The new totem bar sucks ass

Ok first before we even discuss totems I need to stress that the Gem Faqts is incomplete for 3.2 as there have been a number of mixed colored gems added. For the most part, the gem chart is accurate and the rest of the information on how to max gem your toon still holds true.
Moving on;

The new totems interface sucks ass (for now at least).The only thing I like is the ability to drop all 4 totems at once, other than that things are cumbersome and NOT an improvement.
Previously, I used Totem Timers addon.

Quite simply you hover your mouse over an elemental school (earth, fire, water, air) and all the totems in that school would pop up. You would left click on a totem to cast it, but even better, you would right click on a totem to add it to the "All in One" totem macro.I'd pick a lineup of totems and mash the Totem macro as I approached melee range and wouldnt really waste any GCD time other than having to refresh the totems 5mins later.99% of the time I run Imp. Windfury totem, Imp. Strength of Earth, Healing totem and Imp. Flametongue (to boost buffs) and most of the time pull up flametounge to drop Magma Totem.If I had to run mana spring, or cleansing totem, or a resist totem I can simply right click the totem I want and it's added to "the macro".

Nowadays if I want to add a mana spring or a cleansing totem to my totem lineup, I have to click drag the icon for said totem onto my new totem bar, and this is where the problem is....Where is the totem icon gonna come from? I have to root around in my spellbook because I have no desire to have a huge grid of every available totem on my screen just so I can click-drag them over to the new totem bar situationally.

I do have the situational totems on my action bar so I can mash numpad7 for a quick grounding totem, or mash ctrl+num4 to drop a stoneclaw totem when I am questing on foot and too lazy to kill something, and I could drag over my cleansing totem onto the new totem bar for use in a lineup, but then if I need to refresh it in a hurry, it won't be there on my memorized keyboard hotkey ( I like to refresh cleansing as needed, rather than wait on the pulse if the timing was bad on a poison)

I really don't see a need for multiple "Totem sets", in my mind there is only one "totem set"-the one I am dropping.As such I only use Call of the Ancestors, I have no use for the other 2 calls other than being lazy and keeping my resto totem lineup saved on one of them.

Everything will be fine when Totem Timers addon incorporates their right click feature into creating a "Call of XX" or allows the totem icons to be click-dragged the same manner as the icons in the spellbook. Until then I shall QQ.

Gem Faqts Addendum

I've updated the gem chart from this post to cover somethings I overlooked and some things I was not aware of. Thanks to Lilitharien & Janaan for info on Discipline Priests and Blkthunder for noticing an oversight with tanks gemming in red slots. (thanks plusheal.com!)


I'd like to reiterate that this chart is about gemming for MAX capacity, so generally this follows a pattern of max EP values (equivalency points), and one of the 4 exceptions to gemming differently is in the case of balancing stats.
With this in mind I want to mention healer meta gems, and why Ember has been added as an option (and possibly an upgrade) to the Insightful meta. The reason is that it is increasingly trivialized for healers to manage mana with Ulduar gear. I think even with Naxx 25 gear this is nearly the case. My healset is mostly naxx 25 and I don't really have mana issues on any Ulduar fights and I am far from the best geared healer. I will hold off til 3.2 to replace the Insightful with Ember altogether, afterall the chart is about maxxing out and those too lazy to read the instructions will just have to suffer with gemming Ember metas prematurely.

Lastly, not a single Enhancement Shaman noticed my obvious dupe of making Agi the #1 gem for us. This is probably because not a single enhancement shaman actually reads this blog..
Anyways, gems your Enh Sham alt for ATK after capping Exp and Hit !!!


As a sidenote I'd like to mention that I FINALLY have a helmet worth wearing. I've always hidden the helmet as it has always made me look super gay. I'm not homophobic. Even my gay brethren don't want to look super-gay (unless it's the moustache parade)

I used to rock the Cinched Mullet(with a blade at the end)

This way I could whip my head around like a rabid mustang for extra dps, slashing and whinnying like the wildest of horses. The good times, they were good.

Sometimes I tried my helmets, but invariably, Blizz would let me down.

They tried to make me look like Batman, when clearly, I don't wear hockey pads.

Finally, last week I got a helmet from Ulduar that is the 1st helm badass enough to don my dome.


