In the past couple weeks my attention has swung back to Traxy. I’ve been focusing not just on gearing her up, but also on roleplaying her. I think I’ve developed a bit of a feel for her character and I wanted to share my thoughts.
I want to make clear up front: this is not a “how to” post. I do have some ideas about how death knights should be roleplayed but they are my ideas and I’m not confident enough about them to say that my way is the right way. I think it is the right way for me, and I certainly think it would withstand scrutiny lore wise, but I’m not writing a guide here.
I say that because in my experience people have roleplayed death knights in so many myriad ways that it defies categorization. I have also experienced people being, to put it bluntly, elitist snobs about what a death knight should be. The traditional thought of a death knight is a bitter, grumpy warrior who died in the fight against the scourge in Lord’aeron, bitterly served the Lich King, and even now in service to the Alliance or Horde has an attitude almost akin to regretting being alive.
I don’t play Traxy like that and I don’t think you should. Pure stereotypes aren’t fun to play with and I don’t think they would be fun to play as, either. Right now I’d like to go through some aspects of Traxy’s character and compare them with how I’ve seen death knights played.
First and perhaps most importantly, Traxy is dead. She was killed by a member of the Cult of the Damned and raised to serve the Lich King. This is consistent with the introduction played when you first make a death knight character, which specifically says that you bought Azeroth a new future with your life. Some people, however, do play as their characters being alive, along the lines of those within the Cult of the Damned who willingly serve the Lich King. This is almost certainly anti-lore, but it’s also something I could see working as long as there is a good story to back it up.
As to the physical effects of death, the roleplay is all over the map. A lot of people play Death Knights as perfectly preserved, indistinguishable from the living. A fair number also treat them as one would treat the forsaken, with patches of missing tissues and relevant disfigurations. The roleplay is all over the map here. While wearing armor, Traxy appears as any other death knight would, although her skin is a bit grayer than it was while she was alive. Her hair grows, and she eats, breathes, and has standard bodily functions that a living night elf would. If she were seen without armor, however, one would notice a horrible scar over her chest, a sunken cavity where her heart once was. This is one reason Traxy prefers to remain fully clothed at all times. She also has reduced nerve functions; she cannot feel physical pleasure as a normal person would. She is also, as most people play death knights, infertile.
Her race is a bit of a conundrum, lore wise. As far as I know, the scourge was not active on Kalimdor, and night elves were not a significant part of the forces fighting the scourge in Lordaeron. Thus, night elf death knights should be extremely rare (something that could probably be said for many other races as well). As I noted above, I had Traxy be the target of a specific “recruiting” effort by the Cult of the Damned, which I think works lore wise. I have heard people complain about such things but I think they were just trolls not worth bothering with.
The stereotypical personality of the death knight is grumpy and bitter. Here I swayed in completely the other direction with Traxy. She’s bubbly and happy and talkative, almost manic. I’ve seen people play death knights with various different personalities.
I felt for Traxy, however, her personality should reflect that she is a death knight and not some random adventurer without her experiences. Traxy is very much psychotic. She loves blood, she loves killing things, and derives a certain visceral pleasure from the rending of flesh. In this she differs from the way most people play death knights or any other character, but honestly I think most characters should trend a bit in this direction. I don’t think you can live the life of an adventurer in Warcraft without being a little bit bloodthirsty.
Roleplaying Traxy is fun, but my largest frustrations with the character are when people don’t seem to acknowledge or respect the death knight aspects of her character. Which is to say that sometimes I have people trying to turn her or convince her into becoming your garden variety living adventurer. I have had several people drop RP like a stone when Traxy reveals her more violent side. I have also had people criticize her hair or personality, expecting her to be grumpier and darker.
But on the whole, it’s been fun. Finding people who appreciate a crazy death knight who likes pancakes is particularly rewarding. I look forward to continuing to roleplay her.
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Approximately four hundred seventy years ago, Traxselina Ysiel’thar (“Traxy”) was born in Auberdine. She was the daughter of Telenderia and Selenaria Ysiel’thar, and the younger sister of Saxsy Ysiel’thar. Upon her birth the clouds parted, birds sang, and nightsabers and thistle bears decided to put their differences aside for the moment in order to have a grand party to celebrate the momentous occasion.
No, not really. It was cloudy in the morning and became sunny in the afternoon of her birth, but such was a normal occurrence in Auberdine at the time and it wasn’t really the sign of anything grand. Birds did sing, but they always sang anyway, and as for the nightsabers and thistle bears, their differences had been highly exaggerated anyway. There was a party to celebrate the event, but that was hardly unusual. Babies being born was something to celebrate.
Traxy’s mother Selenaria was one of the elite sentinels of Auberdine, able to perform incredible athletic feats. Unlike her sister Saxsy, Traxy inherited this altheticism from her mother and it was apparent from a very young age. Traxy could run fast, jump far, do somersaults and cartwheels and handstand pushups and all sorts of feats that were old hat to sentinel warriors but unusual for most kaldorei children. She was an exceptionally athletically gifted child. By no means did she have legendary strength or agility, but she was certainly in the top one percent of kaldorei. In this she put her older sister to shame; shortly before Traxy was 100 years old (equivalent to a seven or eight year old human child), she could run the ten mile sentinel training course faster than her much older sister.
Her althleticism was not her greatest trait, however. The most notable thing about Traxy’s childhood was how happy and good spirited she was. Absolutely nothing got her down; even on those rare occasions where she stumbled and gave herself a nasty gut, she remained remarkably good natured. She had a smile that radiated warmth and good cheer.
As she approached adulthood it was fairly obvious where Traxy would end up. She would follow her mother and become a sentinel. The sentinel corps had high hopes for her; as of Traxy’s 300th birthday, Traxy could run the ten mile course near Auberdine in forty-one minutes, a full minute faster than her mother. She had a broad jump of twenty-five feet, could do somersaults from a standing position in full plate armor, and was otherwise exceptionally qualified for sentinel service.
When she was 300, Traxy joined the sentinel corps. For the first several centuries, she was in training, and was tasked with relatively safe outposts in Darkshore and Ashenvale, spots used to “break in” untested recruits without exposing them to too much danger.
Of particular note for Traxy’s history was the cook that traveled with her squad. Her name was Shanaria, and she loved making pancakes. Every morning, Traxy’s squad would be treated to a pancake breakfast.
