Ailis in Hunterland

My mage hit 80 roughly a week before 3.3 dropped so, I’ve been spending a LOT of time in the new random LFG system emblem farming to gear her up.

(Protip: group with a tank or a healer before queuing up.  It goes a lot faster.)

In my travels through the system and meeting folks from other servers, I’ve come across several things that I thought I would share with you guys.

1. Cheap buffs are perfectly fine.  Some folks have no issues using their reagents on the full awesome party-wide buffs but if you want to conserve instead of using reagents every 20 minutes or so, that’s completely okay and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
2. Gear judging is not your job.  You may snicker at the hunter wearing a spell trinket or the ret pally wielding a sword and board, but to comment on it and make them feel like a total loser doesn’t help.  Yes, you guys will probably never see each other and what you say is simply a passing comment but keep them to yourself unless you are of that class in the group – pally to pally, hunter to hunter.  Otherwise, you just come off as an obnoxious know-it-all elitist.
3. For the love of pete, greed on the stupid frozen orbs.  No one “needs” them anymore.  Period.
4. Speaking of loot (and here’s my huge thorn in my side), the new need before greed/disenchant system is nice.  It has a couple of hitches such as treating greed and disenchant rolls equally.  So the days of needing for main spec and greeding for offspec are gone.  Most groups have adopted a “need for both specs” attitude which I have no problem with IF the person that is needing for offspec waits to see if anyone else needs for main spec before rolling.  Twice yesterday I watched people need on an offspec item against someone who was needing on it for mainspec, win, then drop group or argue as to why they “deserve it” when I said something.  One argument presented to me was “Well, that is normally my MS.  I’m in here in my OS.”

   Fantastic.  How are any of us supposed to know that’s your offspec and you’d like to roll mainspec on drops when there is obviously someone there that needs it for the mainspec they are running AT THIS POINT.  *shakes fist*

   The other argument I hate is “It’s just a heroic.”  Well, yes.  If this were any heroic under Trial of the Champion or the new ICC 5mans I wouldn’t even open my mouth.  But seeing is how ToC drops 219 gear on heroic and the new 5mans drop 232 gear on heroic, it’s a bit of a bigger deal.  People trying to gear up quickly to raid need this gear more than anything that will drop from any other heroic.

   My point is this – if you’re in LFG for both your specs and the random system asks you to go in on your offspec but you’d like to roll need on mainspec, say something to your group.  Don’t steal loot from your tanks or your healers because that’s exactly what it looks like.

All in all, the random cross-server LFG system does not give you permission to be a total douche to everyone you meet.  Just because you will likely never see them again doesn’t mean karma isn’t a bitch.  Run your heroic, do your job, say hi, be fair with loot rolls, and leave.  I’ve seen personally and heard from guildies more and more asshats showing up in heroics.

Maybe we’re all just unlucky and get the local nuts but maybe there’s more to this and people need to just pay a little more attention to how they act.  And, if you witness something like this – unfair loot rolls or someone just being a prick to someone else – say something.  You don’t have to do what I did and really lay into someone (to be fair I’m pregnant and a bit pissy nowadays – my poor husband) but speaking up briefly will help over time.

Enough folks speak up on a regular basis, the better it can get.

Ah, gear.  The subject of much controversy and debate and hording and ninjas and raid drama and bragging rights.  Don’t get me wrong, I love new gear as much as the next person.  I also fully stand behind the desire to have great gear with optimal stats for your character.  Stack that AP/Agility/SP/Stamina.

However.

When gear becomes the focal point to the exclusion of everything else, I have an issue.

Gear Without Skill

We’ve all seen it.  People hollering in LFG or Trade looking for raiders with a particular gear score, a specific AP/SP/HP, or whatever.  How many times do those same people stop to think about skill?  I’m sure most of them just figure that if someone meets a certain mark then they know how to play their character, right?  Eh, maybe.

We can all agree that gear is stupid easy to get at the end-game. If you have a bit of cash, time to grind some heroics and get lucky in a Vault run or two, you can be in full purples within a couple of weeks of hitting 80 with your hit/expertise/ap/agi/crit/hp/sp/etc/etc at their optimum levels for your spec.  Two weeks.  Does that mean you know how to raid with your toon properly?  Does that mean you possess the skill and knowledge needed to be a part of a team and you know your proper role in each fight?  Not necessarily and we all have run across “that guy” who doesn’t know the first thing about his toon despite having 3/5 T9.

Skill Without Gear

The flip side of this issue is one that I actually see more of lately and it somewhat saddens me.  Good players thinking they aren’t good enough or they can’t be better because they don’t have “good gear.”  How many times have you run across this?  ”We don’t have the gear for this.” or, even worse, “I don’t have the gear for this.”

We’ve become so conditioned as players to equate great gear with great healing/dps numbers, that anything below that arbitrary bar is seen as not good enough and therefore not worth trying to improve.

