Lone Ranger LFG

Flight grasped, swooped to the depths, and the message was delivered.

Orc shaman for hire.

Turns out the leadership of the Alliance guild I faction- and server-transferred to has decided it's in the best interest of the guild that I no longer be there. While I don't believe it's in the best interest of the guild at all, it is in my best interest. I'd love to tell this tale, but now is not the time. Instead I'll dish you the morals of the story: don't be too eager about sharing your online spaces, i.e. Facebook, blog, Twitter, etc., with a new group of players. Secondly, and related to the first: if you stick your neck out, there's more of it for them to swing their axes at.

Turns out most of us have been in, or have heard a Feckless Leader story. And some folks are unaware they're in the midst of writing their very own. Been there.

Though I'm not sure what the next step is, I do feel unchained with the Main properly guildless. Would love to be amongst adults who are passionate about life as well as the game. They might raid, they might not, but they enjoy playing and having fun. They don't have invisible rules related to playtime that you're not told about but expected to follow. There's no Hotel California-esque vibe. And they don't hyperventilate easily.

Lok'tar Ogar, friends!

Moltari and Nater, you hypersensitive, paranoid, controlling, unhatched son's of dogs: this is all you get. Well done.

What was your first epic item?

Screenshot from wowhead

 
I'll be honest: most of my first two years of play---all of Vanilla and a good portion of BC---were spent trekking around aimlessly. There was adventure and mystique around every corner, sheathed in the quest dialogue dished out by NPC after NPC. And I couldn't get enough. I was a badass warlock, with half my points scattered in the Destruction tree and the other half in Affliction. I took pride in the fact that my spec was listed as "hybrid," even if I was playing it wrong. Reminiscing about the first toon I rolled got me thinking: how many players remember their first epic drop?

Because I do.

Scholomance was my favorite instance hands-down prior to its revamp for MoP: its size and layout appealed to me; the fact you had to bring a competent rogue to get inside if no one in your party had a key made it all the more alluring; and the story surrounding grabbed you, even if at the time I only had an inkling about what the heck it all meant.

I was in one of these Scholo runs with a group of strangers. We faced Ras Frostwhisper before heading onto the last leg of the dungeon, and to my sheer amazement, Alanna's Embrace dropped. It was the first epic item I saw firsthand in the game, and its name in the tooltip was the sexiest shade of purple I'd ever laid my eyes on.

Being a badass dumbass warlock, I naturally assumed I needed the item. I was much too naive to understand why the robe was much better suited for the priest healer in the group. Needless to say, they were amazed to see the item, too, but it was a different sort of amazement. It was the amazement that accompanies knowing the item's true worth. I remember winning the robe via open roll (can't remember why we did it this way), but instead of claiming what was rightfully (wrongfully) mine, I passed it to the priest.

This resulted in a guild invite into what I later learned was a fairly established raiding guild. The entire World of Warcraft got a lot bigger for me in that afternoon. I learned there was a lot more game to experience if I so desired, and what's more important, I'd have a lot more fun exploring if I was able to find a group of folks to share the experience with.

How about you---do you remember your first epic drop and what it meant to you?

WoW Weekly: Weird Weeks

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding. 

You know those times when your intentions are pure but what you do and say doesn't come out quite right and you end up creating problems out of thin air? It's been one of those kind of half-months, which consequently has me dealing with balancing life obligations, my own mental health, and the desire (or lack thereof) to have my gaming time. Plus it's finally gotten warm and snowless in this part of Wisco, so now I've got to cut the lawn and that sort of shtuff. With regularity.

Truth is, in the midst of all things keeping me away from Azeroth, I'm experiencing what I assume other players refer to as burnout. Incredibly, this is the first time I've felt this way towards the game since I began playing in Vanilla---that says something, I think, considering I've not taken more than a month's break. So that's that, and I'm not going to go into the why's. It could be any one of a number of things, and most likely is a combination of several at this point. Since this is supposed to be about what I've been doing (or not doing) in-game---not the why's---here's a breakdown in no particular order:

• Still running Tempest's Keep. I will see the Ashes of Al'ar before my time in Azeroth has reached its end. I know, lofty goals. Also, just realized I've been spelling "Al'ar" as "A'lar" up until today. Too bad, not going back to change it.

• Occasionally encouraging Liopleurodon as she levels from 1-90 exclusively through pet battles. Crazy, I thought, but she seems to know what she's doing and also possesses a high tolerance for pain.

• Working on leveling another shaman, although this one as elemental. I'm enjoying it immensely and have already started devising plans for her once she hits 90.

• The amount of time and capital I'm investing in gold-making is so dismal it's almost a gold loss by spending time at all. That may be difficult to wrap your head around.

• I've planted only blossoming trees on the Alt's farm. Might this be his retirement from farming? We'll see.

See you in Azeroth sometime soon. Feel free to add me (Elepheagle#1877)!

Army of One: Soloing Onyxia for Reins of the Onyxian Drake

Army of One is a series featuring tips on soloing fights for chances at vanity items, mounts and pets. I've successfully completed the fights with a melee (enh shaman) and ranged (shadow priest) character, though some classes will experience greater difficulty. I include class-specific advice at the end of the post when requested/needed.

Onyxia. She drops that sexy-looking drake. And the 10-man version of the fight can be soloed by any max-level class at this point. I realize that's a bold statement to make having not actually played through the fight with every single class, but my own experience paired with general interwebz sleuthing leaves me feeling comfortable making that claim. If you experience great difficulty with this fight, please leave a comment! I'd be happy to help you personally and perhaps suggest some alternative tactics.

Naturally, this fight is most easily accomplished at level 90, but some classes should be able to kill her at lower levels. Results may vary. 

