Meet Failam
This is Failam. You’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the weeks to come.
Failam is a premade Alliance Shaman, coming equipped with some really cool Alliance t9 (which I’m jealous of), a 1% hit aura (which I’m also jealous of), and some axes that look pretty pansy (Not so jealous of.) Failam, along with my new Bear/Resto drood Treelam, my fancy Disc Priest Healam, and possibly the rogue Stealam (I have a hard time thinking outside the box, ok? D:) will be my fun companions through the next few months or so of testing on the PTR.
That journey started today, with some pretty awesome testing on Fire Nova totem. (7500 dps on Sarth 10, with no 13% spell damage debuff OR might is nothing to sneeze at), but unfortunately I’ve been feeling pretty sick…and I got distracted by the shiny bubbles of discipline healing, and I read my way through the Elitist Jerks compendium for disc priest. (Fun fact- I have in fact read every single EJ thread for every class, at least as of midway through 3.1. However, having not played a lot of the classes, I find myself realizing that while I might have read the threads, I definitely did not understand them until faced with playing said class. 
)
I’ve got Shakespeare, Urban Anthropology, and Romanticism in the AM, from 10:00-2:15. After that, there might be some napping, chilling with my boyfriend at his lame apartment where he gets no interwebs, and watching Heroes (and hopefullypossiblyraidingonlivetomorrownighthinthintNaithin.) Oh, and spamming my guild leader with happy birthday text messages. If I have time during this packed day of lounging about, I’m going to write some pretty sweet blog posts, pertaining to:
- The awesomeness that is Fire Nova.
- Why you all should join <Best Shaman on Server>, as the PTR is a scary place to pug. (Srsly, ending up solohealing OS10 as my first ever instance on a Disc Priest was fun-espescially when the group was all like “OMG U WERE AWESOME,” but I didn’t like the going through 8 different members getting there because the tank couldn’t hold aggro/the group leader sucked/ the mage in full t9 was doing 2.1k dps.)
- Pit of Saron- However, I want a few more attempts at this, as I don’t fully understand the boss fight mechanics yet. That might be a post for a later date.
- The new incarnation of Black Magic to weapon-it’s shiny. Possibly.
- The new map feature on the PTR. Also shiny.
- Why I hate people.
I do need to apologize for the lackluster nature of posts over the past week, but I was having a bit of a struggle with apathy and writer’s block. This is weird, as we downed every Uld10 hardmode from XT-General (XT, IC, Freya, Hodir, Mimiron, Thorim, General) last Saturday night in a 3 or 4 hour raid, and we got our first guild kill of Heroic Northrend Beasts Wednesday after throwing recruitment open. These were both awesome fodder for blogging, but I was a little “meh” over the past week. I’m not going to pretend it won’t happen again because we all feel shitty sometimes, but do know that I will return- and with a passion! (In this case, a passion inspired by testing!)
I’m eager to test out the new fire nova changes myself. I’ve only been following your blog for the last couple of weeks, Elam, but I’ve been quite impressed. It is clear that you really know your stuff, and the fact that you have progressed through pretty much all of the content makes your expertise and experience that much more valuable. I really appreciate your willingness to impart your knowledge of Enhancement to us all.
While I do thoroughly enjoy the EJ forums for most of my information on the class, it can be a little intimidating to seek advice. Rightfully so, and I understand this, as their aim is not at the basics but rather on the highest quality of theorycrafting. The point I’m making with this is that your willingness to help out and impart advice to us more casual enhacement shamans is very much appreciated.
Sorry for the tangent, but I wanted to say kudos on the blog so far. I’m considering either copying my toon over to the PTR or doing a premade. I’ll look you up if I get around to it.
I’m going to have to agree with Mirken. I love EJ for hunting down what gems to use, what weapon I should go for and the enchants for it, and whatever other information I could use to better myself… but you, Elam, go out of your way to make information readily available for the rest of us.
I have to ask, where do you roll your fire nova in your rotation? Do you do it before your shock or after? Or do you just try to fit it in someplace?
@Mirken- There was a time I wanted to be a teacher. A looong time. It only ended when I started taking education classes, and I realized I didn’t have a passion for it. I think part of my problem with teaching was that I hated doing it with a bunch of kids who really had no desire to learn. With blogging, there is none of that: Everyone who comes here is reading blogs because they’re interested and because they want to know what is in the blog, and I’m delighted to be of any help to them. TL;DR: You’re welcome. It really made my day having you two post. I kind of squee’d and like through my laptop at my boyfriend and was like “READ THESE COMMENTS. ^_^”
@Lordofthefries- I know how you feel. xD. I love ElitistJerks- their mentality about wow is exactly what we need in a theorycrafting site. That said, I’m kind of afraid to post their myself, as I can at times be a dunce.
In regards to your question (also, why I didn’t write this comment response out earlier) is that I think my latest post has most of the Fire Nova clarification you need in it- if there’s anything else you’re looking for, let me know!
@Ell. I’m responding here because I can. It…saves paper? Anyway, I like horde t9 Shoulders/Helm a lot, but I like everything about the alliance t9, from the colors to the kind of oriental design it has going on. Hate the weapons though- at least on a femberry.
Jealous of Alliance T9? Why?!
I think fire nova will just fall into single target rotation as filler, when every thing is on CD and mael isn’t stacking. although i do not know how hard it hits for so maybe some one can prove me wrong :O
And also Elam i <3 joo! just started reading your blogs recently and i really appreciate the time you take to do this, keep up the good work =D
(even tho alliance t9 is ugly!)
I still think it’s kind of fugly, after getting my second piece I just confirmed my mehness. Though nobody seems to have pretty gear for any class/faction IMNSHO.
“…coming equipped with some really cool Alliance t9 (which I’m jealous of),…”
You must be kidding, i thought about switching to the Horde because of the uglynes of Alliance Shaman T9. ;P
Heya Elam, I don’t post much if at all on blog sites, forums, etc. but I wanted to agree with what a couple people have already said in different comments and thank you for doing all this work and keeping up to date on crap. (holy run on sentence batman) But anyway I’m just DLing the ptr right now, gonna hit you up for an invite when I actually finish it.