Elitist Jerks Updated!

The Elitist Jerks Enhancement Shaman class mechanics thread has been updated. I'm going to read through it now and update this post with my comments. Looks like it was last edited on 10/24 so I'm a bit behind. Going to have to subscribe to that page...
http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t20765-shaman_enhancement/

[UPDATE] Not too much new information there. Some highlights...

I LOL'd at this because it's true:

Enhancement shaman are highly gear dependent, perhaps more so than any other DPS class. The 'skill' required to be effective at the class manifests in proper gear selection prior to combat; during combat the amount of 'skill' to produce respectable DPS consists mainly of staying in contact with the mob and maintaining totem coverage.

Although I still maintain that there is a significant hate on melee, and that the best thing you can do to maximize your dps is staying alive, thus the class does require some skill to play.

The Flametongue section was also quote worthy:

Flametongue has become much more viable due to the merging of Hit and Crit rating into a universal rating. Flametongue is now capable of performing as well or better than Windfury on the Off Hand in most cases. Flametongue scales best on a fast weapon because of the flat 10% spell damage coefficient across weapon speeds, but fast weapons interact poorly with Lava Lash. Fast Weapons are still viable in the OH though, as long as the fast weapon will be a significant stat and DPS upgrade over your currently equipped weapon, to outweigh the loss to Lava Lash through the gains in Flametongue DPS.

It used to be that at the T4 level you were still better off with that crappy green weapon in your OH just because it was slooooow. But now with FT we have more gearing options.

Also noteworthy:

1. Timing spells and SS with WF procs is a horrible idea
2. 2H is still inferior to dual wielding
   
3. Earth Shock is superior damage to a FS-ES rotation

Enjoy!

Don't You Wish...

I was helping a friend of mine work on this Enhance gear for his Shaman Alt. He’s our main Pally Tank in the guild and the Shammy is his 4^th level 70 and he made the switch from dark side (Ele spec) to join the ranks of the amazing (Enhance).

As I was going over his gear and helping him figure out how he can make the most out of his greens and blues he invited his cousin's shammy to the party and asked me to look at him too. His cousin has a Boomkin main in a guild whose progression is above ours—they had Illidian down pre-patch while we were working on RoS. Anyway, he tells me that their main raiding shamans switched up specs with the Ele going Resto and the Enhance going Ele or something crazy like that. They were short an Enhance raiding shaman and asked him to take his newly minted (and quite green) level 70 shaman and make that their new guild raiding Enhance Shaman.

Now imagine for a moment if you will… going from Seer's Linked Leggings & Helm to Bow-stitched Leggings and Grimgrin Faceguard. Imagine getting loot priority on all drops in ZA, Hyjal, and BT. Imagine going from level 63 greens straight to BT epics. Imagine using Reflex Blades with Claw of the Phoenix. If you can imagine this then you can imagine his guy’s luck. (Actually the both of them have the most amazing in-game luck. evar.)

He’s a good guy and I’m happy as hell for him that he gets to join the wonderful world of Enhance. We were having a good laugh as I was putting Precise Strikes on the Fists of Mukoa while looking at the Sundered Waistband of the Bandit in the next slot down!

Grats man on your new main and welcome to the wild and wonderful world of enhance!

Replies to Comments & Questions

Thanks everyone for the comments. Your feedback means a lot to me so keep it coming. Here are two questions/comments posted earlier, and one request from me.

Bert asked: so for 3.0.2, what do you reckon to be the weapon speed of choice? since maelstrom weap deals 25% xtra dmg for OH, when imbued with FW, I was thinking of using a faster OH (i got bad mojo dagger and swiftsteel bludgeon)

Bert, the Slow/Slow WF/WF is still shown to be better than the Slow/Fast WF/FT combo, even with the extra damage for MW. It’s only between 2-5% better according to my theorycrafting and what I’ve read of others. 2-5% is really splitting hairs at some levels, especially now in World of Nerfcraft. But at an end-game raiding level where wipes at 1% on bosses are as common as Warriors whirlwinding sheeps that 2-5% extra DPS can make the difference. If I were you I’d hang on to that dagger and the bludgeon in case they want to make Fast/FT the ideal OH combo. But for now if that 2-5% makes a difference then I’d go with Slow/Slow WF/WF. If it doesn’t make that much of a difference then have fun with it!


