Where does the druid's gear go?

When I was a kid I watched the television series The Incredible Hulk starring Lou Ferrigno as the green giant and someone else as Dr. Bruce Banner (although iirc the split-personality scientist was oddly enough called David and not Bruce in the series).

Being a kid, it was no trouble accepting that a thin, average-sized man could turn into a green-skinned giant who couldn’t talk but hit like a ton of bricks (hey! There was this scientific experiment that went horribly wrong, these things happen you know…) and the real mystifying question was: How could this man’s normal outfit of jeans, shirt, whatever he was wearing when the rage hit him, how could this set of ordinary clothing turn into a frayed and tattered pair of pink-purple jeans?

No matter what he was wearing in man-mode, he inevitably ended up wearing those purple cut-offs in hulk-mode.

Well, being a curious girl kid, there was some other questions that went unanswered, like, was he really green all over, and did the size increase really apply to everything, and if so, how come the pant’s seams only bursted up to about knee height. Stretch jeans?

When I got older, I started reading Terry Pratchett’s excellent Discworld series (a must-read! Go get a book immediately if you haven’t done so!) and there was this werewolf named Angua who was employed in the City’s Night Watch. A strong beautiful woman most of the time, a lethal beautiful wolf the rest.

Angua, unlike the Hulk, did not retain any of her clothes or gear when she shapeshifts, which is why she wore her watchman’s badge on a chain around her neck and aimed to shapeshift out of sight , preferably someplace where she had previously stashed some articles of clothing rich in the covering department. (I am not sure which would attract most attention on crowded city streets, a naked woman or a green decently clad giant.)

Hmm, sounds a little like my druid Joaquime is like a cross between Angua and the Hulk – a strong beautiful woman who turns into a purple cat ;P

Anyways, where does Joaq’s gear go when she shapeshifts? She runs along, dressed in her leather tank outfit, green-shimmering Earthwarden bouncing on her back, when suddenly she transforms into a furry but naked cat… Sure, she’s furry, lethal, feral, lithe and beautiful but she is still naked… Where did her gear go? The same place Dr. Banner’s mad scientist-garb went?

Maybe they went to that place where all her bags are, her 4 jammed-to-the-bursting-point bags of extra gear (bear, cat, healing, had to stash the old moonkin gear in the bank or the bags would indeed burst) and good to have around things, and her one herb satchel, also filled to the limit with as much herbs as she can cram into it.

And while we are on the subject of bags, how can those bags that you carry around actually contain your mount? Or even several mounts? Hunters’ pets need feeding, why don’t mounts need that?

Hmm I guess there really are some infinite mysteries in this world and some things we will never know the how-and-why of...:-)

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Learning shaman

Like everyone else who usually plays Alliance I started a draenei shaman when TBC came out. She got to lvl 10 and there she hibernated for a long time.

I pulled hero ut of hibernation some weeks ago and now she has reached the mature level of 36. Shaman is a pretty interesting but rather confusing class to play so far, not like any of the other classes I have played (and as you know, I have played a few).

As I leveled her, I encountered many hmm- and wtf-situations, most of the regarding totems. Totems, totems, totems…

Having never really even played with a shaman except very recently at lvl 70 these took a while to get used to, and their special attributes took even longer.

Searing totem – fires a firebolt at the enemy. Sounds good, doesn’t it? I learned the hard way that ”the enemy” is not always the same mob you have targeted for a lightning bolt that already happen to be sizzling through the air… The last thing you want to do when trying to single-pull some orange mob is another orange mob running to you and beating your fragile but hostile totem to pulp and then turning its unwelcome attentions to you.

Even if you drop the searing totem after you have pulled it might misfire (pun intended ;P). You are sitting there peacefully by the body of a dead mob drinking your way back from low to full mana when some other mob passes in range of your totem who merrily starts firing away. Yippie!