I dont care what its called or what the stats are because clearly, it is Bad-Ass, and I sound like Darth Vader when I wear it.
Something my guildmates may not be fond of in Vent............
Whatever, I AM UR FATHER!!!!!!

Minor update to my macros

I've updated the macros section to mention some lines I've added to a previous macro.

This one allows me to see my Spirit Wolves stats on the pet tab of the paperdoll screen, as well as letting me zoom my camera back an extra 15 yards. Finally, it prevents those annoying error messages from blocking my screen. I was getting tired of getting spammed with 'Spell not Ready' or 'Invalid Target' or 'Out of Range' or 'Delete Urself Noob'

Anyways, here she is-- the "Boobies Macro." Because boobies are awesome.

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

Shaman Get Beefed Up

It's always seemed like shaman were a bout half a patch behind the rest of the classes, leading to alot of QQ mostly. I'm not one to cry about things, unless were talking the "fetal position in the shower" scene that played out after my high school prom. (she made me feel so violated!)

With 3.2 looming, it looks like things may change, with many classes feeling nerfed, but finally shaman rejoicing with nothing but improvements. I'd like to share my thoughts on some of the changes...

I know, I'm right on top of the cutting edge in what's going on 2 weeks ago in WoW.

* A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

I like this because I won't have to waste so much time dropping totems. That is really the only improvement this will provide as I use Totem Timers addon. I suspect that I'll still be using Totem Timers addon if they update for 3.2, the new UI for this appears a little clunky, check it out here at Ailis' Blog I'm interested to find out if Totem Timers will be the addon for this or if plain old Dominos or Bartender will do. Either way I'm gonna be wanting this smaller and opaque and out of the way.

* All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
Love it. I clung to my s5 gloves way too long to keep this effect, not a huge deal for enhance, but elementals should be lovin this. Mostly a PvP change, although I have taken Frozen Power once or twice to help DKs control the sparks on Maly, this would make that alot easier.

* Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
Just in time for me to drop mining for blacksmithing, yet keep the same amount of health.

* Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.
Awesome. Just awesome. Great news for all specs alike, Chain Heal is probably the most used heal of Enhance and Elementals that care about the raid and help top up health from time to time.

* Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.
Meh. PvP is srz bzniss.. Will be nice for levelling shaman though, of course

* Talents

o Enhancement
+ Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman's attack power, down from 30%.
I love it. With about 6.5k attack power on raids, the 30% mana regen was overkill. I'd be at full mana and still have 10sec left on Shamanistic Rage. 15% will still easily bring me to full mana, but now I can use this twice as often. This will be nice as I can add Nova Totem to a rotation, and use Chain Lightning alot more often instead of having to conserve mana with Lightning Bolt sometimes. This is mostly a PvP change for the 30% damage reduction Shamanistic Rage gives

o Restoration
+ Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
Very nice. This will reduce alot more damage as it applies to spell damage too.

+ Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
Funny how it's mostly discussed in Resto circles just because it's in the "resto" tree of talents. Very nice change for Enhancement and Elementals. Restos already have Cleanse Spirit and would never use this spell. Ever.

+ Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
Meh. PvP

+ Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
Awesome. It's rare a shaman will spit out 2 Healing Wave spells on a target in a row, unless main tank healing. Even then it'll be rare. Now the first spell will be awesome instead of only a 2nd one being once, up 25% from the previous 18% too.

+ Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
Meh. Pvp

+ Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30 second internal cooldown, and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
Bleh. PvP. I guess some shaman might raid with this, but why???

+ Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
Niiiice. Very Niiiiice.

+ Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
Good change. The previous haste on LHW was so fast it was wasted. Unhasted it will still cast hella fast and the crit throughput will more than makeup for it.

+ Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.
Luvely, just luvely. Refreshing Water Shield was a serious pain in the arse. And more mana returns on chain heals will be sweet.

Overall the buffs to resto are very nice, and well needed for the top end game. Most guilds are reporting a noticable lag in shaman performance as the jack of all trades, yet master of none. Those guilds with the luxury of being choosy on who they take on 25 mans are taking the other 3 healers over a shaman.

I like Shaman healing because in a pinch I can fill any role effectively, the improvements will just make doing that easier as I don't foresee big results until new content comes out. The resto shaman is being tweaked to use the Jesus Beam more effectively, the only problem is that there are not a lot of occasions in Ulduar where you can take full advantage of chain heal spamming, or a chain heal rotation.

