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.

Hacking concerns -> Call to Arms

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers everyone ! It's Season 3 !

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

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

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

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

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

Currently :

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

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

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

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

Arena Set Comparison : Is Armor Penetration worth it ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Linked Helm :

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

Linked Spaulders :

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

Linked Armor :

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

Linked Leggings :

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

Linked Gauntlets :

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

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

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

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

The 130% Shaman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the [Yipi !] bonus.

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

COT2 won't see me for a looooooooong moment.

Some news about Totem Twisting

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

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

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

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

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

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

Engineering & Arena

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First try : 0/37/24

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

Mooo.

So, my choices commented:

Enhancement (37 points)

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

Restoration (24 points)

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

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

PvP, Talents Changes... Some news.

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

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

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

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

Gladiator's Earthshaker (5-piece melee)

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

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

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

Raid Analysis #4 : Serpentshrine Cavern

Let's go for another analysis !

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Totem twisting issues

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

It's definitely works.

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

Looks awesome, isn't it ?

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

Other interesting things :

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

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

Sweet, Sweet, Runic Hammer

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

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

Raid Analysis #2

Second analysis inc, with last Thursday raid.

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

Overall :

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

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

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