Jaron (Azjol-Nerub) adds: Right now I have my enhance shammy specced w/ full pts in static shock and imp shields. I don't fool with Lava Lash at all at 70. Is Elem-Dev really that much better? I'm playing with EnhSim and not seeing much difference. I pvp enough to enjoy the better LS (especially with the glyph!).

The thing with Ele Dev that people love is the synergy it creates between melee and casting—which is the essence of Enhance right now. Since we cast a spell on every GCD (well, except when SS is available) Ele Dev should proc regularly and should have an uptime between 35% and 40%. That’s a 9% increase to Crit 40% of the time. It’s like Sex Panther by Odeon “60% of the time it works every time.” Ele Dev isn’t made with bits of real panther, but it is damn fine.

As for Ele Dev vs Static Shock, what is the difference that you are seeing Jaron? I’m a hardcore min-maxer so I obsess over squeezing every last drop of dps out of my Stoneybaby. I also believe raiders have a responsibility to their fellow guildmates to maximize their potential. If it comes down to 5% difference or less, that could be negligible for some but not for me. If you’re talking 10% difference in DPS then I can’t condone that.

Ultimately it comes down having fun playing your class. And I do really want to try out the Static Shock. I was just saying last night that I haven’t PvP’d on Stoney since August and I want to get back to it. That 0/61/0 spec you have Jaron is exactly one of the ones I’ve been eyeing! I’m considering yours and 5/56/0. What do you think of those? Maybe this weekend I’ll respect and glyph it up and see how it goes.


Finally, keep the comments coming. I appreciate the input and I want to know what’s working for you. I’ll keep you informed of my findings (new EnhSim is up btw and my armory profile is finally updated) and if you find a spec/gear/chant/gem combo that’s really singing for you in PvE or PvP post us a link to your armory and details on what’s working for you

Thanks again and stay tuned for more!

Hyjal & Convection

Last night was the first night I was having mana issues in a raid. We ran Hyjal and cleared the trash so fast it was... well it was like everything else right now--ridiculous. But between twisting Magma Totemsn and Fire Nova Totems, and working in Chain Lightnings, SS, ES, and LL's I was running close to OOM all night.

I spec'd out of Convection and into Concussion about a week ago and it hasn't been a problem. But man those two fire totems are mana intensive! Fire Nova Totem ended up being 6% of my overall damage and kept me top of the non-AoE classes.

The Kaz fight is always a battle against mana, but this time I actually ended the fight with more than half of my mana pool—and I was using ALL of my spells. Three things contributed to this:

1. Extreme buffing/nerfing made the fight short
2. Lots of resisted Marks meant less mana loss
3. Shammy Rage is awesome

Seriously, Shammy Rage is awesome. I can unload every single costly spell and continue my rotation in full while being drained of mana from the Mark of Kazrogal and still keep a full mana pool for the duration of SR. It’s OP and I love it.

My conclusion is that even in the most mana intensive situations (trash and boss) spec’ing into Convection just doesn’t make sense right now.

Results: Black Temple

I was finally back online last night and back in raid on Stoney. We chain pulled and AoE'd down every last bit of trash in BT and came close to a full clear in 3 hours. In the end some hiccups on the Illidari Council pulls caused a few wipes and cost us the full clear. But really, that's an awesome night: 8 bosses in 3 hours. It is kind of a let down that it's so easy, but I guess the trade-off is that we all get to into content we otherwise wouldn't get to experience.

As for Stoney, I was pleased with the performance for the most part.

Ability	Total	%	Avg Dmg	Crit%
Swing	2,322,489	40.5%	436	43%
Windfury	1,346,239	23.5%	788	41.0%
Lightning Bolt	468,521	8.2%	1535	27.0%
Stormstrike	453,131	7.9%	461	40.0%
Earth Shock	430,508	7.5%	1,233	26.0%
Chain Lightning	225,635	3.9%	1179	32.0%
Spirit Wolves	212,376	3.7%	188	11.0%
Lava Lash	149,734	2.6%	434	33.0%
Searing Totem	65,186	1.1%	214	32.0%
Fire Nova Totem	48,438	0.8%	992	33.0%
Magma Totem	9,973	0.2%	164	32.0%

What I like is that 64% or nearly two thirds of my damage is coming from auto-attack! However, the majority of the remaining requires a lot of attention.

LB & CL were only cast when I had 5 procs of MW. That's 12.1% of my total damage output that's on standby until the procs uhm, proc.