Peace Out!

Happy 4th of July!

America is Awesome! Thanks for football, pornos and crack-cocaine! (just kidding hehe)

You may ask why I didn't do a Canada Day post.

It's because I was drunk as fuck.

Gem Faqts. Part Deux

As a jewelcrafter I get asked to cut gems for people all the time. It's pretty rare that people know which gem to get cut, and I end up making suggestions alot. If I did not, you would see pug tanks out there with spirit gems, I kid you not. It would have happened had I not intervened.


So to make it easy I have a cheat sheet of what gems are best for what class. It was a bit incomplete, as well as not fully updated for WotLK. I've finally updated it for 3.1



Before you check out the chart I ask that you consider a few things first;


I assume you know how gemming works.
If you are not sure you know it, check out my first gem post HERE , in which I make idle promises to post this chart in short order.Now you know I procrastinate. Whatever lol.

I assume you are Hit and Expertise and Defense capped.
If you are not sure, check my post on hitting things properly HERE, special thanks to Dr. Steve Brule. Defense is only for tanks, of course. I don't have any posts on Defensive caps and what they do/how they work, but this should be self explanatory, be uncrittable at least or else please stop tanking, kk thx.

I assume you wish to max out your toon.
The best gems for your class means you will be stacking one gem exclusively. If you are a healer, you may be gemming differently, depending on your situation. If you find yourself running OOM really badly, you may be choosing Mp5 gems rather than stacking up the Spellpower. Generally though, a well geared toon has fairly balanced stats and will be gemming to max out their capabilities.Maxing out involves considering results after buffs. I.E. A Strength based melee will always take STR over Attack because it is affected by Blessing of Kings.

Maxing out will generally mean stacking one single stat, I.E. the same gem in all slots.

There are only 4 exceptions, in order of occurance frequency, on why someone would not take the single gem that maxes out their class/spec.

♠You need to gem for expertise or hit, or defense

♠You need some other colored gems to fulfill your meta gem requirement. A Siren's Tear (+6 all stats) can be a viable gem to fulfill this need for some classes, but is not indicated in the chart.

♠You are desperately outbalanced and need to stack up Mp5

♠You have some super awesome socket bonus. This one will probably never happen. Socket bonuses are nice but very very rarely outperform gemming to max your toon.

Without further ado, here is the Best in Slot gems list. The top gem for each class is indicated with an asterisk *
Stack that gem in every slot with only the 4 exceptions


click to enlarge


It should be noted that if you are a Feral Cat Druid, Armor Pen will only outperform Agility gems if you are over 300 ArP. This is not difficult to attain, and the vast majority of kitty-cats will be gemming for ArP.

As if you didn't already know, the stats that gems have are inherit in their colors. What you may not know is that the mixed colored gems take stats from their primary colored gems. For example, Blue gems will have Sta/ Spirit / Mp5 or Spell Pen. Now if you mix a yellow or red with a blue to get purple or green, the purple or green ones will ALWAYS have Sta / Spirit / Mp5 or Spell Pen in addition to whatever stat comes from the "color tree" of the other gem, be it red or yellow.

There are not mixes for all stats, for example, there is not a purple gem with Armor Pen and Mp5, despite Armor Pen being a "red color tree" stat, and Mp5 being a "blue" stat.

Gems of a certain stat will always have the same suffix, except for Unique quality gems.
Any gem named "Delicate" is going to be a pure Agility gem no matter what expansion it came from and no matter what quality it is.

If I made any glaring errors, please let me know
Peace Out Dawgs!

[Edit: Thanks to Cazenovia for noticing an error with resto/balance druids blue gem choice,
Lilitharien for help on healer Metas, Lilitharien and Janaan on Discipline Priest info and Blkthunder for tank gem info ]

1st healing post EVAR

Not really sure why I've never made a healing post yet. Maybe because I just don't have much to say about it that is interesting, until I made a couple observations last night on my way to honing my healing skills.I've played a healer lots over the years, but mostly dps roles.

