Winter break is almost here! I guess I've stared enjoying it early. Went riding for about 5 hours up at Eldora this morning. Given that I've been on a two year hiadus (more or less) from riding, it feels great to get up there and catch some air or cruise through powder, which was in abundance today. Not that anyone cares but I'll recount the tricks I did.
*note, all tricks are ones I landed smoothly
1 FS 360
3 FS 180 Indys
2 BS 180's
2 BS Boardslides
5 Stalefish airs
By the way, stalefishes (sp?) are my favorite grab. Here's how you do them.
1) Get some air
2) With your back hand, grab the heel edge of your board. the closer to the middle, the better.
3) Tweak the hell out of your back foot so that it's farther forwards than your back.
4) Untweak your back foot and release the board.
5) Ride away and try not to get hit by all the girlies throwing panties at you.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Skullcandy... Really?
Having re-geared myself for what may be my most epic snowboard season to date, I've been looking at random smaller items I need (bandana, replacement lenses, headphones, etc). About a month ago, my old headphones finally kicked the bucket, so I needed a new pair obviously. For snowboarding, I find ear canal buds work best. They block the most sound, stay comfortable for the longest time and stay situated better than any other ones I've tried.
So there is this company called Skullcandy that makes headphones targeted towards certain subcultures such as snowboarders and their ilk. I figured hey, I'm a snowboarder, I need new headphones, and I got 30 bucks to plop on some new ear buds.
These are by far the worst quality headphones I have ever had in my entire life. First, the rubber earpiece is far too rigid to adapt to the contours of the inner ear to be even remotely comfortable. They are cheaply constructed, and the earpieces fell off on several occasions with minimal impact. Lastly, and in my opinion by far the most important, the sound quality is complete and utter shit. I'm at a loss for words to accurately portray how bad their sound quality is. The bass sounds like what you hear from those rice cars who blare their subwoofers at 120 decibels. Highs are, well, non existant. Mids i guess are ok, but nobody listens to music for mids.
After fiddling with the equilizer settings on both my MP3 player and my computer for close to an hour each, I finally gave up on these pieces of shit. Even though I was almost flat broke, these were about as good as having nothing at all. Went back and bought a mid level pair of Sonys, which are infinitely better.
Closing thoughts: The ONLY reason to EVER buy a pair of these headphones is if you want to buy something that you think will make you LOOK like you fit in with a crowd that you don't. If you want even the slightest bit of value from a pair of headphones, please... for the love of god, steer clear of anything bearing the Skullcandy name.
So there is this company called Skullcandy that makes headphones targeted towards certain subcultures such as snowboarders and their ilk. I figured hey, I'm a snowboarder, I need new headphones, and I got 30 bucks to plop on some new ear buds.
These are by far the worst quality headphones I have ever had in my entire life. First, the rubber earpiece is far too rigid to adapt to the contours of the inner ear to be even remotely comfortable. They are cheaply constructed, and the earpieces fell off on several occasions with minimal impact. Lastly, and in my opinion by far the most important, the sound quality is complete and utter shit. I'm at a loss for words to accurately portray how bad their sound quality is. The bass sounds like what you hear from those rice cars who blare their subwoofers at 120 decibels. Highs are, well, non existant. Mids i guess are ok, but nobody listens to music for mids.
After fiddling with the equilizer settings on both my MP3 player and my computer for close to an hour each, I finally gave up on these pieces of shit. Even though I was almost flat broke, these were about as good as having nothing at all. Went back and bought a mid level pair of Sonys, which are infinitely better.
Closing thoughts: The ONLY reason to EVER buy a pair of these headphones is if you want to buy something that you think will make you LOOK like you fit in with a crowd that you don't. If you want even the slightest bit of value from a pair of headphones, please... for the love of god, steer clear of anything bearing the Skullcandy name.
Religious Conspiracy Theorists
Thinking about religion from an atheist perspective often presents problems. Not having ever been deluded into believe in a deity, it's hard to grasp what really goes on in the mind of the believer. Sometimes I feel I may have an insight into whats going on in there, and I like to write it down. It may be right, it may be wrong, but it's a possibility.
One of the traits of conspiracy theorists is to find meaning where there is none. To take something simple, perhaps mundane in explanation and weave an elaborate web of explanations to explain things that don't sound right to them. Take the Kennedy assassination for example. To use a scientific term, a shitload of research has been done on the subject, and it points strongly to the story of Oswald shooting him from the Texas Book Repository. Simple, serene... boring. The conspiracy theorist can't understand how something so profound in its implications could be explained by something so simple. So they tell a story of lies, deciet, deception, trickery, cover-up, and so on.
Personally, I can understand this urge to make things more meaningful. In some sense, I even do it. A squirrel follows me home for ten minutes, and maybe I think he likes me, rather than the fact that he sees the corner of a power bar falling out of my backpack. Sometimes it's an interesting, or even comforting thought to think things are more meaningful than they are. It doesn't mean they are however, and these thoughts should be treated as such.