The combination of SS, ES, and LL are 18% of my total damage. This is the most important point: the key to maximizing Enhancement Shaman DPS is to maximize your cooldown usage. Throughout the three hour raid there was only a handful of times that I did not have SS, ES, LL, or MW5 available when the GCD came up. After a while I got in a good rhythm and wasn't struggling to see what was going to come up next. I also started to get a feel for whether MW was going to turn over from 4 to 5 procs in the few milliseconds and if I should hold my CGD for that 5th proc or burn it and then have to wait 1.5 sec to throw a LB.

As for fights, it was a fun night and surprising in some ways. In summary:

• I need to use my Spirit Wolves every time they are off CD, I simply wasn't using them enough
• Wind Shock is very effective at reducing overall threat when used in succession, and doing so doesn't hurt total output too terribly
  
• Amazing what a difference it makes being able to stand still and maximize cooldowns as opposed to running around like an idiot.
  

Below is the total output per fight:

• High Warlord - 1854 DPS, 6% of total damage
• A pretty bad start for the night, I hit my groove later in the raid
  
• Supremus - 2002 DPS, 5% of total damage
• You have to expect melee will be much less effective in this hate-on-melee fight
• Still, while I was in there I was making the most of it
• Shade of Akama - 1608 DPS, 8% of total damage
• I was doing 1600 DPS on this fight pre-patch
• With channelers dying so fast I guess I couldn't get in a good rhythm
• But was still outputting most of the raid damage
  
• Teron Gorefiend - 2759 DPS, 7% of total damage
• ohhh yeah! That's what I'm talking about!
• I specifically remember that during this fight MW was procing so fast and so often I felt like I was mashing it all the time
• Gurtogg Bloodboil - 1997 DPS, 7% of total damage
• I used Wind Shock instead of ES here to help keep my threat under control
• It was very effective, and surprisingly didn't gimp my DPS too terribly
• Reliquary of Souls - 1917 DPS, 7% of total damage
• meh, pretty standard, I think the only reason I was low here was from backing off to prevent killing myself with the debuff in phase 2
• Mother Shahraz - 2276 DPS, 8% of total damage
• Another all-out fight that requires just standing in one place and beating the ever living crap out of a boss
• Illidari Council - 1674 DPS, 9% of total damage
• What's interesting here is the low DPS but high total damage, but that is because I was not assigned to interrupt duty and could just go to town on the Pally.

My armory profile still has not updated since I made the changes in gear. But I swapped out 1 ring and put the +hit enchant on my gloves so that I could eat Warped Flesh or Grilled Mudfish as my buff food instead of Spicy Hot Talbuk. And as for consumables I was popping Elixir of Greater Agility and Elixir of Draeneic Wisdom. And I made sure that WF was up at 100% of the time.

Tonight is GF night, then we'll be running some old stuff this weekend for kicks (SSC, TK, MC, maybe even BWL or AQ!)

How are your new specs panning out? Are you seeing different numbers than me?

Raiding, Finally

It's been a hectic week: girlfriend time, restaurant opening, family in town, and even hit College Music Jam last night (saw He Say, She Say who were excellent btw, go check them out on MySpace). After a busy week I'm ready for some raiding.

I'll have results tonight of Stoney's damage output, spell rotations, and general assorted things about stuff. Stay tuned.

Gems

Sorry for the late reply to the question about gems, RL has been busy and I've not been online in a few days--and won't be back to raiding until Thursday night with the crazy week I have coming up.

As for gems... I went all AP & Crit, with 1 Hit Rating gem. I replaced all of my Str related gems. My Armory profile hasn't updated since 10/16, which was before I made these changes so they are not yet reflected online.

I wanted to use as few hit gems as possible so I figured out how to do my gear and enchants in such a way that I only needed 1

I then used as honor points and DKP to pick up the following:
1 x Bold Ornate Ruby - Honor Points
1 x Gleaming Orante Dawnstone - Honor Points
1 x Smooth Ornate Dawnstone - Honor Points
1 x Rigid Lionseye - DKP
1 x Gleaming Lionseye - DKP
1 x Bright Crimson Spinel - DKP

The three red gems went into my helm, the Grimgrin Faceguard, where I skipped the socket bonus to stack AP. Then all of the yellow gems went 1 each into my chest, gloves, belt, and legs to get the socket bonus on each of those.