My WoW healing experience extends to healing instances specced enhance while levelling in BC (I gear for sta/mana when levelling so running OOM was not a problem ever) Then when I began raiding Kara I collected a decent healing offset and consistently competed for top healing spot on the charts with another shaman I used to raid with lots. ( I know, healing meters dont mean much, but they do tell you something)

These days I heal when there are no healers or we are short. I've healed most of the heroics, and most of the naxx fights.I've got mostly Naxx gear (10 and 25) for my healing set, although I am still rocking a couple blues and a titansteel crafted mace. Fully buffed with food and flasks I'm rockin about 2450SP 28%crit and 650mp5 (lower while casting of course, I forget how much though) so I've got decent gear but I worry about falling far behind as our healing team is mostly in all 25man naxx and 25 Ulduar gear. I figure I am about 80-90% as well geared as the other healers. It's not a big worry but I wanted to see some numbers to determine where I can improve, and how I stack up next to the "real healers", other than gearwise. I ran Recount last night while we learned the Iron Council encounter (read-wipefest)

Here is a couple general observations, from a healing melee's perspective.

It's friggin difficult to Stay-Out-Of-The-Fucking-Fire when you are staring at health bars.
It was like watching hummingbirds on crack play tennis, my eyes had to flit back and forth from health bars to checking where I was standing to keep in range and out of the fucking fire every second (on GCDs of course) Nonetheless, I did stay out of the fucking fire, except on our last attempt, I turned to run, lagged graphically and instead wound up turning a full 360 and ran back into the fucking fire. DOH!!

I can healz!
I was consistently middle of the pack for total heals on each fight, and bottom 3 for overheals. The overheals doesnt mean much because I was on raid heals, but it was still nice to see. I was pretty much white-knuckling my mouse in focus to make sure Earthshield never dropped and that I always had Riptide up on someone. I realized I need to check out PowerAuras addon or something to keep track of CDs for me on riptide, mana totem and nature's swiftness.

1 healer makes the difference.
Usually I've been going heals if we have a rough time on Ignis. Everytime I do everything goes much more smoothly. Same thing last night too on the Iron COuncil, we were running it with 22 or 23 people, another healer logged on and our healing team had a much easier time.I know it seems redundant and overly obvious to observe what a difference 1 more healer makes, I just never appreciated it so much until I was on the heal team and we got 1 more in there to help, I've always been that 1 more guy to join and help.

Good Healers Heal Themselves.
Without exception, on every boss fight, every healer had themselves as their 2nd or 3rd most healed target. Each also had a tank as the most healed target even if they were on raid heals.I guess at face value it could seem selfish for healers to look out for Numero Uno and heal themselves first, but it's the first reaction I suppose. It's also the quickest way for healers to keep themselves alive, and thereby keep the raid alive.


Peace Out! (I'm so gangsta)

UI Spring Cleaning Finalized

Well it's that time of the month again, and no I do not mean to say I was a little crabby and emotional last week.

It's the weekend, and since I only work 2 weeks each month, I only work 2 weekends each month. The weekend around here is a time to catch up on laziness, watching movies and pirated TV series (seen every episode of Entourage, Dexter, Prison Break, and Heroes in the past few months)
Oh yeah, and it's when I get off my lazy ass and post some blog stuff.

Without further ado, my 99% finalized UI.

click to enlarge

1)Pitbull Unit Frames 3.0
I tweaked this around a little to shrink evrything down to consume less screen space, yet provide the same functionality I got out of this addon before, plus some extras. Of course one of my favorite features is the display of incoming heals, which I made more responsive by having health bars move in chunks instead of a smooth fluid fill.

As a sidenote of some of the yummy features I didnt mention in my first UI post, the totem icons you see in this are can be individually clicked to cancel a specific totem.
The melee stats you see above my health bar are courtesy of an addon called Tiny Melee Stats. You can set them to whatever stats you want. I've got Attack Power, Crit and MH/OH weapon speeds.

1a)group health, I usually disable this on raids if I can remember to. I wish I could get pitbull to have 2 seperate config setups for raiding and regular 5man groups.

1b) Raid health bars. Yay! I cleaned this up alot, and setup debuffs to show a huge icon for ones I can cure only.

1c) Nothing here at the moment as I'm not targetting everything,so check this picture out.
'Nuff said?There is a tiny cast bar under my targets mana bar, but as you can see under the Focus target there is a huge focus target cast bar. This is an awesome addon called ACB - "something" Casting Bar. I forget what the "A" stands for. Probably A is for Awesome. More on this addon later.

