Really want my opinion ?

Well, Blizzard launched their what-your-feeling-about-your-class thing and everybody is ranti... giving their opinion since.

Draezele had given his own lately, which is quite interesting and I agree with him on most things.

But I strongly, strongly disagree with him on some point as an Enh. Shaman dedicated to PvP.

First of all, people LEARN TO USE A SHIELD. I'm fed up reading people complaining about their Enhancement Shaman in PvP environnement, telling people they would reroll Elem or something to wtfpwn are they were used to Pre-BC. Seeing this state of mind from such a good writer as Draezele makes me sick. Shaman PvPers do use Shield in certain conditions. Let's look a rant about it.

Pretty much summed up right here. Enhancement can be good but it isn't near
consistent enough to be a good spec for pvp. For everytime you steamroll an
undergeared shadow priest you will get torn apart twice by a rogue.

When you fight either rogue, warriors or hunter, do not use your shield is like "hey dude, i'm a little freekill which dreams of two-shotting you with 2H e-peen like I does on clothies unstuffed unbuffed at Alterac".

When I play my brother 31-30 rogue, I love Enhancement shaman because of that. All they will trying to do is to shot me as fast as possible. That finish globally in Evade/Disarm/ROLF.

After millions of battle versus my brother's rogue and the 12540125 mace warriors out there (and their 2.3 hunt rerolls) I have learned that people underestimate the power of armour mitigation. So yes I have specced Shield specialization AND Thougness and yes I have a lot of success versus the "common" rogues and warrior (I still have a lot of problems with those 2.3 hunters which seems to be our anti-class) using the good totems at the right time and kiting/using LOS as much as possible.

What I would love ? Having much more armour if talented. Having an 20% increase on the blocking talent instead of the 5% one. Yeah, that would be definitely faire.

On other points, I pretty much agree with Draezele and I do more for the same price.


Enhancement talents

Guardian Totems : Stoneskin and Windwall totem are jokes. I don't even feel to loose a GCD to pop Windwall versus one of those AP-Boosted Hunters. And about the Grounding totem Cooldown, that that this thing is destroyed by any single dot out there, could you have this also changed please ? Because I mean, eating a dot/moonfire/ all ten second isn't what I call a breaking ability.

Ghost Wolf : Instant with talents, all movement impairing debuffs cancelled. 'nuff said. This would be the perfect reply to all our current cc problems.

Toughness : Much more armor and +70 magical resist stackable with our totems in every slots. Because we need it, because we deserve it. Enh. Shamies need a real PvP mitigation talent, like rogue/hunt/war/[insert random class] This would be the one.

Shamanistic rage : I would just like the 65% anti dispell mechanism that priest have. We can't take out their buff, and any single debuffers could destroy ours.

*New Talent* Unleash rage : Well, our real problem in 3c3/5c5 is our lack our controllable burst. We rely on a WF Proc. Which never arrive when we want it to. What I want is a talent similar to Cold Blood or the other "ILLRAPEYOURFACE" talents that Rogue/Mage/Locks or even Elemental Shamans are. Moreover we have to gem/enchant Resi/HP if we want not to be gibbed in high ratings so we can't stack the crit/strength like warriors or rogue does.

(And I don't even want Elemental Devastation in enhancement talent as suggested, it is real trash. I mean, we do not have the stuff for bi-spec and how often did you seen a spell crit as enhancement ?)


Totems

Agree with Draezele on all. Really good idea from him on a dedicated Totem UI, Longer duration (Paladin got theirs, come on !), Increased range, Increased health, Reduced global cooldown and Considering totems as 'physical'. I would add some more :

• Destroy all the "pulsing" system. I can't count the number of time I was feared inside my Tremor totem range (to be clear, on it) and it pulsed when I was outside. Same for Earthbind. Why do we are the only wich have such a pathetic mechanism ?
• Sentry totem. /afk lol.
• Stoneskin and Windwall Totem, as I said before completely useless is today's environment.

And please, i'm sick of farming that oils to buff my team on each single match when warlocks just have to logon 2 minutes before to do the same. It's our single anti-dispell mechanism, isn't it ?

And could we have more efficient fire/earth pets ? Because apart from defending a flag or, I don't see the point on those things.

I don't speak about making us the next Warlocks, I just want to feel that I'm not a forgotten relent of Wow.
Concerning Shaman in general, our class is the like the druids of 2006. Not that beautiful. At Dreamhack and CDS, there wad NO SHAMAN AT ALL. Not a single one. Not even a murloc by the way.

• All those anti-dispell mechanism introduced with BC (Pain Suppression anyone ?) had broken our beloved dispelling abilities.
• The 2-shotted WF "mechanism" does work at... 1200 rating perhaps, with every single reroll running with 400 resilience (thanks you guys for the "welfare epics" rant on the the wowsphere those last weeks), so bursting ain't an option anymore.
• Our totem. Well. Buy the MH Raddy.

Well, enough QQ for today, I got a diner with my collegues, and a lot of Arena to do tomorrow. See you with more news/feelings/emo/rants as soon as possible.

Hacking concerns -> Call to Arms

Okay, you have subscribed my RSS waiting for Enh. shaman news, don't worry, I'm working on it. But you got at least three or four cases of hacking in my previous guilds and this is taking on my nerves. So when I have seen Gwaendar post, I feel fair to quote it here also.


Breana (of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick) has posted a frightening retelling of what happened when one of her guildmates got his account hacked. Basically, the whole guild had to watch while their friend’s account as well as their guild bank got stripped bare for several hours, powerless.

When a GM finally reacted (2 hours wait time on a Friday night. Come on, hire more people, anyway), he basically simply said there was nothing to do until the player could get in touch with Account Administration… during business hours only.

This post joins Kirk’s CALL TO ARMS on this issue!

Blizzard is hereby requested to put a solution in place which will:
Lock any characters out of the game when a password change is effected until the password change gets confirmed back through the account holder’s e-mail.

Expand the Account / Password retrieval so that upon activation, the character is frozen until a re-activation is effected through a link sent out by e-mail to the account holder’s address, or any similar method.

Blizzard, please err on the side of caution. You know the success of WoW will make your customer particularly juicy targets.
If you aren’t able to post your voice on the US forums, please blog about it and / or (if you have no blog) contact WoWAccountAdmin@Blizzard.com to make your voice heard.

This Call to Arms has, to my knowledge, already been followed by:

• Kestrel
• Skindancer of Altosis
• Gillir of Stormrage’sDreamings
• And Kinless has a similar story to share

Cheers everyone ! It's Season 3 !

This last month I was mute for a single reason : during my leisure time I was doing straight gaming, learning and optimizing myself to be prepared for this new season. I was also working on the "creation" of my RP-PvP-PvE guild, I'll do another update on this one.

So it's an important date for me, Freakhill and Cromagnonman. After preparing ourselves to high-end PvP at end of season 2, there is the most anticipated Season 3 we were waiting for.