Several years ago, disaster befell the squad. A squad of the Cult of the Damned warlocks had been tasked with acquiring promising kaldorei corpses for the Lich King. The Cult attacked at night and their necromantic might overwhelmed and surprised the squad. One gnome warlock walked up to Traxy, and while Traxy was sleeping, she plunged an unholy enchanted dagger into Traxy’s heart, killing her instantly.
Traxy’s corpse was taken to Acherus to be reanimated as a Death Knight. The transformation wiped Traxy’s memory clean, save for one detail: the pancakes Traxy enjoyed every morning. Her midnight blue hair also transformed into an unnatural hot pink, soaked as it was in a bath of enchanted blood.
Traxy proved to be a capable Death Knight, wreaking as much havoc as any other Death Knight had upon the Scarlet Crusade. She was, however, a bit of an outcast among the scourge. Unlike most of the death knights who had become somber and bitter with their transformation, Traxy retained her sense of joviality, and redirected it into a psychotic love for the mayhem she left in her path. She would kill in a way that maximized the blood and gore from the kill, and every time she got blood on her equipment she would giggle like a schoolgirl. In time she developed a taste for it.
Like the other Death Knights, Traxy was freed from the Lich King’s service at the battle for Light’s Hope Chapel. She went on to join the alliance and redirected her bloodthirsty nature to killing the enemies of the alliance. In time, she took the battle directly to the Lich King. Her strength, stamina, resolve and joviality sustained a crew of dedicated adventurers through arduous tasks. In time, she created a legendary axe to assist with her fighting, and was part of the group that led to the Lich King’s downfall.
These adventures sated Traxy’s bloodthirst, and so it was that she returned to Stormwind to pursue a different passion: Pancakes. After the fall of the Lich King she rented a small space in Stormwind’s Park and opened a restaurant named “Traxy’s House of Pancakes”. From this unassuming little shop, Traxy sold pancakes, waffles and Lordaeron toast to adventurers and Stormwind citizens. After a year or so, she had established a reputation for tasty breakfast treats at reasonable prices.
Then Deathwing hit. The park was destroyed. Traxy salvaged what she could, and maintaining the positive attitude she had throughout her life, reestablished the restaurant in Cathedral Square, just off the docks of Lake Stormwind. Traxy’s House of Pancakes was a moderate success, to the point where Traxy considered hiring extra help to run the restaurant.
At that point, Jana Aliston, flush with gold from gem sales, met with Traxy again. The two had been paired a few times as adventurers against the Lich King, and Traxy had a trust for Jana. Jana proposed to purchase the restaurant from Traxy, with plans for franchising and expansion, funded by Jana’s gem sales. Traxy agreed, and Jana took over the restaurant. Traxy’s role was reduced to an advisory and spokesperson’s capacity, although no one would deny her if she wanted to get behind the counter and make some pancakes. Jana then expanded the franchise to six other locations: first Old Town, then Lakeshire, then Ironforge, then Darnassus, then Feathermoon, and finally in Booty Bay.
Relieved of her day-to-day pancake making responsibilities, Traxy has once again turned her eye toward adventure. She has started again to thirst for the blood of battle, and aims to take her swords and skills to fight the Twilight Hammer and Deathwing.
I’ve gotten out of the habit of posting my art here, just because I figured those of you who wanted to follow my art would do so at my deviantART page.
This one, I think, warranted inclusion here. It is, obviously, a drawing of my three primary characters. From left to right: Jana Aliston, Traxy Ysiel’thar and Saxsy Ysiel’thar. I trust I don’t have to give a background for any of these characters (although I am going to post a character background for Traxy sometime soon). I did want to relate a little story here.
After Traxy took part in bringing down the Lich King, she moved to Stormwind and founded a small restaurant named “Traxy’s House of Pancakes”. THoP, as it is sometimes abbreviated, served pancakes and waffles and Lordaeron toast with various appropriate sides and a secret death knight special. It was a moderate success in its original location in the Park.
After Deathwing destroyed the Park, Traxy moved the restaurant to a location just off Cathedral Square, near the docks of Lake Stormwind. Again she had moderate success there.
Jana liked the restaurant and she had a bunch of gold from gem selling, so she proposed a business deal. Jana bought the restaurant from Traxy (leaving Traxy with a minority interest and a nominal employment position as a spokesperson). Jana then expanded the business, opening six new restaurants in Old Town, Lakeshire, Darnassus, Ironforge, Feathermoon and Booty Bay.
I hope you like the drawing and if you have a particular liking for one of the three characters I would be interested in hearing it. I have a preference in this drawing but I don’t want to say for fear it might influence comments too much.
Enjoy!
It was a little over a week ago that one of the higher ups in Dedicated Ending announced a change to the raiding schedule. Up until now, we had been doing Firelands runs on Wednesdays to get the guild leader the legendary staff. A couple weeks ago that was finished up, so we needed something else to do. That something else turned out to be an alt Dragon Soul run.
The problem with the alt runs, however, is that I didn’t have an alt I could take. Saxsy runs progressively on Friday and Saturday and I’ve no intention of taking her out of those runs. It also would be contrary to the point of an alt run: kicking back, enjoying the 20% buff and face rolling normal level mobs on unfamiliar characters. Saxsy and Jana are for all practical purposes identical. I didn’t have any other character on Moon Guard at level 85 that could be a part of that raid.
Which was unfortunate, because they needed people. And it would be fun.
I did, however, have baby Traxy. She was level 75 at the time. Thus was the challenge I set for myself. Could I level baby Traxy from 75 and gear her up to be able to run Dragon Soul in time for the first alt run (on April 25th)?
Of course I could.
One of the other people in my guild had a level 74 warrior that he wanted to level as a tank. We burned through Traxy’s rested xp in several familiar instances like Old Kingdom, Violet Hold and the Nexus. That got Traxy to 78, or close enough. At that point I took Traxy to the starting quest line for the Storm Peaks. After introducing her to Thorim and getting her Sons of Hodir rep, I switched to the Crusader’s Pinnacle quest line in Icecrown. Just as the Naaru were welcoming Crusader Bridenbrad into the afterlife, Traxy dinged 80.
Then came Hyjal. I always liked Hyjal over Vashj’ir (for one, it doesn’t take fifteen minutes of NPC blathering just to get there). I like saving the wildlife, bouncing baby bears off trampolines, and the massive regrowth of the forest. I also like Joust recreated. This got me to level 82.
