So why is it that people think it’s great fun to get off their heads and make pricks out of themselves? I don’t get it. At all.
I used to drink a bit, several years ago now. Then one time I got “drunk”, not wasted, just enough to be drunk. I didn’t like it at all. I felt like I wasn’t fully in control and I didn’t like that. So I stopped drinking. I haven’t had any alcohol since, I don’t see the point.

Other people enjoy to, and as it’s legal, it’s their right to do so, but why the fuck do so many insist on going completely out of their minds that they don’t have a fucking clue what they are doing? It’s embarrassing, it really is.

And it’s really not good for society either. We’re building a society where you can’t have fun without alcohol. I see it around me in my younger brother. I can’t remember a time when I’ve seen him and his friends spend time together without a beer in hand. And I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of younger people growing up. Alcohol is alluring. They aren’t allowed it growing up (though that doesn’t stop a lot of them) and then suddenly they can, so they start chugging it down their throats. And who’s setting the example? The adults who can’t get enough of it either.

Now yeah I know, there are plenty of people around who drink responsibly, and that’s great. But even if they’re the majority, there are still far too many people abusing it. And it’s a real, fucking disgrace.

I was just about to head off to bed, when I find my brother sprawled on the couch asleep with the TV on. He was out earlier with friends. I sigh, and go and give him a poke to tell him to get to his bed. Not so simple. First I actually have to wake him, which is a difficult job even when he’s not intoxicated. Then when he’s actually semi-awake, I try to get through to him that he’s in the living room and should go to bed. No such luck.
He just keeps trying to go back to sleep, and ends up yelling at me in gibberish. So I just turned the TV and lights off and left the git there.

And this is what has pissed me off. People don’t actually get to see how fucking ridiculous they get when drunk out of their minds. It’s just pathetic really. This is the great human race. I think if humanity would look in a mirror, and actually give a fuck for once, they may actually be horrified by what they see.

/end rant

Reading, writing, programming, learning guitar, drawing, playing through my games, playing sports and getting out and seeing the whole world. Those are the things on my want-to-do list currently but it’s hard to find time for them between work and general tedious everyday tasks. Weekends are even flying by far too fast to get much done.

I’ve tried drawing up some kind of plan to help with it (I’m a planner, that’s what I do) but still I can’t really squeeze everything in. Guess I’ll just have to put some things on the backburner for now!

I also have the problem that I’m in the mood for a holiday. Looking back over my photos from USA, I’d love to get back over there, but it just aint happening any time soon. I only have 6 days of holiday left to take off work until next April.. woohoo….
I think anywhere would be nice but again, time is the issue. I have a feeling this is something that will always plague me. I’m someone who works to live, not lives to work. Work is just something that will always be in my way, but while I need the money I guess I have no choice in the matter!

Keep praying for a lottery win eh?

Two days ago I went in for surgery on my foot and I didn’t really care all that much. My mood was too good for it to really get me down. And now I get a few days relaxing, it’s awesome

It’s really great when things start to look up. I think my holiday in USA about a month ago really helped with that. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. It may sound corny but it was a life changing few weeks I think. It’s like the fog and monotony I had previously is gone and suddenly there’s a wealth of opportunities. It’s a good feeling

It’s not all positive though (is it ever? ). Whilst I’ve been catching up with old friends and even meeting someone new (who seems rather cool. We’ll see where that one goes ), it seems I’m losing touch with a much closer friend. And it’s a bit confusing really.

One minute you’re told that you’re such an important person in someone’s life and you mean a lot to them, the next they don’t even try to talk to you unless you start conversation first.
Maybe there’s something I don’t know going on but I don’t really feel inclined to say hi to someone when it feels like they’re avoiding me.

Maybe they just want some space for a while, or maybe I was right about that friendship all along – that it was more than that, and never really was about being friends. Either way, we used to talk to each other about things like that, things that would bother us. I guess we don’t any more.