Our 3vs3 objective of this first season is simple : breaking the 1850 points cap with a team based on an Enhancement Shaman on Cataclysme battlegroup (the best French one).

Since the last few weeks, I've changed a lot of thing in my gameplay and adquire hell a lot of automatisms. As said on various other blogs, Pvping is a never-ending learning of your own class and your enemies capacities.

So what I finally plan to do with my PvP points.

Currently :

• ~60k Honours points : Unfortunatly not capped as I've bought the Talisman of the Alliance two weeks ago as it was one of the only resilience item I was planning to have on my Shameliotank ­©.
  So S3 Girdle, S3 Sabatons, S1 Spaulders and S1 Shield,
• ~3800 Arena points : S3 Gloves (The 5 Yards bonus is just gamebreaking with my current specs) and S3 Pants. My 40 Stam/12 Agi Epic enchant wait for its owner. Saving the rest of the points.
• 18 Heroic Badges : Waiting to collect 60 of them for Dory's Embrace. So not for tonight.

About my new specs, I'm now 18/43/0. I'll do also a specific post about this, but I really don't think that you've seen a Shaman spec as mine on your realm. Shameliotank ­© for the win.

Tonight will be Armageddon on the realms, between the Area 52 ganking issues and the 2k+ teams which will be mixed with the 1.5k ones. So I decide that tonight, we will just watch a TV show then going to bed early with some books. I will continue my honour farm to complete my stuff on Thursday and we will probably do our games next Tuesday, so that the 2k+ teams will be at 2k+. We're not crazy at all.

Otherwise I'm now an accomplished Leatherworker, with 375/375. Thanks Patch 2.3 and Drums of Panics available at Honored Shattrah Reputation.

Arena Set Comparison : Is Armor Penetration worth it ?

Okay, you're saving your points for your arena points, wondering on which of those joys you will spend them.

Well the first nice change on S3 in the addition of hit rating, it will be easier to cap the 5% chance withouth sacrifying some gems. To remind yourselve, your chance to miss an equal level charcater is 5%, that means you need 5*15.8= 79 Hit rating at least when you're PvPing. As a haman, you could take those from talents but, hey, why use talents when you have those free stats on your stuff. My calculation is based for shaman handling 2H weapons. For those who stick on dual-wielding for PvP, you have 5% miss base + 19% miss penality.

Moreover, you should wondering yourselve about what the hell is Armor Penetration. Well Armor penetration is for PA what Resilience is for Stamina : An additional way to improve your DPS. I like examples other formulas, students (well, I was a teacher earlier in my life) tends to understand much more quickly if you have something concrete for them.
So, let's take the example of an Arena match versus a 2345 team. You would doom their healer first, no ? Let's say it is a priest you have just purged, so no Inner Fire now. Let's say the guy have 3k armor and blessed resilience proc.
So, his armor mitigation with 3k is 3000/(3000+10557.5)=22.13% (link for the math explanation).

Let's say you have a total of 400 armor penetration on your stuff. Then this priest mitigation would be 2600/(2600+10557.5)=19.76% which means a 3.04% increase of damage on this priest, even if he is resilience-capped. It's like a free Sunder Armor on your stuff.

So I see you complaining : "Wtf morons, 3% is shit". Hey, people we are talking about team PvPing isn't it ? Ming have done some calculation about it :

Season 3 is expected to have 900 in armor penetration, off a quick premed CS
into improved expose armor, I am now ignoring 4535 armor from a warrior, that is
a 26.6% DPS increase on a 11000 armor target, throw in an executioner enchant
proccing it would be a 33.2% DPS increase. Against softer targets it will be
even more."

Okay, I don't see how you could have 900 armor penetration currently as a rogue, but it's the idea. Teaming with a Rogue in 2vs2 and 3vs3. Armor penetration comes to be the solution when any single toon met in an arena have 350+ Resilience. For me, this means, more AP, less crit if I go this way. In order to do your own comparison, I've found this little spreadsheet by googling.

So now, here is comparison of S1, S2 and S3 gear for Enhancement Shamans, the Earthshaker one :

Linked Helm :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (4 Res)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	703	34	51	26	30	-	-	Red, Meta,	14500 Honor
Season 2	775	37	60	28	33	-	-	Red, Meta,	1630
Season 3	830	34	67	33	33	12	84	Red, Meta,	1875

Linked Spaulders :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (3 Res)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	649	19	42	22	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	10500 Honor
Season 2	715	22	48	24	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	1304
Season 3	766	25	52	27	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	1500

Linked Armor :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (4 CC)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	866	29	51	28	26	-	-	2* Red, Yellow	14500 Honor
Season 2	954	31	57	30	27	-	-	2* Red, Yellow	1630
Season 3	1022	27	64	30	31	12	84	2* Red, Yellow	1875

Linked Leggings :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Intel	Cost 2.3
Season 1	758	30	54	36	28	-	-	25	14500 Honor
Season 2	835	34	60	40	31	-	-	29	1630
Season 3	894	38	67	36	31	12	84	33	1875

Linked Gauntlets :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Bonus	Cost 2.3
Season 1	541	25	40	27	21	-	-	+8% LS	9000 Honor
Season 2	596	29	45	29	22	-	-	+8% LS	978
Season 3	639	33	51	32	22	-	-	+5 yds Shocks	1125

As you know (as you're a fan of my blog, don't you ?), I'll go first on the Linked Leggings, which are an huge upgrade for me. Then I decided to go in this order on the S3 Armor, S3 Helm, S3 gloves and at final S3 Spaulders.

With my honors points, I'll go first for the Vindicator's Band of Triumph and the PvP Belt. Wondering if I will use some points on The Arena Season 1 spaulder now, which is the best value for price item. Moreover, I won't have a 2k rating anytime soon.

P.S : You're a raid leader ? Go apply at IBM :<

The 130% Shaman

I've played about 15 hours on the PTR for the moment. I can't do more because I'm saving points for the release of 2.3.

I've done Zul'Aman with my former guild, this instance seems terribly exciting. I had loved Zul'Gurub in his time, Zul'Aman goes on the same way.

Concerning the Enhancement Shaman buffs, it's becoming really interesting. After reading Moliu summary, I decided to give you my one.

Spirit Weapons
Now this talent give no less than 30% passive threat reduction instead of 15 % before and it applies on all physical damages (i.e. Stormstrike and Windfury porc. but not shocks) It's definitely one the most considerable fact of this patch for Pve Enhancements Shamies. Be ready to see some of them seeing a boost on their DPS meters from now on.

Shamanistic Focus
Considering a correct critical strike rate and the 5 seconds of cooldown on shocks, that's simply means an almost permanent 60% reduction on shocks cost in PvE. That's fantastic in terms of shocks rotations. In PvP, that's means that you will be able to use most often the max rank of Earth Shock

Frost Shock
Frost shock is no longer subject to diminishing returns. The FS Rank 1 kiting is back baby ! It will definitely will be a benefit in Arena situation

Shamanistic Rage
Okay, now we got 30% reduction on all damage taken and extra mana regeneration 25% percent of the time we are alive. Though it could be dispelled, in 2vs2 situation when there is often no dispellers in the opposite teams, it could be a way to survive to a deep dps focus (with a nice shield also, don't be fool). I mean, perhaps I will be able to melt warriors face now... Hum. Or not.