Level 82 was important because baby Traxy is a miner and a blacksmith. At 82, she could get the quest to go into Deepholm, where there is a ton of ore for the having. That was how I spent the first 30% of level 82: mining all the obsidian and elementium ore I could get my hands on. I took that ore to make Traxy new armor and weapons, and before I started questing in Deepholm, I had maxed my mining skill and my blacksmithing skill was at 512.
After that I started questing in Deepholm. I think Deepholm is a zone that severely punishes you if you skip it, because you can’t get Therazane rep without unlocking the quests, and at the beginning you can’t even get a tabard. As far as I know, unless you finish the 60 or so quests that get you the first two World Pillar fragments, you don’t have access to Therazane, and thus are missing out on the shoulder enchants and the ilvl 346 rings available to people who just complete the quest lines.
Deepholm got me just past 84. The next step was unlocking the Twilight Highlands area, with the Anduin quests and the hilarious Fargo Flintlocke sequence. At that point I was 30% into 84. That bit probably included a bunch of mining runs designed to get me the mats to reach 525 blacksmithing. I borrowed some Truegold from Saxsy to make some ilvl 359 items.
I really enjoyed the Wildhammer quests in Twilight Highlands, and doing them again was a pleasure. With help from a guild mate, I got through the Crucible of Carnage quest line, which brought me to about 80%. I got to Kirthaven and the really fun dwarven wedding quest line when I hit 85.
At that point, I put on all the gear that was waiting for me: the 397 valor boots and bracers, 378 justice point relic, 377 PvP gloves, 359 epic chest plate and belt, and a 346 weapon. With all that, I managed an average ilvl of 341, well into normal heroics but not quite at the troll level yet. I ground out a couple of normal heroics (Halls of Origination and Deadmines), got a few upgrades there, and managed a justice point ring in the process. I then crafted some 377 PvP shoulders and did the Thrall Firelands quest line to get the 365 cloak. At that point, my ilvl was 356 and I was ready for HoT heroics.
There’s a certain ease I get with HoT heroics; I’m familiar enough with them that I feel no problem queueing for them by myself. And so I did, many times, enough to get me my 1000 valor and 2200 justice points, enough to buy me T12 legs. With a fair bit of lucky drops there, I managed to get to an item level of 376, enough for my first raid finder run on Traxy.
I went into raid finder with some people in my guild, some of whom needed nothing from there but who were on Traxy’s token. Thus it was with a fair bit of luck that Traxy got her tier shoulders and gloves. She’s finished the front half of LFR, and at some point I’ll get to the back half.
Traxy is a dual-wielding frost death knight. She is this way not for any practical reasons (although from what I’ve read on EJ, it’s the top dps spec for death knights). Rather, as with my reasons for playing fire, I like it aesthetically. Traxy looks great!
I also admit that I do not know exactly what I am doing with Traxy. I am aware that there is a buff called Killing Machine that procs and you want to use Obliterate when that happens. I am aware of a buff called Rime that allows you to cast a free Howling Blast. I am aware that I have diseases of some sort that I want to keep on the targets. I am aware that I have a cooldown called Pillar of Frost which I want to use as often as possible. I am aware that I have green, blue and red runes, and the red runes are really good and the green ones are less useful.
Other than that I’m not terribly sure what I’m doing. My thumb alternates between my one, two, three and four keys and presses them in a sequence that bears some loose relation to the buffs and runes I have up, but I can’t precisely put into words what I do, other than to call it “face rolling”.
LFR tonight was the first time I really had some ability to see how I was doing. And the conclusion was: pretty well. Traxy did 16.1k dps on Morchok (10th), 33.2k dps on Zon’ozz (7th), 21.5k dps on Yor’sahj (6th), and 19.1k dps on Hagara (3rd). These are well shy of what Jana could do (I think perhaps maybe 60-70%), but still a meaningful contributor to the raid. This was with ilvl 372 gear, one piece of it PvP, without enchantments.
So despite my lack of confidence with it, I think Traxy will do pretty well in the alt run.
Playing a frost DK has a very different feel to it than playing a fire mage. Everything seems very frenzied on Traxy and I feel like I’m switching buttons three times a second. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything deliberately on Traxy, even though I am reacting to the Rime and Killing Machine buffs and the sort. When I switch back to Jana from Traxy I feel like everything is moving much more slowly and I have less to do.
Now that Traxy is 85, I’ve thought a bit more about her RP and I may talk about that for a little bit. But for now I just wanted to document that Traxy is back.
The Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt 3.0 has ended, and the winners have been announced. This is the first time I have participated by hiding an egg in my site. I didn’t go looking for eggs, because I’m horrible at that sort of thing, but I thought it would be fun to participate by hiding one.
My egg was one of four rated as “difficult” to find by Kamalia. I didn’t really think it would be all that hard to find, because the way I hid it was part of a process that seemed logical and natural to me.
The point of participating in a contest like this, from a self-serving perspective, is to get a blog exposure. My hope is that through this process people would come to I Like Pancakes, like what they read, and then become fairly regular readers or the like. Of course, if they didn’t like what I had to write I don’t want them to stick around but my hope is that one or two people would come looking for eggs, find what I wrote interesting, and stick around.
My goal in hiding my egg was to encourage people to read things that might best represent the site.
I hoped that people who were looking for eggs had the same sort of idea, and would look for eggs in such a way that would encourage them to learn about the blog rather than just a mindless search for images of eggs. Thus, I expected people to read, and get clues from the reading.
People who wanted to learn about this blog would be gravitated to one of two places: my “About” page and my “Favorites” page. I chose the About page as the place to start because I didn’t think I could offer a hint on the Favorites page without making it completely obvious. On the About page, I added the following paragraph:
If you’ve come here looking for something, I suggest you start with either my Favorites page or the Shadowmourne Retrospective. The former is a sampling of blog posts I’ve liked, other people have told me they’ve liked, or ones that I’ve worked really hard on and hope people like. The latter is a good sampling of blog posts that were written randomly and then collected as a retrospective and thus provide a more natural feel for what this site is all about.
The link to my Favorites page was the wrong path; it was my hope that the last sentence would prompt people looking for an egg to try that link instead. It did not link to my regular Shadowmourne Retrospective site as linked at the top of the blog. Instead, it led to a modified version which gave another path.
The modified Shadowmourne Retrospective had one sentence that was different from the regular Shadowmourne Retrospective. Down near the bottom, in describing the entry for the “Sealed Chest Speech”, I wrote: “Honestly, if you’re looking for something on this blog you will probably find it here.” That was a pretty big hint, but of course to get it you would have to read it.
