Lethal Shots

While I have heard of it happening before, last weekend was the first time I have ever had the, um, privilege of participating in a three man dance with Heigan. It was interesting to say the least.

Obviously, the encounter started out with a full compliment of ten people, but by around 40% only the tank, a healer, and me (on my Hunter) were left. But we’re a stubborn bunch and refused to let him win. So thanks to the fact that Heigan has no enrage timer, we three continued to dance the dance and managed to take him down to the encouragement and cheers of our dead brethren.

And let me tell you, it took a long, long time.

DPS like crazy during the phase 1, then switch to viper and regen mana during phase 2. Rinse and repeat for what felt like forever. But we did it.

And you know what, that was probably the most fun i’ve had in Naxx in a long time.

Another week, and another restart. So what went on since the last?

• Ran a few instances on my Shaman as DPS. I’m slowly learning how to play Enhance in instances. Biggest thing I have noticed? Scrolling combat text makes it hard to position correctly. If my adventures as Enhance continue something will have to change.
• No Ulduar last weekend, but I did run in two different Naxx-10 groups, one with my Hunter and the other with my Shaman. Both were successful in their own way, and loads of fun
• It may be bad, but I find myself whispering random Hunters I see and trying to give them advice on what gear and enchants to change. (Why do people think spell power is useful to Hunters?) I try to be as tactful and non-pushy as possible. So far I have been getting mixed responses. Some thank me for the advice, and even go on to ask specific questions, while others become outright hostile.
• I’ve been slowly stockpiling Titanium Ore in preparation for 3.2, here’s hoping that it pays off in epic gem sales.
• I’ve reached the point where one alt with 4 32-slot Inscription bags can not hold my inventory of glyphs to sell. I either need to cut back on some of the less profitable glyphs or set up another alt to sell glyphs also.
• Thinking about going back to a fresh UI and and building a fresh one. My current one is becoming too cluttered.

Well, that’s all for now. Time for me to head off to bed and get some sleep.

Boy, haven’t done one of these in a while. Time to get back in the habit of them.

• Progression in Ulduar over the weekend, with two upgrades for me (can’t remember the names, armory Santyn to see them). Hours of wipes, but I can’t even begin to describe how much fun those hours were.
• Gold. I’m slowly making it, yet also spending it. The gem market is starting to die down. I think this is because many of the more hardcore players are done getting upgrades until 3.2, meaning low demand. But I have been investing in Titanium Ore to prospect. Not actively hunting it, just keeping an eye on the trade channel for good deals.
• I don’t know what I would do without Inscription. Lately, glyphs are the largest source of income for me. Well worth the gold I invested to level it.
• Naxx-25 over the weekend too. I had a blast completely decimating the meters. Personal best of 6k DPS on Loethab.
• Parenting advice for Hunters out there: when the raid wipes but you manage to live thanks to Feign Death, read a book to your kid while waiting for everyone to run back in.
• Not much alt time lately, been spending too much time doing other stuff. I’m going to have to remedy that. I really want to play some of my alts in end-game content.

Well, that’s all I have for now. Now tell me what you’re thinking.

Yes, as strange as it is, I really think that is the case. But first, a little background to help explain my thought process.

I currently have two level 80 characters, a Survival Hunter and a Resto Shaman. My Hunter is in Ulduar ready gear (have yet to pick up any drops there) and my Shaman is in a mix of heroic and Naxx gear. I have long considered the Hunter my main, but with very little to do on my him outside of raiding (I hate dailies), he has been seeing very little play time. Consequently I have been taking a deep interest in learning to heal with my Shaman and getting him geared up.

Also, these 2 characters are in different guilds (on the same server). My Hunter is simply a raider in Soulbound, while my Shaman is a senior officer in Circle of Friends. I won’t go into any more detail about that here, I’ll save that for another post. The raid leaders in Soulbound are aware of my Shaman, but will generally only ask me to bring him if our raid has entered PuG status since the toon is in a different guild. Anyway, enough background and on with with the story.

This realization of multiple mains came upon me last Saturday night during a 25-man VoA run with Soulbound. We were short people so we started pulling in PuGs to fill slots. The raid leader wanted Heroism, but we couldn’t find any Shamans. My Hunter already has the achievement for Emalon, so I offered to switch to my Shaman. So I jump over while the raid continues the search for more people. Long story short, in the search for more people I end up inviting a friend of mine (an awesome Prot Paladin) who I have been running occasional heroics with on my Shaman. We did Archavon first, and then started to weed out the people with too low DPS for Emalon. Several Soulbound people had started to log on so we began pulling them in for Emalon. One of those pulled in was another Resto Shaman, so I was asked to switch back over to my Hunter, which I of course did.

At this point my friend (the Prot Pally mentioned above) whispered me and asked if I had switched to an alt. His question confused me for a second, and then it dawned on me. While he has grouped with me many times, I had always been on my Shaman, never on my Hunter. I was even on my Shaman when I invited him to join the current VoA run. Naturally I explained to him that my Hunter was my main and that my Shaman was an alt.

But after that I got to thinking. I have been playing my Shaman so much lately that it has become more than an alt, yet my Hunter is still my main when it comes to raiding. So that leaves me with a declared main, and an alt that is more than an alt. Well, what is more than an alt? A main.

That leaves me with two mains.

If you have an iPhone or iTouch, then head on over to the App Store and download Blizzard’s new official WoW Armory App. It’s a quick download (even over an Edge network), and best of all, it’s free. WoW.com has a short write-up about it here along with a gallery of screen shots.

Once you have the app and start it up, you will need to login with your WoW/Battle.net login info. You can optionally have the app remember your info to skip this step the next time you open the app. Once in, you are presented with every bit of information about all of your characters that you would normally find on the Armory. Browse gear, search for other players, check out your guild, and even look at each of your toons calendar, with the option to accept or decline events. Also included is a talent calculator and an item browser.

After playing with it some, I have to say that I am really impressed with the app. The app is responsive, with no noticable lag (so far). I was a bit skepticle when Blizz started shutting down the third party apps that I used to use on my iPhone, but I am glad to see them release a worthy replacement.

I’m not going to go into any more detail here, better if you go ahead and check it out for yourself. Once you, be sure to come back and leave your impressions of the app in the comments.