Anyway, time for a relaxing weekend, keeping my feet up and continue planning the rest of my life

It’s still hard to move along, but I’m trying. I realised that it’s pretty impossible to be close friends with Helina for the moment. We’ll still be friends I’m sure, but I’m taking a bit of distance. It’s not something I want to do but it’s for the best.

It’s already been a little easier so that’s good I guess. But that doesn’t mean it’s been completely smooth sailing. I’ve been busy preparing for my holiday to America (leaving next Friday!) but still she creeps into my mind from time to time. I’m trying to stay focused on the present rather than trying to drag back the past, but it’s not easy.

Each and every day I still want her back. I can’t shake that feeling. I guess one day it will go but til then I’m just trying to kick it down. The hardest part of that is that nothing really went wrong! In a way it would be easier if we fell out… if something terrible happened to break us apart, but it didn’t. A choice was made, that’s all. And so I still just see her the same way. She’s a wonderful woman; funny, caring, passionate, interesting. I know if this was a conversation with her, she’d say that I think too much of her, but it’s all true. It’s gonna be tough to find a replacement for her. Someone who clicks with me like she did. I liked how she knows and accepts the ways she’s different to others and it was great to know someone else like that. We could just be strange together

But hey, we’re getting past that, so let’s talk about something else!

Last night I went to see Diana Vickers in concert (quotation above is from her song ‘Four Leaf Clover’). I was on the fence about whether I was a fan of hers before I went but she completely sold it to me. It was a great performance, good night all around

Then I’ll also comment on the political stuff going on at the moment. As was expected… we have a hung parliament. Disappointing but hey, what you gonna do? I just hope whoever makes it into power now will do what is necessary to fix what has gone wrong. We have some dodgy policies flying around in those parties and it would be good to see them working together to do what is RIGHT. That’s all we need right now. I’m a little concerned about David Cameron, who’s looking to get power currently. He has the questionable policies and he better not screw it up.

Also on the note of policies, the Conservatives are looking to remove the ban on fox hunting with dogs. This is wrong, plain and simple. If it’s wrong for humans to be killed for fun, why is it not the same for foxes? Life is life, regardless of species. There’s a group founded by Brian May standing against this. Website is here. Facebook group is here. Show your support in any way you can!

Now for some sleep… busy week ahead…

Respectfully, so honestly I’m asking now
Do you hear the conversation we talk about?
I’ll back away to the safety of a quiet house
If there’s half a chance in this moment
When your eyes meet mine, we show it off.”

I think that says it all for me at the moment. Thanks Jim, I guess we’re back on track

I talk something through with someone and they continue on their merry way as if nothing was said. I have no clue if they are even taking it seriously or not. How do you chase that up without going on about it? I don’t want to go on, but I also would like to know if it’s a consideration to change things. I wouldn’t mind except that I’m actually agreed with, and then I watch actions on the other side that contradict it.

It all feels very familiar and I guess that’s not a good thing. Judging from the past there’s no point dwelling on it. For some reason things with me are always second rate to the alternative, despite being one that continues to burn. It’s not denied, there’s still something there between us as always, but it’s pushed aside. And why exactly? Well… we don’t know. “Then why’d we both choose letting go?” Very good question. We fit all of each other’s criteria, but we find a mystery blip. Instead of investigating that blip, we walk away it seems.

In the end it’s probably a mistake. Deep down nothing has changed. Our interactions will always be that extra bit special, a nagging feeling in the back of our minds asking why it ended up this way, a longing for the life we would have built. As in the past, it can be ignored, denied and avoided, but as in the past, it will probably end up growing, thriving and wanting more.

Love works in mysterious ways… no shit Sherlock

With the ex part being vague, this period is particularly nasty, and its where I find myself now. When you were never given that chance at a first date, not once despite going through so much together. It was discussed… it was coming… you were starting to plan your life together, but you then never got the chance to show who you can be.

