YYYYAAAAAANNRRRRNNNGGGGGYYYYYAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

No one can holler like Arnold Schwartzenegger. Or so I thought until I tried to commit myself to lazyniess today and login to WoW. Tried being the operative word. I couldnt log in and erupted in a roar that would make Ahnuld cower for sure.

I guess they have been having billing issues with people's credit cards cancelling for no reason. Well that is me, and now it says my card is not a valid number. I just wanted to work on getting fat, on this, my first day off in over 3 weeks. (a week partying in New York does not count as a day off, I had to work hard at it)

Off I am to Walmart to get a gamecard. I hate Walmart. The high cost of low prices sickens me. That and the inevitable 3 year old I will see running around in a diaper, no parents to be seen, Kool-Aid stains around the mouth, rocking a mullet and carrying a baby bottle full of diet coke.
At least I am going home tomorrow and off to Vancouver this weekend to shop for a new truck. (read:get wasted in Vancouver-- I'm not an alcoholic, they go to meetings and I don't have time for that shit.)

As bad as Walmart is I'd rather get dressed and go there than wait an hour on the phone for Blizzard. I tried calling them already and it was not a winning call. Mazes of recordings and robotic queue time readings.

Macros - The only time that touching less is better

Incorporating macros into your arsenal can not only vastly improve your gameplay, but also puts alot of aspects of the game on easy mode.I'm a lazy fuck, so naturally having to do less key pressing while doing more in game is something that appeals to me like a midget-hooker on a coke binge appeals to Jeremy Piven.

Since my computer sucks, especially during 25 man raids, I try and use macros as often as possible instead of an addon that bogs down my system, and kills my dudes.I'm going to share some of my favorite and most used macros, because you're gonna share your chips, pop and chocolate bar with me, right???? (aka the Trailer Park Dietary Trifecta)

I'll start with some non-shaman specific macros in hopes of luring you in with interest so you can see just how totally fucken awesome the shaman macros are too. Then you will feel jealous of Shamanses, naturally.

In all macros with trinkets, I use the name of the trinket rather than /use 13 or /use 14The reason for this is that I don't always have my trinkets in the same slots due to changing gear from swapping specs.


Location Coordinates - The next time you give someone a location and they cry like a little ninny because they havent got a location addon, you can end their snivelling by sharing this macro that spits out your zone location

/script SetMapToCurrentZone() local x,y=GetPlayerMapPosition("player") DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(format("%s, %s: %.1f, %.1f",GetZoneText(),GetSubZoneText(),x*100,y*100)

All in one Mounts- this lets you use one button for all mounts, it will put priority on your flying mount, but summon a ground mount if flying is not available. It will also dismount you if you are mounted

/script local m=GetZoneText() if (m=="Dalaran" or m=="Wintergrasp") and (GetSubZoneText()~="Krasus' Landing") then CallCompanion("MOUNT", 2);end
/use [flyable,nomounted] FLYINGMOUNTNAME; [nomounted] GROUNDMOUNTNAME
/dismount

in "CallCompanion" change the "2" to the position of your preferred land mount in your mounts tab. Insert proper mount names where it says to.

Healing Macros; These will cast said heal in the following order of targets; 1) your mouseover target 2)your target 3) your target's target (great for topping up the tank if you are dps) 4) your self
it will also pop your healing trinkets if you have them equipped

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [target=help,exists] [target=targettarget,help,exists] [target=player] Chain Heal
/useitem TrinketNameHere

simply remove "chain heal" and replace with HW or LHW or Riptide or whatever your healing spell is called. This also works for cleansing spells. This is the ultimate healing macro, it makes healing MUCH easier, and saves some resources by not needing to use an addon for mouseover healing. I combine mouseover macros with Pitbull unit frames and Dominos action bar addon and get pretty much every functionality of clique or grid.

Max Camera Distance; See more of whats going on around you!

/console cameradistancemaxfactor 1000

Shaman Macros

Dynamic Run Speed; This will mount you on your flying pet. If you are in a zone where flying is disabled it will put you on your ground mount. If you are in combat if will Ghost Wolf you. finally if you are mounted or shapeshifted, it will dismount you or return you to normal form.It is not compatible with Dalaran or Wintergrasp zones, unfortunately.

