar, I wouldn't really have a problem, but because he's slacked off and couldn't be bothered to run heroics or spend gold on the auction house, why should I have to pass a piece of loot to him? I've done my homework - I had the absolute best items available to me before I entered Naxx (with the exception of my wand which refused to drop in Azjol'Nerub - and ask around, I ran it a LOT). So because I worked my ass off to get the Deathchill Cloak, a Titanium Spellshock Necklace, a Signet of Kirin Tor, etc., I get penalized because you're lazy? HATE IT.

Now you might be thinking I'm a loot whore. I'd like to think I'm not. I've passed plenty of items and I've gotten lucky on some rolls (Valorous Leggings, I'm looking at you). But I've put the work in for my items and I think I deserve an upgrade every now and again.

Another issue I've run into now that we're running 25 man Naxx is that I really don't need much from there. Sure, there's some nice, marginal upgrades. But on our last run, clearing two wings, one item dropped I wanted. Of course, I was outrolled. The problem here is, I'm being outrolled on a Tier piece because now that we have 25 people, there's more people to roll against. Even though I didn't roll once leading up to that point. This is where I think a DKP or EP/GP system would come in nicely for me. I could save points on drops which are of no interest to me and spend them on the very rare drop that does interest me.

This week, we venture back into Naxxramas (25 man) and we'll probably do the same two wings again and I'll probably have another shot at my Tier 7.5 shoulders (best in slot). And I'll probably lose them again. Now, there will be one less person rolling against me since he got them last week, but there's still plenty of overpowered Death Knights and druids running with us. So even though I might not see any other item throughout the whole instance that I want, I'll have the same chance as everyone else at those shoulderpads.

Now, technically, you only get one item a run, but in the case of the undergeared mage we ran with, he got a lot of items by default last run, and now this run won't need to roll on them and will probably win the tier shoulders that I want.

Yeah, I know I'm bitching a bunch, but it just upsets me at times where I get just one chance to roll on loot and my dice forsake me and I've spent four hours without anything to show for it. Other than gearing up other players who may or may not run with us in the weeks to follow.

Last week, of our 25 man group, there were 4 mages, 4 death knights, 2 rogues, and 4 druids. So that's 14 of the 25 people that are going to roll against me on Tier 7.5 shoulders. So my chances of winning are slim.

((Note to readers in my group - if you win, DO NOT pass to me because of my bitching - I don't want to win an item that way. But perhaps we do need to discuss loot rules further :))

Tozz 20

/played
10 hours, 43 minutes, 34 seconds

1-10: 2 hours, 39 minutes, 42 seconds.
11-20: 8 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds.

Naxx 8 Man

Last night, for an impromptu Naxxramas run, we formed up at about 6pm and figured we could clear what we left on Thursday. So we started to get going, but we were missing a healer and a DPS. What the heck we said...let's try this 8-man. As it turns out, 8 manning Naxxramas is pretty darn easy. We wiped once on Kel'Thuzad because our DPS pally went down from a void zone and Kel'Thuzad wiped us with 50,000 HP left. But other than that, no encounter gave us any issues. And we did all of this with a new death knight in our party who had only seen about half the encounters.

So hopefully later this week, we'll be able to finish off The Dedicated Few - we just need Patchwerk and the Plague Quarter.

Before Naxx 8-man though, I went to Obsidian Sanctum 25-man. It was an easy enough clear and I managed to piss off a good amount of people with my Toy Train Set (I just can't comprehend how people get upset when others make a train noise. Just move away from it or turn down your speakers if it's too loud. Have a sense of humor people. But on Sartharion, I ended up doing 4,600 DPS. Not too shabby. Especially considering the next highest person on the charts was at 3,300 DPS. So that was a fun run - except for the fact that I was the #2 roll on the Illustration of the Dragon Soul. It went to a pally in our guild, which was kind of annoying. The trinket is BEST IN SLOT for DPS casters. There is NOTHING better in the game for us. The trinket is NOT best in slot for healing types. With this amalgamation of spell power, healing power, etc., there's just too much competition for pieces that are generally very one-sided. This trinket is just one example. No paladin would roll on it if it were spell power if we still had healing power in the game. So I lose out on my BEST IN SLOT item so a paladin (who might not even use it - well, he might, even though there's better options out there - including a Darkmoon card which just takes some time and gold to get - which chances are he won't put the time or gold into getting). C'est la vie.

In other news, Wednesday starts Love is in the Air. Judging by the achievements, it shouldn't be too hard to obtain another title and one more event down towards my violet proto drake. Luckily I did the grinding necessary last year for the Perma-Peddle achievement as they're making it tougher this year, but it isn't required for the meta-achievement. So I should rack up another 140 achievement points and I even get to have some fun in the battlegrounds while doing so.

Tozz

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.

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:

* 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.

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.