I think that is what hurts the most: seeing someone else in the spot you were supposed to be in just a few short months back. Seeing her enjoy the excitement of it, that was for you not so long ago.

But there’s no wrongdoing here. It had to happen sometime, and hopefully soon it will be happening for me too. I just need to settle in the frame of mind that it’s all gone. Hard to do when it lasted so long… so many memories… so many good ones, but in the end never got a chance to shine, not even a photo to remember it all…

But it’s time to move on, to find something new, someone who will take my love and embrace it. I don’t know where things will go between the two of us now. Would I like to stay close? Of course I would, but I also need to watch out for myself. I sometimes find it hard to draw a line and care for myself a little instead of others, but I really need to do it now. This whole thing has the potential to beat me right down.

I wish her the best of luck, and I want her to be happy. She really deserves the best, although she would be the first to doubt it. But now I need to find some happiness myself, cause my happiness with her is now left to just a memory. In time it will return… until then I’m just hanging in there.

There’s no doubt about it. With so many spells to manage, enhancement is the most complex of the two shaman dps specs. Arguably, it’s even one of the most complex specs to play in the game at the moment. This guide is about my take on playing as enhance, and is meant as an aide to help any raiding enhance shammy (be it main or alt) get the most out of their toon without getting bogged down in the maths involved, and as a reference for those who are already doing so. I’ll try to arrange it so that the main points are clear at the top of each section, with my banter below. That should make it easier to quickly look something up.

As it is based around my own preferences and experiences, it could be that you disagree with some things. If so – great I’m always open to considering things from another angle, so please feel free to comment.

Spec

Firstly I’ll link my current raiding spec: 19/52/0

This is the spec that will give you the most damage output. I’ve seen many shamans with talents in Shamanistic Focus, Improved Stormstrike and possibly Elemental Focus from the elemental tree. I had the former two myself until about a month ago. With those talents you never have mana issues, which is great but I recently swapped them out for Improved Fire Nova and a point in Reverberation.

The reason for this is quite simple – you will do more damage! (More shocks is always good, and Fire Nova will be a part of your rotation) And the best part? You won’t really have mana issues. This isn’t obvious at first though. When I first switched into this spec I was often panicking as my mana was getting dangerously low where before it never went less than 50%. But the truth is it is very rare that you have 0 mana because Shamantic Rage usually gets back off cd before that happens, and after popping that you’ll be back to full in no time.

From my experience, mana issues in this spec only comes from trash packs and running heroics. It’s never been a problem on a raid boss, and that is where it truly counts and the damage boost you get matters all the more.

Glyphs

The glyphs I go for are:
Glyph of Feral Spirit – Our wolves are a really nice source of damage output, an extra 30% of our AP fed to them is awesome.

Glyph of Windfury Weapon – Windfury is one of our highest sources of damage. Therefore it’s nice to have it proc more often.

Glyph of Stormstrike – Your stormstrike debuff should almost always be up, so this effectively increases all your nature damage spells.

There are other alternatives but these seem to me to stand out as the top 3. Glyph of Lightning Shield could maybe go in there, as that will be proccing often (especially while you have T9 set bonus), or Glyph of Lightning Bolt as another big source of damage, but I personally wouldn’t want to give up one of those listed for them.

Weapon Imbues

Main hand – Windfury.

Off-hand – Flametongue.

No exceptions.

Stat Priorities

Hit rating (if not capped)

Expertise rating (if not capped)

Haste/AP (kinda down to preference – more on that below)

Crit rating

Agility

Armour Penetration (ArP)

Intellect

So what stats do you want to go for?

First thing is always to get both hit capped and expertise capped. Note that for enhancement shammies, the hit cap is the SPELL hit cap. More hit rating beyond that is still nice as it will still increase your white damage hit %, but you don’t have to go out of your way to get it. Just make sure you’re at the spell hit cap. And what are these caps?

Hit Cap

For Horde:

With shadow priest or moonkin in the raid – 14% : 368 hit rating.