But given that I can understand this innate human desire to "blow things out of proportion", theists seem to be doing the same thing. The explanation that the universe just began without a purpose, creator, direction, that life is nothing more than a chemical scum with opposable thumbs, doesn't sound very fun. Perhaps the human capacity for religion is simply an extension upon the tendency to create a story where there is none. Could religion be nothing more than an unconsious creation of a conspiracy theory to make the lives of believers seem more interesting?
Again, I don't know. It's an interesting idea, but I'm certainly not going to go out and declare a fucking jihad on anyone who disagrees with my point of view...
One of the traits of conspiracy theorists is to find meaning where there is none. To take something simple, perhaps mundane in explanation and weave an elaborate web of explanations to explain things that don't sound right to them. Take the Kennedy assassination for example. To use a scientific term, a shitload of research has been done on the subject, and it points strongly to the story of Oswald shooting him from the Texas Book Repository. Simple, serene... boring. The conspiracy theorist can't understand how something so profound in its implications could be explained by something so simple. So they tell a story of lies, deciet, deception, trickery, cover-up, and so on.
Personally, I can understand this urge to make things more meaningful. In some sense, I even do it. A squirrel follows me home for ten minutes, and maybe I think he likes me, rather than the fact that he sees the corner of a power bar falling out of my backpack. Sometimes it's an interesting, or even comforting thought to think things are more meaningful than they are. It doesn't mean they are however, and these thoughts should be treated as such.
But given that I can understand this innate human desire to "blow things out of proportion", theists seem to be doing the same thing. The explanation that the universe just began without a purpose, creator, direction, that life is nothing more than a chemical scum with opposable thumbs, doesn't sound very fun. Perhaps the human capacity for religion is simply an extension upon the tendency to create a story where there is none. Could religion be nothing more than an unconsious creation of a conspiracy theory to make the lives of believers seem more interesting?
Again, I don't know. It's an interesting idea, but I'm certainly not going to go out and declare a fucking jihad on anyone who disagrees with my point of view...
Friday, September 18, 2009
Capitalistic Communism
While getting into my car today I saw a CD on the floor. Not a burned CD, but an actual CD of a band I really bought. It got me thinking about how the music industry has changed. CDs are more or less a thing of the past. I know of only a few remaining places in Boulder I can even buy a CD. Clearly much of the music industry has gone online, but there are daunting tasks to businesspeople to deal with to actually produce a profit while competing with music piracy.
While I don't know how they will do it per se, I do know that innovative people will keep the wheels turning on the industry. People will always want music and even if the industry changes completely, bands will still need compensation for doing what they do and the people who organize them will need compensation too.
Websites like Facebook, Pandora Radio and others provide free services and have business models that can produce enough profits to at the very least, stay afloat. There seems to be a trend of people wanting stuff for free, and these businesses have found a way to do that.
Is it possible that in the future, distant or otherwise, that the demand for free products will be so great that an business has to offer a free, or very cheap product just to compete? It's conceivable that the realization of communal goods will end up to be the only real way of competing in a marketplace in the future. That's the idea of capitalistic communism. The sharing of goods, services and information for communal good, while providing funding by the interaction of entities in the supply chain to produce the product.
If this were to happen, I don't think it would get to the point where every product was completely free, because if nobody is paying ANYTHING, there is no inflow of money into the system. But I don't think it's beyond imagination for industries and prices to change dramatically based on this idea.
While I don't know how they will do it per se, I do know that innovative people will keep the wheels turning on the industry. People will always want music and even if the industry changes completely, bands will still need compensation for doing what they do and the people who organize them will need compensation too.
Websites like Facebook, Pandora Radio and others provide free services and have business models that can produce enough profits to at the very least, stay afloat. There seems to be a trend of people wanting stuff for free, and these businesses have found a way to do that.
Is it possible that in the future, distant or otherwise, that the demand for free products will be so great that an business has to offer a free, or very cheap product just to compete? It's conceivable that the realization of communal goods will end up to be the only real way of competing in a marketplace in the future. That's the idea of capitalistic communism. The sharing of goods, services and information for communal good, while providing funding by the interaction of entities in the supply chain to produce the product.
If this were to happen, I don't think it would get to the point where every product was completely free, because if nobody is paying ANYTHING, there is no inflow of money into the system. But I don't think it's beyond imagination for industries and prices to change dramatically based on this idea.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Verizon fucks us again
While there are certainly great things about my EnV3 phone and the service itself, there are many pitfalls of dealing with Verizon, and this is just the latest I've noticed.