The Sealed Chest Speech entry is one of my favorite blog posts. It represents the pinnacle of my experience in Warcraft, and was a tribute to some of the friends I made in the game and worked hardest with to achieve a nearly impossible objective. I think if you want to know something about me, or rather something about who I aspire to be, that’s about as good an entry as any of the 500 or so on this blog.
The link to the Sealed Chest Speech, like the Shadowmourne Retrospective, was slightly modified. Down at the very bottom of the entry was an additional paragraph. It had a link to gluten-free Easter Egg pancakes, which was the best image for this site I could find for an Easter Egg.
To all those who won or found my egg, congratulations! I hope you enjoyed looking, and if you’ve liked what you see, I hope you’ll stick around a while.
I have a number of things I could write about: Saxsy’s retcon and the AoE possibilities for fire mages in MoP are things I’d like to get to. But I think it’s necessary to acknowledge Jana’s raid last night and document it while I am still thinking about it.
Jana’s raid downed heroic Yor’sahj and heroic Ultraxion last night.
This feels like a small step toward the sort of progression raiding that Traxy did in Wrath of the Lich King and away from the more social raiding I’ve been doing since the beginning of Dragon Soul. According to GuildOx (and I have no idea if this is the best site for such a thing), Jana’s guild is now ranked 19th on the server and 8th in the Alliance for Moon Guard, “tied” with three other guilds who are also 3/8 in heroic modes.
We only raid DS once a week, so I can’t really call it hard core. I suspect that if we dedicated three nights of raiding in DS in a week, we’d be much further along now but I’m not sure I or we would like that. So it’s not quite the same, but the fights again feel pretty challenging.
One general difference I am noting is my differing understanding of the fights from Wrath to DS. As Traxy in Wrath, I knew the whole fight; I knew what tanks were doing, I knew the challenges DPSers would be facing, and I knew the challenges healers would be facing. I felt much more competent and qualified to suggest strategic changes to the raid lead and in fact often did.
In DS, however, I feel I have a much dimmer sense of the mechanics behind the fight. I know what I need to do generally, but I couldn’t say what challenges the tanks or healers are going through. I don’t know for certain why we would select one ooze over another on the Yor’sahj fight, and while I’m dimly aware of the new Fading Light mechanic for tanks I couldn’t say what specifically I would advise tanks to do about handling it. (Maybe I’m overcomplicating it.)
Yor’sahj is my favorite fight in normal, and I suspect it will remain my favorite on heroic. The change in heroic mode (other than increased boss health/damage) is simple: four oozes appear rather than three. This apparently completely changes the dynamic of the fight and the choice of ooze. In normal, practically every time the purple ooze would appear, it would be the one selected to die. (I think the priority list goes something like purple before yellow before red before green; this lack of certainty shows how I’m more in a “follow the raid lead” mode versus a “know the fight yourself” mode.) In heroic mode, the choice of ooze is much more dynamic, and as far as I can tell is about avoiding specific combinations as opposed to a straightforward priority. Purple seems to be pretty low down on the list; I think yellow was the most frequently targeted, followed by black, and then followed by green.
We had a few hiccups. The strategy with Mana Voids is completely different. The first time a Mana Void appears, we were told (last week) to leave it up for the next cycle of oozes. If you can pull this trick off you can get a free mana refresh for harder ooze cycles and essentially take the blue ooze out of the equation. The first time it happened last night, though, someone forgot the instruction from the prior week and killed the Mana Void early, leaving most everyone without mana and ensuring a wipe. But that only happened once. Another difficulty was our group composition. Our amazing holy priest was tasked to heal four clothies during purple phases, which proved to be too much even for her. A quick change in group makeup changed that problem. On our fifth try, everything came together and we downed him.
Yor’sahj dropped an axe that made our Death Knight tank absolutely salivate; I could just about feel the moisture through vent, that’s how bad it was. He also dropped the Vanquisher tier pants, and Jana’s good luck with non-trinket loot in DS continued; I rolled a 92 and won them. Yay for heroic pants.
Ultraxion was a different challenge. There are, from what I can tell, three challenges to heroic Ultraxion:
1 and 3 proved to be the biggest challenges for us. We had a fairly complex Hour of Twilight rotation. Instead of just having three rotating sets of pairs, we had substitutions for our second and third pairs. The second Hour of Twilight was taken by one of our tanks and one of our dps warriors using a long cooldown (Shield Wall, I think - I would be a bad raid lead). The fifth Hour of Twilight was taken by the same tank and our other dps warrior using the same long cooldown, one that would not have been up for the first dps warrior. I was instructed to take the third Hour of Twilight, using cauterize (and not ice block), along with our resto shaman who would be protected by Guardian Spirit or some such buff cast by our holy priest. The shaman then could heal me up after the cauterize, leaving ice block available for the sixth Hour of Twilight, which I would take along with our arcane mage, protected from all damage by our ice blocks. It was complicated to remember and execute and for five of the first six tries, someone messed something up.
There are a couple of changes to heroic Ultraxion I should mention here that make it a harder fight to execute. First, the Hour of Twilight cast is much faster. Where before I could sneak in a fireball and a fire blast, living bomb, or instant pyroblast after the cast time began, on heroic mode I pretty much have to hit Heroic Will when my current spell has finished casting (unless I’m taking Hour of Twilight, of course). Second, Fading Light hits three targets instead of two, making it much more likely that you’ll have to deal with that mechanic at a given time. Finally, Fading Light’s buff can be set from anywhere between 3 and 7 seconds, and if it’s at 3 you will need to react quickly. Execution is generally tougher and it was no surprise to me that people made mistakes.
Our fifth attempt proved we could do it. There were no execution mistakes on this fight, and we got past the sixth Hour of Twilight without any deaths. That’s when factor 3 kicked in and it was obvious from how my health bar jumped that the healers, as skilled and as wonderful as they are, just could not keep up. We were close, so very close. When I died, Ultraxion had less than one million health. He got down to below 200k health before our tank and healer died. It was so close, close enough to make you try to think what you could have done differently to add 200k damage. (In my case, it was to pop mirror image twice; I usually don’t pop mirror image at all, preferring to save it for sudden threat wackiness, but in my regular group run that’s not necessary.)
