The Spirit Realm

Ever think playing a shaman could be like a bard before the auto twist patch? Or am I just doing too much work keeping my mana battery running? Right now, at level 45, playing my shaman to his fullest is starting to become tiresome as I'm constantly mashing the "CanniKey". I expect it to get a little better as I get more levels, and eventually get the massive Canni AA. Currently, I'm sitting at about 2400+ hps, 3300+ mana unbuffed, so even Canni2 barely makes a dent, unless spammed. A day or so ago, while duoing with a pally friend on Lady D in Dulak, I started to notice my hand getting tired from repeatedly pressing the "CanniKey". Up to that point, I was doing incredibly well, able to slow and dot each mob on income, and heal him when he dropped below 90% health(slow and regen took away any real healing) whilst still maintaining a total mana regen greater than the current mana useage(thanks to my drogmor, Stoicism, and Canni2). I was doing my shamanly duty quite well, but at what cost? When does the act of doing one's job to their best of potential come in conflict with physical harm? At the risk of looking weak, do I ask to slow down, or do I power through the minor annoyance and continue to be a great asset to the group, thus making a good name for myself as well? So I ask you, is there a less harsh way for me to cannibalize myself? Maybe a hotkey that somehow has two or three casts of Canni with the use of /pause? Or am I doomed to a life of spamming untill I get the more potent upgrades?

yea i tryed the marcos for about 2 days, messed me up more then it helped so I went back to 1 - 4 and alt 1-4 for all spells and of course 8 for canni. although with marcos I am sure you can type in a group which i cant since i am casting to many things to often..... a social game and 2 of the classes are excluded from it if they want to be seen as doing there job. smart design there i tell yea.

I use WASD to move, Q is Bash (old habits die hard), E is Yoppa's, 1-4 are Serenity, Malos, Pained memory, and Time's Antithesis

You don't have to use all the lines in the macro, and in most cases you shouldn't. Use however many casts you feel comfortable with. I rarely use it in combat as I need to be casting other spells just as often as Canni. It is pretty nifty to have all five lines after buffing the group, downtimes, during pulls, or when the mob starts running from low health, though. I guess I will need to tough it out and get used to not casting only during load times.

Just now noticed the double post, sorry.

Just so you know, this problem gets majorly alleviated when you ding 68 for Pained Memory. Besides being much higher mana regen over time, it's on the big-bite/long-cooldown model, so you only have to spend 20%ish of your time on it to get full return of mana regen.

That is something to look forward to, but in reality it will be quite awhile before I get there. I always level so slowly, hardcore grinding is something I do poorly, as I get bored after a couple hours in a well formed group. The only time when things get fun again is when we hit some turbulance, such as an unintended massive pull, or a couple adds when we are medding and LoM.

I'm the puller for nearly all my groups now, but only got to take on that role after looting GoD ancient canni (big-bite/long-cooldown). Before then I was perma rooted doing the mana regen thing, too. The new way is much better, since whatever monk/bard/whatever that would otherwise be doing it is instead doing damage full time. I still do my X*Panther + 250 (sisslak & bane) whether I'm pulling or not, so kills are faster with melee on the mob all the time. Plus everything is either pre-Malos, pre-slow, or both

I usually press V to open up my AA window. Then I click on the cannibalization AA to see how much time is left on cannibalization. After that, during raids, I am constantly hitting V to see how long I have.. I press V more than any other button, slow this, V while casting V again for it to go away. Heal him, VV, ancient canni, VV, follow the emote, VV,..

Am I doing something wrong?.. Is there a UI I can use that will count down the timer for it in a small window?

Here is a link to my UI, can you guys suggest some improvements? (beat queen last night so it happens to be my latest UI ss...)

You do realize that pressing your canV button when it's not ready will tell you in yoru chat window how long untill it's available, right? That's plenty to know how long till the next use.

The button pops up when it's ready, that's all the visual clue you need to know it's "up"