Thoughts from the Shadows

Saturday Matinee

2010-08-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

This week the poll was heavily in favor of comedy, so I'll present a classic; ROFLMAO.

Yet more handy add-ons!

2010-08-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome back! Today I'm going to go over UI and fun add-ons. I find UI add-ons to be indispensable. The standard UI for WoW is getting many improvements come Cata, but even then I believe UI customization will be very useful. Also, I'll be going over a few add-ons just for fun. Afterall, WoW's still a game :)

The first part of a custom UI is the unit frames. I use Xperl. It's super customizable although first timers may be a little overwhelmed at all the options it has and the sheer amount of information it can put on your screen. Once customized though you'll wonder how you ever played without it. There are other good unit frames out there such as Pitbull. Look around and find the right fit for you. Once you have a good unit frame in place the next step is taking car of your bars. The standard UI tends to be way to limited in what you can do. I recommend Bartender with Button Facade for great functionality and looks. W00t! You have your bars situated and your unit frames are ready to go. What else could you possibly need? Well, let's make it all easy on the eyes shall we? For that we'll need some viewport art. There are two programs I use and which I use really just depends on the character. I recommend SunnArt for beginners and BTEX for the more advanced. For the final touches grab align and Move Anything. There you have it! With those tools you will have your own custom UI up and running in no time!

Here's a screenshot of these add-ons in action:

Now for some fun add-ons! For DK's Achmed the Death Knight will yell "Silence! I keel you!", whenever you cast strangulate. And for those great times when you bite it at the beginning of a long boss fight there's Bejeweled. It allows you to play the classic game inside WoW.

We heard you were an addict so we put your addiction inside your addiction so you can get your fix while fixated:

For those that love companion pets try PetsPlus. It allows a lot of customization with your furry friends. Well, that's it for today folks! Have fun!

Handy Add-ons

2010-08-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today's post is all about add-ons. I'll go over a few of the best and also include some lesser known ones that I think deserve some coverage. We'll start with a great add-on for leveling and loremaster, QuestHelper.

QuestHelper is an extremely useful add-on that uses player generated data to show quest goals in a straight forward and easy to understand manner. It also incorporates a couple of little extras that some people like. There's a heads-up display in the form of an arrow that the editor likes, me not so much. Although, I do find the flight timers to be quite handy. The main drawback of QuestHelper is that it can be a memory hog, but that is to be expected with the amount of data it parses.

Here's a shot of the HUD in action

For any serious raider these three add-ons are a necessity. They are Deadly Boss Mods, Recount, and Omen. Deadly Boss Mods provides raid warnings for important parts of any boss fight. This or one of it's equivalents such as Big Wigs are required by most raiding guilds. Recount simply keeps track of important stats such as DPS and healing in an easy to use and understand interface. This is great if you want to know how you're performing without asking people in the raid. It can at times be a memory hog, so adjust the settings to only keep data you need. And last but not least Omen threat meter is a terrific tool to keep an eye on threat levels. Handy for tanks to see who's creeping up on them and great for dps to know when to cool their jets.

Some great utility add-ons are out there to make your life easier as well. A few I would suggest trying out are Genie, Auctioneer, and SexyMap. Genie is a useful tool for inventory management. It will even sort your bank for you! Auctioneer is a must have if you plan to play the AH at all. Keeping track of fluctuating price levels and quick posting of auctions are just a couple features of this add-on powerhouse. Finally SexyMap allows full customization of mini-map position and appearance. That's it for today. Be sure to check in tomorrow when I cover UI add-ons and some add-ons just for fun.

Just another Monday Macros..

2010-08-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hi guys! Welcome to another Monday Macros sponsored by The Bangles! :P
Anyway, today's first macro is a simple macro that will announce your target to your party. It can be used with any ability. It's in response to a comment I recieved last week. Remember, if you post a question I'll get back to you.

/cast spellname

/p my target is %t

or /p casting spellname on %t

The first version of it is handy for tanks, while the second is more for CC.

The second macro today is a handy macro for prospecting. Just keybind it and turn on auto-loot and prospect away!

/cast prospecting

/use titanium ore

/use saronite ore

/use cobalt ore

You can of course use any ore you desire.

And for my last macro I'll give you a handy macro for solo or raiding. This will start attack on your target or, if in a raid, your focus' target.

#showtooltip
/cleartarget [dead]
/targetenemy [noexists]
/assist focus
/startattack
/cast spellname
/Script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Hope these help you guys!

Saturday Matinee

2010-08-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was go to the free movies on Saturdays. In that tradition every Saturday I'll present one of my favorite machinima. Let's start off with a bang! Flyleaf vs. the Legion of Doom.

Now go PvP your asses off!

5 man etiqutte

2010-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

       "Ok guys, were about to pull the boss.", says our intrepid tank. "Umm..huntard's in combat",replies the healer. "Apparently somewhere down the hall". Tank mutters the serenity prayer....

      Guys I'm here to help you not make your fellow puggers want to play this song. I'll make it a quick post as these rules are basic and simple.

Tanks-

1. You set the pace. Read your healer and dps from the first couple of pulls. If they're ADHD it can be very hard to reign them in, so pull as quick as you can to keep them focused.

2. That being said don't be forced into bad pulls. If a dps is that antsy and pulls warn them once then let them die the next time IMHO.

3. Warn your healer before big pulls so they can be prepared.

4. Keep an eye out for people needing mana and call a mana break if necessary. Mana users love tanks that actually give a rat's ass :)

Healers-

1. Try to match pace with the tank and keep good communication.

2. Always let the tank know if you are in need of mana. A few seconds drinking is infinitely better than a corpse run.

3. Keep your head on a swivel. Pats and face pulls do sometimes happen. Be prepared to save your little dps friends. However, I'll give you the same advice I give tanks. If a dps purposely pulls more than once let them die.

Dps-

1. Keep pace with the tank, but don't outpace them

2. Be ready with CC or cleanses if asked.

3. Mages, just make the water..*sigh*

4. DON'T PULL FFS! (sorry, that comes from tanking)

     It's fairly simple to have a quick clean run with these rules being followed. Also, be respectful in party chat. A good attitude goes a long way.

Shaman Raid Healing

2010-08-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

     Good news everybody! Today we'll get down to raid heals as a shaman. As a shaman it's important to know that your healing style switches with different fights and even throughout the course of any given fight. Your basic set-up will remain the same, but your spell selection and totem drops will change.

   Your general set-up involves casting ES on either the MT or the OT if he seems to be taking more damage. Make sure you have Earthliving weapon on yourself and your water shield. Your general totem drops will be Strength of Earth or Stoneskin (depending on raid comp), Flametongue, Healing stream or mana spring and Wrath of Air. Always check with other shamans in your raid to coordinate totem drops. Also, be sure to flask up and get your well-fed buffs.

     Now that you are prepared for the first pull, how do you heal it? It's fairly simple really. For single pulls w/o large amounts of raid damage you'll want to Riptide anyone taking a quick damage spike and follow up with Lesser Healing Wave while always keeping ES up on your tank. Once large amounts of raid damage starts we really shine! If there is a fairly large group of melee Riptide the tank and spam Chain Heal. Keep an eye out for ranged and throw them Lesser Healing Wave as needed. If some of them are grouped feel free to toss Chain Heal their way as well. Following these simple rules will actually keep you on top of the meters even against Droods when the raid damage is hot and heavy a well played shammy is king!

     It's important to be raid aware as well. Be sure you know your individual fights and your roles during them. If you don't know what you should be doing ask! Or, better yet look the nights fights up before the raid and watch videos at sites such as Tankspot. Ask before boss pulls when the raid leader wants Hero and pop it on time! If there is another shaman that isn't healing they should normally take responsibility for Hero, but if they don't you must make it happen. Make sure you are prepared with proper add-ons as well. Deadly Boss Mods, Big Wigs or Deus Vox are necessities! Other add-ons can be important as well and don't be "that guy" without vent. Everybody hates "that guy".

   While that covers some basic info I'll go ahead and break down a specific encounter so you can see how Shaman heals change throughout a fight. We'll go over Lady Deathwhisper. The fight starts with a series of adds coming in waves while she's behind a shield. The damage is not too intense during this phase you will mainly be cleansing her adds de-buff and topping people off with Lesser Healing Wave. Be aware that the melee groups may occasionally be clustered enough for a quick Riptide and Chain Heal. After the shield goes down go stand near the tank. Keep an eye out for the ghosts and pop Hero. At this point keep Nature's Swiftness with Healing Wave available for anyone taking spike damage and spam Chain Heal until she's dead (more dead?). This kind of gives you an idea of how healing changes during the course of an encounter. Anyone needing advice about a specific fight, please leave a comment or drop me an email. I'll answer any questions asap :)

Monday Macros

2010-08-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

             Hi there folks! Happy Monday :P Today I'm starting what will be a series of posts on handy macros. I'll be posting a small set each Monday. I was thinking about making this a fairly large post, but I'll stick to a smaller set each week and if anyone has a request for a macro they'd like made please leave a description of what you'd like it to do in the comments. I'll even do macros for other classes, so hit me up.

   My first macro this week is a very specific one for resto shammies with engineering. Engineering can be one of these largest profession based HPS increases available in the game, but there is a small problem. Other professions increases are passive whereas engineering requires that you do something, so human error can decrease it's potential. What this macro does is incorporate the haste boost to gloves with chain heal (which in most raids you will be casting a lot). For other situations the macro can be altered to use another spell. The other nice thing about this macro is that it will use the gloves if they are off CD, but will not display any error messages or sounds if it is not.

/run u=UIErrorsFrame u:Hide()
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
#showtooltip Chain Heal
/use 10
/cast Chain Heal
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/run u:Clear() u:Show()

                      My next macro this week is for all shamans and with minor tweaks for mages come Cataclysm. This is an intelligent Heroism macro. What it will do is cast Heroism and announce to the raid that you have cast it. What it won't do is allow you to cast Heroism out of combat, so hopefully you never accidentally blow Hero.

#showtooltip Heroism
/stopmacro [nocombat]
/script local u,m = IsUsableSpell("Heroism") if u and not m and GetNumRaidMembers() > 0 then SendChatMessage(" >>>Heroism <<<","RAID") end
/cast Heroism

For my last macro this week I'll throw out a small handy enhancement macro. This simple macro will Stormstrike if it's off CD or simply attack the target if it's on cd. It's really handy when you have to quickly change targets.

#showtooltip
/cast Stormstrike
/startattack [harm]

Well, that's it for this week, please comment and let me know about macros you may need.

Silver, Greatest cat in History!

2010-08-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, a couple people wanted me to write about my cat Silver. That's her there attempting to destroy the nefarious paper towel wrapper! Silver's about ten years old and was always meant to be mine.

You see Silver was born to my old roommates cat and they were going to give away all the kittens. I had fallen in love with her the first time I saw her. I mean how could you not? But, since neither the mother nor kittens were mine and the roommates didn't want them in the apartment I had no say-so as to where they went. So, weeks go by and the kittens are weaned and given away, then an odd thing happened. Silver refused to eat at her new home, so they brought her back. I was overjoyed, but also a little worried when she still wouldn't eat upon her return. That was solved very simply though. As long as I fed her she'd eat! We've been together ever since. Me and my best friend.

A couple facts about Silver: She is a standard domestic shorthair with some oriental blood from her mother's side, she is a blue-cream tortoiseshell, she can detect epileptic seizures, is deathly afraid of storms, and her favorite song is Du Hast!

Leveling as Resto

2010-08-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

I can hear it now. Leveling as what? While in the past leveling as a restoration shaman was not an easy thing to do it has been made much easier in recent patches. In this post I will go over a resto spec, the method of leveling as a healer and basic healing methods. Leveling as resto will give a better grasp of healing overall and help you down the line as you venture into raiding. It'll help you go from this:

To this:

Minus the sex change of course :)

As you start out leveling resto you'll find that in the early going all shamans are pretty much the same. Do your due diligence and quickly quest grind til level 10 at which point you'll have two options. If your faction does well in the lowbie Bracket of WSG you can PvP in between quests for very quick leveling. Practice your healing in the BG's as other players will help keep you on your toes. If on the other hand your faction just gets pulverized every time you queue continue with the questing until level 15. At this point the leveling process becomes very easy thanks to the Looking For Group random dungeon system. When you queue as a healer you tend to get groups very quickly and if you have a tank leveling with you you will generally insta-queue! Healing at these low levels is a remarkably easy process as long as non-tanks (see :Huntard ) don't pull. I won't go into much detail here as your spell selection is still somewhat limited. Just keep the tank alive and everything goes smoothly.

Now at this point you'll have some talent points to play around with and I'll stress that if you are dedicated to leveling as a healer keep your points in the resto tree until at the very least you have access to earth shield and ideally Riptide. A good spec to follow is this. Once you've spent 51 plus points in resto feel free to pick up the talents over in the enhancement tree. Also note at level 40 you have an option to dual spec and having a dps spec for questing by yourself and a restoration spec for healing dungeons can be handy.

Once you have all the tools of a proper restoration shaman (around level 60 or so) you will generally follow this routine in dungeons.

Cast water shield and eathliving weapon on yourself.
Cast earth shield on the tank and keep it up at ALL times. A simple add-on like shaman friend can help immensely with this.
Before the pull lay down your totems! Most 5-mans will be best served by: Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, Flametongue, Healing Stream, and Wrath of Air . Other totems are situational and you'll learn when to use them.
Also, be sure to Riptide the tank before the pull. This combined with Healing Stream and Earth Shield give you a nice cushion.
Finally during the pull Lesser healing wave is your friend. Use it to keep the tank alive riptiding as needed. Only use Healing wave combined with Nature's Swiftness for emergencies. In fights with alot of damage to the party spamming Chain Heal can be great, but you will use it alot more when raiding which is a whole 'nother post :)

The only other tip I can think of for leveling resto at this point is after your mid 60's or so as long as your faction is decent at AV, run it constantly! easy xp for very little work. Find a group, stick with them and keep 'em up! Please feel free to leave comments about anything in the post or e-mail me with any questions. have fun out there and remember shamans > every other class! xD

The 102 degree masochists

2010-08-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Ok folks. Have any of your friends or family ever told you how bad WoW is for you? Of course they have and admittedly playing games to the point of neglecting your loved ones or work is obviously a bad thing. Today, I saw something much worse. I saw health nuts out running in over 100 degree weather! I could be wrong, but I thought heat stroke was bad as well? I'm thinking I'll stick to my relatively sane pastimes. Time to chug a Red Bull and heal some ICC.....

Welcome to Thoughts from the Shadows!

2010-08-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Hi there folks! My name is Arnolde. I'm a resto shammy from Shadowsong and I've decided to throw my two cents into the ever growing miasma of the blogosphere. Does the world really need another WoW blog? Probably not. Are they getting one anyway? Damn right! So sit back and read something that's not by a theory-crafter or data miner and enjoy.