One Spec Characters

When I rolled my shaman, I knew she was going to be Enhancement and she was going to stay that way. One spec for one character. Why? Well lets start at the beginning…

I first started playing WoW in 2007, between Patch 2.1: The Black Temple and Patch 2.2: Voice Chat. Not heeding my IRL friends advice, I became fixated on making a gnome Fire mage. I followed my friends and rolled on an RP server. They had been Alliance and were just moving on to try out Horde when I made my first character. Sadly this meant my poor little mage leveled alone.

That was until a level 20 group quest lead to a questing extravaganza across Eastern Kingdoms. One of my group members ended up adding me to their friends list, and I hazily remember meeting them in Duskwood later while questing. For some reason we started RPing. They belonged to an RP guild and since I was guildless, I became a member of The Clerics. Those were the days, IC chat in Guild, OCC chat in officer, and just plain fun.

After many months of leveling, gearing and general awesomeness, I joined my IRL friends on Horde, and haven’t RP’d that much since.

However I developed a fixation with deciding the spec of a character when I made them. I believe it may have to do with the RPing I did on my mage. Most of my characters that I’ve leveled and not deleted have had a goal in mind or little background story behind them that I never really fleshed out. Some examples:

Before going to Horde I wanted to try out a shaman. So I rolled a draenei called Ememdarwar. A bit of a mouthful. But I didn’t know much about the draenei, and didn’t have any plans for her. I ended up getting her to 35 and being absolutely bored of her. She was deleted to make way for a Horde shaman.

I talked with my friends before making the new shaman. What specs were there? What did each one do? I was told that Enhancement shamans could tank, so off I went. I managed to get her to the mid 40s before a friend power leveled me to 55, ready for Molten Core run-throughs. I’ve managed to play this shaman for 2 years before becoming bored. Why? I had a clear goal. She was going to be Enhancement and tank. When I found out she couldn’t really tank, I still had the goal of being Enhancement.

Another character, my paladin. Again, I didn’t know that much about paladins. I knew they could heal or dps or tank. I managed to get her to 19 before giving up. I didn’t know what I wanted her to do.

Skip forward a year or so, and I started another paladin, with the goal of making her a tank. When looking through the available hairstyles, I found one called Shy. I decided that my paladin would be a shy blood elf that would still stand up and fight for the Light, because that was what she believed in. Now she’s level 80, decently geared and has tanked 5 ICC bosses.

Is it remaking the characters that gives me the drive to continue with them? At the start, maybe. But not these days. By making spec goals and little background stories with my characters I’ve been able to level them and have heaps of fun along the way.

My priest I leveled as Shadow until 21, where she became a bank alt. When the first info about dual spec came out, I decided that I really liked the idea of her being a Holy priest. Mending people and waving your hands about with holy magic going everywhere! I quickly leveled her to 40 and leveled her as Holy after that.

I had tried a death knight as many people had, but they were just random characters with no direction. A couple of months ago I was talking to some friends on a different server who played alliance. I made a DK on their server, with the hazy idea that she would be the result of my very first characters adventures into Icecrown. I managed to level her as well.

With all my characters, I leveled them with one spec in mind. It seemed to fit better RP-wise that way. Even though my priest had two specs, I never played Shadow. Even though I can heal on my shaman when necessary, it still feels more natural to pick up some axes and play as Enhancement.

Before dual spec was introduced in Patch 3.1,  many characters only had one spec. You made a character with strict intentions about their spec for gameplay and RP reasons, as it was very costly and inconvenient to switch specs. Yes, some people would often switch back and forth (I’m looking at you, druids), but for others it was too much bother. These days I can make a character with a certain spec in mind and not be inconvenienced later when my guild needs a tank, for example. The perceived strictness is gone, however I like to stick to one spec for one character.

Now how am I going to cope with my tank paladin becoming offspec heals in Cataclysm?

Patch 2.1: The Black Temple

Why dailys are popular

Mmmm, Crystalsong Carrots…

Wait what?

One thing I have seen people do often is dailys. Fishing dailys, cooking dailys, dailys to get mounts, there are so many reasons to do them these days other than just getting that sweet sweet gold.

In fact, I’m doing a daily right now 😉

But what is the deal with dailys? Why do we come back to them? Day after day after day. Well these are the reasons I do them.

1. I get bored

Yeah yeah, how can someone get bored with a game… right? I was told today by my reminiscing boyfriend that back in the day of vanilla wow, people didn’t stand around the major cities doing nothing. There was always something to do! But dailys can fill that gap, when you’ve just finished something big, but have a little bit of time left to play. Nice, quick and simple.