#showtooltip
/cast [combat,nomounted][button:2][modifier] Ghost Wolf
/cast [nostance,nocombat,flyable] FLYINGMOUNTNAME
/cast [nostance,nocombat,noflyable] GROUNDMOUNTNAME
/dismount [mounted]
/cancelform [stance]

Instant Cast Crit Heal; This will cast a heal instantly that will also crit. It will target your mouseover first, then if no target it will go for your actual target. If you are attacking something, it will then heal your target's target. Finally it will heal you if no target is selected. It will also pop your healing trinkets.

#showtooltip
#show Nature's Swiftness
/cast tidal force /cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [target=help,exists] [target=targettarget,help,exists] [target=player] Healing Wave
/useitem TRINKETNAME

Dynamic Purge; this macro will cast purge 1st on your mouseovered target, or your target, and finally, if neither of those exist, it will purge your target's target ( great for healers)

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [target=harm,exists] [target=targettarget,harm,exists] Purge

Dynamic Earth Shock ; I use this one as healing or Elemental. It will interrupt your mouseover target, if not then it will interrupt your target. Finally it will earth shock your target's target for if you are healing a tank for example

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [target=harm,exists] [target=targettarget,harm,exists] Earth Shock

Enhancement Shaman Macros featuring Enhancement Pride lettering

{Updated!} Boobies Macro

/run if not oldHasPetUI then oldHasPetUI = HasPetUI; HasPetUI = function() return true, false; end end PetTab_Update() ToggleCharacter("PetPaperDollFrame")
/console cameradistancemaxfactor 1000
/run UIErrorsFrame:Hide();

This one will show you a pet tab under the character screen. Useful for checking the stats on the spirit wolves, since they scale with a shaman's stats. Also allows you to zoom camera back another 15 yards and blocks WoW error message spam. So Awesome!!

Stormstrike Macro: this one will make you start attacking, it will use your AP trinket(s), in this case my Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood. The best part though is that is will cast Stormstrike, or use Lava Lash when Stormstrike is on cooldown.

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=8 Stormstrike, Lava Lash
/startattack
/stopcasting
/use Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood
/stopcasting

Dynamic Interrupts; This one will cast earth shock or use bash (3sec stun from feral pets) to interrupt casting IF earthshock is on cooldown. It also pops your trinket as you want trinkets up as much as possible ( I remove the trinket line for PVP)

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6 Earth Shock, Bash
/stopcasting
/use Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood

Free Movement/Feral Spirit; this one summons your pets and if you double hit the macro it will pop spirit walk, giving a huge runspeed boost and freeing the shaman from all movement impairing effects. I use stopcasting lines in case I was casting a hex or a heal and need to remove a runspeed impairment asap.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Feral Spirit
/stopcasting
/cast Spirit Walk


So there you have it, sexy time macros. Now you are ready to unleash some nerd code on the World of Warcrack!!

Heroic Naxx Tenants Evicted

After several wipes, the Kel'Thuzad make-over went down like a frat girl with her own supply of roofies. It was awesome to finally get him to cooperate, we made him our bitch and named her Suzy.




What can I say other than that I really love this fight as an enhancement shaman, our utility is unsurpassable. I didnt have much of a chance at topping the dps charts because I was saving my maelstrom5 charges for insta-chain heals on the iceblocks, saved earthshock to interrupt frostbolt and was turning mind-controlled people into froggies. I still managed to pump out respectable DPS too, but can't wait for a new computer. Running at 8fps is no fun when you have to react instead of just execute. Still though, when we beat him I was 2nd on interrupts, #1 on first heal on iceblocks (11 saves!) and landed about half a dozen hexes.
The first couple of attempts went poorly when the adds popped in phase 3, and we had issues with poorly placed melee. Some were not always making sure to be at max melee range, shrinking the 10yard box for the others. A couple of the attempts I barely got a shot in from staying back, not wanting to bunch with 3 other melee and not wanting to iceblock our tank --- although he still got iceblocked twice over the evening. Not trying to blame the other melee, I was guilty of poor placement early on too, but then I pulled my socks up on the last couple attempts, and ended up losing some focus trying to direct the other melee. Our winning attempt we got lucky because overall the melee were quite sloppy again.Things to learn from but really I can't complain since we finally layed a whuppins on KT.