Our seventh attempt proved to be the one. We boosted our dps just enough to avoid the unhealable phase. I found about 3k extra dps, primarily from a fourth combustion (mostly an RNG thing). It was a clean kill.
I didn’t get any loot from Ultraxion; it didn’t drop anything I could use and even if it did I would have passed, having gotten the legs from Yor’sahj.
We proceeded to wreck the rest of the place without issue. I was particularly happy as to how I did on heroic Morchok, Zon’ozz and Madness (and of course happy as to how I did on our heroic kills). Jana is one of the leading dps on her runs and that’s a position which makes me happy. I think she has better group synergies than Saxsy does; she gets dark intent from a warlock Saxsy’s group doesn’t have, and arcane tactics and focus magic from an arcane mage Saxsy’s group doesn’t have. This makes her more enjoyable to play.
I’m really happy with where Jana is right now.
Sachaselineria Ysiel’thar was born almost seven hundred years ago in the remote village of Auberdine. Her father was Telenderia Ysiel’thar, a druid primarily focused on the restoration magic. Her mother was Selenaria Ysiel’thar, a powerful sentinel warrior charged with guarding Auberdine and the surrounding area.
Very early in her youth people got tired of calling her by her full name and dubbed her “Saxsy”. The nickname stuck, and Saxsy has been called by her full name only fifteen to twenty times in the last six hundred years.
Of her parents, Saxsy’s mother was the far more dominant force in her childhood. Saxsy’s parents hoped that Saxsy would grow up to become a warrior sentinel like her mother, or as a second option, a huntress sentinel. Saxsy’s mother was a beast of a woman, 7’2” and 275 pounds, easily one of the models of the warrior sentinels. From her fiftieth year to her two hundred fiftieth, Saxsy was enrolled in a grueling regimen of physical exercises and diet, all designed to create a perfect physical specimen.
It didn’t work. Despite her mother’s best efforts, Saxsy seemed incapable of developing muscle. She was taller than her peers, but weighed considerably less. Each day she would be tasked with a run of about ten miles; most of her peers could complete it in just over an hour. Selenaria could complete it in just over forty minutes. Saxsy would take over an hour and a half, and on some days she would finish by walking back to Auberdine, completely exhausted.
For quite a while Saxsy’s mother held out hope that Saxsy was a late bloomer, and that her muscles would develop in time. There was no fault in her diet or exercise regimen. Saxsy just wasn’t meant to be a warrior.
When Saxsy was about two hundred fifty years old, Saxsy’s mother gave up. Saxsy’s father, who had always been more distant from her, then tried his hands. For the next three decades, he tried to instruct Saxsy on the art of being a druid. They took regular trips to Moonglade to consult with other druids. Saxsy’s father took a more balanced approach than her mother did, preferring to expose her slowly to the wondrous powers of the druids and hoping to spark an interest and a talent.
Saxsy’s father had good intentions, but they didn’t pan out. Saxsy had absolutely no gift for druidic magic; her attempts to cast the most rudimentary healing spells ended in bitter failure, and she never even attempted to shift into cat form.
The joke around Auberdine at the time was that Saxsy had inherited her mother’s affinity with nature and her father’s athleticism. Had that been reversed, she would have been perhaps the most powerful young Kaldorei in Auberdine, but as it was she was considered a bit of a joke.
In Auberdine at the time, there were three honorable career paths. One was to become a sentinel, the second was to become a druid, and the third was to become a priestess of Elune. She could, of course, become an innkeeper or juice vendor or dock worker, but no parent aspired to have their children to engage in such a career. It was with a fair amount of regret, therefore, that Saxsy’s parents made preparations for her to become a priestess of Elune.
That was when she was about 280 years old. Roughly 80 years earlier, Saxsy’s sister Traxselina Ysiel’thar was born. Like Saxsy, Traxselina quickly acquired a nickname, hers Traxy. Unlike Saxsy, Traxy showed significant promise as far as becoming a sentinel. At the age of 75 (roughly equivalent to 7 in human years), she had finished the ten-mile course in under an hour. She could run faster than Saxsy, and a cruel joke at the time was that it would soon be that Traxy could hold Saxsy in her arms, while Saxsy would not be able to do the same.
Despite this, Saxsy never felt anything but love for her sister. Indeed, Saxsy remained jovial throughout her whole childhood. She never let her failures define her, instead preferring to excel socially. She was obviously very smart, which was the reason the priestesses of Elune agreed to accept her application. For the next twenty years, Saxsy would work with the priestesses within Auberdine, and at the age of three hundred, she was to join a temple in Ashenvale for more formal and isolated training.
Saxsy hated the idea. She felt she fit in with the gregariousness of the sentinels or the wildness of the druids far better than the stoic conservatism of the priestesses. As her three hundredth birthday approached, she grew more and more agitated at the thought of becoming a priestess. She never felt it was right for her.
So it was at the age of 295, one spring evening in Auberdine, that Saxsy was alone with her thoughts. What was she to do? All of her options seemed closed to her. It was at that moment she felt a stream of energy in the air, an electric warmth that almost called to her. She reached out to it and felt the energy gather within her hand, like swirling particles in the mist collecting to form someone. A moment later she saw a spark of light, a flame no larger than that of a candle. She jumped back in surprise, having no idea what had happened. She felt the palm of her hand; it was ever so slightly singed. She blinked and tried to do it again, this time a little further from her body.
It worked. Three more times she gathered the arcane energy to form a flame, and each time a flame the size of a candle’s formed for a few seconds before disappearing. By that time she had figured what it was that had happened. She had tapped into arcane energy, forbidden to the Kaldorei for nine and a half millennia. The flames were a spark; she now knew what she was meant to do. She would become a mage.
Becoming a mage isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do as a kaldorei. There were no mage trainers in Auberdine, or anywhere else on the continent, save for one place. Saxsy had learned long ago of the various battles of the War of the Ancients. She learned of the hated Quel’dorei who remained loyal to Azshara, but more importantly she knew of the minority who turned against the Queen and assisted the Kaldorei Resistance. She knew of the Shen’dralar, who fought to free Eldre’thalas, only to have the city decimated by the destruction of the Well of Eternity. She knew of the High Elves, the ones who revolted in Ashenvale and were exiled to the Eastern Kingdoms.
Saxsy had no idea how to get to the Eastern Kingdoms, but she did know where Eldre’thalas was. Her mother had spoken a few times about how the sentinels were instructed to avoid Eldre’thalas. Saxsy believed that the Shen’dralar had survived in Eldre’thalas and had taken exile; this was not a commonly known thing but it was strongly suspected by most of the people in Auberdine and whispered about occasionally.