Mental Quickness
For the moment I'm at 1128 Ap unbuff in my PvP stuff, the 30% buffs means free 338.4 Spell power. Earth Shock taking 42.86% of SP, considering the base value of this spell, it means that without any stuff bonus on SP, I will have ES between 803 and 837 damage. With SS debuff, between 963.6 and 1004.4 non crits. Yes, this is a major buff both in PvE and PvP. And my lovely Lightning Shield would take also a huge buff with those considering it is taking 100% of SP (33.33% per bolt).

Mana Spring Totem
A flat 66,6% increase of the effect. If there is no Hunters/Rogue, this will be a serious added value in long arena games, not to speak about the considerable buff in PvE.

Water Shield
For PvErs, this is actually a nerf considering the numbers of boss event in which those globes were "freely" consumed (Hydross just as an exemple). But for PvPers, this is a considerable up... That means that if you're not focused or hit, you have a 50 mp5 second regeneration (suggesting that each globe gives ~200 mana). It's simply insane.

Reduced Chain Lightning Bolt Casting time
Well call it nerf or whatever for Elemental Shaman (because of the coefficient change for LB from ~85% to 71%, and CL from 71% to 57%), for us Enhancement it is a buff. First we didn't have any spell damage prior to the 2.3, so let the ele QQ more about the coefficient. Second, CL will not just be used as a way to leave rogue/mage/wars in combat mode as with 2 second cast, it really can be pulled at a right moment to finish an escaper.

Grounding Totem
Well this is the counter-part of all those bonus given. It's actually a big nerf that Grounding totem would die on whatever spell which lands, making us much less vulnerable versus Warlocks and Mages.

And the [Yipi !] bonus.

Reduced the faction required to obtain Drums of Battle and Drums of Panic.

COT2 won't see me for a looooooooong moment.

Some news about Totem Twisting

Finally, we got some "official" information about the use of totem twisting (thanks Wowblues).

Who wants answers? Okay, here's the situation. It's not an
exploit, and no sorry, it's not really considered creative use of game mechanics
either, based on what that term usually is intended to imply. You're free to
take advantage of "totem twisting", but be aware -- we do plan to address it at
some point in the future.

Traduction : Feel free to use it, to abuse it until at least Wrath of the Lich King :>.

And for the one wondering wtf I'm talking about, here is an auto-quote from a previous post on Totem twisting definition :

To those who don't know, Totem twisting technique is all about buffing your DPS
both with Windfury and Air Totem. How is it possible ? Let's look more closely
to our Windfury totem : it's not a permanent buff but a 9 second one fixed on
your group weapons. So now do you understand what I mean ? Clever use of game
mechanics ftw. Put WF 1 sec, switch it off then put Grace of Air 8 seconds,
repeat. You could also spam a totem twisting macro like this one : /castsequence
reset=8/combat/alt Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem.

And, just a detail not to be OOM in the middle of the fight : use Rank 1 of the Windfury totem. What people want is the extra attack, the AP is only bonus.

Engineering & Arena

Well, now that I'm 365 Leatherworking with my 57 Warrior already 311 Skinning, I'm considering switching my "farming" skill.

At the current moment, I'm considering seriously either Blacksmiting or Engineering.

• Nigh Invulnerability Belt
• Goblin Rocket Launcher
• Rocket Boots XTreme
• Net-o-matic
• Gnomish Deathray

Well aside from the nice gadgets (Turbo-Charged Flying Machine could be one), Engineering bring to Shaman brings unique advantages : crowd control (grenades, Net-o-matic), resistance to burst dps (Nigh Invulnerability Belt), escape way (Rocket Boots XTreme). Critics may said that a lot of Engineers tools aren't available in Arenas and you'd spec to Enchanting/Jewelcrafting in order to have more stats. I definitely don't agree to those.

For me, up to a certain subjective ratio, possibilities > pure stats. Between +40 Sta and the possibility to zerg out of a situation, I would take the second.

I love PvP, all forms of PvP and in world pvp or battlgrounds those goodies are reals joys <3.

On the other side, as Freakhill told me, is that worth the 5000 golds to farm ? This time could be invested in Battleground, resulting in perhaps more dedicated PvP items.

P.S : At least with the Net-O-matic, I'll be able to CC myself :>.

First try : 0/37/24

Three days that I walk with this new unusual template and a lot of Stamina gems. And I must say that I love it, this thing even reminds me of my good'old hardcore days with my druid, farming a Pvp rank, being the one focused and to-be-ganked as the enhancement spec got a weird reputation on the pvp side.

Mooo.

So, my choices commented:

Enhancement (37 points)

• Shield Specialization - Rang 5/5 : Because an extra chance to block a hit when I'm focused by two rogues is just terrific for me. And in three days of straight pvp, I definitely learned to use my lovely macro to switch from my 2H to a 1H/Shield. People just think "Hu, Enhancement = Free HK".
• Thundering Strikes - Rang 5/5 : 5% more CC, hands down on this talent.
• Improved Ghost Wolf - Rang 2/2 : In theory, this talent seems nice because of the lack of tools we have to escape. Need more practise with it.
• Improved Lightning Shield - Rang 3/3 : Instant, don't have to do anything except buffing yourself, synergy with stormstrike. A must have.
• Two-Handed Axes and Maces - Rang 1/1 : Word ?
• Anticipation - Rang 5/5 : Well, 5% more dodge. Hope they will not see to often an MS Specced Warrior.
• Flurry - Rang 5/5 : Gimme me Haste ! Flurry 2H is really enjoyable.
• Spirit Weapons - Rang 1/1 : Well, I will be able to do 5-men sometimes and parry is good.
• Elemental Weapons - Rang 3/3 : 40% more power to the Windfury effect, I would be Master of the Obvious by saying that any Enhancement need desperately this talent.
• Weapon Mastery - Rang 5/5 : 10% more damage on all weapons, kk'
• Dual Wield - Rang 1/1 : Mainly taken for instancing/farming purposes.
• Stormstrike - Rang 1/1 : Instant attack / Procs WF / 20% damage on next nature attack (i.e. Earth Shock, Lightning Shield or a Bolt) This is all love.

Restoration (24 points)

• Tidal Focus - Rang 5/5 : I prefer this extra save on my precious mana than a 2.5 sec spell which basically say "Come, come, you have full time to interrupt me baby".
• Totemic Focus - Rang 5/5 : This talent is just perfect. Specially, when you have about 6k mana in an arena.
• Healing Focus - Rang 5/5 : I had it with my druid, I have it with my shaman. PvP is all about survivability for a shaman and this talent helps definitely a lot.
• Totemic Mastery - Rang 1/1 : <3
• Tidal Mastery - Rang 5/5 : Added chance to crit my (3k3) emergency NS+Healing Wave (Rank 12) or bursting with my Bolts. 10.58% chance to crit isn't bad for a cac.
• Nature's Swiftness - Rang 1/1 : Imba-versatile talent. Heal, Bolt, Escape, please choose.
• Focused Mind - Rang 2/3 : Since I have this, I'm saying myself that I should have gone to the full talent, we'll.