Another interesting thing about totems is that if you prepare for a fight by placing yourself somewhere along the path of the mob you want to pull and start setting up totems – stoneskin perhaps, and a mana spring maybe - occasionally the totem itself will aggro the mob which will charge in and destroy it, and then look for the totem’s owner.

I guess the totem happened to be placed inside the mobs aggro radius, but I wonder if totems have the same aggro range as the shaman, or if maybe even different totems have different aggro ranges. Stoneskin totem at least seemed to be very affronting to mobs.

And let’s not forget that you don’t get the skill to recall the totems until level 30. Before that level, you had to leave your totems behind to die on their own. This resulted in many wtf’s as you are in a place clearly devoid of any hostile agents but still you see the red ”Entering Combat” text float up without being targeted by someone/something. Wtf? But of course, its that sweet little totem of yours far behind you that has aggroed some mob. Coincidentally, its that same mob which now is charging towards you, intent on striking you down.

Shaman must be somewhat of a master of fight planning, since totems have a limited range for their abilities. Cheap mana-saver that you are, of course you don’t want to waste mana by popping totems all over the place, or waste time when you are fighting actually popping them, so you try to stay in the general area of your totems, pulling mobs to you rather than running after them in some haphazard way. ”Ah, this looks like a great spot for taking down a few of those wandering treants. In firing range to at least 3-4 of them, which should be enough to get maximum use of my totems.”

I am a slow learner so I am still figuring out which totems to use and when, and how useful they really are. I suspect that I will be a little less uncertain about these things some months after I ding 70 ;P

Last of my hmm-thoughts about the shaman class is: what the hell is she supposed to wear? (Yes I know I ask this a lot, maybe its in the female psyche or something…I have nothing to wear! Better go out shopping then!...)

She needs intellect for her mana since she uses totems and cast spells, she needs agility and strenght since she whacks the mobs over the head when they get too close, she needs stamina to be able to withstand the mobs whacking on her, she needs bascially everything!

Maybe it will get easier as she levels up and get more specialised, but for now she looks like a hopscotch of assorted hand-me-downs…

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Holy Schmoly - pure damage

News Flash: Jools is insanely happy! After having killed about 200 ogre geomancers and about three times that amount of skirmishers in Blade's Edge over a period of two months or so, it finally dropped! The recipe for [Enchant Bracer: Spellpower]!

Only thing not so fun was the mats required for the enchant...6 large prismatic shards, 6 primal fires and 6 primal waters...with those mats you would have expected the enchant to give 150 spellpower instead of 15...ah well, I got the recipe and gotta start looking for somethinhg else to farm for when I have a moment to spare :-)

Back to the usual stuff:

As you probably know already, I respecced Jools to holy recently and immediately ran into trouble gear-wise. What is she supposed to wear? How can she improve her healing bonus to the max?

Every holy priest dress list mentions the Primal Moonclothe set as the absolutely best for a holy priest. Well, I am not gonna drop my 375 enchanting or my 375 jewelcrafting to pick up tailoring, so what else is there?

Not much actually. Well, now I tell a lie again, there is pretty much, but not much that is achievable for me, casual player with too many girls to take care of (damned be that alt-itis of mine!). Drops from Kara, heroics, ZA, pvp vendors or BoE stuff from the Trade Channel or the AH is what I have to dress Jools in.

Btw, and this I didn't realise until recently, have you noticed how aptly named Jools is for a 375 JC? Hihi...

There is a chest that drops from Nalorakk in ZA, and there is a chest that drops from Julianne in Kara. Both are pretty nice and both are pretty hard to get.

There is the hallowed set ofc, which requires a lot of instance going and good luck in drops (= really not an option for me then, which all of you avid readers probably know by know....