I got the weapon I'd been drooling about too, only to find it looks like a pink glowing pinwheel, a common children's toy. This is not a complaint, I LOVE IT. It goes very well with my man-dress, although doesnt look quite as cool as dual wielding the Angry Dread, mace of the middle-finger salute. At least I still have Angry Dread in the offhand to show my FuckYOU to the bosses of Ulduar.

Hit Rating or: How I Learned To Stop Missing And DPS

Please welsome my first ever guest poster, Dr. Steve Brule, to inform us on hit rating.
-Nomasun



I'm Steve Brule
Did you know that hit rating is pretty much the top dps stat for ALL dps classes until you hit your cap? If you don't like beating up on your bad guy, then do what I do, Kill Em With Kindness , dummy!






Another technique you can use is to hit them every time you cast or swing your weapon. Here's the hit caps for all of the classes so you can know how to hit them?

Physical Hit is 32.79 for 1%, Spell Hit is 26.23 for 1%

For all classes, take 1%, or 33 / 26 hit off your hit cap requirement if you are Draenei.

Casters ;this means Mages, Warlocks, Shamanses, Oomkins, and Shadowy Priests.
You need 17% hit, or 447 hit rating to never miss with your spells. This varies with by class because of hit talents and debuffs.
Oomkin, 263 hit 10%
ShadPriest 280 11%
Mage 447 17% Ice Mage 368 14%
Shaman 420 16%( 447 cap for horde) / 331 13% for Elemental Shaman (368 for Horde)
Warlock 368 14% Demonology 447 17%

Hunter 263 8% Marksman 197 6%

Melee
Deathknight 263 - 8% Dual wield - Dont dual wield, Sure you Can do it but it's like wearing a bowlers hat in public. Nobody wears a bowlers hat, welcome to the 90's!!
Kitty Cat Druid 263 8%
Paladin 263 8%
Warrior 296 9% (cap your yellow damage) Titan's Grip 368 14%
Rogues --input needed, its changing at the moment --cap your poisons, about 320 hit.. WHo cares about rogues anyways. [Edit-the verdict is in, it's 315hit cap]


Except for Melee classes, where Expertise is equally important (Get 26 expertise) Capping your hit is point for point the top dps increase you can get. With 0 hit rating, adding 27 hit, or reducing your chance to miss by 1% can yield up to a 1.2% increase in your total damage output. Thats way way WAAAYY more than any of your other dps stats can give you Turkey!!



Another thing you can do if you dont believe me about hit rating is check this out. Next time you get attacked by a crazy raper, just play possum!




I'm Steve Brule, Last Resort!!!


Thanks Steve,
I just wanted to add that the hit ratings are not considering raid buffs which affect your hit chance. Hit debuffs do not stack. There is a chart below with info, not really sure why it's so far down there. Warm up yer mousewheel and Scroll Down!!

Class	Talent	Tree	Hit chance	Notes
Druid	Balance of Power	Balance, Tier 6	+ 2% per point, 4% max	All spells
Druid	Improved Faerie Fire	Balance, Tier 7	+ 1% per point, 3% max	Target debuff*
Death Knight	Virulence	Unholy, Tier 1	+ 1% per point, 3% max	All spells
Mage	Precision	Frost, Tier 2	+ 1% per point, 3% max	All spells
Mage	Arcane Focus	Arcane, Tier 1	+ 1% per point, 3% max	Arcane spells only
Priest	Misery	Shadow, Tier 8	+ 1% per point, 3% max	Target debuff*
Priest	Shadow Focus	Shadow, Tier 2	+ 1% per point, 3% max	Shadow spells only
Shaman	Elemental Precision	Elemental, Tier 6	+ 1% per point, 3% max	Fire, Frost, and Nature spells
Warlock	Suppression	Affliction, Tier 1	+ 1% per point, 3% max	All spells

Loot, the root all evil.