So my phone has this really great camera right? Big hard drive space right? Comes with a USB cables that doubles as the power cable so it's real convenient right? Awesome! I think I'll go take a bunch of pictures, then upload them on my computer and bask in their glory on my gigantic monitor! Oh wait... YOU CAN'T! The only way to do it is to sift through the cryptic and vague list of device drivers for the one that allows your computer to read the fucking memory on the phone! It's like being locked in a room with a delicious piece of cake, but your hands are tied behind your back and your mouth is duct taped shut. If only you didn't have to pay someone a monthly fee to get your hands back.
This abuse of power by Verizon to give us 99% of what we need free with the phone, but then charge us an arm and a leg for the additional 1% that makes it all work makes me want to shoot a kitten in the face with a revolver. I'd rather go buy a brand new 3 megapixel digital camera that I can read the pictures directly off my phone than give them the satisfaction of bending over and taking it up the ass like they want me to. It's a damn shame that my statement will go completely unnoticed by them.
*sigh*
So my phone has this really great camera right? Big hard drive space right? Comes with a USB cables that doubles as the power cable so it's real convenient right? Awesome! I think I'll go take a bunch of pictures, then upload them on my computer and bask in their glory on my gigantic monitor! Oh wait... YOU CAN'T! The only way to do it is to sift through the cryptic and vague list of device drivers for the one that allows your computer to read the fucking memory on the phone! It's like being locked in a room with a delicious piece of cake, but your hands are tied behind your back and your mouth is duct taped shut. If only you didn't have to pay someone a monthly fee to get your hands back.
This abuse of power by Verizon to give us 99% of what we need free with the phone, but then charge us an arm and a leg for the additional 1% that makes it all work makes me want to shoot a kitten in the face with a revolver. I'd rather go buy a brand new 3 megapixel digital camera that I can read the pictures directly off my phone than give them the satisfaction of bending over and taking it up the ass like they want me to. It's a damn shame that my statement will go completely unnoticed by them.
*sigh*
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Cybernetics
Todays, white fiddling around with my EnV3 cellphone, I began to think about how in the not so distant future, the computing power of the average desktop will be crammed into somthing the size of a cell phone. Then, while watching a video series by DonExodus regarding evolution, I began to think about our contemporary evolutionary patterns.
Most of our current evolutions have had to do with societal evolutions, psychological evolutions, and technological evolutions. As DonExodus said, who I believe quoted someone before him, it is an organisms ability to adapt to change that causes it to pass its genetics on to the next generation; to breed. Since much of our contemporary adaptation comes from technology (air conditioning, pesticides, etc) it seems that an incorporation of our technological advancedments with our own evolutionary genetics would be the most beneficial for our immedeate evolution and/or survival in our environment. I am speaking of course of cybernetics. It seems likely that at a point we will adapt ourselves with the technology we create to form a symbiosis, and that eventually we will become so reliant and intertwined with technology that we will become one with it.
Bronze Age, industrial age, information age (our current era), robotics age, cybernetics age, quantum age, trancendance age. These would all seem to be logical projections of our species evolution, assuming something doesnt wipe us all out; ourselves or some natural phenomena. I just hope that we live long enough to see the evolution into an era where our technology combined with our mental processing powers can allow us to manipulate the subatomic world by the power of our physiological processes alone.
Most of our current evolutions have had to do with societal evolutions, psychological evolutions, and technological evolutions. As DonExodus said, who I believe quoted someone before him, it is an organisms ability to adapt to change that causes it to pass its genetics on to the next generation; to breed. Since much of our contemporary adaptation comes from technology (air conditioning, pesticides, etc) it seems that an incorporation of our technological advancedments with our own evolutionary genetics would be the most beneficial for our immedeate evolution and/or survival in our environment. I am speaking of course of cybernetics. It seems likely that at a point we will adapt ourselves with the technology we create to form a symbiosis, and that eventually we will become so reliant and intertwined with technology that we will become one with it.
Bronze Age, industrial age, information age (our current era), robotics age, cybernetics age, quantum age, trancendance age. These would all seem to be logical projections of our species evolution, assuming something doesnt wipe us all out; ourselves or some natural phenomena. I just hope that we live long enough to see the evolution into an era where our technology combined with our mental processing powers can allow us to manipulate the subatomic world by the power of our physiological processes alone.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Zombie Music Video
OK, first of all you need to put on "Abysmal" by The Haunted, then imagine this progression of a music video. A corpse is laying in a coffin underground, and its eyes pop open. It begins to move, then as the drums and screaming come in, its hand reaches up through the earth grasping for the sky. Now among the world of the living, he begins walking out of the graveyard into the town. He keeps walking up to people on the street trying to terrify people, but nobody seems to pay him any attention, and seem to even see him as a joke. Confused, the zombie stumbles on. As he searches for people to terrify, he sees a homeless man being jeered at by some teens; a girl being kidnapped; he walks by a TV store and sees the news. On the news are pictures of genocides, atomic bombs, soldiers marching, children starving. Becoming overwhelmed by the horrors of our every day lives, he stumbles up into an abandoned apartment and in a desperate attempt to get away from our horrific lives, hangs himself, to return to the realm of death once more.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sales: How I learned to Love the Idiot
Customers are stupid; its just a fact of life. If you work for tech support, each mindless moron who forgets to plug the computer into the wall is like being stabbed in the face with a branding iron. Or if you work in say, the car rental industry, trying to explain the complexities of why we require the customer to give us some meager collateral for a 30,000 dollar car can make you want to do some face stabbing of your own.
