I haven’t written for a couple of days, due to finals, real life… and WoW, of course. It’s hard to play AND write about. So what are the news?

Yesterday has been one of the best days I’ve had ingame recently. In the last post I mentioned I was leveling my paladin – well, seeing she was so close to 60, I decided to push hard to 60 and get her epic mount.

She started as halfway into 57 yesterday, and my quest log was, surprisingly, full of quests I finished but had not handed in. So I decided to start handing them in, doing some shopping from the AH to do the Argent Dawn rep hand-in quests the first time around (my suggestion would be to do these as soon as you can, since at the level I did them they were worth 9k+ XP each, and there are about five of them… do the math). Surprisingly enough, she dinged 58 after handing in my load of a million quests (now even MC attuned!) and off into LBRS I went with my favorite warrior to complete my quests in there.

Cue lots of laughing, and wiping numerous times because I’m pulling 500 mobs at the same time and we are being so extremely stupid. We called it near Halycon (didn’t even get to kill her) because my warrior had zero durability for everything but his weapon, and a warrior with zero durability isn’t good for much.

At least I got about halfway through the level, having completed a grand total of one quest and having gotten at least some XP from the mobs. That left a level and a half to go.

Now, I can hear you all yelling “Foolish Elysiane, why not go to Outland, the land of milk and honey and much XP?”

Well… my problem is that I hate Hellfire Peninsula. With the heat of a thousand suns.

Too many mobs, all hitting stupidly hard, things that come out of the ground and own you in the face, things that sneak up behind you and own you in the face, big machiney things that come from… everywhere and stomp you in the face. I hated Hellfire on all my characters, even at level 60 – I think my only character who did not frequently meet a fiery death in HFP was my hunter. But then, due to strategic usage of Feign Death, she hardly ever meets a fiery death.

As for the awesome gear that everyone drools over in Hellfire. People seem to forget something. Mobs in Outland are significantly harder to kill than their counterparts over in Azeroth – that means you actually NEED the awesome quest greens you are given as rewards. They aren’t anything extra that Blizz is throwing your way, they are what you should have if you want to meet a fiery death less often. That doesn’t make the gear awesome, it simply makes it a need, just like the gear everyone had over on Azeroth. /rant over.

Anyway, so I had firmly decided on leveling to 60 in the old world again, and moving to Hellfire with my spiffy, new charger. But my warrior said “Hey, here’s a deal. If you go to Outland now, I can boost you through enough quests for you to get to 60, and then we can go do your charger quest!” Because he’s sweet like that. /love Zilli

So I hearthed to Shattrath, and off to Thrallmar we went. After going through the first Thrallmar and Reaver’s Fall quests with lightning speed, I dinged 59, just one single level to go. I was really excited at this point, but it was time for our weekly Karazhan run – so I logged Elysiane, my warrior logged his rogue, and off we went.

Karazhan, though, was equally exciting this week (Zilli claims otherwise, for he says he spent the entirety of Karazhan spamming his Hemorrhage button and watching a movie in windowed mode, but that’s just him). Being the only caster DPS clothie, I ended up with quite a few pieces: Boots of the Infernal Coven, Robe of the Elder Scribes (the jury’s still out on whether this one is an upgrade over my old robes, we shall see, it does proc quite frequently though from what I observed), Brooch of Unquenchable Fury from Moroes (\o/ spell hit!), and ow… Prince was AWESOME to me this week, and dropped both Ruby Drape of the Mysticant and the Mindblade! I was in seventh heaven at this point, also was the only one to roll on both so no competition.

Prince also dropped the Warrior/Priest/Druid helm, which would have been a welcome addition to my healing set, however I’d gotten so much at this point that I knew I’d pass even before the rolls came. The fact that Zilli and our amazingly funny offtank rolled just clinched my decision. Plus I’m wearing a gemmed and enchanted Whitemend at the moment, the only reason I’d take the T4 helm would be the meta socket and the added raw stats. There’s always next week =)

As for how I did on damage, definitely better than last week – I was not dead last, which is an improvement. I think having an elemental shaman in my group affected this a lot, with Wrath of Air and fully buffed I was easily running above 1k damage every boss, sometimes even breaking 1.1k. That and Totem of Wrath bringing me above or very close to the hit cap for most bosses were the tiebreakers (realising you forgot to wear your hit gear after seeing five Mind Flay resists in a row = not amused). At the end, the elemental shaman topped the meters, with the enhancement shaman coming in a close second, my friend’s hunter third, me fourth, and the rogue fifth (well, that’s what you get for watching a movie while spamming Hemo… AND bringing your warrior for two bosses =P).