2. I’m trying to achieve something

I think this is more common since WotLK hit, seeing as now there are, y’know, achievements. Whether it’s trying to save up some argent tokens for a hot looking mount, trying to save up some argent tokens for a “You have x/y mounts! Grats!” achievement, or trying to save up cooking tokens for your cooking hat (Or your third cooking hat seeing as it’s less bothersome to do the daily than just convert all my precious tokens), there is something to strive for and achieve. It just takes a small bit each day and a bit of perseverance.

3. It’s familiar

Being able to come to a certain time of the day, sit down and do a certain thing just sits right. And I know it’s not just me. Humans don’t like change. So they must like structure. I know I get a bit schedule crazy at times but it’s just the human in me! … I think. But being able to log on around 7-8ish, put out a shout in Guild to see if anyone else wants to do the heroic daily and bam! Structured and quite possibly having fun with friends.

I say quite possibly, because people like to advert blame away from them when something goes wrong… eh heh.

But dailys can be boring. Shock horror, something that’s supposed to stop boredom can sometimes create it!

I think that has more to do with how boring and repetitive it is to do the exact same thing every day. I know, now I’m being a hypocrite, yay for me. But there is taking structure too far.

Take for instance the Sunwell dailys. The same quests every single day. I got bored of them very quickly.

But two dailys that hardly ever bore me are the cooking and fishing dailys. Because they vary from day to day. Will I be braving Wintergrasp for Terrorfish? Or will I be flying all the way to Borean Tundra to get a guy’s arm back for him again?

It’s like a roller coaster ride! *

So, why do you do dailys? Why don’t you do dailys? I’m sure we all want to know!

*Not really a roller coaster ride. Sorry 😦

Sketching

Ok so it’s not quite sketching. It’s traced. I tried to sketch it but I /failed so I moved to tracing, which can be just as hard in some circumstances!

Jaroslava the gnome mage.

How to: Earth Shield!

This is my sample post for an application to WoW.com to be a shaman columnist. Enjoy!!

When healing as a shaman, there is always one thing to consider at the start of the raid: Who gets Earth Shield? Is it the main tank? The off tank? The super-awesomely geared tank? At first this is a simple question but there are some things you should consider before you cast!

First let’s look at the spell: [Earth Shield]

But what does this mean? It means that every few seconds if the shielded tank is damaged it will heal them for a small amount. This will continue to happen until either the charges run out, or 10 minutes have passed.
At a cost of 15% of base mana,  this little beauty costs the same as [Lesser Healing Wave], but can heal for much more especially if glyphed and talented. Add [Improved Earth Shield] and [Glyph of Earth Shield] and you’ve upped its heal by 30%.

Now let’s look at our eligible tanks!

What role the tank is playing is quite likely the most important thing to consider. There are several scenarios to consider:

Is the tank kiting a mob? Most likely if they are kiting, then they do not want to be hit (I’m looking at you, Rotface)! This defeats the purpose of Earth Shield! However, there are fights where you do want to put it on the kiting tank, like Gluth.

Is the tank there to soak up splash damage? What type of splash damage? Putting your shield on an off tank on Patchwerk might be a good idea, as it helps the healers cope after they get those big, regular hits.

Will the tank be running away from you? This is very unlikely, but can happen in extreme circumstances like the Gunship Battle. Putting Earth Shield on the tank that will always be near you can make it easier to refresh.

Generally if you consider each fight and the roles the tanks take, there are certain standouts which make it very clear which tank should have your shield. If not, there are two more things to help you decide!

Class can matter! Paladin tanks can receive more healing from Earth Shield from [Touched by the Light]! So when you slap your Earth Shield on a paladin and it crits, Touched by the Light will make your earth shield heal the tank for 30% more!
Another thing to consider is your shielded tank’s gear. There are two reasons for this. If one tank is at a lower gear level, casting your shield on him might give the passive healing boost that helps out your fellow healers. The other reason is that if the tank has less avoidance, there are more chances for them to be hit, so more chances to trigger Earth Shield.

At the end of the day it is up to you, my fellow shaman, to decide which tank is blessed with your shield of earthly awesomeness. Always remember to consider the tanks you have, their roles, and how available you will be to refresh that shield.

Earth Shield Tip!: You can supercharge your Earth Shield by dropping Flametongue totem, proccing  relics and using trinkets, as how much healing your shield does is based on the spellpower at the time it is cast, not when it procs!

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Will one day include posts. I promise.