But the sad fact of life is that at one point or another, we are all the ignorant consumer. We are all idiots when it comes to things that we don't immerse ourselves in regularly, and while it's easy to call the next guy in line a moron for not reading his contract before signing, it's just as easy for me to look stupid when I don't know what size suit I wear, or what features I need to look for in a lawnmower.
So I've been trying to learn to empathize better with customers. Really honestly empathize, not just understand what they are saying, and it's actually rather eye opening. I can imagine the feeling of unknowing for someone who doesn't know a thing about what I'm selling, and meet them on a level thats comfortable to them and can help them through a possibly unwanted sales situation in the first place. That's ultimately what sales comes down to; the relationship between the seller and the consumer. When i'm able to actually put myself in their shoes (which isn't always... yet), I can see them get more relaxed, they invariably buy more, it makes me have more fun at work, and we both leave the transaction smiling.
Empathy is a wierd thing when it really works, but it's also really cool to see what happens when we put ourselves in a different perspective. Just to end on a sappy moralistic note, if everone on earth could learn to love the idiots in their lives, I'd bet good money the world would be a much happier place in general.
But the sad fact of life is that at one point or another, we are all the ignorant consumer. We are all idiots when it comes to things that we don't immerse ourselves in regularly, and while it's easy to call the next guy in line a moron for not reading his contract before signing, it's just as easy for me to look stupid when I don't know what size suit I wear, or what features I need to look for in a lawnmower.
So I've been trying to learn to empathize better with customers. Really honestly empathize, not just understand what they are saying, and it's actually rather eye opening. I can imagine the feeling of unknowing for someone who doesn't know a thing about what I'm selling, and meet them on a level thats comfortable to them and can help them through a possibly unwanted sales situation in the first place. That's ultimately what sales comes down to; the relationship between the seller and the consumer. When i'm able to actually put myself in their shoes (which isn't always... yet), I can see them get more relaxed, they invariably buy more, it makes me have more fun at work, and we both leave the transaction smiling.
Empathy is a wierd thing when it really works, but it's also really cool to see what happens when we put ourselves in a different perspective. Just to end on a sappy moralistic note, if everone on earth could learn to love the idiots in their lives, I'd bet good money the world would be a much happier place in general.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Megadeth
There is no real point to this blog other than to illustrate the point that Megadeth and Photoshop are awesome. The basic text framework is free from the Megadeth band website and I added my own personal touch to it. I also added a few versions with different colors for shits and giggles.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
God, are you up there?
I've been coming in contact with a decent amount of material lately involving religion. Some for it, some against it. Being an atheist, I have the much easier task of taking on religions many anomalies and fallacies, as compared to that of a theist who's job is to poke holes in rigorously constructed scientific facts that even without complex lab experiments, most lay people could figure out by observation alone. None the less, I relish the opportunity to do so.
The particular thought I've been toying around with this the idea of "lite" believers. By this, I mean anyone on a continuum of people who identify with a certain established religion (or cult too, I guess), but choose certain elements to ignore based on personal belief, or cultural values. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going over all the situations where even extremists such as Jerry Falwell, and other lie spewing bigots interpret the bible to their liking, but suffice it to say, there are plenty of resources out there. If, for example, you ask just about any of your friends if they follow such teachings as putting to death anyone who works on a Sunday, pretty much across the board you will find they say no (or so I hope).
Now I myself have my own unprovable theories about the nature of existence, the universe, and so on, but apart from the fact that for the most part I keep it to my goddamn self, I have also reached those conclusions independently. The problem I have with people who ascribe to only bits and pieces of, say, Christianity and toss out the parts about killing your daughters if they talk back to you, is that you arn't really Christian. If the bible is the exact word of god and defying the word of god is a bad thing, you HAVE to accept the entire book, and nobody really does.
So what are these people doing? They are coming to their OWN conclusions about what life is all about. They are picking parts that make sense and those that don't, which, compared to buying everything said in the book, is actually a refreshing step forwards intellectually. But still the point remains, that they arn't actually christian. They are their own hybrid and individualized belief system. So why not just take it a step further? Why accept that the God they have been taught from the same book they follow so selectively anyway, is actually the progenitor of the universe? It seems a small leap to take from being, say, a Catholic who never goes to church and doesn't really believe the stories in the bible as anything more than moral lessons, to sitting down with yourself, THINKING, and coming up with some own theories. And as long as you are doing that, you could look at some scientific articles, magazines or books, that some of the most intelligent people on the planet have written about just that topic.