Well, what is your feeling about my choices ? Or globaly about Enhancement folks wanting to be competitive in PvP ? How do you deal with Enhancement Shamans when they want to wtfpwn your face ?

PvP, Talents Changes... Some news.

Sorry to have not update this blog this last month, there was a lot of changes both in my gaming and real life. First of all, I was moving with my girlfriend to a new apartment, so I did not have any Internet connection at all except work during a quite long period. Furthermore, there has been some kind of drama in my guild and the debate came at one step to point out the so-called hardcore casual, the one who didn't had the gaming-time to catch the other guildmates on stuff : me, myself and I. As the officers were real friends and I didn't want them to defend me versus this part of the guild, I decided to /gquit.

Finally, I was back on Azeroth yesterday. I decided to commit myself much more on the PvP side of this game for the moment. That and “finish” (sigh.) my reputations.

Although we need some serious training and stuffing, Freakhill and I have done really nice things in our last games. I will have a hell lot of time to PvP now, no more consumables/access quest farming, no more straight 2*4 hours of raiding on my schedule. On an average of 20-25 hours of playing time each week, that really counts.

I have 1150 Arena points at the very current moment and about 5000 honour points. Tonight we hope to add between 250 and 300 more with the 2vs2 team. Let’s look at the items with prices for Enhancement Shaman for season 2 :

Gladiator's Earthshaker (5-piece melee)

[Gladiator's Linked Helm] 1875 Arena Points
[Gladiator's Linked Spaulders] 1500 Arena Points
[Gladiator's Linked Armor] 1875 Arena Points
[Gladiator's Linked Gauntlets] 1125 Arena Points
[Gladiator's Linked Leggings] 1875 Arena Points

I think I’ll definitely go for Season 2 Leggings. Better upgrade for me at the moment imo. On the reputation side, I'll focus definitely for the Cenarion one for the helm enchantment and the Nethercleft Leg Armor pattern. 5 full runs of the instance called Steamvault will be on my schedule this week.

I didn't already change my specs because of some details; I will probably spend a lot of gold at the trainer before setting up my mind about what an Enhancement Gladiator should have for talents.

Raid Analysis #4 : Serpentshrine Cavern

Let's go for another analysis !

Context : Serpentshrine Cavern, Hydross, The Lurker Below, Leotheras the Blind.

Ok, I didn't totem twist at all this time as this was only my second SSC and I had a lot of problem of survavibily in the first one. For the stat, the nice thing is that we got stats for each 6 out of 7 pulls, which means no biaised stats because of trashs, more specific details about each boss we have focused on. The bad part is that the rogue who had generate the WWS forgot to include my Searing Totem and my Fire Elemental in it. Now the ugly part : no Warriors or Feral druids in my group, so no Battle Shout, 5% Crit bonus which involves a terrible loss in DPS for me... Oooh, and I forgot I wasn't on the Might blessing rotation of the Paladins.

Set up for the raid : ~23,5% cc / ~1150 AP / ~16% Hit / ~6,8k HP (I know, too low) pre-buff. And I took a Flask of Relentless Assault which last me on all pulls except the three last ones on Leotheras. I had an Agility potion those.


20:56 // First pull : Hydross Wipe
WWS Link

Not that bad, and I didn't even drop any Searing totem on adds/Hydross between his phase. We failed at 15% because of the misplacement of a mage. I had 21,1% miss, 33% Crit, 254 Avg normal damage, 553 avg crit damage (respectively 471/811 for WF and 260/505 for SS). That gives a basis.

21:11 //Second Pull : Hydros Dead
WWS Link

Same #12 position even though I died at the end of the fight due to my low base HP (2 frost ticks in the bubble @3150, kthxbye `). 31% Crit, 16,8% miss this time. Avg normal Melee damage/Windfury/Stormstrike damage : 267/444/274, crits : 498/1013/470. Much less rotation of Flameshock, should've done better. IMO, with my current itemization on next Hydross pull, I could be on #10 if I don't die, do better rotation and have my Searing totem out.

21:45 //Third Pull : The Lurker Below Dead
WWS Link

If I could have done the whole pull, I would have been able to have the 13th or even 12th place. Please note the nice 506 DPS of this pull to compare with the 531/590 of the two last rogues. Can't wait to have a War/Feral druid/Might.

22:36 // Fourth Pull : Leotheras the Blind Wipe
WWS Link

It was the occasion for my guild to confirm last week down of Leotheras. Please note that on all 4 pulls we have him below 10% but (if you don't spoil, don't read after) we weren't enough aware about the phase 2 of this fight, which cause wipe. The first kill have been luckily either, Human form of Leotherass didn't left of the tank my comrades said me. Don't forget that my guild plays without any type of spoils, so we don't know exactly the abilities of boss if we did never have seen them before.As I can't DPS the first Binders and must be very aware of Leo cleaves, I can't really express myself on this type of fight. Moreover I was more into being alive the whole pull than having a top DPS. Note that I've done just 14,6% misses.

22:53 // Fifth Pull : Leotheras the Blind Wipe
WWS Link Again poor DPS. Now I'm thinking of it, let me add two more reasons than the ones I already said : effects of my flask was finished and I did damage with Lightning Bolt on the Elve phase of the fight. I got no data for the pull #6 so let's go straight to the last one.

23:33 // Seventh Pull : Leotheras the Blind Dead
WWS Link

10% damage on Lightning Bolt @lol (same for rogues with bows). Again poor base damage, without Flask of Relentless Assault life ain't the same. We finally killed him on this pull, me staying anywhere but near Leotheras at the end, didn't want my 4 evading rogues to miss any buffs. I was so careful to stay alive that my global damage was inferior to the previous pull.

I received True-Aim Stalker Bands, I have put a +8 Hit yellow gem on hit and tonight, before the raid I'll put a nice Strenght enchant. I've also leveled Leatherworking to 350, now I have to work on my reputations to have the new patterns which will enable me to go 375.

I have to change urgently my Spaulders, Chest, Boots, Pant, Rings, Trinkets which make me unconfortable for a guy who might see Lady Vashj tonight.

Totem twisting issues

For one simple reason, neither one nor the other of my last two raids was representative, sadly.
The first was my first SerpentShine run, but as I tried numerous things my stats weren't really interesting. The number one thing I have tried was Totem Twisting.

It's definitely works.