Without shadow priest or moonkin – 17% : 446 hit rating.

For Alliance with Draenei aura:

With shadow priest or moonkin in the raid – 13% : 342 hit rating.

Without shadow priest or moonkin – 16% : 420 hit rating.

Expertise Cap

26 expertise – 140 expertise rating (this assumes you have the Unleashed Rage talent… which you should )

After you have those capped off, you’ll want to start stacking haste and AP. These are our two primary dps stats and so you’ll want to ideally look for gear with as much of both as possible. Crit, Agility and Intellect are generally passive stats. I mean passive as in you can kinda ignore them. Your gear will be loaded with enough without you having to actively worry about it.

Then there’s armour penetration… this is a stat that isn’t so useful to us due to the amount of magic damage that makes up our damage output. However it isn’t completely useless as it does have an effect on our white damage. The general rule of thumb for ArP is that you shouldn’t necessarily avoid gear with it on, but if you can replace it with another stat, do so.

Weapon Speed

This is important. Enhancement shamans should always be using slow 1h weapons (2.5 speed or slower). You may get some attractive looking weapon drop with a big raw dps value on it, but with a speed of 1.5 or so… do not be fooled! It is not worth it.

To explain just how bad a choice it is, I once read an article of someone who was testing this subject. He found that the blue quality slow 1h weapon you can get from Amphitheatre of Anguish in Zul’drak put out as much, if not more, dps for him than an ICC quality fast weapon. That’s how huge the difference is, so do yourself a favour… stick to slow weapons

Gems

Meta – Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (21 agi +3% crit damage)

Blue socket – Nightmare Tear (This alone will activate the meta and should go in a blue socket to allow for a socket bonus. Put haste/AP in other blue sockets)

Red – Bright Cardinal Ruby (40 AP) or Stark Ametrine (20 AP, 10 haste)

Yellow Socket – Quick King’s Amber (20 haste) or Stark Ametrine (20 AP, 10 haste)

Whether to choose AP or Haste gems is up to you really. They are generally fairly equal, with haste just about coming on top, especially with the T10 4 piece bonus. But if you want to stack AP, it’s also viable.

For socket bonuses, anything other than at least 12 AP or a decent amount of haste is not worth getting. Just stack your preferred gem.

Enchants

Weapons: Berserking on both

Helm: Arcanum of Torment (Knight of the Ebon Blade quartermaster – Shadow Vault, Icecrown)

Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir quartermaster – Storm Peaks)

Chest: Powerful Stats

Cloak: Greater Speed

Bracers: Expertise if not expertise capped, otherwise Greater Assault

Gloves: Precision if not hit capped, Expertise if not expertise capped, otherwise Crusher

Legs: Icescale Leg Armor

Boots: See below

For your boots, I highly recommend one with a run speed increase. As melee, you have to be next to something to hit it (obviously) so in a fight with lots of movement or target switching it increases your dps uptime if you can get to your targets quicker. There are fights where movement isn’t so much an issue, but overall you’ll be better off with it. If you really want to go to the extremes of maximising your dps at all times, you could keep an extra pair of boots around with Icewalker or Greater Assault on them for fights with less movement.

Now there are two speed increase enchants available. The first is the WotLK enchant, Tuskarr’s Vitality, which also gives stamina and will be the choice of many. The other option is an old enchant from TBC, Cat’s Swiftness, which gives a little boost to agility instead. This will give you a little more dps but the mats can be a pain to get.

Totem (the Relic kind)

This is just to note that the current BiS totem for enhance is actually the elemental one, Bizuri’s Totem of Shattered Ice. Flame Shock should always be up as it has a place firmly set in our rotation and the haste bonus is awesomesauce.