2)Dominos
Shrunk this sucker down LOTS as well as having removed alot of old useless macros, and spells that I never use, or can easily access otherwise. The stuff over here is my main set of "ready" spells that are often used, but not always used.
A nice feature of Dominos is spell range checking. If my target is out of range the keybind lettering will turn from white to bright red.

p.s. I'm an ArrowKeys/numpad player. If you look real close you can see my keybinds on the buttons. The top bar is bound to Numpad 1-9, as well as Numpad . * and -The bottom row is the same buttons but just hold down CTRL. One day I'll make a post exalting the virtues of setting up your keyboard this way versus using the super lame default WASD most games force on you like an overzealous drunk quarterback with the star cheerleader.

2a) my potion belt. Nuff said. The empty space to the right of here is where the red "dismount" button appears when I am on a vehicle. Just right of there are my main spells, bound to Insert, Home, Pageup, Delete, End and PageDown.
Just above that is my big giant "YOU ARE ATTACKING, DUMDUM" button that flashes red when I have autoattack engaged. This is my biggest newb weakness and always will be. Further down to the right are other important and often used macros.

2b) this is nearly faded out completely, but pops to full alpha on mouseover. Has all tradeskills, lesser used spells and macros.
As a sidenote I made a new awesome macro I named "Better WoW" that I use everytime I login or reload my UI. I'll add it to my macros post because I dont have access to the macro lines, but I can say what it does. It'll enable you to zoom your camera view back an extra 15 yards and give you a much better overview of fights, it'll disable the WOW error messages that spam in red saying invalid target, spell not ready etc. etc. I get bad lag sometimes so I mash my buttons before the cooldown is ready and get a ton of these red messages normally.The last thing the macro does is enable a view of my spirit wolves pet stats in the paper doll char screen. With this I found out my pets are better than hunter pets (and there is 2 of them to boot!)

3) This area has a few things going on here that you cannot see in this screenie so I'll add some little pics to explain. Curently you can see my pet bar, and faded above that are cooldown markers for Enhancement Shaman courtesy of Totem Timers addon.
I used to use the Shock and Awe cooldown bars but I am not accustomed to looking at bars as much as the default blizzard "clockspin" cooldown indicator.
Just to the right of the clockcooldowns is the Shock and Awe priority indicator that helps me cast the optimal spell based on cooldowns, and charges of maelstrom 5.

Ready to blast some lightning as you can see!!
The only bar cooldown I did keep from Shock and Awe is the Spirit Wolves cooldown bar

The other part missing in the main screenshot is ACB.

As you can see I have a huge casting bar for my target in the middle of the screen for easy interrupts. This cast bar also tells me when I successfully interrupted.The thing I like best about ACB is that within the cast bar, a green area appears on the far right end of the bar to indicate my casting time difference due to server lag.
This is super helpful when I am casting a heal as I can move before the heal appears to finish casting, thus increasing my reaction time to Staying-Out-Of-The-Fucking-Fire by about a quarter of a second.
STAY OUT OF THE FUCKING FIRE!!! It's impossible to say this too much.

4) Totem Timers
As previously stated, this is the best totem addon BY FAR.
The numbers indicate how many in the raid are out of that particular totems' range.
The red dot on the mana spring totem means I am out of it's range, which is fine in this case because I must have been feeling retarded to put up mana spring when I have BoW...There is a fancy-schmancy Reincarnation timer with Ankh counter, a shield timer and a weapon buff timer/clicker.
Left Click, Right Click or hold shift and click either for all 4 weapon buffs. Ok technically there are 5 buffs but who in the blue fuck uses Rockbiter?? I dont even know how to cast that spell on my weapons with this current UI, and for good reason.

5) Simple Threat Meter.
I like this one, less bulk and resources than Omen, and it simplifies aggro.

You hit 100% and you have aggro. Not like Omen where you have to hit 110% if you are in melee range or 130% at spell casting range or any of that bullshit. It does the math to convert that 110%-130% for you to a simple 100%Only downside is you cant see how others are doing for aggro, but I stopped caring about that ages ago. You are responsible for your own aggro. I'd much rather rez and laugh at someone after they die than have to tell them what to do and drop threat.

