ozvillafan

Another top report - thanks blandy.

I thought it was interesting in the second half - 6 of the 11 players on the pitch could be called "kids": Ridge, Cahill, Gardner, Davis, Osbourne and Agbonlahor.

Now we lost the game but I felt that despite our loss of formation and resulting lack of cohesion, they held their own quite well and looked to take the game to spurs, not just play for the draw. Speaks highly of our youth academy and some of the players mentioned have the talent to continue at this level, IMO

Changed my UI from Cosmos/Call of Elements to the suggested All Deuce with GotWood (a nice totem timer - but not as complete as COE).

It took an hour to set it up the way I wanted with a few tweaks here and there and haven't tried the raid stuff yet, but it's a massive improvement over the existing screens (even if I am still getting used to things).

Thanks for the tip, Rev - much appreciated.

Screenie to come.

Interesting point about the AFL.

Not an AFL man myself, but was not surprised when the Football Association down here (FFA) picked an AFL man as their CEO. These guys know their game inside out and the administration side (along with others) is done exceptionally well.

So what is my point? Just this: One sport is not too dissimilar from another in terms of management, administration, fitness and development. I would like the General to use all the knowledge and expertise possible from their involvment with the Cleveland Browns to instill success at Villa, as that would give us an edge no other Premier League club currently has in the areas mentioned.

Innovation is at the forefront of success.

Apparently:

The Earth Elemental does melee damage and the Fire Elemental does AOE spell damage.

Problem is, they are bound by the radius of your totem and can be killed by destroying the totem. I am unsure of how much health the totem has.

From the postings I have seen about their use in the Public Test Realms, they border on useless except for some specific PvE fights.

So what 2.0 UI addons do you recommend?

Bongos?

Ace?

Any others?

I have been using Cosmos and, specifically, Call Of Elements (for totem management) but both are still busted, which makes me think it's time for a UI overhaul.

Oh, and some breaking shammy news - it looks like we will get a new ability come BC: Totem recall. It kills off all active totems ("returns them to the earth") and returns 25% of their mana cost. About time.

Heh heh.. class ED.

We actually had a couple of gnome corpses in the Org AH entrance some months back now. Their names?

"Welcometothe" and "Avctionhouse"

Brill.

Meh.

A lot of stuff is unbalanced at the moment. And, sadly, those who grinded for higher level gear are disadvantaged. Heck, I even spent a few gold and trained up on the spells that I would otherwise need to grind AQ20 for.

But it's back to levelling so no different to, say, levels 1-40 where things are a little unbalanced also.

Thing is, Bliz is bringing in specialised gear for lvl 70, according to which way you have spec'd. Check out the thottbot beta for item sets - all subject to change, of course.

Horde pallies are the death of the shaman.

And yes - pallies can now dps. Where I used to own them regularly, they now own me. My favourite is how they can pull a crit crusader strike while bubbled.

lol

By the way Nays, Frost Shock does have diminishing returns. It halves the effect for the next two shots, then the target is immune for 15 seconds after that.

I still say shammies should have a "render the target unable to do anything" ability like everybody else.

This is the single biggest gripe on the shaman boards.

Every other class has some form of CC....

... we get diminishing FrostShock and the earthbind totem which is dispellable via melee damage. Hooray!

Thrown into the bargain is a Windfury nerf that no longer procs from Storm Strike, Lightning Overload which procs at a rate of roughly 1% (5 point tier 5 talent) and our dispell ability now gets resisted.

Oz, im starting to think you dont have the gear to carry this duel wielding lark off.

You are absolutely right.

I need 1 HWL weapon (pref 2) and Don Rodrigo's band - both of which will take at least 2 more weeks - and the skyfury helm. I've already substituted some gear for black dragonscale shoulders/breastplate to pump up the AP to 480.

Simple fact of the matter is that there is little end game gear for DW shammies. All the tier stuff is bent towards healing. So I will remain gimped until BC when itemised gear comes out.

If you have a mob that stays up longer than 30 seconds while you pound on it then Shamanistic Rage returns at least 1k mana. And thats with my lousy 440 AP.

Simply awesome for PVE grinding/raiding...

... and useless in PvP.

Respec then?!

I just respecced TO this!

I used to be elemental like you are now. It's fun, but I wanted something different. BC is meant to support Enhancement shammies with some itemised gear so it may actually be viable long term. And it's easy for grinding.

It's just a little unbalanced at 60....

... and a good excuse to whine. :winkold:

BTW - nice killing blow! 1337!!