Consumables

Flask – Flask of Endless Rage

Food – Fish Feast or Dalaran Clam Chowder

Potion – Potion of Speed

Rotation

First thing to note: please do not take the term ‘rotation’ too literally. The term has always been used to describe how you use your spells, but nowadays the actual meaning has turned from a literal rotation to a priority queue for many classes, including enhancement shaman. What it means in short, is that you have a list of spells, and on each global cooldown you use the highest priority spell that is available, whilst throwing in some common sense (i.e. you don’t waste wolves, shamanistic rage, etc. when you know a stun is coming. E.g. Putricide phase transition).

This is more complicated for enhancement shamans because of the number of spells we have to manage in our rotation. Below is the priority list that I use. You won’t go wrong if you use it, but also feel free to tweak it and experiment with your own playstyle. Note that this is for single target boss fights. In aoe situations it becomes more of a Fire Nova and Chain Lightning spam.

1 – Feral Spirit

2 – Shamanistic Rage

3 – Stormstrike, if the debuff isn’t up (shorthand: SS_0)

4 – Lightning Bolt, if you have 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon (shorthand: MW_5)

5 – Flame Shock, if debuff isn’t up

6 – Earth Shock

7 – Stormstrike

8 – Fire Elemental

9 – Magma Totem, if a few seconds left on it (and Fire Ele isn’t up ofc )

10 – Lightning Shield, if 2 or fewer stacks remain

11 – Lava Lash

12 – Fire Nova

Yeah… that’s a lot to take care of A few things to note: as I said earlier, common sense is also required. The fire elemental is in the list, but perhaps it shouldn’t be actually. You want to choose the right time to pop him up rather than just when the rotation says so, and you want to do it when you have your procs up. Unlike your wolves, the fire ele gains a % of your stats as they are the second you plant the totem. The wolves work like other pets in that if your AP goes up while they are active, theirs will too.

You also want to be smart about using your wolves. They are your top priority spell, but there are times where you may want to save them a bit. For example, the wolves benefit from Blood Lust (the fire ele does not, so this isn’t important for him) but only when they are active when it is cast. If you cast Feral Spirit just after Blood Lust is cast, they will not gain the effect.

The good news is that all this isn’t too bad once you get used to it, and there are addons available to help you with it. The main one that enhancement shamans use is Shock and Awe, however I have chosen not to use this. Why? Because it only shows you the icon of the spell you should use right at that moment. It flashes up the spell to use as it becomes available and so it all becomes based on your reactions with no way to think ahead a bit.

So instead I use Powerauras, which is awesome. If you don’t know the addon, you should get to know it very well Put simply, it allows you to build your own visual cues to almost anything related to your spells, buffs and debuffs (sadly, totems not included so a totem timer addon is recommended as well – I use TotemTimers). Using Powerauras, I have set up a line of little spell icons above my action bars in priority order, that only appear if they are available. Therefore, I can essentially use the spell corresponding to the leftmost icon on every global cooldown, but also having a view of what else is available as well! Some sample screenshots of this are below, so you can see the kind of thing I am talking about. If you want to do something similar, and aren’t sure how to do it with Powerauras, I’d be happy to help out there as well.

Full priority list setup:

Priority list when idling (no procs, Lightning Shield up):

Priority list when in combat (most stuff on cd, with 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon):

So there you have it, it’s pretty long but it should provide a single resource for the essentials of raiding as enhance. I hope it proves useful to someone at least If I have missed anything or something seems incorrect, please let me know.

This guide is also located in the Warcraft section of the site here.

Thanks for reading

People convince themselves that life has some higher purpose. But it seems they’re just overcomplicating things. Life comes, life goes. Not much really happens. What happens around that noone knows, and noone will ever know. Why is it that humans are the only species to strive to find something they can’t? I think my cats have the right idea… chill, chill, and chill some more… no care in the world…

I had played the game Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) by the same developer and loved it, and I heard that this game was going to have a similar control scheme which is really what makes the game unique. Instead of running and jumping your way around levels and mashing buttons to smack people around, the game basically consists of walking around your environments, using the right control stick to interact with objects around you by moving it in the direction shown on screen, and following button prompts in a Quick Time Event fashion in the various action sequences. The result is almost like watching a movie that you can directly influence.

