Tinkering With My Game Play

Tinkering with the Hunter

I did some tinkering with my Hunter to try and fix the bug (yes, it is a bug and I don't care if blizzard wants to call it a change) that is keeping us from auto targeting. 

I was using a start attack macro I had seen suggested around the forums.  It had two problems.  It was making me lose time between shots for some reason and it was starting the attack, who would have guessed.  This led me to make myself a marco that would work and I would feel comfortable with.

#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/cast Multi-Shot
/targetenemy [noexists,noharm,dead]

Note:  Change Multi-Shot with any shot you want to use this for.

I'll explain how this is working for me.

First line is showing you the tooltip for the shot.
Second line is trying to shoot the shot. (if there is no target it won't.)
Third line will find a target for you if you do not currently have one, the one you have is friendly or the one you have is dead.

Why did I put the shot before the target?  So it works just like it used to.  The way auto target used to work was if you did not have a target and pressed an ability it would target something.  You would need to hit it again to do it.  Just like it was.

This macro does that.  It targets something but does not do anything.  This gives you time to react and tab to another target should it choose a target you do not want to attack.  Just like it was.  Good hunters will work with it, bad hunters will hit the wrong target.  Again, just like it was.

Protip: If you where hitting the wrong target before do not use this macro.  First learn not to spam keys, if you spam you will go right back to hitting the wrong target with this and maybe tabbing, while slower, is better for you.

All the macros I have seen would be something like start attack and then the cast line.  What the hell, are these people crazy?  They want to make an entire generation of horrible hunters, that is worse then it was before.  Doing it that way selects a target and then fires a shot all at once.  What if it landed on the wrong target?  You would have no time to switch targets.  Bad marco is bad.  Do not use it.  If you plan to use it, change it to the cast line first and the start attack second.  This will make sure it does not fire a shot.

Changing over from the suggested start attack macros I went back to not pulling, not breaking CC and my DPS went back up 4K.  All good things wouldn't you say?  Feel free to use or adapt the little macro above for your own uses.

Tinkering with the Shaman

I haven't done any tinkering with my shaman but I think I am going to need to.  Tinkering not with macros and such but tinkering with where I stand and the things I do.

I entered the queue for a Zul heroic by accident.  Personally I think I need a little more experience before I do them.  I figured, what the hell, I'll try it being I am here but I did not expect much from what I heard about the healing nightmares that they can be.

To my surprise I did quite well at least at the start.  We went around counter clockwise starting at the poison guy.  All three DPS died with about 20% life left but the tank and I finished it off and I never had any mana issues.  Mind you, in my own defense, it was not my fault the three DPS died, they died because they stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It happens.

The run went smooth from there but we had a wipe on the archeology boss being it was a different one from the ones any of us there had seen before.  We downed it the next time.  Again, not a healing issue.  He has a charge that if he hits people with it one shot them.  So make a note that the lightning guy has a charge and it can be dodged, you have enough time to react.

So far so good, feeling good about my healing.  I was doing much better then I would have ever expected.  We continue to cruise to the second to last boss with the three cauldrons and that is where life goes down hill.  A quick run up until that point.  Two and a half hours after that, we still did not finish it.

This is where I think I need to do some tinkering.  I need to work on where I stand in fights with adds like that one and the last one.  Some of the wipes where to the tank not moving in time from the stuff he shoots on the ground and going down faster then I could heal him.  Some where to that happening to other people, heck, I even got hit by it twice in out attempts. Some where to the big guy not going down fast enough and then ripping us all to shreds.

The biggest problem was whenever the zombies where summoned they would all come for me.  Oh crap.  I tinkered a little bit on where I was standing.  When I saw which batch of zombies where going to rise up I would stand between the tank and them so they needed to pass the tank before getting to me.  Didn't seem to make much of a difference, they would get to me and eat me up.

I got to the point where if you can't beat them, join them.  When they came up, I got the fire, and I started working on mowing them down.  One problem with this, I was not able to effectively heal like that.  That idea did not last long because they took me out fast.  Damn it, I wear mail, I have over 53% damage reduction, how the hell do they kill me in a matter of 2 seconds.

Long story short, about one hour and forty five minutes later we downed him and moved to the last boss.  Different battle, same problem.  All the adds where coming for me instantly.  I even moved from their spawn points being you can see where they would be coming from and it did not help.  I was not having mana issues, I was healing everyone just fine.  As soon as I started getting attacked and had to run, people started falling low and soon started just falling dead.

I need to find something I can do to stop adds from thinking of me as the best thing since sliced bread.  I think I did fantastic healing that instance. A lot better then I would have ever thought I would.  Those two fights however, I failed on and I failed on them hard. 

I need to learn to position myself better maybe.  Or learn how much I can take so I do not start running too soon and can still heal.  Each attempt was either me trying to heal too long and getting killed by the adds or me trying to get away from the adds and people dying because I could not heal them.  Either way, I hit my brick wall as a healer there.  I do not think I could have done any better with my current skill set.  I'll just have to get better and maybe tinker a little bit with where I stand and how I handle myself when I have adds on me.

I made it to the last boss, which I am happy with.  My Shaman is only a 346 item level so it is barely able to get in there and actually probably not at all, that 346 is a mix between my enhancement and my restoration gear.  It is not just my resto gear.  I did a lot better then I expected, so that is good, but it shows I still have a lot to learn.  Those last two fights could have been better for me, I could have done better.

Admittedly we did not have very good DPS in there over all but my mana was fine and there is no enrage timer I am aware of, we should have been able to do it. 

I need to tinker how I play to figure out how to heal and move with adds following me.  I did not do that part of play well at all.  Hey, we all have to learn somewhere right?

End note

So I tinkered with my Hunters shots and fixed the screw up blizzard made with auto targeting and am back to my old self DPS wise and I need to tinker a bit on the mechanics of how I heal in heavy add fights.  Tinkering is not just for engineers.  Everyone tinkers with their game play, at least if they really care about getting better at doing it.