Hey, who are you my dear readers?

It's been six months I'm posting here to talk about my experience as a Shaman. I was motivated by reading Phaelia, Megan or Ming with his Naruto schizophrenic attitude. Not finding anything really interesting (or updated) on Enhancement Shaman I decided to create my own diary.

My first idea was to do a heavy PvE theorycrafting blog, with lots of graphs, calculation and so. But life had more imagination than me. Due to personal concerns (I found a new job, have moved house two times in the last year and a girl entered in my life *emo*) it was hard to maintain 4 to 5 raids per week. Then I had to quit my raiding guild, get back in my first lovely guild and decided to have an in-depth look on the PvP side of the game.

Even if playing an Enhancement Shaman ain't the best situation for an ArenaFanBoi, I don't regret this move at all. PvP is the real school of this game : I simply didn't know how to play until the last 6 months and my heavy involvement in arenas and battlgrounds (remember, I was a Naxxramas attuned hardcore raider/theorycrafter pre-BC, 6 raids a week was usual for me).

Now, my little guild is ready for Karazhan (the first will be next Sunday) but our objective is far different as before. We want to farm the PvE content to acquire PvP items. No competition, no who-will-1st-kill-this-or-that, no extensive farming, no more than two raid sessions per week.

So, why are you still reading my blog?
What made you come the first time?
What type of contents do you want to see in the future?

P.S : If you want to find a blog with Enhancement PvE data, check Asirae blog. He updates often and provides really excellent personal data.

2008 PvP Logs, Week #3 : 1700 rating, Upgrading Weapons, Finally some PvE ?

Well, sorry but this update will be short.

I have been those 5 last days at a movie festival so my eyes are kinda destroyed now. And I have still have to work on those Excel sheets. /sigh.

Well, last tuesday we have been able to be 1k7 rated which is something really encouraging for us. It still not an e-sport proof © rating but we almost sure of what we are capable of. Tonight we have to confirm that we are able to "survive" in the 1700-1800 bracket but I'm pretty confident about this.


Need More Weapons
I have read a very interesting article from Asirae today, confirming what I have read on EJ concerning weapons buffs. I will do and publish my own tests this week, with longuer testing sessions I think.

Personal message to Asirae : Let anonymous comment on your blog, it's a pain to have to logon on Wordpress >.<.

Tomorrow I will have enough points to pick-up my S2 mace and I will try to put the Executioner enchant on it within the week. I do not think we will be able to pass the 1850 gap if we do not improve our DPS and this upgrade is a huge one for it. I will put my Fool's Bane in OH going for the first time with 2.6 - 2.6. I will probably put an Adamantite Chain on my Runic Hammer and put it out versus spam-disarming teams.

Gain-Loss on MH (Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler vs Fool's Bane) :
♥ 10 DPS, 34 top-end damage, 27 Stamina, 10 Hit
♠ 5 Critical Strike rating

Gain-Loss on OH (Fool's Bane vs Runic Hammer)
♥ 4 DPS, 35 top-end damage, 24 Critical Strike
♠ 16 Stamina, 20 Attack Power


Companions
Freakhill has "finished" his Cenarion Expedition reputation, so now he has the nice Glyph of Ferocity patch on his head and has crafted the Nightseye Panther this morning at 2:00 AM. Yeah, he plays the "who-will-sap-the-first" game. If we stay in this bracket, he will indeed have his second S3 piece in two week, he is thinking about taking the pants considering he already has the chest the the S1 gloves.

Cromagnonman is enjoying some retribution spec during is spare time, with me providing him some Windfury totem. He will respec tonight but I'm quite happy to have a Paladin who knows all specifies of his class, as we see and will more and more War-Druid-Retri those days. Ming has posted something about it.


Guild : Karazhan in the next month ?
My happy guild will soon be able to run their first 10 men content aka Karazhan. Some have still to ding 70 and some have to do their access but I'm pretty confident that we will be able to do our first pull by the end of February. I will spec either Resto or Elemental if we have enough physical dps. I'm going to dig on Draezele website for the Resto itemization for sure. Just want to see new things.

I'm really happy that Elellion will be back soon on the PvE Scene. With two raids per week at most and beginning at the end of the BC Experience, I do not think we will be able to kill any major 25-man Boss of this game. But, progress together in another environment than the PvP one could be a really good experience for all of us. Especially when you try to do it withouth any type of Bossmod or spoils. A good way to develop skillshop in PvE imo.


