I Pimp'd Slapped Mike Tyson...

Hola blog lovers!

You might have noticed that I haven't had a real blog article in over a week.

I'm been slacking I know.

Speaking of slacking, I have been major slacking in regards to WoW. I logged off last Thursday night and didn't even log in to the game until 730pm the following Tuesday lol.

So that was 10 easy frost badges that I could have had...but oh well, real life happens. Actually, it was a combination of real life and the feeling of "F IT" in regards to WoW.

I don't really enjoy WoW as much as I did unless I am raiding. Not even raiding in general, but raiding in a 25 man. Not sure what changed with me, it could be the fact that I got my PS3 fixed and I have been playing a metric TON of Madden 2010. In fact, I know that is what happen lol.

blah blah blah right?

Lets get into some real WoW talk now shall we?

when helping out goes wrong...

So I logged in last night and got invited to the raid to heal. Since I have been in the guild, roughly a month, there has been only one other resto Shaman that comes in to raid on a consistent basis.

His gear was ok and even had an overall higher item level then me, but he was doing it all wrong. What I mean is that he was still gemming for mp5 and intellect. He also had a few straight spell power gems still and the stats on his gear were too much based on crit and mp5.

After a few weeks of raiding with him and noticing that I am doing 8-15% more effective healing them him, I decided to see how it he would take some constructive criticism.

It went very well, too well. He re-gemmed to sp / haste or straight haste. He stopped using our horrible t9 4 piece bonus and switched out some of his crit / mp5 gear to haste / crit gear.

He also got lucky and got himself a battered hilt. Which means he has a pretty f'n sexy 1h mace with a ton of sp, haste, and crit on it.

I was happy for him. I felt good for helping a follow "veteran" rank of the guild out and making him a better raider. However, he was untouchable tonight lol.

I don't know if it is because I haven't even logged in the past 5 days and I need to get back into the swing of things or my advice really worked wonders with that player.

Either way, I'm scared. I was the pretty much the top healer in regards to overall healing through out the raid night. Some fights I would be strictly raid healing, others I would be tank...but at the end of the night, I had the most effective healing when reviewing the WoL and recount.

Not only that, but I am still a recruit! I have dropped hints that in so many words says "hey...why am I still a recruit"...but yet as it stands now, I am still a recruit. This shaman that I helped out has been with the guild for a very long time and has the "veteran" guild rank. Now that his production has skyrocketed...they may decide to go with someone else.

Who knows...I am probably tripping and overthinking the situation...but it bothers me that for 4 weeks (2 weeks longer then the normal "recruit" phase) straight I have been on time and made every single raid. I have yet to get a piece of loot over any other member of the raid that needs it during this time too.

To me, this is PLENTY of information to make a decision if they want me in their guild or not. I just don't want to bring up the subject. After writing my thoughts down though...I think I am going to have a talk with them.

This is why having a blog is so badass...you write stuff down and wrap your mind around it. Then you can reread your own words and come to a logical conclusion on how to resolved it.

WORD

ICC 25 and A New Title...

Thats right biatches...Tek has a new title. It is one that I never thought I would ever get because I was never in a guild that either

A - Gave a shit

or

B - Wasn't skilled / geared enough to do it.

I think you probably already know what I am talking about. You are correct FRWEND!

25 Sarth 3D and the twilight vanquisher title.

80% of the raid has never done it before and after 2 wipes, what we did to that poor ho Sarth and her 3 drakes was TEXTBOOK.

It was awesome how we all worked together and pwned the encounter how it is supposed to be done...meaning we didn't ZERG it down. We killed each drake, had to jump into portals, avoid void zones / fire wall, and then moved took our sweet time slapping Sarth.

The mount of course dropped and I rolled a 98!!!

Holy snapfizzle batman, 22 people rolled and my 98 was good. At this point, which was a mistake, I had my spirit fingers going and doing a little white boy dance in my computer chair.

The last two people roll

99
99

My dancing and spirit fingers transitioned IMMEDIATELY into a facepalm. I love me some mounts, but I am more then satisfying with my Green Proto Drake. So NBD.

I can't help but to feel like a badass. I know we completely over gear'd the encounter and during the time the encounter was out (no conquest badges, only heroism and valor heh) I was not capable of doing it with my gear or the people that I was surrounded by....

But still...I can't help but rocking the title and feeling like I just pimp'd slapped Mike Tyson in face for being 15 minutes late with MAH MONEY!!

That was out of the blue uh?

TL:DR - I feel like a badass even though I know I shouldn't. =D

ICC Front...

Due to my recent hiatus from WoW, I missed my 10 man run on Friday for ICC. They did pretty well and got to the last boss, but ended up failing 10 times. I think the closest they came was 40% or so...not too bad in my opinion.

This week we had a few new recruits in our 25 man run and nothing pisses me off more then embarrassing our guild name with stupid stuff like starting 15 minutes late or wiping on the first few pulls of TRASH!!

We finally pulled our head out of our asses and stopped doing stupid crap. We made it to Lord Marrowgar and 1 shotted him. My shield dropped...but I didn't get it =(.

