Archive for the ‘Talents’ Category

I queued for a random battleground and as luck would have it, I wound up in Eye of the Storm again. I was again – as in my Arathi Basin battle  – a little killing machine. I’d bought up some Furious Gladiator’s Scaled Shoulders and entered battle in my prot PvP spec. I ended up with six killing blows, 57 honorable kills and only five deaths. At one point, we were defending the mage’s tower and I ended basically tanking the horde. The horde all wanted me dead for whatever reason, so the healers kept me alive while our DPS (myself included) dropped them. It was impressive. If only we’d won.

Oh wait, that’s right  – we did. In fact, of the top 15 honorable kills leaders, 14 were of the Alliance (and I was one of them – #3, actually). Once out of the battleground, I bought a Greater Inscription of the Gladiator and a Kharmaa’s Grace gemstone for my new PvP shoulders. Nice.

I learned something tonight, something wholly unexpected – I can tank for short periods with my current gear. lol I went into Drak’Tharon Keep tonight – more on why in a minute – but after the second boss, our tank bailed. The healer asked me to tank for a while, so I switched to my prot spec, fired off Righteous Fury, pulled out my Teldrassil Protector and my Titansteel Shield Wall and we were off. I had no real problems and we got to King Dred in short order. I’d have done better without my PvP-based setup, like Glyph of Avenger’s Shield, but we had no trouble at all. By the time we got to King Dred, a new tank showed up but he didn’t give me time to go back to ret prior to pulling Dred, so we two-tanked him. After that I went back to ret but then another player dropped, this time our hunter. Something about not running with some certain guild name… we weren’t sure who he was talking about.

Oh, and as for why I was running another dungeon tonight, it’s because I was just a few Emblems of Triumph from getting Turalyon’s Shoulderguards of Conquest.

Yes! I’ve finally upgraded from my stupid Spaulders of the Giant Lords. Nice, huh?

Anybody recognize this handsome devil? It’s Budman of Gavelier’s World of Warcraft fame! I haven’t played him in ages so he was still a lowly level 16 when I signed in on him the other day. Now, he’s level 20 and is playing with his teleportation spells and blinking all over the place.

He’s now a frost mage vice an arcane mage, and has become more and more so as I’ve played him. I was going to put my 19th and 20th talent points into Improved Fireball 2 and 3 (I already had one point in it), but I was getting such use out of my one point in Frostbite so I opted to max it out instead.

I’ve learned a few things while playing him the last day or two. For one, arcane missiles is a mana-killer. I used to love it but now I avoid casting it to save mana. Secondly, I do want to max Improved Fireball at some point because the spell Fireball takes forever to cast. Lastly, I love teleporting because it means I can set my hearthstone to minor settlements and still have access to the capital cities.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed my time as Budman. So much so, actually, that I haven’t played Gav for a few days. Oops!

Well, a couple days and allot of gold later, I’ve got a mostly complete starter caster set of gear. Observe.

On the left, of course, is my normal, ret gear. It just looks vicious, huh? On the other hand, my new holy gear is rather subdued and the blue overtones make it looks mana-heavy (which it is). Some of the gear includes Dalaran Warden’s Legplates, Cloak of the Moon, Brilliant Saronite Pauldrons, and a  Brilliant Saronite Breastplate. My ret gear is more advanced, obviously, with my Spaulders of the Giant Lords, Savage Saronite Haubrek, Tempered Titansteel Treads, and Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory. I’m four heavy borean leather short of making some new goggles to go with my armor, too. I also want to get a Saronite Spellblade, but that can wait. I guess I’m all-in on the healing thing.

Last night saw an interesting shift in Gavelier’s adventuring career. My guild leader made mention that we only had one healer in our 60+ members, so I opted to drop my prot spec for holy. I’d never actually healed before, but Gav was holy spec through his 20s, so it wasn’t a totally alien concept. So, with great anticipation, I went to Ironforge and respecced my prot to holy.

The first thing that struck me is that I knew next to nothing about the talents in the holy tree. I spent a good half hour just reading them and seeing how they would affect me. Once I was set on my talents, I spent another hour arranging them on my action bars for ease of use. Out went most of my damaging spells and in went healing powers. I moved Flash of Light and Holy Light to prominent positions on my main action bar, and put Holy Shock center stage. However, the spell sucked. I wondered if it was just my gear that was causing it to do only 519 healing/340 damage. I finally remembered I had to go train it, at which point it hit full stride.  I was scared to leave town, though, since I was effectively damage-neutered. What I needed was someone to heal. I logged for the night without firing even one of my new spells once.