The particular thought I've been toying around with this the idea of "lite" believers. By this, I mean anyone on a continuum of people who identify with a certain established religion (or cult too, I guess), but choose certain elements to ignore based on personal belief, or cultural values. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going over all the situations where even extremists such as Jerry Falwell, and other lie spewing bigots interpret the bible to their liking, but suffice it to say, there are plenty of resources out there. If, for example, you ask just about any of your friends if they follow such teachings as putting to death anyone who works on a Sunday, pretty much across the board you will find they say no (or so I hope).
Now I myself have my own unprovable theories about the nature of existence, the universe, and so on, but apart from the fact that for the most part I keep it to my goddamn self, I have also reached those conclusions independently. The problem I have with people who ascribe to only bits and pieces of, say, Christianity and toss out the parts about killing your daughters if they talk back to you, is that you arn't really Christian. If the bible is the exact word of god and defying the word of god is a bad thing, you HAVE to accept the entire book, and nobody really does.
So what are these people doing? They are coming to their OWN conclusions about what life is all about. They are picking parts that make sense and those that don't, which, compared to buying everything said in the book, is actually a refreshing step forwards intellectually. But still the point remains, that they arn't actually christian. They are their own hybrid and individualized belief system. So why not just take it a step further? Why accept that the God they have been taught from the same book they follow so selectively anyway, is actually the progenitor of the universe? It seems a small leap to take from being, say, a Catholic who never goes to church and doesn't really believe the stories in the bible as anything more than moral lessons, to sitting down with yourself, THINKING, and coming up with some own theories. And as long as you are doing that, you could look at some scientific articles, magazines or books, that some of the most intelligent people on the planet have written about just that topic.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Unraveled
Spindle, spindle smoothly spinning,
twisting, turning, taking, twirling.
Weaving, weeping, wanting, yearning,
sewing, stitching, growing, burning.
A fabric is woven of lies and confusion.
The tapestry's subject shies back in seclusion.
Its intricate pattern is but an illusion
The stitches around it conspires in collusion.
It grasps for the light as it crawls out from under
A wandering life in a world torn a sunder.
The sun in the sky and the moon seem to plunder
With chaos and fire and lightning and thunder.
The time beaten cloth of the world all around
lay beaten and broken and strewn on the ground.
The tearing of life makes a hideous sound
and the spindle stops spinning around and around.
Crying, convulsing, cowering, cursing,
hating, heartless, homeless, hurting.
Failing, falling, finally turning,
beaten, bruised, banished, burning.
twisting, turning, taking, twirling.
Weaving, weeping, wanting, yearning,
sewing, stitching, growing, burning.
A fabric is woven of lies and confusion.
The tapestry's subject shies back in seclusion.
Its intricate pattern is but an illusion
The stitches around it conspires in collusion.
It grasps for the light as it crawls out from under
A wandering life in a world torn a sunder.
The sun in the sky and the moon seem to plunder
With chaos and fire and lightning and thunder.
The time beaten cloth of the world all around
lay beaten and broken and strewn on the ground.
The tearing of life makes a hideous sound
and the spindle stops spinning around and around.
Crying, convulsing, cowering, cursing,
hating, heartless, homeless, hurting.
Failing, falling, finally turning,
beaten, bruised, banished, burning.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Starfall, and how it works.
This may be just me, but the druid 51 point talent, Starfall, has been rather confusing to me in the past. I think they even updted the tooltip to more closely reflect what it actually does, but I can still see it as confusing. I'm going to try to clear it up so you all can add it to your spell repetoir effectively should you so choose. Here is the actual spell text.
"You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each dealing 433 to 503 Arcane damage. Also causes 78 Arcane damage to all other enemies within 5 yards of the enemy target. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec. Shapeshifting into an animal form or mounting cancels the effect. Any effect which causes you to lose control of your character will supress the starfall effect."
- Wowhead
What it does it hits up to 20 targets within 30 yards with about 475 damage (modifided by spell power of course) with basicall a shrapnel grenade. By that I mean, the damage lands on its head, then shoots splash damage to any target within 5 yards of any target that gets hit. The initial hits expend one of the twenty (1/20) charges, but the splash is associated with the charge, and does not expend any charges.
If we were to assume you had greater than or equal to 20 targets around you, each target would be hit once, and your starfall buff would be terminated. The beauty of the spell is that if you have fewer targets, the effect lasts longer, to do close to the same amount of damage. Lets assume now we have 10 targets within 30 yards of us. Each of the 10 targets will be struck with a star, splash damage to nearby targets, and expend 10 total charges. Since however there are still charges 10 charges left, it will go through the sequence again, dispelling 1 charge on each target yet again, and causing splash damage. At this point, after two seconds, all 20 charges will be expended and the effect will be terminated.