Before you protest and say that you DO need great gear to do great things, think about the number 1 or 2 guild on your realm.  The guilds that get the server firsts.  Maybe even the guilds that get the world firsts.  When that guild got your realm’s first downing of Algalon-25, that was, what, 5 weeks or so after Ulduar was released?  Maybe not even that long?  So 25 people (assuming it was the same 25 from start to finish) went through Ulduar-25 5 or so times.  3-4 drops a boss, assuming everyone got really lucky and pieces for main specs actually dropped all the time, you’re looking at the group having 1-3 pieces of Ulduar 25 gear apiece.  Mix that with some crafted pieces, a couple of badge items (this was before heroics dropped Conquest emblems, mind you) and the rest is, remember this, Naxx25 gear.

And they downed Algalon.

Go watch the video for Ensidia’s world first downing.  You will see Warglaives and a Thunderfury.

It’s not all about gear.

I have seen players in a mix of purples and blues pump out more dps than someone in the same spec fully epic’ed out in the latest and greatest.

Skill Trumps Gear

None of this is to say that gear has no place in the measurement of your character’s ability in any given fight.  It is definitely on the list.  But it’s at the bottom of the list.  Skill, attitude, attention, build, glyphs, gems, enchants, THEN gear.

This is something that, as a guild leader, I try to communicate to my raiders when we’re up against something particularly challenging.  It’s easy to get frustrated and say that we can’t do it because of gear level.  ”We can come back after we get some more gear.”

Well, yes, we could.  But will we do better because we upgraded someones chest piece from 232 to 245?

I realize there is a mental component that goes with it.  We equate great gear with great performance, therefore, when we have the gear, we do better inherently.  I want us as players to move past that and move away from it.

Always try to better your raider through research, build tweaking, rotation tweaking, and, yes, even gear.  But, remember, while you will inevitably do better with better gear, don’t forget that you are capable of doing great things with the clothes you have on your back.

This is definitely a topic that has been brewing in my mind for some time now and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it.  How much importance do you HONESTLY place on gear?

Shaman

• T10 Elemental Relic (Shocks) – Your Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock spells grant 73 haste rating for 15 sec.  Stacks up to 3 times.
• T10 Enhancement Relic (Stormstrike) – Your Stormstrike ability grant 146 attack power rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• T10 Restoration Relic (Riptide) – Your Riptide spell grants 85 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes (Improved Reincarnation will continue to lower the cooldown by 10/20 minutes).

/dies

I, like many other WoW players, read Elitist Jerks obsessively.  I’m not the number cruncher that most of them are and some of their formulas and theories go way over my head but I like finding the nuggets of information and using their information (what of it I can actually understand) to help hone my character(s) as they progress to and through the end-game.

One post I’m deliciously addicted to is their Enhancement Shaman BiS thread, in which they talk about The Wishlist (as I like to call it).  Every tier that is released, they put together a list of the absolute Best-In-Slot (BiS) gear/gems/enchants/glyphs and build for your enhancement shaman.  I call it my Wishlist because this list is only available if you have access to every possible option of raiding – including hard modes.

With Tier 9, in case you didn’t know, all the loot is faction-specific.  Stats are identical but names and skins are different depending on your faction affiliation.  EJ wrote up their list from a Horde’s perspective so I thought I’d give some of you guys a hand and rewrite the basic gear list from an Alliance perspective.  I’m also going to write this without any profession buffs so keep in mind you’ll have an extra boost to one of your stats with Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, Enchanting, Inscription or Blacksmithing.

To make this easy to follow we’ll do item slot followed by name of piece, the gems in order of slots available, and proper enchant (similar to EJ’s table but without the table).

• Head - Nobundo’s Faceguard of Triumph – Chaotic Skyflare Diamond/Wicked Ametrine – Arcanum of Torment
• Neck - Charge of the Demon Lord – Precise Cardinal Ruby
• Shoulders - Nobundo’s Shoulderguards of Triumph – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back - Vereesa’s Dexterity – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Speed
• Chest - Breastplate of Cruel Intent – Bright Cardinal Ruby/Nightmare Tear/Wicked Ametrine – Powerful Stats
• Wrist - Bracers of Dark Determination – Precise Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Hands - Nobundo’s Grips of Triumph – Bright Cardinal Ruby – Crusher
• Waist - Belt of Deathly Dominion – Wicked Ametrine/Bright Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs - Nobundo’s War-kilt of Triumph – Balanced Dreadstone/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Icescale Leg Armor
• Feet - Sabatons of Ruthless Judgement – Wicked Ametrine/Wicked Ametrine – Icewalker
• Finger - Ring of Callous Aggression – Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Finger - Planestalker Signet – Wicked Ametrine
• Trinket - Comet’s Trail
• Trinket - Death’s Verdict
• Main Hand & Off Hand - Remorseless – Wicked Ametrine – Berserking
• Relic - Totem of Electrifying Wind
• Glyphs – Windfury/Stormstrike/Feral Spirit (This is also best set up for Tier 8 as well so go ahead and get these glyphs now if you don’t already use them)
• Build – 18/53/0 (This is only for Tier 9 – for Tier 8, current Max DPS build is 16/55/0)

You will notice that the vast majority of these items come from places like the 25-man Tribute Chest, 25-man Algalon and other hard modes.  Like I said, wishlist and only available if you have access to (and succeed at) every possible level of raiding.

It will still be my wishlist because you never know but I will try over the next week to put together a 10-man version of this for those of you in 10-man guilds (as I know there are a lot) for your BiS given what you have available to you.

Happy hunting!