Popping in this morning, I swapped back to ret to run some dailies. When I got back to Dalaran, I was ready to queue with the masses for Wintergrasp when I had an epiphany: Take Holy to WG! There’s allot of healing to be done there! And so it was.

My biggest problem was my severe lack of caster gear. I had only managed to secure some new glyphs, and that was it. I was hamstrung with less then 7k mana, which seemed way short. I held strong to my conviction, though, and went for it. Holy Shock became my primary healing spell, with Flash of Light during HS’s cool downs and Holy Light for big heals. I was following the front line when I noticed a death knight with under 1k HP. I fired off my Lay on Hands spell for them, setting them right. I also cleansed quite a few players, keeping them alive. In the end, I was the third most successful healer in the raid, having healed over 176k HP of damage. I also wasn’t on the leader board for overheals, meaning I wasn’t wasting my time or mana.

It was a fairly successful trial by fire, I felt. There was a big ‘yeah, healers!’ after the battle, so I felt good. Maybe I’ve found my niche at last.

I was back in Wintergrasp today and had my ineptitude driven home. We won another close defensive battle by blockading the one broken wall to the inner section of the fort where the inner sanctum’s wall/door is. We’re getting good at that, it seems.  Anyway, what I was saying about my ineptitude was that afterwards, a couple people posted their recount stats. The leaders showed players with 13k+ total damage done. I checked mine (I recently switched to Recount instead of Skada), and I had done less then 1.2k. I also died three times. I guess that’s my answer then. I really can’t compete there any more. Keep in mind that I was prot again (I think I fit a better utility role that way), not ret, so my damage was down from that alone, when you factor in stats, talents, and gear. My only bright spots were holding my own against a swarm of Hordies on more then one occasion. Once, I was fighting an Orc, when a Blood Elf came in, another Orc, and finally someone’s pet (a Devilsaur, of all things) before I had to bubble and heal. The bubble wore off, and I was again assailed, this time by the first Orc, a Tauren, and that Devilsaur again, at which point I finally fell. Not bad holding their attention that long, but c’mon, is it really worth bragging about taking longer to die? I’m supposed to kill them, not take solace in being a difficult target. Anytime I went to the front lines I died (or nearly did) in seconds. A few times I was able to run back and heal, or use my Lay on Hands or bubble spells, but that meant I was occupied and not doing anything to help.

I mentioned filling a utility role when specced prot. That’s because I can use Avenger’s Shield, augmented with Shield of the Templar, to silence three foes at once at a distance. My Titan-forged Rune of Determination helped allot, cutting down on time I spent stunned. I guess if I’m satisfied not being a key part of the attack, I can keep coming back. I just can’t expect to be anything more then a utility player/distraction.

I finally got into WoW after four-plus hours of work last night. I won’t go into detail on it, because it’s not important. What I did want to talk about is my experiences post-patch.

First off, I immediately specced prot. I can’t afford dual specs yet, so I settled on prot for now. I hung out around the Ironforge practice dummies for a while and worked on my spell rotation, along with about ten or more other people. I also learned that I could hit the Heroic Boss dummy, whereas only a couple weeks (and two levels) ago I couldn’t hit the lvl 80 dummy. Alas, though, my DPS did dip, almost to half it’s original state. Anyway, I later I went to the Outlands for my usual daily run: The Multiphase Survey, Intercepting the Mana Cells, and Sunfury Attack Plans. I like that set of dailies because I can go from Shattrath to Nagrand to Blade’s Edge Mountains to the Netherstorm in a straight run. I was killing Sunfury agents for their attack plans when I saw this big blue dude come stalking through. Now, I’d been to this exact locale many times to get the attack plans, but I had never seen such a creature. I decided it would be a good test of my new spec. In no time at all, I had slain Ever-Core the Punisher, netting myself the Medium Rare achievement for killing a very rare mob. I scored his Arcane Loop for the deed, as well.

While I was in Ironforge earlier, I bought up a Titanium Weapon Chain and a unit of Jormungar Leg Armor. I’m now hunting for a blacksmith to make me Tempered Saronite Shoulders, which should put me in a good position, stat-wise.