So it was that two years shy of her three hundredth birthday, Saxsy packed up her belongings. She wrote a letter to her parents, who she felt would forbid her absolutely from doing what she was about to do. She then left in search of Eldre’thalas.
Though Saxsy lacked the strength and agility to become a sentinel, her training did her well in her trip to Eldre’thalas. The long voyage was not without incident, but she arrived at Eldre’thalas safe and sound, finding the large part of the city overrun by ogres. Ogres were large, lumbering and oafish, and she found them easy to avoid while exploring the city. What she could not avoid, because she lacked the magical training to sense it, were the magical traps surrounding the settled area of Eldre’thalas. She was caught by one and whisked away into an arcane prison.
Saxsy found herself in a void, a grey cloudy area with nothing distinct. She remained there for what seemed like fifteen or sixteen hours, but was actually only fourteen. At the end, she was pulled through by magical energy to find herself in a dark room, surrounded by a glowing pink shield, which even Saxsy could tell contained enough arcane energy to keep her imprisoned.
At that point, Saxsy was interrogated by a woman named Narshanna. Narshanna approached her with the idea that Saxsy was a sentinel scout, hoping to plan an attack against the Shen’dralar. Saxsy quickly convinced her otherwise, explaining that she was hoping to become a mage. Saxsy showed her how she could summon fire. Narshanna believed her, and sensing an opportunity for herself, agreed to teach Saxsy with two conditions: 1) Saxsy would never leave Eldre’thalas so long as the Shen’dralar remained in exile, and 2) Saxsy would serve Narshanna faithfully and without question for fifty years. Saxsy accepted.
Narshanna was at first a bit cruel to Saxsy, pushing her and making her do things that were a bit humiliating. The other Shen’dralar seemed to make a joke of it, referring to Saxsy as Narshanna’s “pet Kaldorei”. Over time, this changed. Saxsy remained relentlessly upbeat and after a few decades of training, she won Narshanna’s respect. Saxsy was never going to be the most powerful mage of the Shen’dralar, but her aptitude was undeniable, and she brought a joy to Eldre’thalas that was sorely lacking after nine and a half thousand years of exile. At the end of her fifty years, Saxsy and Narshanna considered each other friends. While Saxsy was no longer bound by her promise, she continued to learn from Narshanna, and also continued to learn from other Quel’dorei.
Saxsy was often met with skepticism and initial disapproval. Quel’dorei were a haughty sort, and most thought of Kaldorei as a lesser race. This was not something that Saxsy had the power to change; she was not a diplomat without peer. She was, however, likable and talented, and even the haughtiest of the Highborne could not deny that. Thus it was that she became accepted as a part of the Shen’dralar — never considered a Highborne, but still considered a valued part of the community.
Approximately three years ago, the Shen’dralar leaders approached High Priestess Tyrande seeking a reunification with the Kaldorei. The negotiations did not go very well, not until Deathwing wrecked Azeroth with his initial furious attack, including the destruction of Auberdine. At that point, with large parts of Ashenvale falling to the Horde, Tyrande acknowledged she could use all the help she could get, and the Shen’dralar exile ended.
Saxsy was sent to Auberdine to assist with rescue missions there. She reunited with her family; her mother and father were a fair distance from Auberdine when Deathwing struck and thus survived. Traxy returned to Auberdine as well, but as a Death Knight, killed by the Cult of the Damned three years earlier in a vicious and cowardly assault on a sentinel training camp. Saxsy remained a bit distant from her parents, who never approved of her leaving and still disapproved of her becoming a mage. Her relationship with Traxy was rekindled, and they remain very friendly.
After her work in Auberdine, Saxsy began exploring on behalf of the alliance and came to settle in Stormwind. She became good friends with Jana Aliston, a middle aged human mage in semi-retirement, who showed her the ropes around Stormwind. She also met and befriended Synelyse and became loosely associated with her trading company. She also met a draenei named Darishea and developed a close relationship with her.
While based in Stormwind, she continued her training and service to the alliance. Over time she became a powerful mage, considered to be a valuable ally in the fights against Deathwing and Ragnarous.
This is my five hundredth post on I Like Pancakes.
Five hundred is a pretty big number for anything. If each post averages a thousand words (not that I think they do, but it’s as good a guess as any and some posts are pictures), that’s ten times as many words as my second book. I Like Pancakes is undoubtedly the longest as most detailed set of writing that I’ve ever done.
One of the things I think this blog helps me do is to look back. And in looking back I’ve noticed quite a few things.
Depending on how you count, I’ve been in between four and seven guilds since I started this blog. One of my very early posts dealt with my frustration about the guild I was in and how I was thinking of changing. Not surprisingly, I soon changed guilds. I joined new guilds for a lot of reasons. A couple times I joined to raid, either because the guild I was joining was better at raiding or because it had a better schedule for me. A couple times I joined a guild because that’s where my friends were.
I’ve changed servers twice. I’ve changed “mains” four times now: from Jana to Traxy, then Traxy back to Jana, then Jana to Saxsy, and most recently from Saxsy back to Jana.
I’ve changed my primary activity in the game just as many times. Started out with social raiding, then went to progressive raiding. From that I went to casual RP, and then after that to auction house playing. I took a break from the game. When I came back, I got into more intense story driven RP. And then I found my way back into social raiding. And more recently, I’ve dropped the story driven RP in favor of more casual, spontaneous RP.
There’s an expression I attribute to my friend Leafie, which is “Chase the fun.” I think of all the changes that I’ve written about and quite a few of them were about chasing the fun – finding the new thing I enjoyed more. When I think back on those changes, I think without exception my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.
A few examples will suffice. Back when I started this blog, I was pretty miserable in the guild that I was in. Yes, I had a lot of friends in the guild, but I was tasked with the job of improving raid DPS and then everything was pulled out from under me (or so I felt). More recently, Saxsy’s story-driven RP was making me feel miserable. Saxsy’s character had become something I didn’t like, and didn’t want her to be, and the story lines were those that really just didn’t interest me. In both situations I stuck with it for a while out of loyalty to my friends and the hope that things might turn around.
I’m convinced that was a mistake. Instead of trying to turn around a bad situation, I should have been chasing the fun. When I actually took that to heart and finally left the situation, things became so much better so quickly that I am filled with regret that I didn’t do it sooner.
