Addon Highlight:TauntMaster and ForteXorcist

I'm an addon whore. WHORE. I have four separate folders of wow, all with different UI packages/ custom designs, and each has at least 40-60 addons in each. I could go so in-depth into my addons you would think I knew the first thing about making one. So today, as my so apt-ly named shaman blog that is now almost exclusively about paladin tanking, is getting to be a chore, I thought I would start talking about something that could be called an addiction, or possibly a fetish, depending on how much you look into it.

I was recently listening to a little ol', not so known podcast(sarcasm) called "Inside Azeroth", when I discovered this nugget of tanking badassery. Known as TauntMaster, this addon makes you just that, the master of taunts. The way this addon works is thus, it provides a healbot-esqe looking unit frame indicator. Let's say I, as the tank, Initiate a pull. My bar will turn red, the traditional color of "Holy shit you bout to get smacked in the face". When a dps starts to get close to my threat, their bar will turn yellow, and when it attacks them, it will turn red. What this addon allows you to do is left/right click on that players bar to taunt off of them. If A group of mobs aggro the healer because they came up behind us or something, I can right click to AoE taunt them to me. This addon, despite this not really being it's use, has replaced grid as a group-health monitor. The other fantastic thing about this addon, is that it automatically recognizes your class, and the spells you have to use. There are pre-set bindings for my Hand of Protection and Divine Intervention, as well as both taunts.

The other addon I'd like to talk about is one many people know, ForteXorcist. This addon is kinda like a 5-in-1 addon, doing more things than you really need, but damn are those some nice things. It provides a cooldown bar, much like another addon called Coolline, but it is the spell timer that sets this addon apart in my opinion. You can track everything and anything with it. As a healer, I use it to track how many charges of earth shield my tank has, it will track the duration of buffs, like Tidal Force, and power-ups like Art of War on the paladin or redoubt. You can hide certain things, like replenishment, or avengers shield, and have certain things get bigger when they are under a certain time, all kinds on things.

These addons are fucking awesome. Addon are one my passion, I would love to be able to make them, but unfortunately I just can't be bothered to do things that other people benefit from.

Defensive, offensive, and on the fence...ive.

Fair warning, I'm writing this at midnight on 2 hours of sleep the night before, abandon all hope ye who enter.

A few days ago, I posted about how I felt a tad off when I was tanking, how it didn't mesh like healing, or even dps'ing does. I boiled it down to misplaced bars, and lack of skill bucket then, and it's possible I was right on both fronts.
1.Keybindings: As a Protection Paladin my rotation consists on 5 spells, known as the 969 rotation. Previously, as in 3 days ago, I had all my 9 second CD's right next to each other, and then my 6 seconds would eventually be in the same boat. It's possible that this method works if you use an actual keyboard, but with my n52, it wasn't cutting it. Having 4 skills bound to the D-pad, and one to the little, barely a button button above it was difficult to say the least. So to solve that problem, I just moved things around and changed the actual bindings of my gaming pad. Now Divine Plea is my little pussy button, so it's close at hand, but not important or in the way.
2.Spells: Good God in Heaven, Divine Plea! Before this spell of orgasmic delight, I drank after every fucking pull, no matter the size or how much I actually did. Kill 1 non elite? Drink. AoE tank 4 fast attacking mobs that I blocked and dodged like a bitch? Drink. With Divine Plea, AoE 4 mobs, run to the next pack, accidentaly aggro another pack, who cares, I got all the mana in the world. Do I pull to fast now for you healers? Karma for healing those bumfuck dps that pulled entire rooms because I had to drink. Oh so poo on you mister healer, I could care less.

This just in Rallii, aggro queen extraordinare and super douche tank Will pull entire rooms unless you tell him not to, and if you pull off of him, then you suck. Jump off a cliff and die. That is all.