Location: Onyxia's Lair in Dustwallow Marsh
Fight Notes: 3 phases (ground phase to 60%, air phase to 40%, then ground phase until death)
Melee concerns: DPS up-time to push through Phase Two, survivability during Phase Three
Ranged concerns: Survivability during Phase Three, burst DPS (some classes)

Ony sports 4.8 million HP, so it won't take too long for most decently-geared level 90 players to cut her down. The key to easily beating this fight is burst DPS. Pushing her through the phases quickly means the player will take a minimal amount of damage.

Phase One
Pre-pot, or consume an on-use stat potion for your class just prior to pulling Onyxia. Since you've consumed it before entering combat, you'll be able to use a second potion later on in the fight once it comes off cooldown. I usually use one or two damage cooldowns each phase to make it go smoothly. Other classes' experience may vary depending on the number of cooldowns at their disposal.

Beat on Onyxia. Tip: before she takes flight, which signals the start of Phase Two, she will lumber over to the entrance of the room (where you first engaged her from). To increase maximum DPS up-time for Phase One and reduce the amount of HP to cut through in Phase Two, fight Onyxia all the way on the opposite side of the room from where you entered. The few extra seconds of DPS while she's running back across the room at the transition into Phase Two can mean a few extra hundred-thousand hit points shaved off, which can be very helpful to melee, since they'll have a more difficult time damaging her once she's in the air.

Phase Two
She's now in the air and whelps will hatch and beeline for your location. She also summons an additional, stronger add every 30 seconds. The key here is staying alive while pushing her to Phase 3 as quickly as possible. I use damage reduction or healing cooldowns if needed, and usually pop another damage cooldown. You're doing it quite well if you push her to Phase 3 before she summons a guard. Melee with limited ranged abilities should focus on staying alive and burning through adds, saving any ranged abilities for damaging Onyxia.

Once again, DBM will indicate an impending transition to Phase Three. Onyxia will begin to fly to the side of the room opposite the entrance (if she's not already there). This is where she will land for Phase 3.

Phase Three
Use another potion if off cooldown. Otherwise, your main objective here is to kill Ony before she and her posse kills you. She'll fear you every so often, so if you have an ability to counter that, use it. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before the whelps will overwhelm and you will die. Use passive AoE to knock out some or all of the whelps if you have low survivability; they will die easily. If you're not concerned about your health, you can safely ignore them. Pop any remaining damage cooldowns and Ony should die without giving you too much to worry about.

Good luck on the drop!

Bashes with Wolves: 5.3 brings the powah

Come Patch 5.3, enhancement's getting enhanced, baby. Aww yeah.

There's rarely anything wrong with enhancement shaman, right? If you love playing one like I do, you know exactly what I mean. Leading up to a major content patch, we head over to the official notes and scroll down to the Class Changes section. Mage...keep scrolling...Priest...Rogue...keep scrolling...Warlock. Hmm. Guess shammy's are fine! Maybe I just want to believe they're fine, but it really doesn't seem like our class is often rocked by huge changes in the midst of expansions. Sure, we've gone from using four GCDs to drop totems to dropping four totems at once to now dropping them one at a time situationally -- but other than that, our rotation has been largely unchanged since Wrath of the Lich King.

That said, the DPS charts over at World of Logs don't show enhancement shaman near the top. It's not that we can't DPS. We can, and do quite well. It's just that there are several other classes that do exceptionally well. And that's fine. We bring enough of our own utility to the game to earn a spot on the team. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised when I saw that in 5.3, we get buffed! Nothing huge, but significant enough so that we should see a small boost to our average DPS. Let's take a look.

Boundless Wolves
Our Spirit Wolves will be immune to roots and snares. No more badly-timed uses of this signature enhancement cooldown. Your wolves were born to run free!

I Buff You, Stormstrike and Lava Lash
Both Stormstrike and Lava Lash are having their damage increased. Stormstrike will deal 450% weapon damage, up from 375%, and Lava Lash now does 300% weapon damage, up from 250%. Nice, right?

Brain Runs Faster
Perhaps someone will get that joke, but Mental Quickness will convert 65% of our attack power into spell power, up from 55%. Well all-friggin-right. Most of our abilities will benefit from this change. Quite awesome, overall.

And Then, a Curious Change
Lightning bolt can now be cast while moving. Huh. Needless to say, there are some movement-heavy fights in this expansion, especially for melee players. At first, I sort of glossed over this change and failed to see any significance, but having had some time to reflect, I've decided that it'll be fun as heck to keep my DPS rolling just a bit when on the run, especially when my Flame/Earth Shock is on cooldown. Since it's only Lightning Bolt, and not Chain Lightning or even a heal, Spiritwalker's Grace will still be the go-to in movement-heavy situations for elemental and restoration shaman. But we don't talk about those specs around here.

Because of the change to Lightning Bolt, Glyph of Unleashed Lightning becomes useless, and thus will be removed from the game. Glyph of Lightning Shield, which causes Lightning Shield to reduce the amount of damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds after Lightning Shield is triggered, will be added in its place. No big deal, right? Wrong. Enhancers choosing this glyph will take reduced damage quite often throughout an encounter. It's a miniscule reduction for sure, but over time adds up and should be regularly considered for a Major Glyph slot. While I normally roll with Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem, Glyph of Flame Shock, and Glyph of Healing Storm, it's a clear frontrunner if you're not concerning yourself with tossing up insta-heals or HOTing yourself to help out your raid's healers. A combo of Fire Elemental, Flame Shock and Lightning Shield sounds sexy to me.

All in all, this patch will bring a nice little boost for enhancement shaman across the board. No nerfs, no weird changes, just a bit of a damage increase and the ability cast Lightning Bolt while moving. I'm anxious to see how the changes play out on live servers.

Read the official notes here, and til next time, keep bashing!