What can I say, I’m crazy.

So, I was leveling my super cute  (actually, really not so cute) female troll mage this evening. Due to some technical difficulties (read: bad decision making), I did some things not condusive to leveling: letting my health bar hit 0 a few too many times, running a 40 minute av where we didn’t cap more than two towers, spent a good 30 seconds every 4 inutes youtubing a new song, etc. It took me something like 6 hours to power my way through the latter half of zangarmarsh and the first few long quest chains in Nagrand to get grom 64-66, and I ended up not achieving that beautiful “OMG I CAN FINALLY ICELANCE” level until 5:00AM, EST. (For those of you keeping record, it is actually 6AM for me, as I am writing this. :S)

Ideally, had I not made a large number of stupid decisions (honestly, spending an hour trying to solo three level 67 mobs who could crushing blow me for 1500hp when I only have 4500 and can’t be rooted was not my best idea), I probably could have done it by 3:00, which was my original plan. After that, I was planning on catching up on my two “survey” blogs that certain guild members have asked me to do before calling it the night at a ripe 4:30am-shockingly early for me. O.o (Note-I have class Mondays and Wednesdays, and work T-Th-Fri. On the days when I do work, it’s often 12-8, 1-9, etc., which is why I can have a schedule where I’m up until stupid hours of the morning. )

However, things did not work out as I planned. Upon exiting wow at like 5:15 and deciding to call it the night, I proceeded to read (NON-WOW :O) blogs for like 30 minutes, while pondering what my next step is. For, you see, this is what is on my plate right now:

A) Wow-related.

• Tank Survey
• DPS Survey
• Continued Coverage of 3.3 PTR information
• EnhSim Documentation Page, I needz 2 make it.
• TankSpot guide to PVE Enhancement DPS, I needz 2 write it.
• Articles for Big Hit Box.
• Articles for a currently-secret new blog, that I can’t let you know about, but that I got asked to contribute to today.
• Planning out my own second blog, which I think has real potential, about issues of gender/sexuality and mmoing.
• Getting Aching to level 80. (Honestly, now that I finally have ice lance, which I’ve wanted for like a year, my drive to push myself to level her as quickly might have died down a bit, which is a very good thing.)
• Raiding. Anub hard needs to go down.
• Raiding on alts. Notelam, Grazeless, and Darwinism are each just shy of a 4500gear score. Not that gearscore matters, but I want them ready for ICC10 in case we ever do alt runs of that. xD

B) School related

• Revised Proposal for my Shakespare Paper
• 10page Shakespeare Paper
• Shakespeare final.
• 50 minute lesson plan for sex. ed on social networking.
• Urban Anthropology final.
• Romanticism 10page paper, no topic yet.
• Romanticism final.
• Graduate in 3 weeks?

C) Work related.

• “Action Plan.” (Details of this are boring.)
• Resume’.
• Not having-a-heart-attack because my boss of six years decided this week that she’s leaving.
• Planning to get bosses’ job.

D) None-of-the-above-related.

• Feeding the needy on Thanksgiving. (Fun fact: My family hasn’t had an actual family Thanksgiving for like 4-5 years. We run a food-bank sort of thing every Thanksgiving where we make sure everyone who doesn’t have the means to feed themselves a Thanksgiving meal gets one. It’s pretty awesome.)
• Exercise moar. If I’m not the best looking person at Sarielle/Keaton’s wedding next December, I’mma be pist.
• Sleep.

I think I can start working on that last bullet nao, right? Since it’s 6:30 am and stuffs? Also, some fun psychological stuff to think about: did I put the wow stuff first because this is a wow blog, or because the wow stuff is my highest priority. And, if that’s the case…how bad is that? xD

Wtb the end of December, pst.

In Burning Crusade, my introduction came a few months before joining Surreality for the first time, and when they recruited me as Enhancement I was the happiest little cow alive, all decked out in my badge gear and Sunwell Pleateu trash offhand. Somewhat ironically, my first ten man raid with Surreality was a Karazhan that I healed rather than DPSed, with the guild leader’s then-alt-now-main Resto Shaman, who I stole this from. (She said she was impressed that night, and that I carried her heals. She probably forgot, but I didn’t!) In Wrath of the Lich King, this came the day I joined Surreality…again. (Long story, dunt ask. Maybe it’ll be a rainy day blog! xD) Before that, my little ten man group of friends who I unceremoinously dumped my progression content guild to farm 10s with needed me as resto most days, and since I had somehow been promoted to raid/guild leader, it was my job to sacrifice my desire to hit things with fiery weapons for the good of the guild until I managed to escape back to the 25mans that spawned me.

Possibly surprisingly, I actually DO know a thing or two about healing. I’m no where near as competent as our guild’s actual healers, and I’d worry about being asked to help heal on progression content since I’m super rusty, but I do know how to heal as a shaman. And, since I have no life, I have of course read every Resto Shaman theorycrafting article you could think of, so I do at least know the theory of shaman healing. (I also -only- heal on Notelam, my paladin, but I don’t think I have the /played as a healer on her to speak about it much. )

As an offspec healer, and a grumpy one at that, I decided to take up the call to fill out Ms. Medicina’s Healing Questionnaire, mainly for fun.

* What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
My raiding main is Elam, an Orc Enhancement Shaman, who likes to dabble in the art of the glowing-green lights.

* What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mainly 10mans, as there are very few 25mans I pug on my main- and those that I do, I like to tear up the deeps meters a bit tooo much.

* What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Ancestral Awakening. It’s not -actually- a spell, in that I don’t click it. It procs off critical Lesser Healing Waves, Riptides, and Healing Waves, smart healing the person in the raid with the lowest HP for 30% of the amount healed.

If I had to choose an actual spell I click, I’d choose Lesser Healing Wave. After the sadness of not using the spell at all while healing through most of BC, it was great fun to see it make a come-back, and it’s ability to proc Imp. WS and Ancestral Wakening, as well as it’s own strength as a heal AND it’s synergy with Earth Shield through glyphing, LHW has become an excellent tool.

* What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave.  It’s a tool that has it’s place in a healing arsenal and should not be discounted, but beyond the normal Nature’s Swiftness +HW macro that every shaman has had since Ronal Reagan was president, it’s not a strong heal. Elam’s healing gear is considerably stronger than Notelam’s, but her Holy Light his for similar amounts and is spammable.

* What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Versatility, at least in a 10-man setting. While no Holy Paladin, Earth Shield+Lesser Healing Wave do provide strong single target healing, and Healing Wave IS good for needed burst healing. Chain Heal+Healing Stream Totem(raid wide 5-person smart heal, make it happen please Blizzard!) make Restoration a competitive raid healer, and it has the added benefit of looking kick-ass. And while I know that healers hate the assignment, I think through Riptide and Tidal Waves’d Lesser Healing Waves, Resto Shaman make excellent spot healers, for predictabe single target damage on someone not the tank. Incinerate Flesh on Lord J, Penetrating Cold on Anub, Light Bomb on XT are all examples of this.

* What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Mobility combined with a lack of defensive abilities other than Earth Shield. Like both other specs of Shaman, Resto can be described as a turret- great throughput potential, but requires standing in one place for 10mans to shine. For pugs on fights like Onyxia, I genuinely worry on Elam when running in (since I don’t trust other pug healers.) On notelam, I can blessing of sacrifice the tank and keep Beacon of Light on him, using Holy Shock crits+instant Flash of Lights to keep myself and him up while running to position. On Elam, I riptide+ES, and then run in and stop to cast every few seconds, leaving me in potential damage places if I’m not careful.

* In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Bind half my keys to targeting melee, the other half to pressing chain heal, and then letting my puppy walk on the keyboard while I /afk sandwich! Really, though, whilst I was pugging my way through Naxx25 back when Naxx25 was content, I used to love fights like Instructor Raz and Sapphiron where I just chain healed the night away and hit 4-5k hps.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Holy Paladins. They’re just such strong healers. Even mediocre H Paladins can make a fight substantially easier.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Holy Priests. This has nothing to do with synergy, but I’ve just always found the spec to be incredibly boring. I don’t believe they work that well with restoration, though. I’d much prefer a stronger single target healer with me.  

* What is your worst habit as a healer?
Chain Healing the ranged and hitting one person. I might like that spell a LITTLE too much.

* What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

People dying. Honestly, be courteous and try to stay alive, please!

* Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
To quote my raid leader at Altadin.com, “Shamans are in a fantastic place right now.  We are exceptional raid healers and (properly glyphed and itemized) can be strong main tank healers as well.  We buff the raid via totems, which can be tailored to suit not only to the group make-up but also the nature of the encounter.  We have defensive and offensive dispels, a ranged interrupt that is off the global cooldown, limited but still situtationally viable CC, self-resurrection and — of course — Bloodlust.  If anything, shamans are overpowered at the moment compared to other healing classes.”