To those who don't know, Totem twisting technique is all about buffing your DPS both with Windfury and Air Totem. How is it possible ? Let's look more closely to our Windfury totem : it's not a permanent buff but a 9 second one fixed on your group weapons. So now do you understand what I mean ? Clever use of game mechanics ftw.
Put WF 1 sec, switch it off then put Grace of Air 8 seconds, repeat.
You could also spam a totem twisting macro like this one : /castsequence reset=8/combat/alt Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem.

Looks awesome, isn't it ?

But life, even in videogames, ain't that easy. Totem twisting will put you in constant pressure to be handled perfectly. While on a static fight it would be heaven, on "real" end-game fight, maintaining (and obviously watching your timers) your shocks, totem-twisting and stormstrike out of the WF cooldown will be sort of funny. And I don't even spoke about purging, dispelling a drop a urgent heal. And at least, the social thing, people will only notice you've lost ~100 DPS compared to your usual performance, sic.

Other interesting things :

• Thanks to my current 136 Hit rating, I've missed significantly less than in my two first raids. You'll see that in my next analysis I hope.
• Double mongoose enchant is just fantastic. I've at least one of the proc up in raid condition, just perfect.
• In the last raid, I was near a correct ~610 DPS and I still have margin to improve my rotations.
• Survivability : in the last Grull/Mathghe run, it was obvious that I manage much more easily my enhancement shaman in space.

At last, I'm also searching the perfect DPS UI for a Enhancement Shaman, thanks to a friend (/hug Spycat) I'm going the right way.

Sweet, Sweet, Runic Hammer

Finally I have my height Primal Mights, time to craft my so wanted Runic Hammer.
I'm pretty confident that it is the right choice because of the lack of "competitors" availables. Netherbane on Al'ar don't seems to drop that much and I won't have the Arena points needed for the Gladiator OH in at least 5 or 6 weeks. More and more rumors saying that there will be a 1800-1900 cap to obtain Gladiator weapons in Season 3, it seems that I'll be missing the anticipated Christmas this year.

Another objective to quickly acheive is to obtain the Fel Leather Leggings to replace the one I have. Easy to afford, 3 Gem Slots and +25 Basis Hit rating, I love it. As Skulker's Greaves and Void Reaver Greaves never drop and I won't have the DKP for Cataclysm Legplates anytime soon, it's a pretty nice waiting choice. Tonight, I will up my Consortium Reputation in order to have this pattern as soon as possible.

Raid Analysis #2

Second analysis inc, with last Thursday raid.

Context : Tempest Keep, Void down, 1h30 of tries on Al'ar.

Overall :

#11, despite I was constantly #8 before the tries on Al'ar, which is not the most DPS friendly fight for us, the guys who love contact <3.>

1. Better reactivity -> Survivability. A dead Shaman don't bring power to his fellow rogues/warriors.
2. I manage to change all my gems by +Hit ones, so now I have 123 Hit rating instead of 45 at my first raid which means 4,9% more hit rating to arrive at 16.79% total hit. So I had 18% of miss, not extraordinary but better than the 22,1% I had at my first raid. That explain my better DPS, if you take into account the fact that except this hit thing, my stuff is more or less the same that the one of my previous raid (except the imba belt).
3. Better trinket management (macro /use on Stormstrike) and shocks rotation (except Al'ar immune to fire >.<), mana management (I will definitely love the day we will have a third paladin in the raid to have Blessing of Wisdom).

For my next raid, probably Wednesday night, I'll have this beautiful Runic Hammer as off-hand weapon and I will try some totem-switching too. Can't wait the results.

Gentlemen, Choose your Weapons

Choosing your weapon is one of your most important choice as a Enhancement Shaman on World of Warcraft. And it is also one of the most difficult challenge to face.

What does a Shaman wants from his weapons ?

1. First of all, he wants a slow weapon, both in Main-hand and Off-hand, actually the slowest weapons as possible. Why ? Simply because around 30% of a Shaman DPS comes from Windfury, so you want your Windfury to hit the strongest as possible. And you got to know that since the 2.1 patch WF got a 3 sec. cooldown, that means that the faster is your off-hand, the more you risk to see WF proccing on this same off-hand, which you should not want to see happened because it is your weakiest hand*. Here is a nice graph taken from Malan post on EJ forum :
   
   
   
2. You want the weapon with the highest base DPS possible, considering the previous factor.

Now that we know how to choose the weapon, let's see what you should spend your DKP at thanks to Spacetotem who created the Shaman Weapon DPS Index (WDI).

Here is his calculation to choose a weapon : ((DPS*Speed) + 0.5*DPS)/3. Seems really logical to me as we knows from above that the more the weapon is around 3.0, the prettier our DPS will be. I just add the Merciless Gladiator calculation to his Index, as it wasn't available when he has done his calculation.

   Weapon DPS Index
Rank
DPS
Speed
Index
Ratio
Differential
Weapon
1
100.2
2.8
110.2
1.1
10
Syphon Nathrezim
2
98.7
2.7
105.3
1.07
6.6
Rod of Sun King
3
97.6
2.7
104.1
1.07
6.5
Dragonstrike
4
97.6
2.7
104.1
1.07
6.5
WickedEdgePlanes
5
100.2
2.6
103.5
1.03
3.3
Rising Tide
6
97.5
2.6
100.8
1.03
3.3
Merciless Gladiator's Slow
7
93.7
2.7
99.9
1.07
6.2
TalonPhoenix
8
91.1
2.7
97.2
1.07
6.1
Dragonmaw
9
91.1
2.7
97.2
1.07
6.1
Black Planar Edge
10
93.7
2.6
96.8
1.03
3.1
Netherbane
11
92.1
2.6
95.2
1.03
3.1
The Decapitator
12
91.2
2.6
94.2
1.03
3
Gladiator's Slow
13
87.5
2.6
90.4
1.03
2.9
Fool's Bane
14
84.3
2.7
89.9
1.07
5.6
Planar Edge
15
84.3
2.7
89.9
1.07
5.6
Drakefist Hammer
16
87.6
2.5
87.6
1
0
Big Bad Wolf's Paw
17
83.7
2.6
86.5
1.03
2.8
The Bladefist
18
83.5
2.4
80.7
0.97
-2.8
Runic Hammer
19
100.3
1.8
76.9
0.77
-23.4
Boundless Agony
20
71.7
2.7
76.5
1.07
4.8
Reflex Blades
21
98.6
1.8
75.6
0.77
-23
Fang of Vashj
22
83.4
2.2
75.1
0.9
-8.3
Fel Edged Axe
23
71.7
2.6
74.1
1.03
2.4
Boggspine Knuckles
24
93.6
1.8
71.8
0.77
-21.8
Heartrazor
25
71.6
2.5
71.6
1
0
Terrok's Gavel
26
91.9
1.8
70.5
0.77
-21.4
Malchazeen
27
65.5
2.6
67.7
1.03
2.2
AH GREEN
28
87.5
1.8
67.1
0.77
-20.4
Emeral Ripper
29
100.3
1.5
66.9
0.67
-33.4
Tracker's Blade
30
100.3
1.5
66.9
0.67
-33.4
Swiftsteel Bludgeon
31
62.6
2.5
62.6
1
0
Mag'Hari Fury Bnd
32
93.7
1.5
62.5
0.67
-31.2
Claw Phoenix
33
91.1
1.5
60.7
0.67
-30.4
Gladiator's Fast

So you can see that 100 dps weapons from BT are less valuable than that AH Green you gought for 10 golds.

I've Fool's Bane (#13) as MH and a 2.6 AH Green at OH. As you can see, there is not an huge amount of OH available before BT. As I got 240 Arena points (sic.) and no DKP available, I'll go for that sweet Runic Hammer (#18 but #6 OH) as off-hand with a Mongoose enchant on it.

Now that you have choosen your weapon, you're probably wondering how hard it would hit on mobs ? Thanks to Hedin post and assuming that you've farmed Mana Tomb Heroic for the Totem of Astral Wind, there are the results :

• MainHand Damage :
  ([Weapon Damage] + [Fully buffed AP]/14 * [Weapon Speed]) * 1.10
• MainHand Windfury :
  ([Weapon Damage]+([Fully buffed AP] + WindfuryAP + [Totem of the Astral Winds AP])/14 * [Weapon Speed]) * 1.10 * 1.40
• OffHand Damage :
  ([Weapon Damage] + [Fully buffed AP]/14 * [Weapon Speed])/2 * 1.10
• OffHand Windfury (2.1 patch mechanic :
  (([Weapon Damage]+AP/14*[Weapon Speed])/2+(WindfuryAP + [Totem of the Astral Winds])/14 * [Weapon Speed])) * 1.10 * 1.40

Hope that this post will help you to find your correct weapons too.

_________________________________________________
* As a Shaman, your Off-hand will always do half the damage that your main hand would have done with the same weapon.

Raid Analysis #1

Well, this post, hopefully, begins a long series of raid analysis of my own.
Let's begin.

Overall :

Well, really disappointing at first glance. #14, and the feral druids behind me, fury warrior just above me have also tanked during the instance (look the Dmg. In. stat). Nothing to be proud of. But 4% of total DPS output isn't that bad considering this was my first raid, specially when you know that I have wait longer than usual to hit any ennemies as I didn't know the behavior of mobs nor my own aggro-capability in a 25 Raid. What's really alarming me is the comparison of my DPS over my teammates : 496 where other Cacs are between 602 and 771.

Comparison with the other Enhancement Shaman, Kenpachii :

33,15% less DPS than him. Why ? Here are an in-sight view :

First and mainly itemization but I'll be back on this issue later on this report.
DPS Time, me : 52 minutes, him : 64 minutes. Explanation : I died too much. But mainly on a early Grull Shatter and at the very beginning of Void Reaver (because of him on Void, should be noted :D), which have make me lost hell a lot of DPS time. That make 19% of differences in terms of DPS time.

Above statement is confirmed by the number of hits. He have done 26% more normal hits and Stormstrike than me, with the 20% Haste proc on his blacksmithting mace (before landed value, arguing he is using two 2.6 weapons which make this comparison possible).

Calculation by Odon :

Dajay: (702 + 441)/0,799 => 1430 Hits
Ken: (865 + 605)/0,83 => 1771 Hits

If we add the 23% DPS Time lost : 1430*1,23 => 1759 Hits so 12 Hits of difference. Peanuts © Odon.

Moreover we really don't seem to have the same DPS Cycle : mine is mainly SS / Flameshock / SS / Earthshock / SS / Flameshock when Dot is up. He is more into the Earthshocking-thing and he almost never used Flameshock. For me it's an error as Flameshock take the huge bonus of Curse of Elements and is more mana effective than Earth Shock.

This is not the only difference. When we talk about healing yourself on a hot spot, he seems to use mainly Healing Wave while I prefer top an Lesser Healing Wave when needed. Three reasons for me to do this : Lesser Healing Wave is more adapted to the situation of a DPS who have to move all the time, moreover it's mana efficiency is roughly the same as Healing Wave untalented. Second reason is that the time you cast Healing Wave, 3 Paladins et two priest has Flash-healed you. Third reason, correctly timed, LHW could be used between a Swing, especially if you own two 2.6 weapons, as it doesn't reset the Global Cooldown.

Let's continue on the DPS difference. The DPS Time isn't all. Itemization matters a lot, he hits and crits harder than me without any doubt possible.

Yesterday night before the raid, unbuffed I was roughly at 20% crit / 10% Hit (9% from talents) / 960 AP. Ken got 27.18% crit / 17,24% Hit / 1190 AP unbuffed too. Numbers speak for themselves, especially the huge difference in Hit rating. 22,1 % missed vs 17,0%.

Conclusion, +Hit issues :

The goods issues of this raid was my reactivity to dps focus, 100% time totems on ground and global efficiency when I was alive. I've now to go into two directions : first survivability, 1k HP more would be the minimum necessary.
Secondly I have drastically increasing my Hit rating. The cap is 25,5%, with yesterday loots I'm currently at 11.85%. More information on the efficiency of Hit on Wowwiki and on this excellent guide from Blessing of Kings, Coriel's blog. As 1% Hit is 15,7894 rating, the cap is 403 rating points. As a PvE Enchancement Shaman withDual Wield Specialization and Nature's Guidance, it left me 261 ratings points to obtain, and I've just 45 now. And I should do this without sacrifying AP and Stamina as detailled on the WoW Forums TBC Shaman FAQ, the Enhance Shaman Collected Works Theorycraft on Elitist Jerks Forum or this Enhancement Hit Rating post on Blizzard Forum. [EDIT] : Very nice critic of Slant post on EJ forum could be read here, on Bizz' boards.

Oh yes, the loots : I obtain Liar's Tongue Gloves on Magtheridon and Gronn-Stitched Girdle on Grull. And a nice two-hands for PvP too :>

Tonight's raid

Maulgar / Grull / Math' / Void Reaver Downed.

Well, my main mistake was to die on a Grull Shatter, I did not not manage well. It remembers me those old AQ40 C'Thun sessions. Another thing, I was killed by a colleague error on Void at the very beginning. But overall, there is nothing to be proud of on for me on this raid.

Statistics

My newcomer stuff is not the only reason for this low input. I could improve a lot more my DPS Cycle by hitting more quickly for exemple. I was so afraid to keep aggro that I refrain myself too much. Well, it's late, I'll be more explicit tomorrow.

Some Recount stats :

First Real Raid Inc.

So tonight the night, our guild's raid holiday finished yesterday... and I really don't feel THAT ready for it.

I mean, this week-end I've leveled up to 308 in Leatherworking which is great. But during that time, I've spent almost all my money and I still got Gems / Enchants / Consummables to obtain.
Fortunatly, I got some nice friends in game who could help me by loaning me money or crafting goods.

I really wait for a correct itemization in order to be less stressful about all those concerns. Then I'll be more able to focus on gameplay issues and PvP/PvE theorycrafting which is what really interest me.

A little more about my guild scheduling for the new "season" :

• 6 Raids per Week : 3 SSC / 2TK / Grull's Lair - Math's Lair)
• Objective : Vashj / Kael'thas dead by end of October.

This week, I registered to both raids of today and Thursday. There is two enhancement Shamans including me, with one spot by raid. So I should raid one to three times a week, depending on my alter-ego availability and needs. Today should be a Maulgar / Grull / Magtheridon run, a classic one for the guild. My first one.

What I really expect from this raid isn't loots (with zero DKP, even if I wanted to...) nor DPS (awfull itemization due to my commitment to leatherworking, more important for me on long term). I want to prove that I could be a more than correct addition to the DPS rotation of my guild, at least with my totem buffs and my global attention to the raid.

PvP Matrix

Did I ever precise here that I'm definitely a PvP Fan ?
I love to read each posts of the blogs of Keystone or "God I'm your next Prophet" Ming.

But, there is a consensus saying that Enh. Shaman can't PvP. Well.

I'm from the first players of WoW, doing the stress bêta-test and so. For the love of the lore and the class, I decided at first to play my druid. During two years and a half, from the luxuriants forests of Darnassus to the abominations of Naxxramas, I've loved playing my druid on the PvE side. And I loved the PvP side too. And I remember what people was tolding to druids, early 2005 : Resto. Druids can't PvP.

Seems, that the Enh. Shaman community needs a Ferahgo* too.

Pre-BC, I was a Resto. PvP Druid, a proud one. I got an excellent PvP team with 4 people of it have gone to the Grand Marshall title, which means hardcore PvP, both in terms of performances and availability. Because of work, PvE Objectives and friends to help, I did not go to these, which is one of my regrets from Wow v1.

I want to feel the same with my Shaman, because I deeply think there is quite an underestimate potential in this class. So let's prove this on the ground.

First of all, gather your team.

• Divayth : the most impressive pvp mage I have played with. No matter he is outgear or focused, no matter what his current specs are, he will able the best of his class tools.
  + High/Burst DPS
  + Crowd Control (Nova, Sheep)
• Stillgäärh : PvP-Resto druid. He his more and more improving his skills in the PvP Area. As I know well the man behind this keyboard, a pure perfectionnist.
  + Burst Heal (Swiftmend, Nature Swiftness)
  + Crowd Control (Cyclone, Feral Charge)
  + Best dispell Poison spell in game (Abolish Poison)
• Freakhill : Well, I know much his impressive warrior skills. But this guy IS PvP at hearth and he migrated from his server to engage in my PvP squad with the goal to prove something.
  + DPS
  + Crowd Control (Sap, Blind, Poison)

As for me, I bring my Purging abilities (hello Shadowpriest, Mage, Warlocks), the versatility of my totems and my *sig* uncontrollable DPS (waiting for a correct two-hander to go). Moreover, I could really be a onspot healer if necessary, just by switching weapons I could have +500 healing, which is quite nice to send a quick Lesser Healing Wave or Chain Heal.

So Rogue/Resto Druid/Mage/Enh. Shaman. We need one more, but we didn't decided yet. Paladin, Warrior, Warlock ?

What is your opinion about that ? What is missing from our matrix ?

_________________________
* Ferahgo : First ever great resto druid videomaker, his video showing him completly owning couple of rogue and warlocks have revolutionized the way people were looking at Resto. Druids in PvP, sending much confidence to the community.

Managing Cleave

Yesterday night, I've died on Nightbane two times.
Why ? I didn't manage the cleave area two straight times. 8k hits each, kthxbye ++.

As a healer or feral tank pre-BC, I barely never had to manage those things and it is a harsh request that manage your life as a dps isn't as easy as you could think of it, 30 yards from the action. The reason is for dragon-long-type-beast, the cleave 180° range is not just in front of is mouth, but from the center of his body, which is completly not the same, especially if you were thinking like me that going through his stomac would be okay.

Otherwise, not a single Enhancement Shaman loot on the whole run. I just updated my Violet Ring by going honored on the faction, which is a little consolation prize.

Should I consider Blacksmithing ?

Well, I'm currently 239 Leatherworking, my Dragonscale quest done (tip, go on south of Tanaris to skin the Scorpid Scales, the scorpions there have higher drop rate that the ones near the town). I've in bag enough thing to go 300 as soon as I reconnect, probably tonight.

Then I'll have the Knothide Leather to farm (ouch !) to go 375. On the same side, I'm working on my Sha'tar / Scyers reputations to do Drums of Battle and Drums of Panic, as it is the most effective to go 375.

So now, I'm really investigating about going Blacksmithing.

PROS :

• First of all, Dragonstrike. Going both Blacksmither and Leatherworker would assure me not to be dependant on instance drops to be very effective with all the "Binded when Picked-up" great stuff.
• Secondly, doing another crafting on my main will enable me not to re-work on reputation related recipes, which is very important in this game.

CONS :

• Skinning is definitely a very good source of revenues. I have a 57-Warrior Alt Skinner, but it won't be as effective to farm with him than to farm with my main.
• It will take another huge amount of golds to go there (about 5k). I don't want again to lose time going searching mines on noob zones, specially for a profession in which you have to search your ressource and even compete to have a spot. I know mining is very lucrative but just don't have the time to "enjoy" it. At least with skinning, you're going to a cave and just kill mobs without looking the yellow point on your tiny minimap.

Well, what do you think about it ? I would definitely consider other players point of view.

Rep Grinding

230 Leatherworking with about 200 Rugged Leather and the same amount of Thick Leather in bags. At the end of the week, I'll be at least 300 and I will have to focus on my reputation to have the recipes which will enable me to grind past 350.

The two main reputation I'll have to focus on are The Sha'tar and Keepers of Time. Fortunatly, I've found thanks to comments on WoWInsider a really nice site which summarizes what I will have to grind/farm/buy/instance in the future.

Almost a full Karazhan run last night run

One loot for me and is worth it : Fool's Bane, the best main hand I could find with my guild progression for the moment. That is to say I'm happy!

Bashing Raptor or Making Fun at Naxx... Mmmh... Raptors

Yesterday, I had a dilemna with all my friends going enjoy themselves at Naxxramas. Since it was the single WoW_1.0 instance I didn't finished with my druid, it was appealing. But, it much more important for me at the moment to prepare a correct itemization for the "real" raid content beginning (end of SSC / Eye/ Hyjal / BT) the 20th of this month. Currently my guild is in holiday mode since the 6th, there is no official raids except some Karazhan when there is enough motivated people and pre-TBC contents. For example, Monday night they've rushed whole AQ40 for fun.

Tonight, there will be probably a Kara-run which I will join. I really want to discover the first bosses and drop some weapon, especially the Terestrian one, Fool's Bane.

I <3 Elitist Jerks

This post is simply what I was searching above all.
A complete view of my class with all the theorycrafting issues resolved.

I left you, I've a lot of pages to read !

