old school screenshot of the week: february 23

[Onyxia's Lair, Dustwallow Marsh]

speccing shadow, or how i tried to learn face-melting

For a couple of months, I specced shadow on my priest. Now, the last time I was shadow was back in Burning Crusade-era, around level 61. I played around with holy and discipline specs since then, but I never put anything into shadow, nor did I even think about it ("Me, spec shadow? That's crazy talk!") That is, until my boyfriend hit 80 on his druid, Grimcow, and wanted to give resto a try.

He is lucky he is cute.

First, I went with a 14/0/57 build. Since I hadn't been shadow for, oh, about 19 levels (I'm not even going to try and convert that into real-world time), I suppose you could say I was pretty rusty at it. And by "pretty rusty" I mean I "completely forgot how to play shadow". This was reflected in my DPS. which was, in a word, embarrassing...

But after doing "extensive research" (read: perusing Elitist Jerks forums while at work) I was able to find out how to improve my shoddy DPS: keep your debuffs up, use spells once their cooldown is up. Simple enough, right? Well, let's just say I still need to work on it.

This was the rotation that I tried to follow:

• Opening: Vampiric Touch --> Devouring Plague --> Mind Blast --> Shadow Word: Death --> Shadow Word: Pain --> Vampiric Embrace --> Mind Flay.
• From here, refresh your debuffs in this order:

1. Vampiric Touch
2. Devouring Plague
3. Mind Blast
4. Vampiric Embrace
5. Mind Flay

• And cast Shadow Word: Death ONLY when you have to move or when you're waiting for Mind Blast to come off its cooldown and still don't need to refresh debuffs.

LET ME TELL YOU, INTERNETS, juggling DOTs is harder than staring at health bars for an hour straight. And although I haven't yet fully grasped the intricacies of melting faces, I can at least say I had fun and I would try shadow out again. It's definitely something I'd like to get better at, at least.

Before Illythia went back to the priest trainer to spec discipline, she and Grimcow decided to pay a visit to an old friend...Onyxia.

I finally got to see what it was like tanking a big angry dragon.

And twenty minutes later, we kicked her to the curb and made off with some Tier 2 helms. But why doesn't the priest stuff ever drop?

When she was done sulking, Illythia picked up Onyxia's ginormous head, somehow stuffed it into her backpack (don't ask her how), and returned to Orgrimmar.

And then, for the first time ever on any of my characters:

Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, baby!


Next post: PVP DISCIPLINE. HELL. YES.

old school screenshot of the week: january 26

[Stranglethorn Vale, Eastern Kingdoms]

old school screenshot of the week: january 6

(Supposed to be for yesterday, but I forgot. Drat.)

[Sylvanas before her makeover. Undercity, Eastern Kingdoms]

old school screenshot of the week: december 22

[Moonshrine Sanctum, Blackfathom Deeps]

old school screenshot of the week: december 8

[The Hinterlands, Eastern Kingdoms]

my first character

Adenine at 60, rockin' the [Robe of the Archmage]

Before she was relegated to the position of chief farmbot/lowbie instance-runner, my mage was my main character. She was the first character I created back when all I had was the 14-day trial account. She was the only character I focused on until she hit 60, hell, until she hit 70. She's (for the most part) decked out in tailoring/PvP welfare/Karazhan epics. So why was she demoted from "main character" to "main alt"?

Adenine at 70

Probably a number of reasons, actually. I (for reasons unknown even to myself) refuse to spec her fire, thus gimping her ability to be an effective raid DPS-er. Also, when playing her in PvP situations, I'm, well, not very good (which is to say, I kind of suck). But! I don't mean to say that I hate playing her. She's quite fun to have around, and does enough damage to make farming on her kind of fun. If farming can be considered fun. However, the main reason for abandoning her for my priest was that I was just burned out, and healing was something fresh and exciting and I actually felt that I was good at it. Also, when I first started playing (and for a long time afterwards), I was a clicker. Yeah, that might have had something to do with my ineffectiveness as a mage, haha.

But anyway, on to reminiscing!

• The first-ever time I went into an instance, I didn't actually know it was an instance. I was leveling in Silverpine Forest when I came upon the entrance to Shadowfang Keep. "Hmm," I thought as I stared at the swirly instance portal, "I wonder what that is. It's shiny!" So of course, I ran through the portal, was momentarily confused by the loading screen, and then I was utterly destroyed by a pack of elite wolves. I must say it was a rather appropriate way to introduce me to the world of instances: "Welcome to instancing, young, noobish, oh-so-squishy mage. First lesson: this is what happens when you get hit by elites - you die. Horribly."
• I honest-to-God did not know there was another continent, which led to much confusion on my part. Orgrimmar? What's that?
• Speaking of getting lost in major cities, I didn't fully grasp the concept of Undercity in my first venture to the Forsaken capital, and spent about half an hour trying to swim through the sewers in the Ruins of Lordaeron to try to get to this (what I was beginning to think was imaginary) place, before I decided to follow another character and realized that there are elevators.
• Ah, level 40 mounts! Remember those? Of course you do. I farmed the Deadmines constantly for [Wool Cloth], which was going for 2 gold per stack on the auction house at the time, and bought my [Blue Skeletal Horse] two levels before I could actually use it. Oh, and I was thrilled that I had the Sergeant's discount.
• Also, having to spec into Improved Arcane Explosion in order to make it instant, and Evocation. The SECOND I had instant Arcane Explosion, I ran around town spamming it furiously.
  
• LOL, oh, talent points. When I first realized that I had them, and YAY places to put them (which was around level 18 or so - what! I was new), I put my points in everything. Yes, I did put one in each little box, across all three trees. You can all stop laughing now.
• I randomly chose my professions (enchanting and tailoring), but that was one thing that didn't end up biting me in the butt later. I'm rather glad I chose them way back when I was a level 5 lowbie and knew absolutely nothing about either.
• My first encounter with Alliance: A random dwarf hunter challenged me to a duel; of course I lost, and a minute later she killed me. I have no idea how. Oh, and I also tried talking to her, but was rather offended when she didn't answer back. I mean, seriously, how rude, right? It wasn't until later that I found out there was a language barrier. Oops!
  
• Adenine's love of non-combat pets was started by a [Cockroach]. And I was so afraid of it dying, or losing it, that I would put it away whenever I had to take a flight path or whenever I thought it was going to get killed by some mob. I still have a fondness for my first non-combat pet, but hell if you're ever going to get me near any cockroaches in real life.
• PvP! Once I hit 60 it was pretty much nonstop battlegrounds for Adenine. I grinded her all the way up to Blood Guard before they took away the ranking system. Okay, so it wasn't the leetest rank, but I was pretty proud of myself for getting that far.
  
• Last but not least, old-school raiding! The first time I raided on my mage was in Molten Core. I scored not one, but two epics that day: [Mana-Igniting Cord], and the [Azuresong Mageblade], which I had first seen as a level 20 on another undead mage who was standing around Orgrimmar. The moment I laid eyes on that weapon, I knew that it was what I wanted when I finally made it to 60. And when it dropped that night off Golemagg, and the raid leader master looted it to me after I made my bid...it was nerd ecstacy.

Oh, Adenine...all I have of you are fond memories. Whatever happens, you will always have been my first main character. <3