6)Skada Damage Meter.
I love it. I hate it. Uses less resources than Recount because you can tell it not to track every minute stat like rage/mana gained (who cares?) and do just the basics. I set it to Dispels, Damage, and Heals. Sadly the UI for Skada is clunky and stupid and tough to get used to. I am not currently using this anymore in favor of WWS or Recount if my framerate is good.

7) Satrina Buff Frames
This one is Excellent. Customizable in every way, can do everything Elkano's (you can set satrina to show bars instead of boxes) or Buffalo can do, and it does those things better.The best part is hovering over a buff shows who gave it to you.
NO MORE SLACKING OFF YOU LAZY FUCKING PALADINS!!! Now I can call you out by name to get the buffz I lack!

8)Sexy Mini Map
It is sexy, but I have plenty of sexy to go around, therefore this is not necessary and I am not currently using it. It was a resource hog. I just want to shrink the damn minimap. Still hunting for an addon that does this but does not make a square minimap. The reason is that I have the map set to rotate and the square ones don't work if you rotate them.

9)It's not currently shown, but this is where Deadly Boss Mods timer bars rest, and then jump down in front of my Totem Timer CDs/Shock and Awe area when they are on short timers. I shrunk these down quite a bit and played with DBM setting to get it just right.

Long timer ------------------------Short Timer (check the main pic of my UI to understand where these appear)

Well I'm almost as tired of writing this shit as you are tired of reading it. Off to make a sammich and eat cookies.
MMMMmmmm, maybe I'll make a cookie sammich /drool

The Daedalus Project

Whilst reminiscing about Everquest, I've been looking up all the excellent webpages I had frequented years ago, before taking an MMO break and forgetting most of them. Well browsing has jogged my memory and I'd like to share a web project I was actively participating in during my tenure with Everquest. (I make it sound like a job, and it almost was!)

Anyways, it a shit load of demographic research of MMO players that was mostly centered on Everquest, as it was the most popular MMO

Check it out! It's still very very pertinent information to WoW!

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

or for a more basic intro to the site try
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_intro.html

And grats me on 2 posts in a day! Maybe I'll atone for my slacking off last month and gain some readers lolololol

UI Spring Cleaning

Spring is nearly over, and for those of us compulsive procrastinators, that signifies the time to maybe think about spring cleaning before it's called summer cleaning. Since I've been meaning to spruce up my UI a little, I am going to share my experiences at getting more of what I want from my UI.


I'll go through my current UI and discuss the pros and cons, and what I am planning to change.


click to enlarge




1)Pitbull Unit Frames 3
One of my "must have" mods, although I am going to check out Vuhdo, it sounds like it can accomplish what I want, I am also gonna check out Pitbull 4, apparently it doesnt have an options UI that has thousands of ways to modify it.What I have now is bar fade on raid members out of heal range, hp/mana in numerical form--an easy way to gear check someone.
It shows incoming heals on a target as you can see on Emfer and Tembell in the screenshot)Health bars flash and change from green to red as health drops, making for very easy mouseover healing.I want to change this so that the bars are smaller, and neater along the edge of my screen.I would also like to re-enable cast bars so I know who is casting what, but I have that part disabled in an attempt to keep over 10fps during 25 mans. I also want to get my unit frames more responsive to debuffs for cleansing duty so that I can get rid of Decursive altogether (it's usually under my buffs but is disabled for Maly as it is not needed.)

at 1A I have target info. You cannot see it at the moment, but just below my health bar is where my pet's bar would go, and just right of my health bar is the target's bar. It's empty because the power spark I had targetted had just died, and I was switching targets back to Malygos.What you see currently is my Focus target (emfer) and the focus' target. Just above the focus is where my actual target would be, as well as a bar of my target's target.
I want to clean these up to make them smaller, and tighter along the edge of my screen. I'm also going to have these bars show or not show buffs/debuffs depending on which bar---my focus target's target is not going to have any info other than a health bar and a name, whereas my actual target is going to have every shred of info possible.

at 1b I have pet health bars. These are going to be either removed completely or changed to very very tiny health bars tucked along the right side of the screen.