It was a nice upgrade across the board. If you don't have enough Honor Points or access to gems through your guild bank you should check the AH. Prices are dropping on everything right now and you can probably pick up some rare-quality gems on the cheap.

No Results

I logged in last night only to find that our main tank was having root canal surgery (ouch) so I had to pop into the tanking rotation on my feral Druid, Finnmaccool. As a result I got to watch the ridiculous dps race from the tanking perspective and did not get to test out the new and improved Stoneybaby.

Also unfortunate is that Stoney's armory profile didn't update with all the changes I made. After raid last night I re-gemmed everything (7 new epic gems in total), swapped out 1 ring, put the hit rating enchant on my gloves, and changed around all of my consumables. None of this is up on the armory so unfortunately I could not run any sims today.

On a positive note, we did a 7 boss clear in BT last night, including two new kills: RoS and Mother. Grats to Unorthodox and everyone on their new loots. It was a bit of a let down though. Despite the fact that those were fresh new boss kills and opens the door for us to tackle Council and the big Illi himself on Monday... it still felt hollow. We spent more time explaining and setting up for Mother than time in the fight itself. Normally a one-shot on a new boss would result in a total Vent "nerd-gasam" as someone put it, but this was just a big sigh from the guild and a few half hearted good jobs. In fact, the kill was so easy that we forgot to take a group picture for the website.

WF vs FT

I tested WF vs FT again today and came up with similar results from yesterday: WF beats out FT by about 3% total DPS.

In each sim I ran fully raid buffed with Stoney spell hit capped and in her current gear (including way too many Strength gems). I used Vanir's fists as models for both the slow and the fast weapons.

For Slow/Slow WF/WF I used the WF glyph, and for Slow/Fast WF/FT I used the FT glyph. Here are the two EnhSim config files for your reference:
config-stoney-slowslow-hitcap.txt
config-stoney-slowfast-hitcap.txt

Maybe if you gemmed, chanted, and geared for spell power the WF/FT setup would pan out, but my results coincide with what I'm reading out there on the net.

I hope this answers your question Demtee. Use the config files I listed and run EnhSim and let us know if you come up with a good setup.

I love it when a plan comes together

First off, thank you everyone for the replies. Please post up details on the results you've found so others can benefit--including me! Include a link to your armory profile and let us know what glyphs you're using. Post any WWS links you have as well.

Last night I took a group into ZA to see what was in the fourth chest. (SPOILER ALERT) It's just another one of the rings from the 3rd chest. lame.

In the prep room you could feel the excitement in the air; everyone was anxious to try out their new specs and talents. I didn't want us to be cocky and play sloppy so I told them "in truth we don't know what to expect so play tight, tanks keep us moving at a decent pace, healers watch your mana if if you get low call it out, and DPS for god's sake don't pull of the tanks because we're all working off new talents here." And then I started the event.

It was like life in fast forward. killkillkillpull.killkillkillpull.killkillkillpull.killkillkillpull.Boss. WTH?!? We were killing mobs so fast my precious rotations were pointless. I was lucky if I could mash my buttons fast enough before a mob went down. Akil'zon only got off one storm, Halazzi only one bear form, and Jan'alai was at 35% before the second hatchers even spawned. In fact on Jan'alai I had to call to stop dps because we would have had him at 35% (when he hatches all the remaining eggs at once) before the first hatcher was even done. It was lightning fast. 4 chests in 31 minutes flat. Blazing.

Hexx Lord only got off 2 rounds of Spirit Bolts. We killed Zul'jin in record time and with one rogue stuck outside the flames (sorry Oldbie!). We definitely could have finished faster if I didn't call for a bio break along the way.

If you have not torn up ZA I highly recommend you get in there with a group and rip it apart.

As for me? How was the newness? It was awesome--until WF ran out and I forgot to refresh it. Damn me and my mod reliance! Before my WF expired I was keeping up a solid stream of damage and keeping up with the DPS Warrior who was doing Warrior things all over the place. He was basically AoE Melee and I was able to keep up with him just through single target damage.

The pace of play for Enhance is much faster, couple that with the increased speed of kills and it means I'm spending a lot more time with my head buried in my action bars and much less time with my head up watching the action. This could be a problem later on, but hopefully it also has to do with just getting used to the new play mechanics.

As for spell rotations, on bosses I find it thoroughly enjoyable to get into a groove with shocks, MW5_LBs, SS and LL. In fact, I don't often find myself wondering what to hit next as usually when my GCD is up there is only 1 spell that is ready for action.

