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.

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.

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 :>