Meh.

The lot of a dual wield shammy:

No CC.

No way of breaking out of CC.

No way of getting into melee (ala charge or stealth) outside running up to the target.

A buff system that can be "dispelled" by melee or spell damage.

No supporting armour (need to steal hunter stuff).

Healing and mail, eh?

Cant heal while CC'd. Nor while taking damage unless you severely cripple your talent tree.

Mail does little for damage limitation. Granted - it's better than cloth. But I still get 2 shotted and dont have your spell range. I can use a shield, but that gimps my DPS (so 3 shotted instead of 2).

Oh, and a nerf to windfury thrown in.

The end result? We get owned by every class.

Yes - shamans QQ lots. :winkold:

Now I can kill Locks, I've really started hating Hunters. I have dodge to protect me from melee classes, I have resists to help me against casters. What damage mitigation do I have from a Hunter?

Welcome to the world of a dual wield shaman......

... except you insert any class where you specified "Hunter".

Yes - shammies are PVP cannon fodder.

Which makes grinding for a HWL weapon a real pain....

... but I NEED that axe!

Quite right Oz, dual wield sounds a lot of fun, but in reality it's useless. All caster one hands have been changed to one hand only, so I'd have to start raiding to get melee one hands, with all the moaning from melee types that that would entail!

Windfury and Rockbiter have been nerfed again, so I've just tinkered with my usual PvP build, which is something like 22/8/21.

Ah, a true hybrid build which will keep you in good stead for some time.

In truth, dual wield/enhancement is only useless in PVP. For grinding, instancing and even raiding it's viable.

And yes, Windfury/Rockbiter are nerfed unless you get the talents in the enhancement tree. Then they are buffed a little over the previous version and will scale damage better with the higher BC DPS weapons.

Patch day. Woohoo. Most mods dont work and the game is very unstable: Dc's, server resets, stuck in bg - all the fun of a new patch.

I did get some BG done though after respeccing to dual wield. My impression? Shamans are useless.

2 shotted by hunters (aimed shot, trap in combat, arcane shot).

2 shotted by mages (sheep, fireball)

2 shotted by warlocks (fear, then some funky "f-you you're dead" spell)

Rogues pwn me. Had one at 20% health and I was at 50% - then dead. o.O

Pallies are still easy :winkold:

Windfury has been nerfed again. Dual wielding is fun but without a shield and reduced cast time you are just PVP cannon fodder. I'd recommend an elemental or resto spec.

Should join the shaman forums and QQ more. :winkold:

The Priest was blinded!

Shoulda known - but couldn't tell.

Hmm, is the video quality pisspoor for everyone? Looked fine when I checked it earlier.

Yeah, it's a little chunky though I can make out most of your awesome crits. That's google for you.

My new pvp vid

What? No shaman?! :winkold:

Cant believe the hunter feigned death but didn't drop a trap.

Or that the priest stood still waiting for you to gank a second time.

But nice vid!

I gave up reading the Shammy forums month ago. Nothing but "rate my build" posts, "ZOMG they nerfed Windfury" moaning and arguments with loladins.

Not any more, Riss!

It's "Look at my NEW spec", "Shamans are underpowered for BC", "Nobody will want shamans for BC raids!" and general complaints about the new spells and talents.

:roll:

BTW, what are you respeccing to? :winkold:

Well the only reason to get rank is for the rewards! I mean, I don't see many people saluting as I walk past!

It's an ego thing come 2.01. Those who had High Warlord can have that title prepending their name so that the rest of us can bathe in their aura of PvP excellence....

... or lack of real life as they ground out the rep. One or the other.

But since Blizzard canned rank, they had to keep those grinders happy somehow.

As far as i know you still get rank for this week, so if you are going for Blood Guard you should still get it, so keep working.

Honour gets reset as of day one of the next patch.

My understanding is that rank WILL be updated one last time (so you will get the rank)....

... but you CANNOT claim any new pvp rewards as the system will have changed. The only thing you get with rank post 2.01 is the ability to choose what rank (if any) you display before your character name.

900g on a mount? Whys that then?

Technically not true. 900g for riding skill 150, not the mount. Even less with faction reputation.

The epic mount itself costs only a few gold.

Sad thing is I will need to do it now anyway....

... since you cannot get a flying mount in BC without first having riding skill 150 and there are places you simply cannot get to if you do not have a flying mount. :evil:

Normal mount? Whats that then?

It's the mount you have when you decide that 900g can be better spent elsewhere :winkold: