Showing posts with label wow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wow. Show all posts

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Official Patch 2.4 Update : Class Changes

Source : http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Druids

  • Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.
  • Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.
  • Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
  • Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.
  • Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.
  • Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0.
  • Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
  • Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent and reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
  • Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.
  • When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.
Hunter
  • Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues.
  • Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players.
  • Hunter's Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter's Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter's Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.
  • Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.
  • The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase.
  • Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target.

Mages
  • Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
  • Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
  • Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
  • Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostbite effect.
  • Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
  • Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
  • New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
  • Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.
  • Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.

Paladins
  • Avenger's Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
  • Divine Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.
  • Holy Shock: The healing, damage, and mana cost of this spell have all been increased.
  • udgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same time when judged by multiple Paladins.
  • Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.
  • Resistance Auras: It is no longer possible for two Paladins in the same party to make it appear that players have two of the same resistance aura active.
  • Righteous Defense: This spell will now always be castable on friendly npcs.
  • Seal of Blood: This ability will no longer cause spell pushback for the Paladin with this seal active.
  • Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed to Turn Evil. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead. Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in PvP.
Priests
  • Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and roots the target for 2 seconds.
  • Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
  • Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
  • Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition, Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.
  • Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% for 15 seconds.
  • Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.
  • Reflective Shield: The reactive damage from this talent no longer breaks crowd control affects which break on taking damage.
  • Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.
  • Silent Resolve:This talent now affects Surge of Light, Power Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.
  • Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.
  • Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Rogues
  • Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth, can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.
  • Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability activates and now has an animation.
  • Improved Backstab is now called Puncturing Wounds.
  • Puncturing Wounds increases your critical strike chance with Backstab by 10/20/30%, and the critical strike chance with your Mutilate ability by 5/10/15%.
  • Improved Sprint: This ability will now always remove Entangling Roots.
  • Sap mechanic changed from Incapacitate to Sap. This will allow more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap previously will still remove Sap after the change.
  • Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.
Shaman
  • Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.
  • Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
  • Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
  • Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
  • Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
  • Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.
  • Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
  • Stormstrike has a new icon.
  • Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
  • Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4.
  • The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate without doing any damage.

Warlocks
  • Blood Pact now has a tooltip.
  • Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved demons when Enslave Demon is removed. It will now increase your spell damage by an amount equal to 4/8/12%, down from 5/10/15%.
  • Demonic Sacrifice: Now works properly in sanctuary regions (such as Shattrath City and the Stair of Destiny).
  • Nether Protection: The buff from this talent will no longer interrupt capturing PvP flags and bases.
  • Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.
  • Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.
  • Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Warriors
  • Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.
  • Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).
  • Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.
  • Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.
  • Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP.

Comments in my next post.

Monday, 11 February 2008

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.

Sunday, 10 February 2008

Dedication to your avatar : Serious Casual attitude

Yesterday I have farmed 4k honours points on my Shaman. I'm now 17/25k on the road for my Gladiator's Salvation. I have still to afford two PvP Epic Gems then the 75k for S4 preparation.

The thing is, I would like to have some time to reroll in order to better know the other class mechanisms. I would like to have 9 Level 70 from different classes. And play with them. I will definitely not try to get them all competitive, but I really find that you should have a minimal knowledge of each class to fully understand and enjoy the game, the patch impacts and so much more. And have fun. Megan is my hero on this side.

I have a level 70 Shaman, a level 62 druid, a level 57 warrior, a level 39 *twink* Warlock. I would like to level my druid to 70. I would like to have a 70 disc Priest. I would like to level a Paladin.

But I can't afford that time due to the fact that I want to be competitive with my Shaman, I want my teammates to be proud of me, I want to show them that they were right to put their confidence in me. Remember that I'm no more a very hardcore since more than one year and Naxxramas (best instance ever). I work full time as financial analyst, play typically 3 nights per week and some Sunday afternoon. Other than that, I just chill with my girlfriend or reading. It's between 20 and 30 hours dedicated to gaming per week. I am a big player for my girlfriend, a casual one for my ex-guildmates. I would say serious casual myself (expression stolen from EJ).

This serious casual attitude prevent from being an Alt-aholics given to the fact that I don't have the time to dedicate myself seriously for the moment to more than one avatar. When my Shaman will be completely itemizated, I will take time to move on my druid then other classes. My late comeback in Wow (70 last September) didn't work in my advantage on this level.

All this commitment to a class which is the less played in arena is kinda masochist isn't it ? I am not crazy. I strongly believe that in a soon future Blizzard will make something for us Enhancement in Arena. The little thing we desperately need to be as competitive as rogues or warriors in the arena competition.

Anyway, I'm going to respec 40/21, mainly loosing 6% of PA bonus in the exchange of Nature's Swiftness.

Thursday, 7 February 2008

Leaked Shaman 2.4 Notes

All forums are burning this morning with this leaked 2.4 class changes list provided by Boubouille on MMO Champion.

For Shamans :

  • Lightning Bolt: Spell coefficient reduced by $
  • Lightning Overload can no longer proc on instant cast spells. (aka NS+CL won't proc it)
  • Lightning Overload can no longer critically hit.
  • Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem now pulse every 3 seconds, down from 5.
  • Earth Shield mana cost reduced by 50%
  • Earth Shield now has 6 charges, down from 10.
  • Healing Grace: Now also reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%
  • Shaman Gladiator 4-set bonus now reduces pushback by 30%, down from 70%.

So well, if this is true, it is the most, well, Elemental Shamans are messed up. There was debate on the blogosphere about how OP were Elemental Shamans with PI (Power Infusion: Spell damage and healing done increased by 20%.) in 5vs5 Arena. Specially after Inactive release some CLC videos where he has taken insane burst.

Having played Ele only during my Leveling, I don't know how much this nerf will impact for them in arena. But it's definitely a sad day for them.

Btw, the Earth Shield Change is really nice and with the Healing Grace modification, the output will be that it would be less mana efficient for dispeller (~250 mana) to put it off compared for the Shaman to re-put it on (450 mana).

For Enhancement, the Healing Grace talent will helps Shamanistic Rage not to be dispelled as soon as the BIG RED FACE pop up on your already big character (The Common Hey Scrub Dispell Me incentive) but it's nothing really interessant at all. It will just take perhaps one more pure to dispell a 41pt not-so-great talent on a 2mn cooldown. Cool. Shamanistic Rage at this current step is not worth 41pts. The fact is at the opposite of rogues/wars/mages/alltheother we do not have a lot of choices in the other talents trees to do a mix up as Shama first tiers are weak. This make me think that my old 0/40/21 specs could be the only exception.

The only really "nice" thing of this leaked patchnote is that the Tremor Totem/Poison pulsing reduced to 3 seconds. Because I am fed of being feared out of my Tremor Totem range. And it happens almost everytime I face a 'Lock.

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Holy Fake 2.4 Patch Note.

Well I have read this fake patch note this morning, and I can't stop to tell myself that I would dream to see this live. So, instead of telling you about how incredible we were last evening on our 10-3 run- a Hunter-Druid-Priest group very well played is the cause of our real defeat - I will tell you about this fake patch.

You can check also Jasi analysis on Ming blog.


// WARNING THIS IS FAKE //

So here is the complete fake-patch-note commented.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.0

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com...patchnotes.html
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The Sunwell Isle The Aldor and the Scryers have made their way to the Sunwell and finally put their petty squabbles aside to form the Shattered Sun Offensive against the demonic forces of Kil'jaeden and the corrupt Blood Elves led by Kael'thas Sunstrider.
Shattered Sun Offensive representatives can be found in Shattrath recruiting Horde and Alliance alike for the battle for the Sunwell Plateau and the Magister's Terrace.

Nothing fancy. We already knew that.

General
- Silence and Interrupt effects are now subject to diminishing returns.

OUCH. The first big one. Little definition (® Wowwiki) : Diminishing returns means that certain spells and abilities are less effective against player characters if they are used frequently within a short period of time. The table to the right contains a list of abilities that are affected by DR, and under what circumstances. So the fourth time my paladin will eat a interrupt (pummel, kick, earth shock) in a 15 second window, this interrupt will have no effect at all ? In this definition, does Silence and Interrupt will share the same DR ?

- The Sunwell Plateau is a 25-player, level 70 raid instance located on Sunwell Isle. Players will be able to face the demon lord Kil'jaedon himself.
- The Magister's Terrace is a 5-player, level 70 dungeon located on Sunwell Isle. Players will be able to finish the fight with Kael'thas and his corrupt Blood Elves.

Nothing new.

- The Backpack has been redesigned. It will now start as a 10 slot bag, but it will gain 2 slots every 10 levels. New characters will be given an additional 6 slot bag. Existing characters below level 30 may have items moved to their mailbox that no longer fit in their Backpack. Players affected by this should also find a 6 slot bag in their mailbox.

Nice little tuning to bag management. But we all do already have this , level 1 toon with all 16 bags.

- Abilities and items with aura effects will no longer reach as far vertically as they do horizontally.

So we will not be able to put our totem above the bridge and battle on the ground. I think it is faire even if it was one of the unique way to not see our totem destroyed by a wand/moonfile rk1/priest hit. Oh dear, I would like to see our totems buffed by a % of our life.

- Several new emotes have been added to the game. Players that wish to make use of these emotes should use the "/emotelist" command.
- Random-stat items that provide bonus healing will now properly provide approximately 1/3 bonus spell damage.
- The troll Berserking racial no longer requires mana, energy or rage to use.
- The gnome Escape Artist racial cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min 45 sec, but now provides a 5 sec immunity to movement impairing effects.

Rebuffing an ability they almost destroyed (I know, Freakhill is a gnome rogue) could be definitaly a good move. Currently Escape Artist is a joke compared to Perception, Stoneform or WOTF. Basically, this way gnome will have kind of a second. By the way, I wait for Gift of the Naaru to be buffed too. Why not beginning by correctly attribute us our spell power from AP on it ?

- The human Perception racial cooldown has been reduced to 2 min, from 3 min, but the duration has been reduced to 12 sec, from 20 sec.
- The human Diplomacy racial now also increases healing received by 3%.

The Perception seems to be a really nice buff for human for me if correctly used. As for the healing received talent. What the point in that ? Well I know it is fake, but what the point ?


PvP
- Additional bonus honor is now rewarded on a Battleground Holiday.
- Picking up and dropping the Flag in a Battleground now has a distinct visual and auditory effect.
- Warriors will now be able to use Commanding Shout and Battle Shout for free for a few seconds after being resurrected by a Spirit Guide in a Battleground.
- The points awarded from capturing the flag in Eye of the Storm has been increased.

Nothing fancy, the next one is...

- During a period of excessive arena queue times the matching system will loosen its requirements, effectively reducing queue times, but resulting in less effective matching.

Could be a solution to not have to wait almost 2 hours to do ten 2vs2 battle.

Druids
- Bash now deals 50% of normal melee damage.
- Cyclone now has a 15 sec cooldown.
- Celestial Focus: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Cyclone by 5/10/15 sec.

Oh. This would be a massive nerf to all 8/11/42 druids compositions, ungiving them the option heal (thanks instant) and completely anhilate a Paladin or a Shaman during long period of time (Cyclone/Charge/Repeat). Druids who are already playing the fun gunwrathing spec 24/0/37 will see their number increase.

- Frenzied Regeneration: The amount of health restored now scales slightly with bonus healing effects.
- Swipe now generates additional threat.
- Soothe Animal is now instant cast, down from a 1.5 sec cast time.
- Control of Nature: This talent now also affects Hibernate.
- Force of Nature: Treants now heal the Druid for a portion of their damage dealt to enemy targets.

Some buff to Boomkins. But I don't think it will be sufficient to see those guys shining in arena in a large way.

- Predatory Strikes: This talent now increases melee attack power by 15/30/45% of your Intellect.
- Shredding Attacks: This talent now also gives the critical strikes from your Claw, Shred, Mangle and Maul abilties a 50/100% of reducing the effectiveness of the next direct healing spell on your target by 20%.
- Savage Fury: This talent now also causes your Rake ability to reduce the target's movement speed by 25/50% for the duration of the bleed effect.

Bonus to DPS, Snare and Lil'MS effect, nice move. Feral does need some love and this buff would be beneficial for them, we could even see some matrix replacing Warriors by Feral Druids with those changes.

- Swiftmend: The cooldown has been increased to 18 sec, from 15 sec.

A little nerf to Switmend, won't change the meta but will probably make Druids less OP.

- Improved Tranquility: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 1/2 min.
- Remove Curse is now castable in Tree of Life Form.


Hunters
- Hunter aspects no longer cost mana to cast and can now be switched while silenced.

This buff will provide a whole range of new things to do as an Hunter. Hawk/Monkey if focused and so. But...

- Aspect of the Beast will now also affect the Hunter's nearby party members.
- Aspect of the Hawk now increases ranged attack power by 10%.
- Kill Command: The damage bonus of Kill Command (Rank 1) has been slightly increased.
- Feed Pet: This ability can now be used while in combat.
- Viper Sting now scales slightly with ranged attack power and the cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec, but the duration has been increased to 12 sec, from 8 sec.
- Serpent Sting mana cost reduced.
- Volley now deals 50% weapon damage every 2 sec for 8 sec.
- Concussive Shot now deals 50% weapon damage and the duration of the slow effect has been increased to 5 sec, from 4 sec.
- Efficiency: This talent now also affects Volley.

Hey what about all those MM buffs ? Already one of the top class of the ladder, it's Survival tree which desperatly needs a buff.

- Aimed Shot now instantly applies 5 charges to the target and any direct healing spells that land on the target will expend 1 charge, lowering the healing penalty effect by 10%.

Coud be a nice mechanic. Does HoT should applies ? As it is not the core ability of the class, it is not something people will cry about. Not like the Warriors one.

- Trueshot Aura: This ability has been redesigned to increase the chance to hit with melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells of party members by 3%.
- Silencing Shot now also acts as an interrupt effect, but the cooldown has been increased to 24 sec, from 20 sec.
- Deterrence now also reduces the chance you will be hit by ranged attacks by 25%.
- Entrapment: The snare effect now lasts 5 sec, up from 4 sec and is no longer subject to diminishing returns, but the talent has been moved deeper into the Survival tree.

Not enough for survival my friend, not enough. If this goes live, I can see the bus of Survival complaing about MMs OPness.


Mages
- Ritual of Refreshment will now complete faster when activated by 2 additional players.
- Counterspell: The duration has been reduced to 6 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
- Ice Lance now has a 6 sec cooldown.

People will cry.

- Spellsteal: It is no longer possible to remove a Shaman's Ghost Wolf buff with this spell.
- Arcane Power: The spell damage bonus has been reduced to 20%, from 30%, but the mana cost penalty has been removed and it now also increases your chance to crit with spells by 5% for the duration.

I don't understand the point in this move. Could a mage explain me if this will change something in their gameplay ?

- Improved Blink has been replaced by Arcane Efficiency, a talent that reduces the mana cost of Blink, Counterspell and Spellsteal by 25/50%.
- Slow: The mana cost has been reduced by approximately 24% and the duration reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec.

If the goal is to provide tools for Arcane Fanboi to do PvP, it is a failure. It is not in anyway something that will make Arcane mage to be in part of Ice or even Fire mages.

- Master of Elements: This talent now also reduces Fire and Frost damage taken by 2/4/6%.
- Dragon's Breath: The disorient effect will no longer break on damage over time effects.
- Icy Veins: The cooldown has been increased to 5 min, from 3 min and no longer increases your chance to Freeze targets, but now gives your damage spells a 30% chance of applying a chill effect, reducing the target's movement speed by 50% for 5 sec.

Ok, so now Fire mage will be able to chill you with a Fireblast. Freaky ! But give more viability to 3x/2x Fire builts.

- Frozen Core: This talent now increases the mana cost of your Fire spells by 2/4/6%, but reduces the mana cost of your Frost spells by 2/4/6%.
- Ice Floes: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Icy Veins.
- Arctic Winds: This talent no longer increases all Frost damage done, but now increase the critical strike chance of your Frost spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Empowered Frostbolt has been renamed to Empowered Frost and no longer increase the critical strike chance of Frostbolt, but now also increases the amount of bonus spell damage that effects your Icelance spell by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Buffering the shatter-combo mechanism to give Frost mage more burst ? Is it necessary ?


Paladins
- Holy Shock: The cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec and the amount of damage and healing done has been slightly increased.
- Avenger's Shield: The cast time has been reduced to 0.5 sec, down from 1 sec.
- Crusade: This talent now increases your spell damage and healing by 25/50% of your Strength.
- Sanctity Aura now increases all damage done by party members by 4%, but the Holy spell damage bonus has been removed.
- Improved Sanctity Aura has been removed.
- Sanctified Reach (New Retribution Talent): Increases the range of your Judgement and Hammer of Justice spells by 25/50% and the range of your Hammer of Wrath and Repentance spells by 10/20%.

Buffs to Ret and Prot to give them more viability in raid mainly. Well, Coriel will speak much better than me on this one.


Priests
- Feedback mana cost reduced and cooldown reduced to 2 min, from 3 min.
- Chastise: The cooldown has been increased to 1 min, from 30 sec.