Key points to remember for boss fights:

1. Keep FS active, it does great damage over the long haul. Edit: some are saying FS is a dog because it can't crit. I'll have to look into this.
   
2. Don't use MW with less than 5 procs. Edit: 4 or less resets the swing timer and reduces dps so only use with 5 procs.
   
3. If you get in trouble you can use MW for a Healing Wave on yourself
   

Two other quick points:

• The ShockAndAwe mod is incredible. I'm relying on that for keeping track of Maelstrom Weapon procs. If you don't have it go grab it now from wowinterface
• MW5 Chain Lightning = good times! I was throwing CL so much on trash I felt like an Ele

I must say Enhance is really coming together beautifully. In the words of the A-Team: I love it when a plan comes together.

Enhancement Points for 3.0.2

OK. After running the EnhSim tool with Slow/Slow WF/WF and my best rotation among the five spells, I came out with current EP values. Keep in mind these are relevant to my current gear. That means two things
1) I am going to change my gear based on these values and then run the simulator again
2) they may not be relevant to you if you were at a lower or higher progression level than me

But what the hell, they can make for a nice baseline for all of us:

AP	1.00
Crit Rating	1.87
Hit Rating	2.53
Expertise Rating	3.02
Haste Rating	1.49
Armor Pen. Rating	1.40
Spellpower	0.48
Strength	1.00
Agility	1.79
Intelligence	1.17
MH DPS	6.80
OH DPS	4.13

What I find interesting is the high value for Hit Rating. That is interesting because I ran the calculations assuming I was already hit capped. What I'll do is just treat it like I used to treat Defense on my feral druid: it is the single most important stat until capped, then when capped its EP value goes to zero. (FYI in case you missed my post below, the hit cap for Alliance is 164 and it's 177 for Horde).

Next step is to plug these into my EP calculation spreadsheet and see what I need to replace.

EnhSim Results, and Other Findings

I've been running EnhSim playing out different variables. My limitation is that I am really only running it in Enhancement gear so I can't test results against pure Ele gear or a mix of Ele and Enhance. I do have some good findings though just from my pure Enhance gear setup. All tests were based off the 8/53/0 spec with Imp Shields instead of Imp Ghostwolf.

Across the board Slow/Slow beat out Slow/Fast regardless of enchants or spell rotations. Slow/Fast was usually around 50 DPS lower than Slow/Slow. I suspect this is due to my current gear setup, so I would be interested to know if anyone ran tests in mixed gear to see if the spell damage coefficient kicks in and makes up for the OH-eaten WF procs.

Result 1: Slow/Slow we go! I'm definitely relieved that I don't have to rush out and find a decent fast OH weapon.

Next, spells. There are five possible spells we can use in our rotation now:

1. FS - Flame Shock
2. SS - Stormstrike
3. ES - Earth Shock
4. LL - Lava Lash
5. MW5_LB - Maelstrom Weapon 5 point Lightning Bolt (aka instant)

I tested 192 different simulations. First I used a WF/FT setup I ran all 96 possible combinations of FS, SS, LL, and MW5_LB while keeping ES last. Then I switched to WF/WF and ran all 96 possible combinations of FS, SS, ES, and MW5_LB while keeping LL last.

Running these tests while fully raid buffed in Enhancement gear using Slow/Slow weapons I found that WF/WF edged out WF/FT.
Average DPS for WF/FT across all rotations: 1911
Average DPS for WF/WF across all rotations: 1936

Result 2: WF/WF ftw!

It would seem things haven't really changed, just that I'm now kicking out a helluva a lot more damage. But again, I come back to the fact that it may be heavily gear dependent.

As for a priority of spells, it's a tough call but let's say I'm in the middle of a fight and all of my CD's are up at once and I have 5 procs of MW built up, what do I do? I Flame Shock. FS does on average more damage than the other spells. It's close, but the DoT makes the difference. The next best spell is MW5_LB, followed by ES and then SS. Really, it's splitting hairs. I could mash all five of my spells and still come up with 1930 DPS.

Result 3: Roll Face Leftwards Across Keyboard to Maximize DPS

Well, maybe not to that extreme...