To my surprise, we completely pwned the first wing and 1 shotted everything else including Deathbringer.

Deathbringer is just so easy with our strategy and our people...I know this isn't the norm in most guilds and that is why I am not taking it for granite. Even though there is seriously tons of other places you can look up strats for Deathbringer, I am still planning on doing a write up from a healers perspective and of course some basic tips to pwning.

Plagueworks...

I highly enjoy the puppies. I think they are a cool addition to the trash and if you made it this far with the same group in the raid....there is no reason why you should be wiping on these little buggers.

One of them, Stinky, is a mean mofo though. If the decimate happens the same time as the pulse, I wish you luck. Hopefully your healers have DBM and time there raid heal to hit right after everyone's health drops.

Our 25 man only focused on Festergut last week. What a crazy fuck fest this dude is. Its another dps race, but this time Blizzard decided to throw in a ton of coordination in with it. We spent the first night wiping for 3 hours (6-7 attempts) but finally got a solid strat going and actually perfected the coordination part, we were just lacking on the dps.

By the way....I freakin love the enrage Festergut. Some bosses enrage and then start picking people off one by one right? No, no...not good ol' Fester. When his enrage hits...he one shots the raid 2 or 3 seconds afterwards lol. Its actually pretty comedical.

Our best shot was 5%, but we were getting to 7-10% almost every time once we got the coordination down.

For some reason our range dps was lacking in this fight. People that normally do 6.5-7k dps were only doing 4.5-5k dps across all attempts. I am sure we will get him down tomorrow, especially if we are more melee heavy then ranged.

For healing and general tips for all of the bosses in the Plagueworks, check out this fantastic write up. I was going to do my own, but this article was just too good. So go check it out.

Wedding Bells...

Former author of this "P" is getting married on Saturday. I will be missing the Saints vs Cardnials playoff game and I couldn't be happier.

Grats to both of you and I can seriously say that I have NEVER meet two people that are so right for eachother. I am glad to be apart of your celebration.

Cheers!

ICC Index - Healing as a Shaman

Morning blog lovers!!

Its Monday...

Don't worry, I am sad too. The holidays are over and if you are still on some sort of vacation, then I think I speak for everyone when I say I hate you. Only in a jealous way though...you are pretty cool other then that.

So you might have remembered me doing something very similar with Ulduar. Well, I started that about 4-5 days before I took a few month hiatus and when I returned I didn't continue with it.

However!!!

I have no plans to quit the game anytime soon, I am hopelessly addicted just like you. I will be talking about all the trash and bosses from the view point of a resto shaman and (the) my way best way to deal with them. I will also be going over anything that I deem important to know from that prospective as well.

Such as...

• What stats should I be shooting for in the 10 man ICC?
• What stats should I be shooting for in the 25 man ICC?
• What should my stats look like before I step into ICC 10/25?
• What totems, buffs, mods, alcoholic drink should I get for the raid?
• Any tricks or this is how I did it and it worked that I come across.
• What kind of gear should I look forward to in ICC?
• Anything else that comes to mind

Currently my guild is 4/4 in ICC 10 and 3.95/4 in ICC25 lol. We got Deathbringer to less then 5% two separate times this pass lockout and I know that he is going to die this week. I will change that 3.95/4 to 4/4 FOR SURE.

that was alot of fours...my apologizes

Continuing!

What stats should I have before I start ICC 10?

Before I get into stats and what to go for, you need to know what is our number 1 stat. If you ask a group of 10 man resto shaman raiders, I bet you would get 3 answers.

• Spell power
• Haste
• mp5

Now, there are some very clear cut lines on how to gear your shaman. The math guys did alot of work and testing over at elitist jerks and came up with the following.

Haste = 1.5
Spell Power = 1.0
mp5 = 1.0
Crit = 0.8
Intel = 0.6

The numbers are called Healing Equivalency Points or HEP. Its very simple, the higher your HEP score is, the better of a healer you can be....to a point. I say that because you still have to balance your stats. You can't just rock all haste, sp, and crit gear. You would run out of mana during boss encounters and that would make you a healer without mana, or what I like to call completely and utterly useless.

Before I go any further with talking about 10 man raiding, I want to make a clear line between the following.

• Are you in a 10 man raiding guild that raids 10 man ICC
• Are you in a 25 man raiding guild that also raids 10 man ICC

There is quite a large difference. If you are in a 25 man guild that raids 10 man ICC, all your dps should be very high, especially for the first wing. Not only that, but you as the healer will have much higher stats and your gear should be a much higher item level.

Even though the 25 man raider should be focusing in more on the HEP values of haste and therefore gemming for it, that does not mean that a healer in the 10 man only guild doesn't need more mp5 then haste. Therefore they are gemming and getting their hands on as much mp5 as they can.

That being said, my situation is of that of my second option; I am in a 25 man raiding guild that also raids 10 man ICC. There for I have a metric ton of haste and spell power. Due to the way my gear is currently, I am coming dangerous close to the "do not pass" line on mp5 for a demanding 10 man like ICC.