Now, I have some advice. If you find yourself in a situation where you are unhappy, look for something that will be more fun. Chase that fun. Whether it’s a switch to PvP, casual or progressive raiding, leveling new characters, playing the AH, or RP of some sort, there are many different ways of having fun within World of Warcraft. But even more broadly, there are different games out there to try, or even different activities. Go play cards. Or even go jogging. Find something fun and chase it.
You may be tempted to stay in your bad situation out of loyalty to friends. Forget this. The people who want to keep you in a situation in which you are not having fun are not your friends, no matter how much you may think of them. One of the fondest memories I have of Storm, my guild on Medivh, is that no one there raised more than a token objection when I wanted to change from Traxy to Jana (taking away one of their raiding tanks). None of them raised more than a token objection when I switched servers. They all wished me the best of luck, and I have fond memories of playing the game with them as a result. And when I go back there to say hello, I’m greeted with enthusiasm and I respond in kind.
Your real friends will support you when you chase the fun. And the really good ones will stick with you through it all. I’m blessed to have several friends who I’ve kept in touch with the whole time, sometimes sporadic, but more or less always there for me. They never judged me, and have forgiven me for mistakes I’ve made and the moods I’ve been in.
I could talk about more, but I wanted to touch on something that happened this weekend. I’m not going to lie. Things leading up to this weekend were pretty rocky. I had a disagreement with some people in Saxsy’s guild which frustrated me to the point of dropping out on raid a week ago. For the past few weeks I haven’t logged into Saxsy to do anything but raid. Things were looking pretty bad. And this weekend I was supposed to meet a few people from the guild, including one person who has been my friend on Warcraft the longest. I was nervous, especially given what was happening within the guild.
I almost chickened out.
It wasn’t so much that I was nervous about meeting new people (which I was, a little). I was nervous about everything that can happen in a real life meeting. I was worried that I’d have nothing to talk about, and that we’d sit uncomfortably. I was worried that a good internet friendship would turn into a so-so meet up in real life. This has happened to me before. Once, long ago, I met someone of whom I had incredibly high expectations and the day after we met they were out of my life forever. It can happen, and it has happened. so I was nervous about that.
I met four people from my guild this week. One’s a very gregarious military guy, someone who I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet but was glad I did, because he’s a lot of fun. We had a good time.
One’s a rather shy artist, someone who I always liked online but always was a little distant, I think because our interests differed. She was exactly as I expected her to be, which was a good thing, and was a fun person to hang out with.
One was a person I didn’t get to spend all that much time with. He talked a lot about anime (which was appropriate, because we were at an anime convention), and I’m not sure we hit it off, but he seemed like a good guy and would certainly be someone I’d be willing to meet up with again.
And then there was the fourth person, or third, or fourth, depending on how you count. This is a person I’ve known on the game for years, for far longer than this blog has been active. She is one of the two people I dedicated my second book to. She’s the primary reason I moved to Moon Guard. To say that I had hopes and fears going into this meeting would be an understatement.
I feared that we would meet, and some little thing that you can hide on the game or over the net but can’t avoid in reality would rub the wrong way, and it would all be over.
I hoped that we would get along as well as we did online.
I was scared. And then it happened. We met, we went and had pizza. We texted a lot. She went to give blood and I talked to her while we waited. We went to dinner. We watched some bad anime. We took the subway a few times. We walked and looked at buildings. We joked. We took pictures. I bought her a cookie. We hugged too many times to count.
It was far better than I ever dared hope.
Someone who was my best friend online was now my best friend. Period. I’ve thought that about her before but meeting cemented it for me. For various reasons she and I have talked about destiny, about odd coincidences that seemed to bring us together. I don’t know about any of that, and I’m not going to put my faith into that.
In any case — and I know she’s reading this — thanks for everything. You’ve made it all worthwhile.
Here’s to another 500 posts!
The following post contains predictions about the spells fire mages will cast in Mists of Pandaria based on a little bit of testing I’ve done in the beta.
Based on my experimentation with various spells in the beta, I’ve come to a tentative conclusion as to what the fire mage priority list will be like in Mists of Pandaria. This could change, not just because better theory crafting could show I am wrong, but also because Blizzard could change the damage caused by spells and the mana cost of spells or other related things. These are guesses.
I will say right now that the priority list will be very different. For the first time since 3.0, fire mages will have to unlearn their previous habits and pick up new ones.
This will describe the standard scenario of fighting one boss with no adds and thus no possibility for splash damage.
Step 1: If Inferno Blast is off cooldown and Heating Up is active and Hot Streak is not active, cast Inferno Blast, otherwise proceed to Step 2.
The idea here is to proc a hot streak with the guaranteed Inferno Blast crit. This will require pretty quick reflexes, because depending on your distance from the target you may have at most a second to do this before the fireball you just cast hits the target and potentially wipes out the Heating Up buff. This will have to be the absolute first priority, even with Combustion off cooldown, because you want the Pyroblast for that anyway.
I know that yesterday I calculated that the theoretical gains from this reactive strategy as executed perfectly were minimal. My feeling, though, is that Blizzard wants this to be the strategy, and will make sure in the final balance that fire mages who can pull this off will have a real, if small, dps advantage over mages who just cast inferno blast every cooldown.
Step 2: If Combustion is off cooldown and a pyroblast has hit the target within the last 4 seconds, cast Combustion, otherwise proceed to step 3.
This is a huge change from how Combustion is used in Cataclysm. In Cataclysm, the Ignite DoT was the primary driver behind Combustion. In MoP, Ignite will proc off of every direct damage spell, so it will practically always be on the target. What’s more, it will very likely be an average of two spells (one ignite stacked upon another) rather than any one spell. Thus, whether each of them has crit or not is not likely to make a huge difference in the damage combustion will do. What’s likely to make a difference is if Pyroblast (a much more powerful spell than fireball) has fueled that ignite and a Pyroblast DoT is on the target. The pyroblast DoT is likely to fuel half the combustion damage as well. Waiting for successive crits or Pyroblast crits would result in higher Combustion damage but I bet the delay in casting it will make that a net dps loss.
If you have Combustion glyphed so that it doubles the damage over time and doubles the cooldown, waiting for a Pyroblast crit will have more value. My bet, however, is that waiting for a Pyroblast crit will be a net dps loss even in this circumstance. But I’m not very sure of this; I’d put my confidence level here at 60%. (The ideal strategy here may very well depend on gear and crit rates; with a higher crit rate it might make more sense to wait.)
