Lethal Shots

Another week, another raid reset. What’s on my mind?

• Icecrown Citadel raid over the weekend. I am now 4/? in ICC-10 on my Hunter.
• Got lucky in ICC and scored two upgrades: the Njordnar Bone Bow from Lady Deathwhisper and the Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts from Deathbringer Saurfang. And if everything goes well tonight and I can get a run for the weekly raid I will have just enough Frost Emblems to pick up two pieces of Tier 10 (the gloves and shoulders).
• Also on the gear front, my Death Knight now has four pieces of Tier 9 which rounds out his tanking set quite well (his DPS set is a whole other story) and I’ve managed everything I can get outside of raids for my Shaman’s Resto set and have started to pick up emblem gear for his Enhance set.
• I’ve all but dropped out of the glyph business. There has been so much competition and undercutting on my server right now that it isn’t even worth my time to post glyphs. I still have my inventory of glyphs sitting on bank alts, so there is a chance I may get back in that particular game at a later date once the market thins out some. Until then I’ll just keep raking in the gold other ways.
• Now that my toon’s main sets are pretty squared away I’ve began trying to put together their off-sets. The Shaman’s Enhance set mostly just needs gems and enchants, but I still need to farm some stuff for the Death Knight’s DPS set.
• The guild has started to run regular ToC-25 runs on Saturdays. While fun, it has also helped remind me why I like 10-man raids better. If only 25-man loot wasn’t so tempting…

Well, that’s all I got on my mind. What’s on yours?

So far I’m thoroughly impressed with 3.3. I’ve yet to set foot into Icecrown yet (scheduled for Friday night with the guild), but so far I really like what I see. Like every other patch day, it was pretty rocky, slow loading while trying to zone in, lag, intermittent DCs, and pretty much everything else we’ve learned to expect. My initial thoughts:

• Forge of Souls – Short, fun instance. Two quick emblems.
• Pit of Saron – Fucking awesome. What’s better than a shit talking gnome riding a zombie? A gauntlet in an ice tunnel that is literally falling down around you. And the Pit features both.
• Hall of Reflection – Lore wise this one rocks, though it will become rather boring once you have farmed it a while.
• New Dungeon Finder system – Overall it seems to work pretty good. I like being able to teleport to and from instances (huge timesaver). It seemed a little buggy last night, but that may have been due to general server instability.
• Emblem of Frost gear – Have you seen the stats on this stuff? It’s completely insane. I’m decked out in the best ToC-10 had to offer with a smattering of stuff from ToC-25. This stuff blows my current gear out of the water.
• Misdirect – Amazing. This is a huge change. How huge you ask? In a heroic 5-man I was dumping almost 50k threat on my tank with one Misdirect. Now imagine multiple Hunters in a raid all doing it at the same time. Can you say goodbye to aggro problems forever?

That is all I was able to test out last night. Tonight I plan to hit up the Frozen Halls instances some more along with a few random PuGs for fun. So what do you think of 3.3 so far?

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.

What’s on my mind?

• Extended maintenance today. Some people think 3.1 is dropping. I hope it doesn’t until next week though.
• I’m leaving for my vacation tomorrow. That means no raiding until next month, and things around the blog will be pretty quiet.
• Since I won’t be raiding while on vacation, I plan to spend my WoW time leveling alts and working on professions.
• I’m already falling behind on the 31DBBB challenge. Between being swamped at work trying to take care of everything so I can leave and packing and cleaning at home I just haven’t had much free time.
• I haven’t been raiding much lately, mostly because 10-man Naxx has nothing for me, so I have been bowing out to let other people go and get geared.
• I’m as pissed as everyone else that 10-man Ulduar is getting the shaft gear and emblem wise. Just because we don’t have as many people doesn’t mean we don’t deserve comparable gear.
• I’ve been playing with the DPS spreadsheet from Elitist Jerks. I think I’m starting to get the hang of using it.

Well, that’s my 2 cents. Now give me yours.

Recently I’ve had a few in-game friends ask questions about gearing their Shaman. Granted my main is a Hunter, but with my big leveling push with my Shaman recently people assume that I know at least a little about them. Naturally, I try my best to help them out and answer their questions. One thing I have noticed is that everyone who has asked for advice plays a Hunter. And when I think about it, I know a lot of Hunters that have Shamans as alts.

So maybe, just maybe, the advice I have been giving will be useful to some other Hunters out there. Bear in mind that there are much more knowledgeable players than me when it comes to Shaman, and most of what I know applies to leveling. Anyway, on with the advice.

For those that don’t know, Shamans got a huge overhaul when 3.0 hit. Specifically the itemization for Enhancement Shamans. Pre-3.0 Enhancement Shaman stacked Strength, Agility, and Intellect. Think about it, how much gear have you seen that provides all three of these? Luckily Blizzard changed that.

At level 30, the talent Mental Dexterity becomes available. What this does is allow a Shaman to convert his Intelligence into Attack Power (Careful Aim anyone?).

Further down the tree you will find Mental Quickness, available at level 50. This talent converts up to 30% of your Attack Power into Spell Power, eliminating the need to stack Spell Power to buff up your shocks.

Now with these talents in mind, lets review what stats Shamans need to stack:

• Intellect – Enhancement Shamans may be a melee class, but they are also a caster which means they need mana. This will also give you Attack Power once talented for it.
• Agility – You are in melee and a good chunk of your DPS comes from White Damage. The Attack Power and Crit Agility provides are crucial.
• Attack Power -  Same reasoning for Agility applies here. This also provides Spell Power once talented for it.

Now what gear provides those three stats and is Mail (leather at earlier levels)?

That’s right, Hunter gear. As an Enhancement Shaman, you will want to look for the exact same gear a Hunter would wear. It really is that simple.