Bitching about loot is the raiding guild's national past-time. Not to sound like I played uphill barefooted in the snow but being an experienced MMO player I've seen plenty of guild drama, and the majority comes from fighting over loot. That and fighting over who gets to be my best friend for the day.

Our guild has recently switched to a system called Suicide Kings. Aptly named because there is a list of raid members that bid on loot, and if you are the top positioned bidder, you win the loot, and "suicide" yourself to the bottom of the list. It's very nice and there is an addon that handles an ongoing list onto which we insert new raid members at the bottom. (people at the bottom still get loot quite regularily, and are not at the bottom for long anyways) It was working marvelously, and we would /roll on gear no one bid on for offsets, with a provision that your mainspec cannot roll on offset rolls ever, to avoid people not bidding and getting the loot with a roll and keeping their list position.

With dual spec, and only 3 nights of raiding Naxx25 to see the results, I can tell we are going to need a system to handle offset bidding, or allow people to use their bids on offset gear. Some people are already wanting to go offspec for gear because their main spec would gain only minor upgrades on their last few pieces of 10man gear.

On top of this source of drama, there was already the underlying gripes some people had with the suicide system in the first place. Issues like; Tanks and healers need the best gear so we can progress faster. Offset gear is useless to me because all my specs are dps. I miss all the minor upgrades saving my bid for the big gear. I miss out on big gear because I bid on every piece that is the slightest upgrade. This porridge is too hot. My chair is lumpy. It burns when I pee. My parents are disappointed in my choice of lifestyle. Waa paa pwa, and so on and so forth

Can you see the trend? Thankfully my guildmates are all adults and these issues are being handled peacefully and whatnot. It's better to hear everyone's concerns and ideas, at least we are dealing with issues instead of bottling them up for an explosion. It's really nowhere near as bad as it would be with a different group of people and I've seen it go south alot of times with lesser mortals.
I just hate having to discuss any of it in general. Every system of loot distribution is going to have downsides, and will always have people that dont like certain parts about it. I have no preference really, other than to choose rules which will minimize drama and maximize shutting up about loot rules.

my PVPness is hard

Well I haven't participated in any PVP since Wotlk first came out. ( I checked out WG and the new BG) And I havent been on a serious arena team since the beginning of season 5. Looking at some of the tools available now to an enhancement shaman I am convinced that I can contribute to a 2v2 or 3v3 team that will break out of my previous best team rating of 1750. I know it's not a masterful number but being an enhance shammy in the arena back then was no slice of pie, and I bet it's still a pain in the ass.

Here is the typical situation in arena for Enhancement Shaman.

Match begins. Blow all cooldowns. Die. Of course this isn't the case for all enhancement shaman in the arena, just the vast majority of them.

Fears aside, I am planning on getting some entry level pvp gear next week off and get an arena team going again!Looking forward to rooting opponents in place with iceblock, hexing the other guy and generally disturbing the peace with my Dawgs bashing casters and siccing balls. Everything I am reading on forums is suggesting enh shaman should still go resto like the rest of the world and piss of their enemies, but I never said I liked playing on easy mode.
Hard PVPness indeed.

3.1 impressions- My head pretty much asploded

I love the patch, hence my homage to asploding heads as I launch my first foray into web logging. (I fucking hate the word 'blog', and stay off my damn lawn !!)
Don't worry though, I am not some head asploding fanatic, and truly hope to never experience an exploding head.

I had just returned from a week of partying in Manhattan, I could not wait to check out the game additions this past Tuesday, a full week behind the rest of the world.
Having unleashed my sinful and debaucherous ways with a guild member while in NYC, I got to hear that a) they finally did 3.1 and, b) it fucking represents.

The best part so far is Never, Ever running out of mana. Only other real noticeable diference is doing alot more dps. (just like everyone else though) Other than that there are no discernable differences.

If not for lack of priests last night we would have steamrolled Naxx. And I think it was the first time ever that we've saved military wing for last lol. Overall raid dps is up 20% on some fights, making bosses drop faster than a former catholic-school-girl's panties.

And lets not get started on dual spec. Finally I can come out of the closet as a healer whenever I want. /limpwrist


Lovely changes.

First Post

yay me, maybe I won't be so bored at work.



Oh wait, yes I will. My bad.