An idea that is fascinating to me is whether it might be useful in a single target rotation to cast Flamestrike before casting Combustion. One change from Cataclysm is that a Flamestrike DoT is incorporated into Combustion. This is a relatively small DoT, and Flamestrike on a single target is going to be a dps loss versus the standard priority list. I think it’s possible, though, that with Combustion glyphed, it would make some sense to cast Flamestrike to get that DoT and increase Combustion damage. I’d put the odds of this at about 10%. The idea seems crazy to me.
Step 3: If Living Bomb is not on the target, cast Living Bomb, otherwise proceed to Step 4.
Note here that I predict every fire mage will have Living Bomb. It’s actually quite possible that a fire mage could have two different fire mage specs and choose Frost Bomb or Arcane Bomb (forgetting the official name) instead because it would offer higher single target dps. I might do this, but I don’t expect this to be the case.
Also note that, unlike Cataclysm, it doesn’t matter if Living Bomb is on the target when considering whether to cast Combustion.
Step 4: If Hot Streak is active, cast Pyroblast, otherwise proceed to Step 5.
Now, there’s an argument here that an active Hot Streak should be considered before step 2. The specific scenario is as follows, with combustion off cooldown or coming off cooldown in time to be cast. Heating up active, Fireball crit triggering Hot Streak, Fireball crit triggering heating up, Instant Pyroblast crit triggering Hot Streak, Fireball. At that point, there are two possible sequences: cast Pyroblast and then cast Combustion, or cast Combustion and then cast Pyroblast. As far as I can tell, unless you are standing so close to the mob that the Pyroblast will hit before you can cast Combustion, the only difference is that the latter will save a global cooldown’s time before Combustion can be used again. I think with that sequence you are going to have a huge ignite and are going to want to cast Combustion immediately.
Step 5: Cast Fireball.
No need to consider casting Scorch, as there’s no longer a critical mass debuff to worry about. Given that it’s possible to have a fire mage build without Scorch, I can’t see Blizzard requiring it as part of a standard fire mage rotation.
This will describe the rotation to be used with multiple targets, typically one primary target and several additional targets. This is where things will get very complicated.
Step 1: If Inferno Blast is off cooldown and Heating Up is active and Hot Streak is not active and Living Bomb is on the target, cast Inferno Blast, otherwise proceed to Step 2.
This is slightly different from single target because Inferno Blast has the ability to spread Living Bomb. My guess is that in a multiple target scenario, spreading Living Bomb will of such importance that spreading it is worth forgoing the triggered hot streak. But I could be wrong.
Step 2: If Combustion is off cooldown and Inferno Blast is off cooldown or has less than one second remaining on cooldown and a Pyroblast DoT is on the target and a Flamestrike DoT is on the target, cast Combustion, otherwise proceed to Step 3.
Whew, that’s a mouthful. With multi-target scenarios, you’ll want Ignite, Pyroblast and Flamestrike DoTs on the target. You will also want Inferno Blast off cooldown to spread the Combustion DoT immediately.
One difference between multi-target and single-target is that you just want the Pyroblast DoT on the target, not have it be one of the last couple spells cast. The reason for this is because the most likely explanation for getting a Pyroblast DoT on the target is the sequence Fireball crit triggering heating up, Fireball, Inferno Blast crit triggering hot streak, Instant Pyroblast, Fireball. At that point, if you cast combustion you’ll benefit from the Pyroblast-fueled ignite but Inferno Blast will be on cooldown for another five seconds, and it’s much more important to spread the combustion than to get that large ignite, plus I don’t think it will pay to wait longer.
As will be shown later, though, this is not as much of a concern as it might first appear to be.
Step 3: If Living Bomb is off the target, unless both Hot Streak and Heating Up are active, cast Living Bomb, otherwise proceed to Step 4.
Same as in single target mode, although here it’s important to keep Living Bomb up at all times so that it can be spread to multiple targets.
The one caveat here is a sequence similar to the following one, where there is a danger of losing a hot streak: Fireball 1 crit triggering heating up, Fireball 2, Inferno Blast crit triggering hot streak, Fireball 2 landing and critting triggering heating up, Fireball 3. At that point, if you cast Living Bomb, Fireball 3 will likely land before you can react and cast Pyroblast, and if it crits, you will have wasted a hot streak. This is a rare scenario but in that circumstance I think it’s worth delaying the Living Bomb for a second in order to save the possibility of another hot streak.
Step 4: If Hot Streak is active and either: 1) Heating Up is active OR 2) Inferno Blast is off cooldown or has less than three seconds remaining on cooldown OR 3) BOTH a) Combustion is off cooldown or has less than three seconds remaining on cooldown AND b) Inferno Blast has less than four seconds remaining on cooldown, cast Pyroblast, otherwise go to Step 5.
Another mouthful. Here the consideration is whether it might be worthwhile to delay casting Pyroblast. The idea here is to delay casting it order to be able to spread its DoT to other targets. These conditions assume a two second cast for an intervening fireball, with one of the following sequences: Pyroblast-Fireball-Inferno Blast, or Pyroblast-Fireball-Combustion-Inferno Blast.
If Heating Up is active, though, there’s too much of a risk of overwriting that Hot Streak buff to delay a pyroblast. Cast it immediately.
Step 5: If Inferno Blast is active, cast Inferno Blast, otherwise go to Step 6.
In a multi-target scenario you don’t want to save Inferno Blast. You will want to use it to spread Ignite, if nothing else. There are arguments for saving it to spread all the DoTs but my sense is that you can control the application of those other DoT (Combustion and Pyroblast) for higher dps than saving Inferno Blast and not spreading the DoTs.
Step 6: If Flamestrike is off cooldown, cast Flamestrike, otherwise go to Step 7.
Oh how easy things were when you could spam Flamestrike. Because Flamestrike applies DoTs to all targets, there’s no worry about saving Inferno Blast for it, and the other DoTs are going to be more important to apply.
Step 7: Cast Fireball.
Will you ever get this far? Probably more often than you think.
Single-target DPS will change slightly in Mists of Pandaria. I think it’s likely that one will want to use Inferno Blast reactively, making it a fairly dynamic priority list, even more dynamic than it is now.
Multi-target DPS has so many different circumstances to consider that it will likely take quite a while to master. The complications inherent in the strategy make my head spin.