After Karazhan ended, I hopped back on Rochalie without even getting my enchants, and off we went questing again. Moving at neckbreaking speeds, in around an hour and a half I saw THE ding – I immediately hearthed, picked up the supplies needed, and ported to Silvermoon to start the mount quest.

Now, I’ve done the warlock epic mount quest a few times pre-TBC to help my boyfriend and a good friend out. And that quest felt… truly epic. Getting to the end of Dire Maul, clearing around the entire chamber, starting the quest, trying to keep up with the healing having no idea of what will come and how hard it will be… and being excited about someone you genuinely like accomplishing something.

I think the paladin quest lacked a lot in that aspect (the blood elf one at least, I realise the Alliance one is harder). Almost the entirety of the chain is soloable, the most time-consuming part being the flights back and forth from LHC to Silvermoon. Even the Tyr’s Hand step is soloable through a couple of strategic deaths and liberal use of bubble hearth (not that I soloed it… we mounted up, strolled in, I pulled the entire abbey as is my custom, Zilli killed the entire abbey, I looted the basin and we strolled out all casual).

If you are level 60 you will need a hand for the last step in Stratholme, bring someone who has the key to the city and it makes the quest absolutely cake. However, I think a 65+ prot paladin would be able to solo even the last step. It took a 70 warrior and myself less than ten minutes after we entered Strat to finish it (see what I mean about the quest not being epic?). Then a hearth back to Shattrath and a port to SMC, and I had my new charger and a sexy as all hell tabard.

And that concluded my adventures for the day. Next up – leveling mining on Rochalie. Yes, that is about as entertaining as actually leveling her. -.-

So Elysiane went to Karazhan as shadow last Saturday. All consumables farmed, around 900 damage with everything, 13% hit, full knowledge of all bosses.

She sucked.

Granted, three of the five DPSers were in epics when Elysiane was in short pants roaming Tirisfal Glades, and they had done this over and over again before. But with all things considered, I sure didn’t expect to perform so badly. She was usually last or 4th on damage, overall providing 13% of all damage (as opposed to Sareya, who in every run provides a comfortable 20+% and is at the top without even trying).

So what went wrong? I don’t have a WWS report, so I can’t say with certainty. But here are problems I can see:

1. Not being hit capped/forgetting to wear hit gear on bosses. Yes. That’s a “palm, meet face” issue, one I hope to fix next time. I’m still really insistent on not speccing 4/5 Shadow Focus and making the hit up with gear instead… which under ordinary circumstances is what thou shalt not do, but eh.

2. Trash dying before SWP and VT complete ticking. Unlike affliction locks, “don’t put DoTs up, just nuke” is not an option for me, since my duty is to be keeping VT up, first and foremost.

3. Not having enough +damage to completely nuke before mana becomes an issue. Yes, I pot before I run completely dry so I’ll have time to pot again. Yes. I time Shadowfiend so that I can use it twice in a fight. However, even with all that, my spells don’t return enough mana to keep nuking in between potion and Shadowfiend cooldowns. (Since our bear MTs, I don’t really expect an Innervate, except on Nightbane.)

That or I’m doing something wrong. My spell rotation is: VT, SWP, VE if the encounter warrants it, Blast, optionally SWD, Flay Flay. Reapply any DoTs soon as they complete ticking, MB every cooldown, optionally Death every cooldown, Flay in between. Thing is, I either have to hold back and not deliver my complete potential, or go balls to the wall and risk running out of mana halfway through the encounter. I’ve heard the sweet spot for this is 1k damage – so I’m shooting for that, as soon as possible.

4. Missing enchants. Yes, yes, yes I know. Not getting every enchant I can is a conscious choice at this point. With my gloves, bracers and weapon being next in line for upgrades, I really, really don’t feel like shelling out the money for spelldamage enchants – especially since due to the last honor patch, the prices of all enchanting materials doubled on Haomarush. Gimme the Gladiator’s Gavel/Mindblade, the S3 bracers, and Attumen’s gloves, and those will get enchants slapped on the same night.

Oh and also, the enhancement shaman who rolled on Mindblade, because “you had always wanted to be elemental anyway”, and won the damn thing? You may now proceed to die in a fire, thank you.

Granted, we have no loot rules other than “Mains before alts”, but we have one unwritten rule that says “Don’t mf-king be an ass,” and you just violated that rule. Whispering me to apologise and to explain how there is nothing better for elemental shamans until BT does not change the fact that you are a loot whore. If you want offspec stuff, either attend as offspec (especially since we try to make sure that everyone attends as the spec they want to), or be courteous to others. This raid is not responsible for gathering you three damn sets of gear for every spec you can imagine. Now gtfo, and feel free to not attend the next one.