Necessary, this ability is a little too much OP.

- Fear Ward is now considered a Discipline spell instead of a Holy spell.
- Improved Fade: This talent now also causes your Fade spell to increase your chance to dodge by 5/10% for the duration.
- The effects of your Mana Burn and Fade spells now scale slightly with Shadow spell damage. - Mana Burn now has a 6 sec cooldown.
- Focused Power: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Mana Burn by 0.5/1 sec.
- Silent Resolve: The threat reduction of this talent once again affects Shadow spells.
- Force of Will: The spell critical chance bonus now affects all spells.
- Pain Suppression now provides the target with immunity to dispell effects.
- Shadow Affinity: This talent has been changed to reduce the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 4/7/10% and reduce the chance your Shadow spells will be resisted by 2/4/6%. - Shadow Focus has been replaced in the talent tree by Focused Mind.
- Silence: The duration has been reduced to 4 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.

Jasi has done a great analysis, check his point. But the Fade change, the Mana burn CD and the Pain Suppression change seems really smart for me.


Rogues
- Rogues can now generate combo points on up to 3 targets at any one time.

This one is simply brilliant and I think rogue have been dreaming about it since the release. How about transforming combo points as a new debuff, non dispellable ? It would result in both new offensive and defensives strategy.

- Cloak of Shadows: The cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min.
- Your Sap and Distract abilities no longer require targets to be out of combat.
- Sap now has a 15 sec cooldown.

Too much OP to be done. Rogue/Rogue teams in 2c2 will dominate.

- Blade Twisting: This talent now affects all abilities that generate combo points.
- Preparation once again resets the cooldowns of all your Rogue abilities.
- Premeditation and Preparation talents have swapped locations.

I'm mitigated about this one. Could a rogue comment about it ? How it would create new specs ?

- Cheat Death will now properly reduce damage taken by 90%.


Shaman \o/
- Lightning Shield mana cost reduced and now grants Nature spell damage for each remaining charge.

Solution for PvE Elementals ? Need much more precision on that but the idea could be interesting on fight where mana is not a problem.

- Water Shield now has a small mana cost and now grants mana every 5 sec for each remaining charge.

Fair I think. Water Shield with

- The spell damage coefficient of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells has been slightly reduced.

Well. Please. No. It was done before with the effect we knew. But wait... Does the Lightning Shield change has a link with it ?

- Ghost Wolf now frees the Shaman from movement impairing effects when cast, renders the Shaman immune to polymorph effects and can no longer be dispelled.

Do you want me to cry ? Is it exactly the kind of thing (with totem enhancement) that I desperately need as an enhancement shaman.

- Windfury Weapon now only grants 1 extra attack and the bonus attack power granted has been reduced by approximately 19%, but the chance to proc has been increased. Overall shamans should see more consistent dps.
- Windfury Totem: The attack power bonus has been reduced by approximately 46%, but the chance to proc has been slightly increased. Overall the totem should see a slight decrease in effectiveness.

It totally kills my weekly two-shooting cure of 61-Green in Alterac with my big bad Hammer of the Naaru, but everything which could provide more DPS in overall is to be taken. I wonder how it could effect Shamans itemisation at all. Will do some theorycrafting about it later. For raids, totem-twisting addicts who use rank1 will saw an increase of their DPS in groups I think as we really doesn't care about the AP bonus provided.

- The bonus that Frostbrand Weapon and Flametongue Weapon receive from bonus spell damage effects has been slightly increased.

Slightly will not be enough Obiwan. But should be interessant to theorycraft if my DPS would be increased by putting this on my off-hand on high armor targets (druids, paladins).

- Frostbrand Weapon: The movement slowing effect has been increased to 40%, from 25%.

Did I said druids ?

- Bloodlust/Heroism: The duration has been reduced to 30 sec, from 40 sec and the cooldown reduced to 5 min, from 10 min.

Too good to be truth. This would be an huge increase of any raid DPS.

- Elemental Weapons: This talent now increases the damage caused by Rockbiter Weapon by 10/20/30% and the attack power bonus of Windfury Weapon by 15/30/45%.

Need more theorycrafting to speak about it.

- Stormstrike now grants a 30% spell damage bonus for the next 2 Frost, Fire or Nature spells cast by the Shaman.

5 to 10% of our DPS in raid now is from Shocks. How could this increase this percentage in raid, I don't know. In PvP, it would give us the ability to do a controlable burst on a target. But again, in PvP, our mana pool is much too low to rely on it on a long fight, even with Shamanistic Focus. Definitely good to take.

- Healing Grace: This talent now also reduces the chance your Restoration spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.
- Focused Mind: This talent now also gives your spell criticals a 33/66/100% chance of reducing the cast time of your next healing spell by 0.5 sec.
- Earthshield now has a 20 second cooldown, but the mana cost has been reduced by approximately 50%.

Just make Earth Shield undispelable like Pain Suppression then ? 30% is really not enough.
Nothing on totem at all, if even the fake patch-noters forgot them...


Warlocks
- Drain Mana now scales slightly with Shadow spell damage, but the base amount of mana drained has been reduced.
- Drain Life and Drain Mana now share a 5 sec cooldown.
- Ritual of Souls and Ritual of Summoning will now complete faster when activated by 2 additional players.
- Incinerate: The cast time has been increased to 3 sec, from 2.5 sec.
- Spell Lock (Felhunter): The duration has been reduced to 4 seconds (rank 1) and 5 seconds (rank 2), and cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
- Soul Siphon: This talent once again affects Drain Mana.
- Amplify Curse now also increases the effects of your next Curse of Weakness by 30% and Curse of Tongues by 10%.
- Master Conjuror: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of your Spellstone by 30/60 sec. - Aftermath: This talent now also gives Incinerate an additional 3/6/9/12/15% chance of dazing the target.
- Bane: This talent now also reduces the cast time of Incinerate, but no longer reduces the cast time of Soulfire.
- Improved Firebolt has been renamed Demonic Destruction and merged with the effects of Improved Lash of Pain.
- Improved Deathcoil (New Destruction Talent): Increases the duration of the Horror effect of your Deathcoil spell by 0.5/1 sec.
- Conflagurate: The cooldown has been reduced to 6 sec, from 10 sec.

Nerf to the SL spec. Up for the Destruction specs. Drain Life/Mana on CD. Way to go !

Warriors
- Rend now generates additional threat.
- Spell Reflect: The rage cost has been reduced to 20, from 25, but now has a 8 sec cooldown.
- Mortal Strike now instantly applies 5 charges to the target and any direct healing spells that land on the target will expend 1 charge, lowering the healing penalty effect by 10%.
- Sweeping Strikes: The rage cost has been reduced to 25, from 30.
- Weapon Mastery: This talent now reduces the chance your attacks will be parried, instead of dodged. - Blood Craze has been reduced to 2 ranks for 2/4% total health healed.
- Rampage now also increases your chance to resist movement impairing effects by 10% and an additional 2% for each stack.
- Concussive Blow now also deals 50% weapon damage.
- Devastate now strikes with both weapons while dual wielding.

Wow, wow, wow. This nerf on MS will make baby panda cry in Warriors teams. It should even destroyed some setups coupled with the druid nerf. Also, the buff to devastate will give Prot Wars a way to farm more easily.

Pets
- At maximum loyalty Hunter pets will no longer lose happiness from being idle.
- Pets will now receive a percentage of their master's resilience and an additional percentage of their master's stamina.
- Warlock and Hunter pets will no longer be automatically dismissed when you summon a mount. Instead pets will be dismissed when you take off with a flying mount and return when you land or dismount.

Pet receiving resilience and stamina is fair I think. Even if their masters classes are OP right now.


Items
- The drop rates of many darkmoon cards have been increased.
- Black Bow of the Betrayer: The triggered effect will no longer break crowd control effects.


Professions
- Special fishing only items can now be acquired by fishing in high level zones.
- Several new cooking recipes are now available at cooking trainers.
- Profession daily quests are now available at Master profession trainers.

Nothing on Blacksmithing, Leatherworking. Hopefully, this is a fake \o/.

User Interface
- The combat log functionality has been extended, including highlighted feedback and an extensive history. See the "UI & Macros" forum for further details.
- Players can now view a list of ingame emotes by entering the following into chat "/emotelist".


World Environment
- Several flight paths have been adjusted to be shorter, faster flights.
- The level requirement to enter Outlands has been removed.