We also run a two healer, two tank, six dps setup to maximize our dps. I highly recommend running with two healers, even if you are just a 10 man guild. The best situation would be to have one of your healers go dps if they have some decent gear for it. If you run into wipe after wipe, he or she can always go back to healing to see if that will help. I do believe that every boss in ICC will be able to be 2 man or 3 man healed. It just depends on your raid setup and if the other members of your raid can pick up the slack and not fail (i.e. high dps for gear level, not standing in fire, not going out of LOS of healer, focus firing, ect.)

Now that I have got that off my mind...lets get back to what I originally wanted to say in this section...

WTF kind of stats should I have before ICC 10??

This is what I would recommend for a 2 healer setup in ICC 10. All of these numbers are completely unbuffed, meaning no totems.

Spell Power = ~2400-2600. Spell power equals throughput. Throughput keeps everyone alive and allows you to do everything better.

Mp5 = ~350-400 mp5 while casting. If you are in a 10 man only guild and only have access to mp5 gear, I would probably shoot for more along the lines of 450-500 mp5 as a base. That way with your water shield, buffs, and totems, you should be around 650-700 mp5 which is more then enough. Do your own testing, see what works for you. It is hard for me to get a good number for this in a 10 man only guild. If you have any suggestions, please write a comment and we can talk about it.

Haste = ~575-600. This shouldn't be that hard to reach. Just because you are raiding a 10 man and not in 25 man, doesn't mean that haste isn't our numbero uno stat. It very much is and I wouldn't be satisfied until it was around 820ish. That way your chain heal will be 2 seconds without our totems. 575-600 is the starting number. 820 is a number to aim towards and will come later on with gear. Remember, keep your stats balance and find a good number for you and your raid setup.

Mana (intel) = ~20000-22000. Again, should be hard to reach with gear. You should not have to gem for intel and if you do, then you might want to take another look at your gear for some upgrades. Now remember, intel is a very good stat for us, just not in the top three anymore.

10 intel = 5.5 mp5 for a 5 min fight. It also gives a static 3.3 crit and 1.8 spell power.

We are not Paladins, do not gem for intel unless you just don't have the gear for it. If that is the case, like I said before...I doubt your gear is ready for ICC 10 before the nerfbat comes.

Ofcourse, prove me wrong! Let me know about it. Give me details.

Crit = ~27-30%. You know you love some crit. You love to see your chain heal go off and hit 4 targets, three of which crit. That also means that Ancestral Healing proc'd giving everyone 10% less physical dmg taken. It also procs Ancestral Awakening which heals the lowest raid member. Its good stuff, but I wouldn't get more then 30-31% in a 10 man.

WTB totems - 25g per raid member - PST

Wouldn't that be AMAZING!?! hah. Thinking about it now I take that back, there would be over-population in Shaman. It would be like Warlocks TBC all over again.

/puke

Back to the subject, Totems! Yes, we have them. They are our calling card and they give the raid a substantial amount buffs. However, I see so many shaman not paying attention to what totems they are laying down or nothing caring. Being a former Holy Paladin back in TBC, if someone didn't have their kings / might / STFU....I would get 10 tells from every person of that class telling me about it. Yet, when it comes to totems....noone complains about the missing buffs totems provide. Its rather intriguing.

Now, I give lead way to my dps Shaman of WoW. They need to their totems to buff their dps output and if the rest of the raid benefits then its icing on the cake.

mmm....cake....

/slap

DAMN! Guy can't think of some cake? SOB!

Resto shaman on the other hand should be all about benefiting the raid, especially if you trust in your skill / gear to get the job at hand done.

Here are the rules. Learn them, love them, don't be that Shaman...

These come straight from the top. This isn't just me thinking I know what is best in all raiding situations. Due note that if there is alot of movement or an encounter that involves alot of spreading out, its ok to drop the same totems to make sure everyone is always in the coverage zone.

AIR:

1. If there isn't a Frost Death Knight or Enhancement Shaman, drop Windfury

2. Otherwise drop Wrath of Air

Earth:

1. If there isn't an Enhancement Shaman or a Death Knight, drop Strength of the Earth

2. Otherwise drop Stoneskin, which also stacks with Paladin's Devo aura

Water:

1. If there isn't a Paladin for Blessing of Wisdom, drop Mana Spring.

2. Otherwise drop Healing Stream. With my gear its 475ish hp a tick. Eat your heart out Druids.

3. Dropping the cleansing totem is situation and should go without saying, but just incase you forgot you had it or something...I'll mention it.

Fire:

1. If there isn't an Enhancement Shaman, Elemental Shaman, or Demonology Warlock, drop Flametongue.

2. Eh...if you want another one you can drop searing or something. I like to save the mana truthfully.

Again, remember about the coverage area of the encounter and if you are going to have to drop duplicate totems to ensure coverage.

Feel free to drop a comment to talk about your thoughts or anything you are unsure of. Or if you think that I got it wrong, let me know.

WTFspaghetti is here for YOU!

Until next time I'm WTFout!!!!