You can run this idea for any amount of targets up to 20. If you have 14 targets, 14 get hit, then the game will randomly pick 6 more targets to expend the last 6 charges.
The last point is that the more targets you have clusterfucked together the more bonus the splash componant will do to each target around it. The effect becomes smaller and smaller the fewer targets, approaching no bonus when you have only 1 target. However, the spell is still useful and it will hit the single target for 20 charges of about 475 damage unbuffed. So for a single target you have almost 10,000 damage to just a single target, assuming you have 0 spell power. With 1900 spell power, i find each star does close to 1200 damage, so even with single target damage, thats still almost 12000, and it goes passively while you continue normal spell rotation.
I would strongly recommend using the ability when you have at least two adds up since you will then have it expend all the charges over the 10 seconds and also add splash damage, and the more mobs the better. But there are fights where you will only have 1 mob (usually the boss) and if its a long fight you might as well blow it early, let it cooldown, and use it again later in the fight.
One more thing I should mention (if you havn't already figured this out) is the 30 yard range around you is pretty big. Don't blow it on phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad or something or you will aggro fucking everything. Thats bad.
For my spec, I chose this over Force of Nature. Force of Nature actually does more damage over their duration, but due to the nature of boss fights, those pansy little trees usually dont survive long, and has a 3 min cooldown too. Starfall rarely gets cancelled so i find it more appealing. Thats my personal preference anyway. Hope that clears up how this spell works!
"You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each dealing 433 to 503 Arcane damage. Also causes 78 Arcane damage to all other enemies within 5 yards of the enemy target. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec. Shapeshifting into an animal form or mounting cancels the effect. Any effect which causes you to lose control of your character will supress the starfall effect."
- Wowhead
What it does it hits up to 20 targets within 30 yards with about 475 damage (modifided by spell power of course) with basicall a shrapnel grenade. By that I mean, the damage lands on its head, then shoots splash damage to any target within 5 yards of any target that gets hit. The initial hits expend one of the twenty (1/20) charges, but the splash is associated with the charge, and does not expend any charges.
If we were to assume you had greater than or equal to 20 targets around you, each target would be hit once, and your starfall buff would be terminated. The beauty of the spell is that if you have fewer targets, the effect lasts longer, to do close to the same amount of damage. Lets assume now we have 10 targets within 30 yards of us. Each of the 10 targets will be struck with a star, splash damage to nearby targets, and expend 10 total charges. Since however there are still charges 10 charges left, it will go through the sequence again, dispelling 1 charge on each target yet again, and causing splash damage. At this point, after two seconds, all 20 charges will be expended and the effect will be terminated.
You can run this idea for any amount of targets up to 20. If you have 14 targets, 14 get hit, then the game will randomly pick 6 more targets to expend the last 6 charges.
The last point is that the more targets you have clusterfucked together the more bonus the splash componant will do to each target around it. The effect becomes smaller and smaller the fewer targets, approaching no bonus when you have only 1 target. However, the spell is still useful and it will hit the single target for 20 charges of about 475 damage unbuffed. So for a single target you have almost 10,000 damage to just a single target, assuming you have 0 spell power. With 1900 spell power, i find each star does close to 1200 damage, so even with single target damage, thats still almost 12000, and it goes passively while you continue normal spell rotation.
I would strongly recommend using the ability when you have at least two adds up since you will then have it expend all the charges over the 10 seconds and also add splash damage, and the more mobs the better. But there are fights where you will only have 1 mob (usually the boss) and if its a long fight you might as well blow it early, let it cooldown, and use it again later in the fight.
One more thing I should mention (if you havn't already figured this out) is the 30 yard range around you is pretty big. Don't blow it on phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad or something or you will aggro fucking everything. Thats bad.
For my spec, I chose this over Force of Nature. Force of Nature actually does more damage over their duration, but due to the nature of boss fights, those pansy little trees usually dont survive long, and has a 3 min cooldown too. Starfall rarely gets cancelled so i find it more appealing. Thats my personal preference anyway. Hope that clears up how this spell works!
Shay Shays Ultimate Boomkin How-To
I've spent a lot of time browsing random internet articles, talking to friends and fellow WoW players, and of course thumbing through Elitist Jerks articles on Boomkins, and I've come to the realization that despite their few dps abilities, they can be confusing as fuck to max out your damage. There are basically two things I want to talk about. The first, and the more complext (and important, imo) issue is spell rotation. Secondly, I'll talk a little about itemization.