2)Deadly Boss ModsGonna resize and reposition this addon, as well as eliminate the occurance of double messages about the Power Spark (this occurs in alot of encounters)

3)I usually use elkano's buff bars, and keep decursive tucked away here. I also usually have a minimap mod that makes it square, smaller and neater, but I have those all disabled for Maly to up my framerate. I'm not sure what I will do here, because it will all depend on my framerate.
I used to have a mega wicked UI but then I began raiding exclusively 25mans and the framelag was horrendous, I had been used to 10man where I could use every bells-and-whistles addon out there.The Ugly buff are on my current UI is fallout from not assembling a proper 25 man UI yet.

4)Totem Timers
This addon rules for shaman, and is hands down the best totem addon out there. Just because someone likes an addon better does not make it better. I have tried every totem addon and quite simply TT can do everything the others can do, and way, way more. And it's configurable to also do as little as you'd like.4a is also from Totem Timers, my plan is to resize and move all parts of Totem Timers to somewhere neater on the screen, as well as shrinking it further and fading it more.

5)Shock and Awe
The awesomest Enhancement Shaman specific addon out there. Audio warnings of when certain spells are ready or down, cooldown tracking and a simple rotation advisor.All I'm gonna do is resize and reposition this one, it's pretty much perfect as is.

6)Omen
What needs to be said about Omen? It's a raiding must. Just gonna resize and tuck this one away better, and make it more see-through.

7)Dominos
Super awesome action bar mod. Allows you to place a bar of any size or shape anywhere on the screen. Also certain spell buttons fade if your target is out of range. I'm gonna revamp this one ALOT. As you can see from the domino buttons, I have the top bar keybound to Numpad 1-9, as well as Numpad., Numpad* and Numpad-.The next row down is all the same buttons but with CTRL as a modifier, next row down from there is ALT as modifier, and the 6 buttons on the bottom left corner are bound to my mouse.
Alot of the spells I have on the action bar don't need to be there, so they wont be. Also I'm gonna resize and reposition this area.

7a is kinda like the batman utility belt of potions and stuff. Somehow it has become a placeholding area for professions, that is gonna change. The f5-f6 "potion belt" is gonna get shrunk and the professions are getting their own action bar that will be tiny, and fade to invisible unless I mouseover it.

7b I'm gonna give this a go at removing it. Noobish as it sounds this is simply a big huge button that I never click, but use to see if my autoattack is on.(it flashes red when I am attacking) Since I exclusively auto-attack with my Stormstrike macro I dont really need this at all anymore.

7c this has been my random area of "oh fuck, I have no room to put a button for that!"So I'm gonna not be so lazy and delete half of these buttons, and reorganize the rest.

8) This is where recount goes, but I turned it off for higher framerate and used /combatlog + WWS instead.


So basically, much like Ricky's 1979 Chrysler New York,or my old Dodge Ram, my UI works but it has some issues and is absolutely butt-assed ugly.


Hopefully the "After" comparison will be like my old and new vehicle. A 1982 Hunk-Of-Detroit-Pig-Iron vs the sensible sporty mid-sized SUV I got a couple weeks ago. I'm driving a Soccer Mom vehicle :*( DING!

p.s. to those that have asked, I promise to get the best in slot gems list done this week, along with some "those were the good old days" posts about Everquest

All I wanna do is BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Well it's been a torrid month of partying, driving and partying more.

I took 3 weeks off to go camping in Jasper and then visit my brother in Vancouver (bought a new vehicle there Woot!) and then head off to Sasquatch Music Festival in central Washington ( OMFG it was so awesome ) and then back to Vancouver and then to Kelowna, and then back to Jasper.....

I thought somewhere in there I'd have time to post on this web log but I was either too drunk, too hungover, too busy or too tired.

All I wanna do is sleep in, play WoW and drool--which is what I will do on Tuesday when I start my next week off.

So anyways, I logged in this past Tuesday for raids that went smashingly well.

Just before I went on vacation, my guild had a falling out seperation of the serious raiders and the casual players. I was worried things would be a rocky road but I seem to have missed out on the worst of it and things and going along very well with the new guild. Most of my best WOW friends found their way to Section XII (the new guild) and we've been kicking butt quite nicely with Naxx 25 clears that get quicker and quicker, some nice progression in Ulduar 25.

This week's Naxx run got SNAFU'd by tired people, with a full raid we wiped 4 or 5 times vowing to return for vengeance the next day. So Thursday we logged in and promptly 1 shotted KT with 19 in the raid. Vengeance indeed.

Next up was Maly 25, a long time thorn in our collective sides. After 3 or 4 wipes on phase 3 we
got it down and spanked his pee pee.