The choices you are given to branch the storyline is also phenomenal. I’ll certainly be going back to play through again and see how it will progress differently.

Whilst it is a really excellent game, it does have its flaws however. The control of your character can sometimes be rather fiddly, and you may often find yourself walking in a direction you hadn’t intended or struggle to face an object you are trying to interact with. It can be quite frustrating, especially when you know the clock is ticking in some cases. In the big picture it is only a small niggle however.

I intend to write a full review on the game, but I just wanted to give a quick shout out about how much I love it. I really hope that we see more games like this in future.

So overall things are looking good… I still want more from myself of course, that’s just how I work I guess, but at least things are moving along.

This evening I watched the latest episode of One Tree Hill (vague spoilers ahead, so if you watch it and are a few episodes behind, you have been warned). It’s always been a show that I can relate to, scarily so sometimes. It has happened on numerous occasions already that when something is going on in my life, it is then tackled in OTH. So it’s certainly a show that hits some nerves with me.

These past few episodes have done just that, albeit a little indirectly. There has been a theme of dealing with death (and with it, loss in general) and also a lot of finding your way, dealing with the unknown and trust between people. Now the death side of things is something that I want to write about, but that will be for another time. Here I’d like to focus on the other part.

In the last episode there was mistrust between two of the characters. This led to one assuming the worst from other without finding out if it were actually true. I’ve been guilty of this before most certainly. It’s easy to see something or hear about something and just jump to the worst case scenario.
Why do we do it? It’s a defense mechanism I think. There’s a suggestion that someone that means the world to us could be doing something behind our backs or perhaps just not feel the same way we do, and without proof we bring up the shields ready for the worst, because unprotected it could really beat us down. So we bring up the walls, do and say stupid things and then find out that our fears were unfounded. You just gotta hope then that the damage done is not too great.
And the most stupid thing is that we do this time and time again. It’s a natural reaction that is very hard to turn off sometimes, and it’s all down to fear of losing those who we love.
There’s a fine line between having complete trust in people and being naive. It can sometimes be very difficult to find that line.

Then there’s the other part – finding which path to take in life, and in love. The problem here is that… you can’t ever really know your path. In fact, I’m not even sure there are paths anymore. You don’t know what is gonna come next for you. To go back to death for a second, and thinking a little morbidly… death could be waiting for you just next week. It’s not in your control. There are accidents, there are illnesses, there are attacks from vicious people. Simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time could end it all, at any point in time.
That’s very much a dark thing to consider, but it isn’t the intention to leave it at that. My point is that the only thing we truly have control over is what happens to us right now. The past is done. The future is unpredictable. The question is, what do you want right now before it’s too late?

Feel your heart beating. What is it beating for? What does it long for? Concentrate purely on what your heart tells you. Then stop and think about it. I bet your brain now says to stop being silly, that it isn’t possible. I bet it brings up all kinds of questions about things that could go wrong, and thinks about the risks you would be taking.
Well let’s think about risk for a second. The truth is that every single thing in this world carries risk. No exceptions. It is everywhere. It’s attached to every single action. That makes it irrelevant, in a sense.

It’s going back to fear again. Fear of losing often overshadows seeing what you can gain, but if you don’t take any actions you don’t ever gain anything.
So I ask you now, instead of thinking “what if it goes wrong?”, pose this question to yourself: What if it goes right?
That thing that you want – a person, an environment, anything – it is possible for what you imagine to come true. It’s possible it wont, yeah, but it’s 100% certain that it wont, if you do nothing.
While you indulge your fear, your chance may slip away and you may never get it back. So if you want something, just go for it. If you don’t get it, you’re no worse off than having done nothing. But if you do get it, all your dreams come true. Have a little faith in yourself and those that you love. Keep them close and together you can overcome that which you fear.

I’ll end it with a fitting quote taken from tonight’s episode:
”Give your head permission to follow your heart.”