Spell Rotation
This is where things get ugly in playing a boomkin; figuring out what spells are actually best for dps. First of all, there are many different ways to spec your boomkin, each with slight variations on how you max your dps; Whether you get Force of Nature, Typhoon, Starfall, etc. Here is my build.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorgonnash&n=Ibliss
Eclipse is the big one that potentailly skyrockets your dps, but also confuses the shit out of things. Lets assume for the moment you have ample mana regeneration (probably replenishment and wisdom, and all the talents I put into my build). You will literally, NEVER run out of mana unless you are just spamming Hurricane on everything. Given ample mana regen, here is your spell rotation
Moonfire X1
Insect Swarm X1
Wrath Ad nausem (till dots are about to fall off)
...repeat
If you get in one of those unlucky raids where they have no paladins, no replenishment, no shamen... you get the idea, your mana regen will suffer quite a bit more, especially on long fights.
At this point you want to switch up your rotation. If your mana pool and crit are horrible, and you are really scrounging for mana, Id recommend a simple
IS x1
Starfire Ad Nauseum
...repeat
Most times your mana wont be that horrible, and I'd replace moonfire for insect swarm. With glyph of starfire, this will bounce and extra 12 seconds out of your moonfire. And if you are lucky, you can use up a clearcasting strike on a moonfire to get out of using about 700 mana.
Now we get to Eclipse. Eclipse muddys the water a lot with moonkin rotations. From all I've read, its generally a good idea to Wrath spam till Eclipse procs, then spam starfire till eclipse fades. During Starfire Eclipse, I wouldn't waste time rebuffing dots, and especially not IS. Once Eclipse runs out, resume wrath spamming. If you end up with a Wrath Eclipse, its not the end of the world by any means. Just get to spamming wrath.
I should mention that with glyph of starfire and moonfire, often MF/IS/SF rotations put out pretty similar damage and is slightly more mana efficient. The one problem with this rotation is on fights where there is damage you take while casting, in which case you can lose casting time much more since you dont have talent reduction to spell interruption. I havn't tested a lot with a starfire rotation in raiding, especially since I have an idol to buff Wrath damage, but either way, your dps shouldn't be much different. So pick your play style and stick with it.
Gear
Here is the basic stat priority:
Hit(to cap)
Spell Power
Haste
Crit
Intellect
Spirit
From a pure theorycrafting point of view, stacking these stats based on certain weights (which I don't have available) will up your damage the most. However, as indicated in the section above, there are multiple play styles, and based on what you want out of your dps rotation, sometimes you may value certain stats more for your play style. Specifically there are two hang-up's I have with this priority.
1) Haste vs Crit
Looking at various theorycrafting sources haste and crit are close to identical in what they do for your overall dps. However, I tend to gravitate towards crit over haste for a few reasons. First, druids are built to benefit from crit. Natures Grace and Eclipse all up your overall damage whenever you crit. You also have talents to up critical strike damage. With my current gear, I usually get starfire crits of about 13,000 or more in raids. Obviously I can't constantly string starfire crits (except with eclipse... see why i like it?) but that alone is close to 4000 dps. Secondly, and admittedly this is less of a motivation, but certain classes can benefit from your critting. Arcane mages (which my fiancee is) can put Focus Magic on me to buff both of our crit chances when I crit. Prot warriors can put vigilance on me to get extra threat from my aggromancing abilities. While those second two are minor, since the scales are fairly balanced between Haste and Crit anyway, thats enough to push me into valuing crit more.
2) Spell Power Uber Alles
The theory behind stacking pure spell power, especially with gems, is to blow the crap out of everything super duper ultra mega fast. I believe the metaphor of a glass cannon becomes particularly relevant for this sort of itemization. Here's the issue I have with it: As of right now, there are no fights in the game where putting out 4000 dps as opposed to 3700 dps is a big deal (just adjust for the scale of your gear). Assuming you have a halfway decent group for everything, Naxxramas poses no real challenges, even on 25. The challenging fights rest more on the healers. And while you don't want to put out horrible damage, the difference between stacking pure SP gems for a few hundred extra dps vs actually getting the socket bonuses, getting a bit of crit/haste/spirit/whatever doesn't really make a difference. The two hardest (by item level) encounters in the game right now are EoE25 and OS25-3 Drake. Malygos is a pretty simple fight actually, and is more about mechanics than spamming damage. Granted there is a timer but again im assuming your group isn't retarded and you arnt fumbling to get the timer. If you are, you may want to consider stacking pure spell power to help get your raid over that DPS hump. OS25 is probably the closest thing to needing to crank out max dps as there is in the game today, but again, as a piece of a good raiding team, getting some of those secondary stats shouldn't lower your dps enough to make you useless. Perhaps when Uldar comes out there will be some challenging fights in the game, but for now, lets face it; lvl 80 raiding is not that challenging. If you value the glass cannon approach, stacking spell power will up your damage. If you like having a more balanced character, diversify your gems a bit, and have some fun.
I hope this cleared up some common questions about Boomkins. Please leave any comments you may have, and I'll try to address them. Peace yallz!