ALT : Victime is levelling.
Having all I could farm on my Shaman, I can at least level my Druid. I am now 61 3/4 and I hope to be 70 by the end of February, playing one or two nights per week. I decided to go Boomkin this morning after seeing that it would be too hard to count on instance-pugging to level quickly. Yesterday afternoon, I lost almost three hours in a pug with people afking or playing so bad that my baby panda cried. I'll stick on farming quests and instancing only with friends.

Btw, I have to post something about how bad is having Blacksmithing and Leatherworking now, particularly if you don't have access to high-end raiding.

2008 PvP Logs : Week #1

So after our last "performance", we had a nice PvP Session last night. After having run the 5vs5 to stuff some of our friends to prepare for serious things later in the year, we jumped into our favorite wagon, 3vs3.

Looking up

11-5, leading us to a 1609 rating.

3 losses to the same RMP (Rogue-Mage-Priest, the "hype" combo of the moment) because of lack of controls on either the Mage or the Rogue. We are working trought it, we got some place to improve. The lack of gear of Freakhill (lol 35 resilience and blue/kara gear) is kinda annoying because the guy is gibbed so fast that our Paladin or me ain't have the time to do anything. Versus those very aggressive RMP teams, it could turn in their favor in just a shatter-combo. Fortunatly he definitely knows how to play and he is kinda impressive sometimes. Well, enough flowers.


Our PvP Learning-curve

We are pretty confident that we can enter in the 1700 bracket in the following weeks. We are more and more learning how to play together and it feels kinda nice elaborating strategies, playing nice game, creating our own matrix and simply... having fun.

We have to improve in different ways :

1. Our communication : we still have some room to improve. Like every other teams.
2. Our survivability : we talked about Freakhill (rogue) case. Even with my 350-400 resilience I can be burst down to zero in no time by a Mage or an Elemental Shaman.
3. Our CS rotation (welcome Holy Light / Greater Heal / Healing Wave / Healing Touch)
4. DPS in a good situation. To unleash our burst, we need to be on the focus. And that's a real art itself.

Concerning myself, I'm working on my dps output as fast as I can. Now I have the whole Gladiator stuff, so the minimum 11k HP / 350 resilience necessary not to be gibbed, end with the benediction of Cromagnonman, our paladin, I'm focusing into improving my DPS.


Template and stuff concerns

I decided to go 0/47/14, as I needed more DPS scaling and improved utilities for my totems. I have also to learn when to ghost wolf when it is necessary.

As I don't have access to PvE gears, I'm focusing on improving my DPS by obtaining the PvP Gems (I will write something about those) and obtaining new weapons : Dragonmaw and Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler.

I'm now collecting the Primal Fires (I'm 13 on 20 now) and Khorium bars (1 out of 3). Primal Earth and Eternium Bars does worth nothing so I don't really count them in this farm. With those I'll be able to craft the first evolution of the blacksmithing mace, then, some heroics later, I'll be able to craft Dragonmaw. Hope to have it by the end of this week or last week. For the S2 mace, if we say an average of 400 points per week, I'll have it in 3 weeks, so this January the 30th.

Nearest to me, there is the nice up to Water Shield, which provides a 50MP5 plus its initial mana bonus. Well, I am definitely think that could help us as Enhancement to be able to sustain long pvp fights which is not really the case now, even by having Water Shield up the whole time.

Finally, I would like to thanks the people who visit my blog and subscribe to my RSS in 2007, hoping that I will provide you in 2008 with a lot more news and facts about being an Enhancement Shaman in Wow.

1700... 1700.

Well 1691 exactly. It where the biggest rating we achieved last week. People were laughing on TS, saying that we'll be able to go into the 1750 bracket this night on.

Just before a 11 loses streak taking us back to 1550.

Reason : War-Druid-[Insert Warlock/Priest/Shaman] or Rogue-Mage-Priest for a change.

It seems that this season, we will have those clone compositions all the way out. We have pretty good result versus RMP, but the other combo is dreadful for us. After having understood that the f*cking druid is the one to kill, we understood that we ain't have the dps to put a correct S2-S3 druid below 20%. Raddy was right.

So well, now that i'm full glad stuffed, I will focus the next month by changing trinket (Battlemaster), gems, enchant (I already begin on that point). I have spent my holiday working on Blacksmithing so I'm 375 since yesterday. Already crafted Thunder and working on Drakefist Hammer. Now I need some heroics sessions to upgrade to Deep Thunder and Dragonmaw.
Freak also have to work on his stuff as he his undergeared at the moment as he has lately saved his points for the S2 Maces.

And Happy new year for you all, hope you will have a great year and provide hapiness in your environment. Emo time is still so good. I don't like to talk about resolution, but my objective is to write each day something interesting on this blog. Now I can check my Joe's Goal ticket of "Update Blog" for today.

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.

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.

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.

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 :>.

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.