At the moment I only raid with a group of people whose presence I really enjoy (not even a guild group, just a bunch of friends from a variety of guilds), and whose skill I can trust for the most part, and I’m surprised how much I look forward to raiding every week. No matter what character I’m bringing, I make sure she has everything necessary and is putting in her best effort. Maybe it’s not bleeding edge content, maybe it’s just the Karazhan that I’ve done countless times, but that doesn’t stop it from being fun with different people and different characters. I guess that’s what this game is all about.

As mentioned in the previous post, my priestly girl has finally made the switch from holy to shadow. I had been planning it for the past couple of weeks, but only took the step a week ago.

She has always been either disc or holy for endgame, keeping shadow only for those “god I’m sick of grinding with this !%&*^ spec” days or for leveling pre/post-TBC. However, at the moment for where she’s at PvE healing feels pretty unchallenging, since she easily outgears any given heroic or 10-man. As for PvP healing, it’s hard to do it consistently since my teams tend to cram matches into one single night, leaving me with 6 other nights per week of nothing to do but be bored on Elysiane. Enter a new spec.

Her current spec is this, yes I know it is a pretty messy spec. I wanted something that is halfway viable in PvE, arenas (but do I dare set foot into an arena as shadow, that is another matter entirely) and battlegrounds, and that was what I came up with.

I like being able to shift out and heal in an ohshiii moment and to me Healing Focus is invaluable in that aspect. I’ve always had it in all of my builds, be it leveling, shadow, holy, disc, whatever. It provides an amazing return for just 2 points in my opinion. I also like Silence way too much to give it up, again, never had a shadow build without it. If I wanted to raid hardcore full time, yes I would be giving it up and going proper 14/0/47, but since I’m not, I might as well enjoy the goodies.

Shadow Power and Imp MB, I’m in two minds about those… with only 2 spells that can crit, do I really want 15% crit on them that much? I don’t utilize SW: Happyface in my spell rotation often enough as is due to my gear not being the best (mana efficiency ftl). I didn’t max out Shadow Focus since I raid on my hunter rather than my priest these days, and the 5% hit I get from gear and the 4% from talents is quite enough for heroic bosses.

I’ve been working on my gear, though. I had decided early on that I would not change tailoring specs, since healing is still what I like to do and what I want to do, and if I returned to 25-man raiding one day it would be as a holy priest for sure. I don’t feel like shelling out the 150 gold + the cost of materials for a spec that is pretty much temporary. So since I can’t have the Frozen Shadoweave set, pretty much the best gear for a SP in Karazhan/Gruul levels, I’ve been paying extra attention to squeezing every last bit out of the gear I have.

When I first went shadow about a week ago, I had a measly 690 damage, in half healing and half damage gear. I tailored myself a pair of spiffy new bracers, grabbed the LC exalted mace, enchanted my shoulders, replaced all my gems with +7 damage gems, and off I went into heroics with a bunch of friends.

I first had to finish off grinding the badges for Kharmaa’s Shroud of Hope which I had been slacking on (got to still have the best gear I can for arena, I <3 my teams to bits), but then I started working hard on the Icon of the Silver Crescent, and while I was grinding for badges was lucky to see Quagmirran’s Eye drop. \o/ My amazing amazing friends spent hours decimating fire elementals in BEM and Nagrand and donated cloth cooldowns so I could make my Girdle of Ruination. Then off I went into more heroics, and my amazing friends were even more amazing and grinded even more mats to help out so I could have the Spellstrike Hood made. Not too sure about getting the leggings since my current ones are pretty spiffy, I am told the set bonus is very very nice on Spellstrike but do I want to go through the hassle of obtaining another round of mats? I already feel guilty enough for all the primal donations I received.

Anyway, Elysiane is strutting around with some 830 damage at the moment, not bad for a week’s work. And I’m still missing enchants – could grab a 40 spelldamage on weapon, 20 damage on gloves and 30 healing + 10 damage OR 15 spellpower on bracers. However I can see immediate upgrades for all those slots, so I’m putting off the expensive enchants for a while. I’ll start grinding for the Gladiator’s Gavel as soon as I’m done with the Battlemaster’s Perseverance, again, arena healing gear > random offspec gear.

I’m hoping to get a Karazhan going this week, either join the run my own guild is making or run my own with friends, so I can hoard even more badges and take a shot at the gloves from Attumen. When I’m done with the gavel maybe I can start grinding for the S3 damage bracers, too. My goal is to hit 1k shadow damage unbuffed as soon as possible, with or without Karazhan, which feels pretty obtainable.