Spell Rotation
This is where things get ugly in playing a boomkin; figuring out what spells are actually best for dps. First of all, there are many different ways to spec your boomkin, each with slight variations on how you max your dps; Whether you get Force of Nature, Typhoon, Starfall, etc. Here is my build.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorgonnash&n=Ibliss
Eclipse is the big one that potentailly skyrockets your dps, but also confuses the shit out of things. Lets assume for the moment you have ample mana regeneration (probably replenishment and wisdom, and all the talents I put into my build). You will literally, NEVER run out of mana unless you are just spamming Hurricane on everything. Given ample mana regen, here is your spell rotation
Moonfire X1
Insect Swarm X1
Wrath Ad nausem (till dots are about to fall off)
...repeat
If you get in one of those unlucky raids where they have no paladins, no replenishment, no shamen... you get the idea, your mana regen will suffer quite a bit more, especially on long fights.
At this point you want to switch up your rotation. If your mana pool and crit are horrible, and you are really scrounging for mana, Id recommend a simple
IS x1
Starfire Ad Nauseum
...repeat
Most times your mana wont be that horrible, and I'd replace moonfire for insect swarm. With glyph of starfire, this will bounce and extra 12 seconds out of your moonfire. And if you are lucky, you can use up a clearcasting strike on a moonfire to get out of using about 700 mana.
Now we get to Eclipse. Eclipse muddys the water a lot with moonkin rotations. From all I've read, its generally a good idea to Wrath spam till Eclipse procs, then spam starfire till eclipse fades. During Starfire Eclipse, I wouldn't waste time rebuffing dots, and especially not IS. Once Eclipse runs out, resume wrath spamming. If you end up with a Wrath Eclipse, its not the end of the world by any means. Just get to spamming wrath.
I should mention that with glyph of starfire and moonfire, often MF/IS/SF rotations put out pretty similar damage and is slightly more mana efficient. The one problem with this rotation is on fights where there is damage you take while casting, in which case you can lose casting time much more since you dont have talent reduction to spell interruption. I havn't tested a lot with a starfire rotation in raiding, especially since I have an idol to buff Wrath damage, but either way, your dps shouldn't be much different. So pick your play style and stick with it.
Gear
Here is the basic stat priority:
Hit(to cap)
Spell Power
Haste
Crit
Intellect
Spirit
From a pure theorycrafting point of view, stacking these stats based on certain weights (which I don't have available) will up your damage the most. However, as indicated in the section above, there are multiple play styles, and based on what you want out of your dps rotation, sometimes you may value certain stats more for your play style. Specifically there are two hang-up's I have with this priority.
1) Haste vs Crit
Looking at various theorycrafting sources haste and crit are close to identical in what they do for your overall dps. However, I tend to gravitate towards crit over haste for a few reasons. First, druids are built to benefit from crit. Natures Grace and Eclipse all up your overall damage whenever you crit. You also have talents to up critical strike damage. With my current gear, I usually get starfire crits of about 13,000 or more in raids. Obviously I can't constantly string starfire crits (except with eclipse... see why i like it?) but that alone is close to 4000 dps. Secondly, and admittedly this is less of a motivation, but certain classes can benefit from your critting. Arcane mages (which my fiancee is) can put Focus Magic on me to buff both of our crit chances when I crit. Prot warriors can put vigilance on me to get extra threat from my aggromancing abilities. While those second two are minor, since the scales are fairly balanced between Haste and Crit anyway, thats enough to push me into valuing crit more.
2) Spell Power Uber Alles
The theory behind stacking pure spell power, especially with gems, is to blow the crap out of everything super duper ultra mega fast. I believe the metaphor of a glass cannon becomes particularly relevant for this sort of itemization. Here's the issue I have with it: As of right now, there are no fights in the game where putting out 4000 dps as opposed to 3700 dps is a big deal (just adjust for the scale of your gear). Assuming you have a halfway decent group for everything, Naxxramas poses no real challenges, even on 25. The challenging fights rest more on the healers. And while you don't want to put out horrible damage, the difference between stacking pure SP gems for a few hundred extra dps vs actually getting the socket bonuses, getting a bit of crit/haste/spirit/whatever doesn't really make a difference. The two hardest (by item level) encounters in the game right now are EoE25 and OS25-3 Drake. Malygos is a pretty simple fight actually, and is more about mechanics than spamming damage. Granted there is a timer but again im assuming your group isn't retarded and you arnt fumbling to get the timer. If you are, you may want to consider stacking pure spell power to help get your raid over that DPS hump. OS25 is probably the closest thing to needing to crank out max dps as there is in the game today, but again, as a piece of a good raiding team, getting some of those secondary stats shouldn't lower your dps enough to make you useless. Perhaps when Uldar comes out there will be some challenging fights in the game, but for now, lets face it; lvl 80 raiding is not that challenging. If you value the glass cannon approach, stacking spell power will up your damage. If you like having a more balanced character, diversify your gems a bit, and have some fun.
I hope this cleared up some common questions about Boomkins. Please leave any comments you may have, and I'll try to address them. Peace yallz!
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