Hitting Hit Cap

It has been determined by the brain trust at Elitist Jerks that there is now a specific hit rating that Enhance Shamans must reach. That is 177 for Horde and 164 for Alliance. (Alliance shamans benefit from the Draenei aura that gives +1% Chance to Hit)

There a lot of ways that you can reach the hit cap, the key is to do so without gimping the rest of your stats. Here are some of the easiest ways to get up to the hit cap including buffs, rep rewards, and easy-to-get rings:

1. Arcanum (formerly Glyph) of Ferocity +16 - CE Revered - If you don't have this you better start grinding CE rep now!
2. Spicy Hot Talbuk +20 - kill them 'buks!
   
3. Enchant Gloves Precise Strikes +15 - 6 GPE, 2 AD, 2 LPS
   
4. Violet Signet of the Master Assassin +25 - Kot Exalted & Quests
5. Ashyen's Gift +21 - CE Exalted
6. Fused Nethergon Band +28 - 60 BoJ
   
7. Garona's Signet Ring +18 - Curator
8. Ring of a Thousand Marks +19 - Prince Mal
9. Shaffar's Band of Brutality +19 - Heroic Mana Tombs
   

As for Stoney, I'm hitting hit cap by doing the following:

• +24 Grimgrin Faceguard
• +16 Arcanum of Ferocity
• +20 Pauldrons of Primal Fury
• +23 Belt of the Silent Path
• +17 Softstep Boots of Tracking
• +25 Violet Signet of the Master Assassin
• +21 Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery (or Brutality)
• +20 Spicy Hot Talbuk

For a total of 166 Hit Rating. It's 2 points over the cap, but it was the best I could come up with based on my current available gear, and without regemming anything.

3.0.2 Enhancement Specs at Level 70

We have to start somewhere so let’s start with specs.

8/53/0 – is the spec of choice right now. There are a few variations on this based on whether you solo or raid, or whether you are selfish or selfless. Regardless there are some absolute must-haves:
• Thundering Strikes
• Shamanistic Focus
• Elemental Weapons
• Flurry
• Mental Dexterity
• Spirit Weapons
• Unleashed Rage
• Weapon Mastery
• Dual Wield / DW Specialization
• Lava Lash
• Mental Quickness
• Stormstrike
• Improved Stormstrike
• Shamanistic Rage
• Maelstrom Weapon
• Feral Spirit
• Elemental Devastation (Ele tree)

After filling out these points it doesn't leave much room for play.
• 5 points in the first tier of Elemental
• 4 extra points to use in Enhancement

A raiding Enhancement Shaman must bring the following to the table:
• Enhancing Totems (Tier 1)
• Improved Windfury Totem (Tier 5)

The reason I say you "must" bring these things to the table is that one of the core ideas behind the shaman is that of a support class. Totems, Unleashed Rage, and Heroism/Bloodlust add value raid-wide. So Imp WF Totem eats up the 2 points in Enhance.

As for the last 2 points in Enhance either put them into Improved Shields or Improved Ghost Wolf. I took Imp Shields on Stoney but linked Imp Ghostwolf here.

Then it’s a matter of where to put the first 5 points in the Ele tree which depends on your mana pool. I recommend starting out in Convection to be sure you’re not going OOM before your Shamanistic Rage is up again. If you find your mana is strong then put the points in Concussion.

Variations:
1) Unleashed Rage - There is some discussion right now if UR is required in a raid with a properly speced hunter but the general consensus seems to be that 5/5 UR is still needed raid-wide (if not for our own benefit). Once Wrath rolls around there may be some overlap with a Frost Death Knight, but again it's nothing we need to worry about for now
2) Static Shock / Imp Shields - if you wanted to try something different you could spec 2 points into Static Shock and 2 into Imp Shields

PvP specs to come at a later date.

I Heart 3.0.2

Out of the gate all I can say is WOW. I was kicking out 1550 dps on the target dummy and that was without raid buffs, without optimizing my gear, without hit capping, without putting on a fast off-hand, and without a set rotation. The cooldowns on all my spells were up so fast I didn’t know what to hit next. I was mashing buttons so fast that if I were rolling my face across the keyboard it would be just as effective. Lava Lash (LL), Stormstrike (SS), Flame Shock (FS), and Maelstrom Weapon Lightning Bolts (mwLB) were all begging to be used every time I looked down at my action bar. I didn’t even have time for Earth Shock (ES) because everything else seemed to be coming up so fast.

I have a lot of notes and I’m still running sims. I’ll be posting updates throughout the day with my findings. Stay Tuned.