[EDIT]

Coeff : Haste Rating = 2.2, Strength = 2 (2.2 w/Kings), Crit Rating = 2, Agility = 1.8 (2 w/Kings), Hit Rating = 1.4, Attack Power = 1.

Lootzor Link : Warning, Lootzor don't manage Haste for the moment.

Haste : Beneath 1.5 weapon speed, haste rating will drop in its average value per point, 10.5 haste rating gives 1% haste.
Hasted Speed = Weapon Speed / ( (1+(Haste 1 %/100)) * (1+Haste 2 %/100)) * (1+(((Haste Rating 1 + Haste Rating 2 + ... )/100)/10.52)))

Getting Things Done

I decided to use this blog as an incentive in my progression with my Shaman.

So, I have had a new column on left with my main grind objective at the very current moment with full details. It could be grinding a profession, materials for a craft, a reputation or else. But only once at a time : I don't want to disperse myself into to much things at a time, which would be totally ineffective, knowing myself. Moreover, you'll be able to "follow" my progression more easily with that tool. I'm also thinking about a new design, as I dislike the current organisation but that's another story.

Missing a point

Looking this morning at the TBC Shaman FAQ on the wow website, it seems that the correct ratio for Shammies DPS is 1 AP = 0.5 STR = 0.45 Haste = 0.93 Hit Rating = 0.66 Crit Rating = 0.75 AGI.

This ratio makes agility/crit much less important than Disquette's ones which I've seen on Shamanistic Rage. Moreover, it takes into account the impact of Haste.

I have to precise Haste is not as important for shaman that rogues or warriors for a simple reason : Windfury. Windfury have this 3.0 seconds cooldown on both arms that make you want to have the slower main and off-hands possible. Adding haste is quite a nice bonus, but contrary to rogue/wars it will not perfectly scales as you'll somewhat "miss" Windfury swings.

Otherwise, I've 126 Hit point to find to cap at 17%, this will be a main problem in future.

EDIT : Using the new stats, I've redone my Lootzor list for mail items at short terms.

First Karazhan !

Ok, since the last post I've made filled some of my objectives. First of all, I've finished my Karazhan access, crafted my Felfury Gauntlets and almost finished my Vengeance Wrap. I'm curretly working my leatherworking but since I was ill I've been a little late from what I was planning to do.

This week-end, I was part of the pick-up Karazhan of my guild, killing Netherspite, The Prince and doing the Chess Event. The Enhancement Shaman gameplay is really, really different from what I was used to play as a DPS with my warrior or the single time when my drood were feral. I have to get used to it, I've to get used to playing at full a DPS Class instead of the raid healing role I had those two last years. Well, I had also a nice loot on the chess event : Mithril Chain of Heroism : +56 AP, 0.88% Crit, 0.88% Dodge which is a really nice thing, isn't it ? So all my PvP points (which are some rare at the moment) will go to the trinket at first.

Now objective number one : crafting my Ebon Netherscale Set ASAP. I've whole tons of leather to farm, well, if we have to go, we'll go.

Objectives anyone ?

As a fresh New Shaman on the Block, I got two priorities :

1. Complete my access to Karazhan. Thanks to Wowhead and a nice add-on described on Wow Insider called Lighthead, It should be done by tomorrow for the solo parts of it. I just hope I'll be able to kidnap 4 people of my guild out of Serpentshrine Cavern in order to finish the dungeons parts of this quest as soon as possible.
   


2. Itemization. Where the never-ending goal begins.

With the hell-long late I have take from those guys going to Lady Vache (:p) , I have to go and craft things by myself to show my motivation and my love for optimisation.

Reading the Enhancement Shaman topic on Elitist Jerks forum and the Shaman FAQ from Shamanistic Rage, I have come up with some good idea of what gear I could obtain less of more quickly. I base myself on the formula : 1AP = 0.5 strength = 1.08 hit rating = 1.51 crit rating = 1.3384 agility, generating this list from lootzor. I'm sticking with Mail for the moment, principally because of the lack of Stamina, Armor and Int on leather stuff. We'll see later for leather optimisation depending on my aggro/dps concerns.

So there is what I will quickly focus on crafting/obtaining :

• Helm of the Claw - Quest
• Choker of Vile Intent - PvP or Natasha's Choker - Quest
• Shalassi Sentry's Epaulets - Quest
• Vengeance Wrap - Craft
• Ebon Netherscale Breastplate - Craft
• Ebon Netherscale Bracers - Craft
• Felfury Gauntlets - Craft
• Ebon Netherscale Belt - Craft
• Scaled Greaves of Patience - Instance or Sunfury Legguards - Quest
• Marshal's Chain Sabatons - PvP
• Ring 1 : Violet Signet of the Master Assassin - Quest
• Ring 2 : Slayer's Mark of the Redemption - Quest
• Trinket 1 : Bloodlust Brooch - PvP
• Trinket 2 : Figurine - Felsteel Boar - Craft
• Main hand : Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler - PvP
• Off-hand : Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver - PvP

I'll probably have some items of that list replaced by Karazhan/Grull one before I obtain them, like the weapons.

From those "low" instances I really expect to obtain quickly :

• Maulgar's Warhelm - Grull
• Rip-Flayer Leggings - Karazhan
• Fiend Slayer Boots - Karazhan
• Ring of a Thousand Marks - Karazhan
• Garona's Signet Ring - Karazhan
• Fool's Bane - Karazhan or The Decapitator (Big Bad Wolf's Paw which drop from the Opera could be a nice one to wait indeed)

Okay, those make a nice amount of things to obtain actually. My first focus would be to up Leatherworking in order to craft the three pieces of the Ebon Netherscale set I need, and at the same time to collect the ingredients for the Felfury Gauntlets. That is to say 10 Felsteel Bars, 3 Primal Mights and one Primal Nether.

In terms of farming, it is 30 Fel Iron Bars, 20 Eternium Bars, 3 of each primal (Primal Earth, Primal Water, Primal Air, Primal Fire, Primal Mana) and one Primal Nether from the crafter which is about 50 Golds those times.

Enough Leetspeak, Let's farm.

Finally 70 !

Okay, this time I finally hit the top spot, I'm part of the 70'crew... with some millions of other people. Well, at least I've made it.

My Enhancement Shaman have now to be stuffed and I've a long way to go to be only elligible to be part of our raid. Yeah, I have to precise, I'm part of Empyrium, a french guild which have the particularity to play without any type of pve-spoils.

Oh... well, i'd better present myself now :

¤ Dajay - Level 70 Enhancement Shaman - Empyrium (well nothing new from above...).
¤ Armory Profile.
¤ Particularity : spreadsheet addict.

This blog will be about Enhancement Shamans DPS/Gaming issues and some Metagaming concerns. Nothing concerning my nice cat nor the last movie I have watch, just straight gaming contents. I was definitly thinking that began this quest at my level 70 would be the best thing to do, nobody want to hear about someones leveling but gearing/template/dps sequence could interest people.

If you're one of those people, welcome here and enjoy.