Bug Fixes
- Abilties with charges will no longer prevent a player from overwriting the buff when it is below the maximum number of charges and is of lesser or equal strength.
- Fixed a bug in which Cheat Death was reducing damage taken more than intended.
- Fixed a bug in which the Royal Tanzanite and Irid Fire Opal gems were not properly granting spell damage.
- Players that use mods should no longer have diffculty using Battlemasters or Flightmasters.
- Fixed an issue with abilities that reset the cooldown of other abilities.
- Fixed an issue with macros sometimes incorrectly reporting the error that an ability is not yet ready.


See you soon for a real post this time.

Wednesday, 16 January 2008

2008 PvP Logs, Week #2 : Designing a RMP Counter, Hemo-Shadowstep Rogue specs, Battlemaster trinket utility

Not a really what we could call a good week. We only managed to play one night between 11PM and 3AM last Wednesday, after that our Paladin partner Cromagnonman got an important irl problem. As a consequence, he wasn't able to play the rest of the week (until now actually) and we wasn't able to test the adjustments to our strategies we made after this night.


W-L : 13-11, 1614 rating.
We basically lost to all the RMP which were powerlevelling, which cause us to have only 20 or 19 points defeats. We won basically versus all the other ones, including War/Druid/Locks or War/Double healers. The fact that we weren't able to manage those Rogue/Mage/Priest teams has really annoyed us not to say more. So we worked on our plan. This is War.


Collateral consequences
We have read about all what google (and my favourite blogs) can tell you about RMP, their strengths, their weaknesses. So we, as a team, declare war to those teams.

Freakhill has respecced Poisonstep aka 20/0/41.
Assassination: Apply better poisons on our focus and be able to insta explose armor at the exact moment we want to kill our focus.
Subtlety: Lolstep in order to not be kited anymore by anyone. In the race to have the open sap 5/5 Master of Deception, Heightened Sense, coupled with some specific stealth detection gear. Hemo. Prepa. Premed.

For sure he has lost all the tools of his HARP specs, but we feel that it's better for the specific counter we want to create.

Now i'll make an effort to summarize how we plan to counter RMP, thanks to all we have read.

Countering the Crowd Control
Stay together in order to make them waste their cc (force nova on a blind/sap/sheep)
Having our Paladin with either Blessing of Sacrifice or the stealth detection buff witch dot as soon as possible. Having him dispel Sheep and Nova as fast as possible. It's all about Cromagnonman skills there. Trinket only for blind or Fear is tremor isn't up. Me trinketing Fear save the two others as I will instant-pulse my tremor totem asap.

It's all about having the open Sap
Having Freakhill prepared to sap/blind combo the other rogue, letting us with a window of 14 seconds "alone" with the mage. Pressure them down to see them commit errors. If Freak is opened, it's almost finished.

→ Outlast the burst
Don't be shatter-comboed. Ever. Our paladin has to be brilliant dispelling all the frozen effect from us. Grounding totem must be used only on a Frostbolt (get it out at the very last moment) as Cromagnonman task will be to dispel sheep/nova. The massive shield, Earthbind totem, Poison Cleansing totem and Frost resistance totem : try to damage-kite the rogue, LOS the mage without LOS-ing your healer (quite an art), fake cast on holy tree (Gift of the Naaru \o/) to force silence - kick CD. Try to run away. And pray.

→ Prepare to unleash your burst
All targets have to be preventively purged of any buff they might have at the beginning of the fight. When a target could be focused, we will first have to stop him. Judgement of Justice, Frost Shock, Earthbind totem, Crippling Poison. We are able to stop a Druid, we are able to stop anything. Then Improved Explose armor, Wound Poison, purge the upcoming bubble and Pain Suppression (it can take time...) then burst him down in no time. Save a Grounding totem to prevent a polymorph of one of the DPS.


Personal contribution
Having farmed 27k honours points those last week, I'll have my Battlemaster's Determination trinket by tomorrow finally. I can't wait having this non-interruptible, non-limited (MS, Wound poison) heal. It could have saved our life so many times versus rogue/ice-mage focus when we were short.

[Randomicemage] Frostbolt *Crit* [You] 2700
[Randomrogue] Hit [You] 400
[You] Die.
[Cromagnonman] Heal [You] 5000

I can't tell the number of times it happened to us matchs that way, me don't surviving the insane cc/burst from them, with wound poison applied. As I had to loose some HP/Resilience to play the "KILL TEH DROOD" game on War/Druid/X teams - with pretty much success -, I am not that Shameliotank I used to be anymore. No more focus casting, no more 10% resistance on frost/fire/nature damages, no more resilience cap, no more 13kHP. I gained much more dps and way better totems at this price. So this trinket will be a welcomed addition.