Raiding, it's like a retarded STD

Most STD's are smart, they like to fuck your life in ways you would expect all things crotch related to do. Raiding is like that, but instead of your crotch, it likes to take friendships, and the ways things are, flip em onto their back, and rape them repeatedly. Too graphic? Didn't want that in your head when you read a wow blog? Go somewhere else, it's going to get worse. I haven't talked about this much in the last month or two, but I couldn't give two shits less about raiding at the moment. So what just Has to happen right about now? My friends, and fellow non-raiders get an offer from a co-worker on a different realm to come join their guild to raid. I have no problem with this, I really don't, my problem is in what I was asked to do. They wanted to level baby toons, from 1-80 on that server so that we could raid. Now, let me describe to you the feeling I have when I raid. If you've ever seen those horrid, disturbing pictures of tauren male on other race male fucking when looking for a WoW picture for whatever reason, I am the other race, and raiding is the Tauren, raping me over and over again. I said there was little to no chance of that ever happening, and that I'd rather play the level 66 I currently had then start over. They kept on fucking going. I got beat down with why it would be fun, why we should do it, how I was a good raider, blah blah shut the fuck up. Getting hounded like that reminds me of something in WoW, something we all have had done to us. Getting beat down by a virtual dick. Never had that done to you? Guess what, Epeen + PvP = You getting beat by a penis. After all this ranting, I do have a confession to make, my only raid experience if from that of a whack-a-mole, sit and wave my arms like a retarded infant, get blamed for deaths when stupid isn't curable, healing perspective. I might want to raid as a tank, I highly doubt it, but anything is possible. And as my little secret, the server that their friends is on is a pacific, while they are on central, and I'm on eastern. 3 hour time difference can suck my butthole.

Tanking: A loss of power.

When in a 5-man instance, whether it's a level 80 heroic or maradoun, people often assume the the person with the sword and shield smacking away at mobs is the one in control. Incorrect Sir. As a tank, you have no power in the group, because in all honestly, all you are is a meat shield. Sure, there are some amazing meatshields, and they are great players most of the time, but who do they really control? The real head honcho, numero uno in a group is the healer for one reason only. If they so choose, you will die. I don't mean this as a healer lets you die in order to save someone they view as more important in a raid, this is purely they let you die because they feel like it, and there is nothing you can do. Seeing as I play a healer, and I know all those little things that people do to make me want to track them down and run them over with an SUV several times, I also know what not to do as a tank.

1. Don't Rush- Unless told too, stop after each pull to make sure your healer is okay on mana, or looting, or that their dog didn't just shit on the carpet. The healer of the group holds the power, so be nice, even if you don't like them.

2.Don't Stroke Your E-Peen-Just because you think you can grab the entire cathedral in Scarlet Monestary, don't. Your healer might not be able to handle that, so go slow.

3. Be Aware-Some bosses spawn adds, and while you are engrossed in Omen to see how far ahead of the dps you are on threat the healer could die from adds you failed to pick up.

4.Use Your Experience-If you are like me, and have done some of these instances so many times you could do them in you sleep, use that to help your group. If a boss applies a nasty debuff, spawns adds, or anything like that, if could be the difference between a wipe.

5.Communicate-Talk to your group if you're struggling.Use their names, don't just say,"Hey druid, more heals", because that pisses us off.


I'm going to try and get an addon section in to at least every other post from now on, because addons are awesome, and I'm a whore for awesome.

I did a UI post about a month and a half ago, just showing what I used for my healer. That UI was great, but when the author updated it and completely changed the look of it, I switched to my current one. I currently use LUI, a compilation that is in my opinion one of the best out there. I won't put any screenies up because his do it more justice, but I will go over some of the basics with more to come later.

kgpanels-All of the important features have a panel assigned to them. Not a new thing, but what this UI does differently is the alpha effect. With the click of a button, you can choose to hide any of the panels you want. For example, when I'm doing some quests, I don't need recount or Omen showing, so I hide those, giving it a very sleek, clean feel.

Unit Frames-This UI uses Pitbull 3.0, and they are beautiful. The actual frame shows your % health, while you have your actual numerical health and mana before that. The target of target, and the focus frames both have nice effects that makes them look connected to the player/targer frame respectively.

That's all for LUI for now. Check it out, tell the author how cool it is, and if you're like me, use it and never think about switching.

Not solved, just kicked in the pants.

I've been feeling some severe burnout the last month to month and a half. I've logged onto my shaman all of three times to send gold over to my new alt, so needless to say, I am quite bored with healing. Now, for the past few weeks I've been contemplating shutting this down and going on my merry way as I really have no interest in raiding anymore. I don't have time, something I know much of the Wow community struggles with, and I've been sick the past month as well. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, I'll be staying on a little longer until someone finally comes to their senses and kicks the shit out of me. So dear readers, the three or four that I have, expect more updates in the coming weeks, but if you want in-depth shaman guides,tips, or anything that really takes a lot of time, go elsewhere. I'll mostly be focusing on healing 5-mans and problems/tips I could see with those, and more importantly for me, because this is my new addiction, the journey of my level 40 paladin tank, going through leveling almost exclusively with the new dungeon tool. Expect addon posts, rants about stupid group members, and how fun it is to re-visit dungeons you haven't actually done with people your level in five years.

(insert funny here)