I eventually found my way back to Dalaran. I nabbed a quick daily to find a Ghostfish, which will be easier for me now that Blizzard has relieved the level requirements for fishing. I also got asked to go find Hemet Nesingwary in Sholazar Basin. I took the flight offered, got shot down (which was part of the quest), and then helped Hemet and his crew out some. I helped put their Spirit of Gnomeregan plane back together, netting me another flight point. I also did the It Could Be Anywhere! quest, which was insanely easy for the 18.5g it nets you.

Lastly, now that I’m in Sholazar, I’m finding Saronite nodes to mine, which will hopefully help me get the gold I need to net dual specs. Here’s hoping!

Tonight, Gav conquered Uldaman, slaying Archaedas as the server was going down for patch-day  maintenance. The warning that the server was shutting down in fifteen minutes cropped up just as I was awakening Archaedas, adding a level of stress to the battle. Other then that, I cruised. I completed a few quests, killed every boss in the place, and nabbed some gear for selling later. There was nothing that stood out, to be honest, and nothing I could use. I  got lost escaping the dungeon, though, and there was less then 15 second to server shutdown when I arrived back in Thelsamar in Loch Modan.

In other dungeon-y news, I ran the Library and Armory branches of the Scarlet Monastery a few more times, trying to grab some goodies I wanted. I got one of them (the Dog Whistle), but through four runs was unable to get a Scarlet Tabard. I also experimented with both my Forged Cobalt Claymore and my Savage Cobalt Slicer/Saronite Defender combo, alternating on runs and although I was still specced ret, I found that I was doing about even damage between the two. Maybe my DPS will stay around 1200 after I swap specs tomorrow morning, after all.

FYI: If anyone cares, this is going to be my new spec. I’d toyed with going two levels deep in Holy to get more intellect, but Benediction and Improved Judgements are too tempting.

I appear to have made my decision on what to do come patch day (which is confirmed for tomorrow): I’m gonna give prot a try. I bought a Saronite Defender from the AH and had a blacksmith make me a Savage Cobalt Slicer. I also trained my one-handed sword skill from around 50 or so to almost 380 this evening, which means I must be pretty set on going prot. Going this route also means that Shield of Righteousness is no longer a lost spell. Now, if only I could scrape together 1000g to use dual specs and keep ret.

In other news, I roamed into Sholazar Basin the other day, and  was completely lost. It  was like a nightmarish reenactment of my first foray into Stanglethorn Vale, with a little Un’Goro Crater thrown in. It was never posted here because it happened well before this blog started, but I had a heck of a time my first trip in to STV. I knew Booty Bay had to be down south somewhere, but I was only level 30 and most of the mobs I crossed would have eaten me alive, so I ran non-stop from Duskwood to Booty Bay, chugging potions and using Divine Protection to survive. My family was around at the time and laughed at me as I ran from cats, raptors and gorillas. Now, it just so happens that the same thing happened in Solozar Basin, except that I had no idea where a safe area with a flight point would be. I circled the zone twice, panicked by crocolisks, rhinos and giant bugs. Of course, I had witnesses again. Fortunately, this time I had my charger and Crusader Aura. All I kept saying to myself was that as long as I was on my horse, I was going to be fine. I finally found the flight point near the River’s Heart, did a quick quest, and then hearthed back to Dalaran for safety.

The PTR is likely winding down, but I had to log on and try out the rebuilt Protection tree for paladins. Word had it that protection was the tree for pallys to take, overtaking ret. I must say that I begrudgingly agree. As much as I like ret, this spec actually allowed me to do more damage, and it’s new buffs are vicious. Hammer of Justice every 20 seconds gives me something I’ve wanted for a while; a steady stun. Combining that with Hammer of Righteousness and Avengers Shield allows me to take on masses of mobs much more easily then before. Blessing of Sanctuary is also an… *ahem* blessing for my survivability. My biggest problem was running out of mana, despite Divine Plea replenishing upon striking a foe. I was always having to stop and drink.

The problem is that I love ret. I would miss the increased crit, the mana regen, the benefits to Retribution Aura and my instant Flash of Light spell. I’m not sure I’ll switch from ret to prot come  patch 3.1, but once I nab my dual spec, prot will definitely be one and ret will be the other. I’ve never actually been a prot spec on live server. I’ve done holy for a while, and ‘I’m normally ret, but I’ve never done prot. I’m not interested in tanking, to be honest, so it comes down to whether I think I can dish out enough damage in prot to stay DPS. If I’m determined to keep doing Wintergrasp, I may have to go prot, due to the interrupt and stun capabilities of the spec. Will I stay ret, or will I betray my roots and go prot? We’ll see.