Great Job!

(this is a pic of Tim and Eric at Sasquatch in the comedy tent. These guys are friggin
hilarious!)

Ulduar, at last

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty much lazier than furniture. I apologize for the slow updates but I've been busy at work this week (read: I've watched 36 hours of Prison Break since last Saturday, while getting paid, I love my job)

I'm starting 3 weeks vacation tomorrow so I'll find time to finish the gems faqts, a long with as many alcoholic beverages I can find. I'm gonna party hard enough to make Robert Downey Jr.'s habits look like a brace-faced sophomore cheerleader giggly on Zima.

In WoW related issues, our guild is finally moving into Ulduar, we probed around on 10 man lately to learn some strats and take them to 25 man. (yay heroic flame leviathan down)I haven't been on much to participate, except for the other night when logged in and got asked to help down Ignis (yay guild first)

I like the fight, we steam rolled him by tanking him in the water and just blasted away. I died to a slag-pot and reincarnated (found out after I could have healed myself lol) so that's why my total dmg output is 3rd but my dps is numero uno. I'm not gonna lie, I like being #1 dps. After killing the boss, it is my goal. I'm competitive with guildmates, but I still do everything I can to help them up their dps too, be it gear/talent advice, or passing on gear someone else may need more. If every dps vies for top slot, the whole raid benefits, as long as no one is being stupid about it. I'm not gonna pull up my flametongue totem at the detriment of the raid just so my personal dps goes up by using magma totem.

just after the fight: note the cooldowns on reincarnate and weapon buffs.

We took under 7 mins and I died/reincarnated under 3 minutes ago. and Woot! 4.1k dps

In other news, I've tried the argent tournament thingy, and I hate it. It sucks. It's not hard and it requires no skill or strategy.I've dug out a pic of the double middle finger Angry Dread's (from before I got the pink pinwheel.)

So here's to you Argent Tournament

Gem Faqts. Part One

Think fast.What's the first thing you do when you get new gear?

If you said "masturbate" then go to the penalty box and feel shame.

If you said BLING BLING, then allow me to help. You are on your own with the first answer, Perv!

Gemming and enchanting your gear for maximum stats can vastly improve your gameplay. Here's the basics to maximize your gem set.

With one exception, any colored gem can go in any slot.

The exception is Meta gems, which can only go in a Meta slot. Meta gems will have a requirement to be activated. For instance, if your meta gem says it requires 2 blue gems, then that means within all of the rest of the gear you are wearing, you must have 2 blue gems equipped to activate the meta.

Secondary colored gems count as 2 different colors. A purple counts as a red and a blue. An orange counts as a yellow and a red. A green counts as a yellow and a blue.

So if you had a Meta gem that required you to have a red and a blue gem, you could equip just one single purple gem and the Meta requirements will be fulfilled.

The first thing to consider when gemming is the meta requirement. If you are a jewelcrafter you are in luck because the dragon's eye gems count as every color all at once, and since you can (and will!) wear 3 of them, any Meta requirement is trivialized.

The second thing to consider is maxing out your important stats. This comes before going for slot bonuses, but the slot bonuses need to be considered if they are going to give your 'most important stats'. I'll use a dps class as an example. For the majority of DPS classes, maxing the hit rating is pound for pound the highest dps increase. If you have a red socket bonus that adds +8attack power, but your hit is not capped, you better put a yellow hit gem in there and forego the attack power.

Learning about EP ratings (Equivalency Points) is very helpful when deciding which socket bonuses to give up. (I'll explain EP ratings more in depth soon, but basically it is assigning a value to your stats, i.e. lets say Hit is twice as important as Crit so every 1 Hit would be worth 4 points and every 1 Crit would be worth 2 points. EP values are very helpful when trying to decide between pieces of gear, or gems!)

The 3rd thing to consider when max gemming is which gem in which slot. Once you know which stats you need to max out (Hit, Defense, whatever) This was sort of mentioned in step 2, but really does deserve it's own spot in the "things to consider" list. In my case I am capped out on Expertise and Hit, but nearly every gear upgrade has me shuffling around gems to keep at the cap yet expand into other stats whenever possible.

Stay tuned for a list of best in slot gems for every class/build, and I may have time for MSPaint.

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

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.