...optional reading regarding my luck in drops:
The day I specced Jools holy I went for a Kara run. Huntsman, Moroes, Maiden, Opera, Curator, Chess and Aran went down that night. These bosses dropped in total
- 0 (zero) healing gear that Jools could wear.
- many (a lot!) of other stuff
(Well I am not complaining that bad, I got 4 new shinies that night for my spell damage gear, including the one and only Staff of Infinite Mysteries that Paynne have been longing for so long =( well it aint that bad for a priest either)

It seems that the times I roll goood rolls, like more than 80 or so, are the times when noone else is interested in rolling so I will get the bling-bling whatever I roll, and it feels Fate is just teasing me with this, cause next time when I roll against someone its that customary 10 or lower....oh cruel fate!

...optional reading off)

So I decided to do like everyone else these days, I will go get some honor and buy some sweet shiny epix for my priests healing gear - yeye I know I said I didn't want to do a lot of bg's but hey! A girl can change her mind can't she?

So I go AV for the honor (which goes fast and is fun) and I go AB for the marks (which is slow and pretty painful and have to be spread out through the day to avoid death by acute irritation at your fellow alliance (a guildie of mine called alliance in AB for headless chickens, and I see his point. Very clearly. Too clearly, in fact. Ah well, no pain, no gain...I try to look at it as en exercise in patience and keeping your calm no matter what the world throws at you...))

Anyways, as I went to Alterac Valley I noticed that there usually is enough healing going around on the boss fights, Galv and Drek, so I switched and started nuking instead. This made me curious - is it possible for a holy priest to actually put out some serious spell damage? I am not talking about topping the raid charts, but maybe just a chance to survive out there in the hostile world? And how is the survivability of the holy priest when she goes offensive?

Let's try to examine this a little.

Jools has about 860 + spell damage unbuffed and a crit chance of 15 % for her Holy spells and about 10 % crit chance for other spells.

How many offensive spells does a Holy NE priest have? Two Holy spells with a cast time, three shadow spells, one dot, one cast spell and one instacast, and one arcane dot.

I am not counting spells like Drain Mana or Holy Nova because they are very situational to use, and I don't think I have ever used Shadow Word: Death, not even back in the old shady days.

Smite
Now here is a spell with a cool name, smite, smite, smite...mmm just taste the name, not just any other everyday blast-things-away spell but very Old Testament-like, smelling strongly of the crusadery killing of unbelieving infidels, smite-the-mobs-with-the furious wrath-of my-pure-and righteous-faith-kinda spell.

Smite has a 2 sec cast time and does about 1300 Holy damage in her current gear. It crits for about 2000 but not as often as you'd wish (guess 15% is about right).

Holy Fire
Dunno what's so holy about this one but it looks cool, probably one of the coolest spell animations in the game, with that pillar of white fire blasting the target away...it has a 3 sec cast and hits for about 1100 and with another 450 damage over 10 sec. Isn't that the most pathetic dot-part ever?

Good thing though about the two holy spells is that they have no cd, so u can keep casting them on and on and on...

Mind Blast
As a Holy priest, MB has a 1,5 sec cast time, an 8 sec cd and does about 1100 Shadow damage.

Shadow Word: Pain
A staple for any priest, regardless of spec. Insta-cast, 2200 Shadow damage ticking over 18 seconds.

Starshards
A Night Elf racial priest skill, an arcane dot that with a 30 sec cd that costs no mana and ticks for abot 1650 over 15 seconds.


So off she went to Shadowmoon to finish those Scryer quests and get a little closer to the coveted shoulder enchant...

And to my surprise and delight it went real well! The mobs went down like snowmen in June and even the occasional add or two was really no problem to handle. Tried it on the warriors, shamans and elekk handlers of Baari and the slayers and chosen of the orc stronghold with the same result.

Usual spell rotation was Shield, Holy Fire, SW:Pain, Starshards and as the mob came running a Smite or two and then wand to death. Reapply Shield if needed.

Psychic Scream and Elune's Grace helped in the could-be tricky situations of additional mobs turning up, and she took a beating or two, but all in all she did real well and only died a couple of times (and one of those times was when she swam into a group of hordes while doing a quest).

It was a happy holy priest who almost reached revered with the Scryers that day :-)

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