* What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Beyond the simple “Did we down the boss? Did my assignments die? Did I run out of mana?,” there’s recount- however, healing is not like dps, and maximum HPS is not always the best solution- especially if you’re running at a million percent overheal, or you’re assigned to do something not conducive to throughput.

* What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That we’re still in Burning Crusade, where my 1-4 buttons were multiple ranks of CH, and the question wasn’t “should I chain heal” but “which rank of chain heal will give the least overheal.” SRSLY. THERE ARE OTHER SPELLS. Inorite?

* What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

There are A LOT of keybinds and abilities, and just knowing how to put down your Call of Fire and use LHW/CH/HW/Riptide/ES does not a healer make. Resto shaman might need to purge if lacking an offensive dispeller. Some fights might call for grounding totem. And, don’t assume that because the last fight was a chain heal fest that that pattern will sustain itself through a raid.

* If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I think they’d wonder why I was healing and not DPSing!

* Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. Crit has it’s place, especially in proccing Ancestral Awakening and Imp. WS, but crit is not something you want to rely on as a healer. Crit is burst, and while having on demand burst is great for healing, sustained HPS throughput is achieved through haste.

* What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Holy Priests. :S

* What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I’m an add-on whore.  I currently use Grid, GridStatusDebuffs, and more that I’m totally forgetting. :s Nature’s Swiftness+Healing Wave macro ftw!

* Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I’m currently gemming Spellpower, but only because there were no quick autumn’s glows on the AH, and I sooo wasn’t buying 12 Quick King’s Amber. xD. Given the choice and the money, I’d be on top of haste in a heartbeat.

• Item – Death Knight T10 DPS Relic (Obliterate, Scourge Strike, Death Strike) – Your Obliterate, Scourge Strike, and Death Strike abilities grants 73 Strength for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Item – Death Knight T10 Tank Relic (Runestrike) – Your Rune Strike ability grants 44 dodge rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

Druid

• Item – Druid T10 Feral Relic (Rake and Lacerate) – The periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rake abilities grants 44 Agility for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Item – Druid T10 Balance Relic (Moonfire and Insect Swarm) – The periodic damage from your Insect Swarm and Moonfire spells grants 44 critical strike rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Item – Druid T10 Restoration Relic (Rejuvenation) – The periodic healing from your Rejuvenation spell grants 32 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

Paladin

• Item – Paladin T10 Retribution Relic (Crusader Strike) -     Your Crusader Strike ability grants 44 Strength for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Item – Paladin T10 Holy Relic (Holy Shock) – Your Holy Shock spell grants 85 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Item – Paladin T10 Protection Relic (Shield of Righteousness) – Your Shield of Righteousness ability grants 73 dodge rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.

Shaman

• Item – Shaman T10 Elemental Relic (Shocks) – Your Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock spells grant 73 critical strike rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Item – Shaman T10 Enhancement Relic (Stormstrike) – Your Stormstrike ability grant 146 attack power rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Item – Shaman T10 Restoration Relic (Riptide) – Your Riptide spell grants 85 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.

The numbers here seem a little low, at least for the Enhancement one. While it won’t drop off in any fight where we can stormstrike every 8-10 seconds like normal, 438 AP is only 38 more AP than our current Relic. However, as ghostcrawler has said- it’s much more work for them to put an item/spell/ability in than to tweak the numbers. (Nearly every relic buff seems to be about 10% higher than t9 relics, which seems to be a bit low at this point.) These are early PTR numbers, so the only thing we should really be looking at is how we feel it works.

First, I do have to say- I’m starting to be a little let down by Relics. Historically, they’ve given pretty cool varied bonuses from spec to spec and class to class. Having every Melee DPS relic in 3.2 be 200 strength/attack power/agility, Caster Relics be 200 Crit/ 200 Haste, every Heal Relic be 234 Spellpower, and every tank relic be 200 Dodge Rating wasn’t terrible. It was A) New, and B) It was known the patch had it’s focus set on PVP and Isle of Conquest, and that ToC was a playground so that the kids didn’t get bored. Which was fine.

But 3.3 isn’t that. 3.3 is Icecrown Citadel, the culmination of all our efforts in Northrend. It is largely a PVE patch. And having evvery relic be virtually the same as every other classes’ is just a little annoying. Every melee class will hit and gain ap or strength in stacks. Every caster will throw up their dots and get crit rating. Every healer will use their instant heal for 255 spellpower. The only real difference is in tanks, where Paladins and Death Knights will get dodge and druids will get agility.

