Thursday, September 27, 2012

Monk Stat Priority

Been reading up some on Elitist Jerks about the MistWeaver, which will be my main spec. (careful the information there can be a bit older)

Conclusion:

Spirit > Haste 1350 > Int > Crit/Mastery

- Stack spirit up the wazoo especially in the beginning. It is the only stat that affects regen.
(and I am the master in being OOMM Out of Mana Monk(ey))

- Magical number for haste is 1350, anything above does not really add anything

- Int when you can get it

- Crit/Mastery, Do you want big heals or free orbs everywhere?

I have heard other people say they find the monk mastery soso, but I sort of like it. I have always liked the trinkets that would heal other people randomly and the orbs do so as well. So I might just become a mastery addict.


Hello Pandas!


My monk is now level 40 and picked up her fast riding skill this morning. So far it's going ok, but the fact that I have to work is getting in the way of going faster...but hey I guess the work sort of pays for the game, so not much choice than to keep going.

Luckily I have a few days off next week so starting this weekend I can put some serious hours in.

I've been running some quests, and some dungeons. I have to say that even the dungeons are a lot of fun again, because half of them I had not seen yet in their current state. And the scarlet dungeons have been redone entirely it seems.

I had to laugh at the poor beast master being so completely convinced that he would not die and his own doggies coming to eat him after. Silly dude.

Currently in Western Plaguelands. Zen'kiki is keeping me company..and boy if you ever had a noob of a druid. Love how he pulls out the mutated sealion and flops around on the floor.

Anyhow..levelling is going fast, and I should hopefully reach Outlands tonight. Maybe if you're running around there too we can run a dungeon?

Monday, September 24, 2012

Goodbye Deathwing


With the last day to go before Mists I was lying in my bed last night and looking back at what Cata has cost us. Or well, more specifically, the players my team has lost during Cata.

Not all of them were due to Cata, but we have certainly had a lot of trouble filling our raid roster this expansion, and part of that was definitely due to the ridiculous difficulty switch from Icecrown to Blackwing Descent and  Bastion of Twilight.

And I have to say...respect for those groups who managed to get Sinestra when she was current. We finally got around to taking her down this weekend. We had done Dragonsoul this weekend, finished the last achievements for people to get their meta drakes, and figured we would try to get this boss down before Mists would hit.

My raid group had only ever looked at her once before and, even with our overpowered Dragonsoul heroic gear, it took us 1,5 hours to get her down this weekend.

I also don't think I have ever seen a boss with this many bugs before, which made it all the more amusing. I think we spent an hour on learning which abilities we couldn't use due to the encounter reacting buggy, and half an hour on the fight. But we did get her down eventually.

Of course the shard drops and I am on my hunter...but yeah, that is how life works.

So yes, looking back at Cata, what have I loved and what have I hated?

I hated how steep the increase in difficulty was. We went from facerollilng to being facerolled. And quite a few people lost courage through that. Straight at the beginning already when we wanted to start raiding it turned out that people had simply not invested the time needed to run the content back then.

And to be fair, it went from having to spend an hour or 2 outside of raid to prepare to an hour or 15 outside of raid times to prepare. I think quite a few people simply didn't think it was worth the trouble anymore.

I have also cursed the fact that Blizzard decided that it was fun to have mana issues. And seriously, I know they meant mana management, but for me it has been mana issues throughout the entire expansion. Right before this last patch we were doing spine (with 30% buff already!) and I was still running oom. Not fun.

I really hope they will watch that better and have the encounters and the class design fit better together.

On the other side, I love how we can fly everywhere in the old world now. Super conveniant, super to see the world from above, and finally less obstacles to actually go do that old dungeon a couple of times for the mount.

The guild achievements...yeah, still not sure how I think about that. The best guild perks are already taken out again in Mists, and I'm still not sure why.

Have group will travel was brilliant for raiding. It means people needed less preparation time and that means that people with a life will have an easier time to raid. It also meant peace of mind to the raidleader. Summoning stones are ok, but Have group will Travel was pretty brilliant.

Transmogrification is of course pretty nice as well. I think my priest has had a different dress every other week since that was introduced.

Raiding wise this expansion has been one of great ups and downs. My raid team has managed to kill all the endbosses, but with tears and blood. And while I believe it is good if it takes a bit of effort to achieve something (feeling of reward will be bigger), I also believe Cataclysm was over the top for me.

When we finally would kill a boss I would experience a feeling of relief to finally be done with certain content, not a feeling of pride to have conquered it.

If I had not had such a brilliant raid team I don't think I would be playing the game at all anymore.

In the end, Cataclysm is the first expansion that I can truly say that I am not sorry to see that it is over. I felt sad to say goodbye to Burning Crusade (the first expansion I truly raided in), sad to leave Icecrown behind, but I am glad to say hello to Mists of Pandaria on Tuesday.

See you there in Pandaland!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Monkey Business



With Pandaland coming I took a look at my poor forgotten blog. I have figured out why I don't write as often....work is too busy and I'm shittired when I come home.

What have I been doing?

Well, I played Diablo of course, like quite a few world of warcraft players who were sort of done with Cataclysm and took the yearly subscription. I have a level 60 demon hunter, with even a paragon level! 

I have to say that I really really liked this game. Even though many people have expressed their disappointment about it. I think that these people were expecting an MMO and what they got was, while brilliant, just not an MMO. 

Other than that I play Guild Wars II. Beautiful game. And the prettiest is that it is free to play so I don't have to feel guilty if I don't feel like logging in. My necro will like me anyways :)

But on to WoW. Sorta says in the title, right. Shy at WoW...not Shy at other games. 

To all my faithful priestly followers, sorry. 

From Tuesday on Shy will be a monk. 

There...now the world knows. I will switch my main to a monk. 

Of course my raid group knew for a while already that I was tired of the priest, and when I played a priest in the beta..it was sort of the confirmation of what I already knew. Variety is the spice of life...

My main spec will be MistWeaver (hey, gotta get my healing kick somewhere, right?) and offspec...eh, been going back and forth. I'll probably be a bit of both. 

I'll have to try better to come with pretty monk pictures, since there's only very few out there at the moment. But hey, google image searches take less time than writing blog posts so maybe I can find time for that at work. 

So expect to be prodded and poked with monk stuff every now and then. And maybe you might even find some theorycrafting here.

In fact, for all your future monks out there who would like to get your addons in order.

Try these three nifty monk addons:



A full addon for the MistWeaver monk. Has unit frames, has all the utilities you would ever need, and has a handy dandy renewing mists bar. 

I've been fiddling around with it on the beta and it really is a pretty nifty addon. 

Check it out on the beta, and make sure you have it once Mists goes live. 


An addon that is based on a shaman addon TotemTimers (I think, since it still has tabs for resto, enhance, and elemental in there). 

This addon will watch your cooldowns and also adds a chi-counter. 


I dragged this handy little addon over the chi-counter of the MonkTimers. It is prettier, it has a better visual. And it's shiiiiiny. 

Oh, and quite a few of you might know it from your other classes already. This also supports shadow priests, warlocks, pallies, rogues...etc.

With that I will leave you for today since it's late and I need to get up at 6 am tomorrow for my final raid in Cataclysm :)