Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 50 - 60

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a awesome weekend! A quick little IRL update.. I went out last night to see Turbo with the girlfriend which by the way was totally not my idea... :3 I'm going on 23 and I still want to watch dreamworks films? I refuse to grow up just yet! Anyway, I have to say it was one of my favorite animated films, Was so awesome. It's that time again! Lets see where our little Shaman went in this bracket and get to know a little bit more about the dungeons and why I enjoyed them.

So we finally reach the classic vanilla end game bracket and as you would expect, we was faced with some pretty huge instances to grind through. Some of the most loved and noticeable instances are within this bracket and for me on of the most diverse. The zones are huge, with so many different routes to take, shortcuts to be found etc, I really did enjoy this bracket in terms of healing. The huge pulls, interesting fights and not to mention the locations, It makes this post really exciting for me to write. 

Black rock depths/Spire - This to me is one of the greatest ideas and such a large scale of an area to hold some of the most game changing experiences in my World Of Warcraft playtime to date. Blackrock holds home to some of the most memorable encounters and incredible game development. For new players and people who were not too fond of dungeons per say, This location has been dramatically changed in terms of difficulty and ease of access. With the introduction to Looking For Dungeon, with a click of a button and depending your wait time you will be transported to this location and have quests to guide you through as well as Dungeon maps and can easily get through this in a decent amount of time and not to mention, heirlooms making everything that tad easier.

However, for seasonal players many will either hate this place or love it just like myself. This was the real turning point for me with my gaming Experience. First of all, Black Rock Depths (BRD) Looking for players to run through this place in trade chat was hard enough! But to finally get a team to delve into the depths of this dwarven mountain, each player knew they had 3 to 5 hours worth of challenges to tackle and overcome. With no real clear route to take, with tasks to complete to open gateways, huge dwarven doors and such, this really turned new Players to Veterans. With most people entering with Green/blue gear, backpacks full of potions and back up gear they did not need to repair, the night was set to defeat the mountain. There was also Black rock spire to attack once you reached level 60. This twisting maze of orcs, Dragonkin and trolls made this place even more epic. You heard rumors of this place, but nothing beats that feeling as a new player stepping in to this incredible Dungeon knowing this was the first stepping stone to the legendary Molten Core (MC)

Sunken Temple - The Temple of Atal' Hakkar, also known as Sunken Temple (ST) was a real challenge and used to take a decent amount of time. As mentioned above, with the new changes this instance has been made a tad easier than it used to be and a lot less time consuming. A skinning heaven this place was which made me see my first 500g back in the day, this was considered a lot! with so many twists and turns this maze full of Dragonkin and trolls was one of my favorite experiences. What this place also held was my first Epic item, Dragons call. which at the time was a huge thing, not many people were lucky enough to see one till raiding back then and when we did finally get that rare, mystical Item, We felt good! Even though I was a hunter and every melee weapon available we went for!

Blizzard seem to have put so much effort into the old content, not all of it was accessible to everyone like it is now days, so again looking in trade for a ST run was never easy, it was more of a guild thing, which back pre TBC days, being in a guild was more a privilege than a perk boost like it is becoming today, which I think is a shame. *Sad face* but nether the less, this place held so many good moments. I will never forget the Snakehead puzzle to summon the twin dragons as well as the summonable secret boss.

Now moving on to the shaman stuff! here I will mention each new spell/talent I gained

Tremor Totem - This beauty is great for moments such as boss/mob fears. If yourself or a player gets Feared, drop this and it removes the effect. Simple and yet, so very effective.

Mana Tide Totem - Another water totem to our disposal! This awesome thing gives your raid/party members 200% of your spirit for 16 seconds! It does have a 3 minute cooldown but this is great for low mana situations and no doubt will be used when needed within raiding, One thing about shamans is that you can always rely on there utility. This is just another gem to the bag.

Earth Elemental Totem - Use this and a huge earth like Golem is called forth to punch the things for a minute. This can be used with Fire elemental and I'm pretty sure gives you a buff once you pick a specific level 90 talent. We will have to wait and see.

Greater Healing Wave - Our last real main healing spell we have unlocked, this spell does have a longer cast time than others and is rather mana intensive but it does pack a huge healing punch so I tend to use this only when needed, and mostly used with the next Talent I shall mention.

Ancestral Swiftness (Talent) - Your next nature spell with a base cast time of less than 10 seconds becomes instant cast, Great when used with Greater Healing Wave, a real oh crap button when a player takes serious damage. It also gives you a passive 5% spell haste and 10% melee haste. Of course the Melee haste is ignored here but the spell haste is great, It helps with the lower end Haste break points so I hear and helps for lower gear levels.

Healing Rain - I LOVE THIS SPELL! It's received some love recently This is a blanket heal on a specific area and anyone who stands within the rain will be healed every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.  Great for stacked aoe damage and I also found great with healing tide totems and chain heals. Some great Aoe healing right there. ( This can also be instant cast when used after Ancestral Swiftness)

On to the glyphs! 

Glyph of Healing stream - This applies a 10% reduction to fire, frost and nature damage for 6 seconds to the player healed by the totem, It works great in dungeons and will be great within the raiding when moving out of fire and such becomes more frequent.

Glyph of deluge - This gives our chain heal and new cosmetic effect, Instead of a bright light (much like the mass resurrection effect around the caster) it turns it in to a torrent of water around our hands, Looks awesome!

So there you have it, some more detailed information on the dungeons and why I enjoyed them, as well as more information of the new spells I have acquired! It all helps towards the aim of becoming a decent heroic raider and hopefully a frequent blogger on them too. But don't worry my brew drinking monk friends, I have some information I will share soon with you all! 

I would just like to thank Nyxrinne for my new awesome blog layout, I was so pleased with the outcome I couldn't believe how great it was and exactly to my liking. To find out more information on her, she also has a great blog so please feel free to check it out at:

http://touch-of-death.blogspot.co.uk/

Profession Progression!

Hello everyone! A little update on the professions on my Shaman, I thought I would post up some information on my professions I have currently got and also my plans for the future. I do intend on diving into heroic raiding so of course, one of the important thing is making sure I have the best professions I can have that will benefit my healing output. So lets crack on! 

Primary 

Currently Im working with mining and Jewelcrafting. On my Monk I raided with enchanting and still use skinning (SADFACE) But with my shaman I wanted to try something I have not done before since WOTLK. So I decided to level Jewelcrafting, the gem bonus seems great, especially early on when I need as much spirit a possible before I starting getting some decent gear.

Mining is my safety as it stands, It's saved me so much money because with this little beauty I can roam around while watching things on netflix and dropping down to pick up some mines, before I know it, I have a backpack ready to be used for Jewelcrafting.

Also, I have kept this because once I reach level 90, I will farm the mats needed to level blacksmithing and drop mining completely. Blacksmithing adds an extra gem slot to bracers and gloves which will help me socket those great gems from Jewelcrafting.

I'm also midway on my Secondary professions, Fishing, First aid and cooking. 

Cooking - I was going to level it once I was in pandaria as its so much easier but I really wanted the Deviate fish recipe to make some money and look awesome from time to time so I decided to take it as soon as I could.

Fishing - is the relaxing past time, I took this to help with cooking, achievements and such, it of course needs work like all of my other secondaries but I thought I would mention them anyway.

First aid - everyone loves first aid, always nice to have, not that is hugely important as I'm a healer but still, nice to have.

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 20 - 30

Happy weekend everybody! Hope you're all enjoying the few days off work we get! I work within the retail sector so getting the weekend off is actually a rare thing, but as I have two and a half weeks off work, I hope to get this Shaman level 90 before I go back! So now time for an update! 

So picking up where I left off from the last post, Once I got to level 20 and ran a few Shadowfang keeps I was able to dabble in Scarlet halls and Blackfathom deeps. Scarlet a really great instance and was remade really well. I do miss the old Scarlet instances, but the new ones make a nice addition to the low level dungeons.

A little background on these instances:

Shadowfang Keep - This haunted keep sits right above the borderline to Gilneas overlooking a small village called Pyrewood inhabited by wolves and other evil animals. It's home to a demented and cursed Vincent Godfrey, A traitor to his homeland and forsaken. This instance is the residence of a whole range of undead, and you wont find much trace of the old inhabitant anywhere in the dark and twisted halls.

Blackfathom Deeps - A incredible dungeon, one of the few underwater instances that drags you through many daunting caverns and leaking pathways that open on to ancient architecture which is probably nightelf origin, that is now over run with the twilight cult who are also joined by a mix of creatures and Naga to defend their holy demi god, Aku'Mai, a huge dragon like Hydra. This instance is a difficult one to find, but once the Temple is found to the far west of ashenvale along the coats line, it can be found after a short underground swim, So if you wish to find the entrance, don't forget your flippers and a waterproof map.

Scarlet Halls - This dungeon is located with its other counterparts in Tirisfal glades, slightly north of Undercity. This instance was re worked and now is home to what seem to be crazed Zealots and crusaders, defending their keeps from what was only Undead nightmares to pretty much anything living. The Scarlet crusade have a history of doing so, with anything that is attempting to disrupt their holy ground is an enemy. This particular instance is home to a Houndmaster, Armsmaster and a Wizard by the name of Koegler, Don't stand in the fire!

In this section I will go over my new spells/talents of choice and glyphs

I finally have a selection of new heals to use! It was a great upbeat change to the first few levels and it seemed very basic in which heals to use and with the addition to some of the glyphs I have taken its making this a lot more interesting! heres a list of the useful spells i have gained in my adventures through the dungeons.

Spells

Earth shield - Our go to ability I use on the tanks. This beauty places a shield on our target of choice to increase our healing output on that target by 20% and also causing attacks to the target to heal them for a certain amount. This spell has 9 charges so maintaining it is one of our top priorities.

Earth living weapon - finally our main healing weapon imbue, this is so much better than the flametongue for healers as it increases our healing power and has a 20% chance to trigger a heal over time spell for 15 seconds, the cool this about this spell though is that if you heal a target thats below 35% health, the weapon effect automatically triggers, a real life saver.

Healing stream totem - Our first real healing totem, this has a 30 second cooldown but once placed it will heal the most injured player within 40 yards every 2 seconds for 15 seconds. Great I found for when the group is taking damage. I will use this on cooldown.

Talents

Level 15 talent:

I went with Astral Shift, this ability i found is great for when we're taking unexpected damage and will be even more stronger when we know when to use our damage reduction abilities. This spell reduces damage by 40% for 6 seconds and has a 1.5 minute cooldown, a great spell and the go to choice for me.

Level 30 Talent: 

In this section which seems to give use more utility with totems I went with Earthgrab totem. This Talent replaces our earthbind totem which makes our totem now act as a root instead of a snare. I thought this would be great for kiting mobs away from myself and getting some real distance on some unexpected pulls.

Glyphs

Upon reaching level 25 glyphs are unlocked, these effect how some of your spells work and of course, its up to you how you go about using the ones that most suit you, so here are the two I have chosen. Two more slots unlock at 50, the remaining two at 75. These are split up in to Major and Minor, of course, Majors being the ones that affect spells that are beneficial to raiding.

Glyph of Riptide - This removes the cooldown from out instant cast hot but reduces its initial heal direct heal by 75%. The reason I went for this is because the way I plan on using chain heal effectively in 10 man raiding. Having as many riptides out on the raid as a blanket heal as possible will cause the chain heals to be 25% more potent. With the changes to Chain heal which I have seen, this could be a great way to keep solid raid heals out and an easier way to maintain riptide, Something I will have to practise.

Glyph of Flaming Serpents - this remodels our Searing totem to look like a troll totem used by Vol'jin and gives it a cool fire snake type effect as seen below.

So there you have it! A little insight in to my travels and some new heals to learn and master. Stayed tuned for the next big jump to 40! and as always, stand out of the fire but jump in the rain! - Vay.