Beyond just being annoyed with the sameness, I don’t really like the stacking effect. I’ve got fury of the five flights on Grazeless, who also uses Rune of Razorice in her offhand. Both abilities stack on melee hit, and have short durations- FotFF has 10 seconds, the rune has 20. If there is any boss that might require us to be away from the target for extended periods of time (I’m looking at you, Northrend Beasts. Burning Bile sucks. Also, phase transitions like Mimirons) will cause us to have to restack our stack. Even if Stormstrike is hit the second it’s off CD (which isn’t always the case) it will take us 24 seconds to restack to it’s fullest. That said, I just find it annoying- not stupid/broken/anything.

I’m also wondering a bit about the elemental relic. Crit is sux for Elemental compared to haste- having an instant crit every 8 seconds (6.5 with 4pct10!) means that crit is not their friend compared to haste. Also, no Elemental shaman in their right mind will be wasting a GCD to cast flameshock before they need to…which is every 16ish seconds. After the buff has fallen off. My hope would be that they change this as a chance to give crit on Flameshock ticks. (Really, I’d prefer they did haste, but w/e.) Because, as of now, Electrifying Wind looks to be BiS in ICC.

Meanwhile, crit is very attractive for Enhancement, as it effects both spell crit and melee crit. Anyone who has really high crit ep values might want to consider getting this totem for Enhancement, as we do shock every 6ish seconds or so.

Srsly need to finish this paper. Peace out chillun.

Edit: “The Elemental totem is haste, not crit, and I believe it is a 30 sec duration.”

Go go, Ghostcrawler! This totem is so much better now.

So yea, I was up to 3k gold this week. Which is pretty spectacular for me, as I’m the one who went an entire expansion and a half without epic flying because I hate making money. I’m bad at it. Mainly because making money is booooring, and I’d rather be writing a blog, cleaning my sock drawer, giving a bath to an angry dwarf, saving the world, watching the plate spin in the microwave, etc. Nevertheless, through freak happenstance and me forgetting to spend money, I somehow managed to hit 3kish gold between Notelam and Elam. (Thinking about it, it was more like 3.5, actually.)

So, what did I do? Did I invest in the stock market? No. It’s wow and the stock market doesn’t exist, and if it did I wouldn’t trust it. Cairne/Thrall/Garrosh don’t exactly scream GOOD WITH NUMBERS to me. Did I decide to follow one of the thousand inscription guides and buyout herbs in bulk like I’m a drug dealer so that I might get rich of other people respeccing? No, because after the 82nd time my glyph of fan of knives didn’t sell last month, I decided that listing and relisting is a woman’s job. (I KID!!)

So, what did I do? I rescued all the money from my assorted character, assembled into one big pixelated pile on Elam, and dropped my herbalism tradeskill. Why? I have it on Notelam AND Grazeless too. Both my other 80s. >.< So, I clicked the little red “do not click this box” box, dropped my ability to go “^_^” and pick flowers while skipping through mulgore, and started enchanting.

Now, I was -planning- on paying my way to 300. After that, I was heading to Outland later this week to FARMFARMFARM my way to 350, and likewise until 450! I went about merrily on my way, spending maybe 500-1k gold getting to 300. Not so bad, I decided. Why not push for 350?…

Ok, goldsinks known as “runed STUPIDEXPENSIVE rods” aside (honestly, these are where the cost of leveling enchanting lies. They’re fucking 500ish G a piece at 350+), it was oooonly another 1000+ gold (and a loan from a qt rogue!) to get to 350. And besides, those ring enchants look miiiighty nice. So, I pushed on, scrounging up every green from between my alts, stalking the auction house for low cost infinite dust and got myself to 400 enchanting. And, with the 80 gold between -all- my characters (yes, I stole gold from my low level alts using it to level), I wasn’t even able to afford my level 380-400 enchanting recipes, so all I got was my 40 AP ring enchant.

Maybe I’ll be able to make half of the cost back from the thousand scrolls of enchant -something or other- that I made. True fax, inscripion+enchanting are almost as good a team as Sonny and Cher. Except, they both stay alive.

Was 80 Attack Power really worth it?

Would it have been more prudent for me to have been patient and farmed the mats?

Who framed Roger Rabbit?

These answers and more on the next episode of Unsolved Mysteries. :S (SRSLY, WHERE THE @#$% DID THAT SHOW GOOO.)

((Oh, and the answer was “probably not, but the 20 abyss crystals in my bank say ‘it’s cool, we still love you.’ Enchanting is freaking fun.”))