This week, due to Cromagnonman problems and Freakhill exams, we will probably delay our match to next Tuesday night, so we will fight a load of the T5/T6 PvEBoi. It will be a good training. Waiting for this, I'll try to do some Heroics (I still miss 6 Primal Nether for my Dragonmaw), training (aka dueling front of IF) with my Shaman and, at least, leveling my Druid.

Wednesday, 9 January 2008

WTB PvP Epic Gems

With only 3 Alliance guilds in BT/Hyjal on my server, at Teron's level at best, we don't have many choices to find nice gems are even buying nice DPS gear.

So the epics ones are a worthwhile addition to your stuff.

Here is the list of the gems available :

[Bold Ornate Ruby] +20 Attack Power
[Runed Ornate Ruby] +12 Spell Damage
[Gleaming Ornate Dawnstone] +10 Spell Crit Rating
[Smooth Ornate Dawnstone] +10 Critical Strike Rating
[Potent Ornate Topaz] +6 Spell Damage, +5 Spell Crit Rating
[Inscribed Ornate Topaz] +10 Attack Power, +5 Critical Strike Rating

Those gems are fairly equivalent to BT ones, and when we talk about optimizing your gear you should do no compromises at all on farmable content. I have bought lately the [Bold Ornate Ruby] for 6885 honours points and put it on my chest.
I am saving now for the the Battlemaster trinket but I'll focus on obtaining the two others gems asap, beginning with the AP/Crit one.

By the way, I have read this comment today on Arenajunkies :

Enhancement's problem is IMO by far the toughest; it can be kited too easily, invalidating 100% of the shaman's DPS. Making SR undispellable won't fix that, so I don't consider it a fix. Some sort of root, teleport to the target, resistance to snares, something is needed if the spec will ever be anything more than a fun thing to do in BGs and not a guaranteed 1800 rating for all but a minuscule part of the population who are talented and dedicated enough to make it work.

I hope I will be in the "chosen ones" before the beginning of WOTLK. Some have done it, I personally don't think it is impossible even with the problems that our class knows. It will begin by dealing more efficiently with RMP, we have brainstormed a lot about finding a solution lately and read some great articles on it.

And, I decided to do same as Megan and provide you my email adress if you feel to ask me some questions or whatever but do not want to write a comment :

Friday, 14 December 2007

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:

Wednesday, 28 November 2007

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.

Thursday, 23 August 2007

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

RankDPSSpeedIndexRatioDifferentialWeapon

1100.22.8110.21.110Syphon Nathrezim

298.72.7105.31.076.6Rod of Sun King

397.62.7104.11.076.5Dragonstrike

497.62.7104.11.076.5WickedEdgePlanes

5100.22.6103.51.033.3Rising Tide

697.52.6100.81.033.3Merciless Gladiator's Slow

793.72.799.91.076.2TalonPhoenix

891.12.797.21.076.1Dragonmaw

991.12.797.21.076.1Black Planar Edge

1093.72.696.81.033.1Netherbane

1192.12.695.21.033.1The Decapitator

1291.22.694.21.033Gladiator's Slow

1387.52.690.41.032.9Fool's Bane

1484.32.789.91.075.6Planar Edge

1584.32.789.91.075.6Drakefist Hammer

1687.62.587.610Big Bad Wolf's Paw

1783.72.686.51.032.8The Bladefist

1883.52.480.70.97-2.8Runic Hammer

19100.31.876.90.77-23.4Boundless Agony

2071.72.776.51.074.8Reflex Blades

2198.61.875.60.77-23Fang of Vashj

2283.42.275.10.9-8.3Fel Edged Axe

2371.72.674.11.032.4Boggspine Knuckles

2493.61.871.80.77-21.8Heartrazor

2571.62.571.610Terrok's Gavel

2691.91.870.50.77-21.4Malchazeen

2765.52.667.71.032.2AH GREEN

2887.51.867.10.77-20.4Emeral Ripper

29100.31.566.90.67-33.4Tracker's Blade

30100.31.566.90.67-33.4Swiftsteel Bludgeon

3162.62.562.610Mag'Hari Fury Bnd

3293.71.562.50.67-31.2Claw Phoenix

3391.11.560.70.67-30.4Gladiator'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.

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

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 :

Monday, 20 August 2007

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.

Friday, 17 August 2007

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 ?

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* 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.