Official Shaman 3.0.2 Patch Notes

EDIT 5:23PM-- Though not all the changes in the prior patch notes went live today, everything for Shamans DID go live. I've replaced all the text that I originally posted this morning with what a breakdown of the changes that are relevant to an Enhancement Shaman and those that are not.

It is confirmed: patch 3.0.2 goes live today-of course we already knew this but now it's "official." Below are the patch notes which can also be found here

Relevant to Enhancement Shaman

• All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
• Anticipation (Enhancement): Now is a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent and now reduces the duration of disarm effects on you by 16/25/50%.
• Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Call of Flame (Elemental): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
• Concussion (Elemental) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
• Convection (Elemental) is now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Now lowers the mana cost of Thunder and Lava Burst.
• Dual Wield Specialization will now increase the chance to hit while dual wielding by an additional 1/2/3%.
• Elemental Devastation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
• Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
• Maelstrom Weapon proc chance reduced to 3/6/9/12/15% on critical hit when you deal damage with a melee weapon. Now affects chain heal.
• Improved Lightning Shield (Enhancement) is now Improved Shields, and is in Tier-2.
• New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
• New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
• Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
• Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman's total health.
• Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
• Stormstrike will no longer affect Fire or Frost damage.
• Strength of Earth Totem now also increases agility.
• The range of all "friendly totems" has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
• Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or "baked" into tanking abilities.)
• Unleashed Rage is now raid wide and increases melee and ranged attack power within 45 yards.
• Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
• Windwall Totem has been removed.

Other Changes (for Ele & Resto)

• Ancestral Awakening and Improved Water Shield will now affect Riptide.
• Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
• Earth's Grasp (Elemental) is now a tier-1 talent, up from tier-2.
• Elemental Focus (Elemental): Now also can proc off Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave, and can be used on all healing spells.
• Elemental Fury (Elemental) now requires Elemental Focus as a pre-requisite
• Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
• Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
• Fire Resistance Totem will now increase fire resistance by 130 and lasts for 5 minutes.
• Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified.
• Flurry now increases attack speed by 5/10/15/20/25% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
• Frostbrand's snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
• Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 13% base.
• Grace of Air Totem has been removed. (Agility has been rolled over into Strength of Earth Totem)
• Healing Grace (Restoration): Healing Way and Ancestral Fortitude are now affected by the dispel resistance portion of this talent.
• Improved Fire Totems (Elemental) is now (again) Improved Fire Nova Totem. It now has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets for 2 sec.
• Nature's Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system.
• Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
• New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
• New Spell: Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by x and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additionaly over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
• New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Restoration) - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect.
• New Talent: Tidal Force(Restoration): Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
• Rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. Windfury Weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30.
• Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
• Tidal Focus (Restoration): Now works with Earth Shield.
• Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with "Tidal Force".
• Totem of Wrath will now last 5 minutes.
• Wrath of Air is now a flat 10% spell haste totem.

Patch Day Coming!

Are you ready? Are you excited? I don't know what I am to be honest. I'm not pure melee, I'm not Str gems, I'm not even sure if I'm in the right gear. I've got a few pieces of caster gear and a few pieces of extra mail in the bank--including an extra pair of Gloves of the Forgotten Protector stashed away in case I need ele gear, at least it'll be T6.

I'm mostly worried about weapons. Should I have been saving up my badges for a caster off-hand that I can imbue with Flametongue for the extra casting kick? I seem to recall that I have an extra Amani Punisher saved up from a ZA run somewhere... but now that I look at it I see it's a freakin MH weapon. So basically I'm completely unprepared for tomorrow as far as weapons go. Great. Looks like into heroic MgT I go looking for a caster weapon.

I'm scanning the Enhancement Shaman thread at Elitist Jerks right now and I hope to have some summary and answers for the Enhancement crowd out there without having to wade through 123 pages of forums posts.

The best thing I found is the ShockAndAwe mod. Go and download this now. In the words of the author: "ShockAndAwe displays timer bars for Shocks, Stormstrike, Windfury (internal CD), Maelstrom Weapon, Lava Lash, Lava Burst, and your shield. It optionally shows number of orbs on left shield, stacks of MW, advises of next shock in rotation."

I'm also running some EnhSim calculations tonight to try and get optimize the following 4 areas:
1) Spec
2) Weapons & Weapon buffs
3) Gear/Chants/Gems (i.e. Enhancement Points)
4) Spell rotations

When I have results and answers I'll post what I find. Any suggestions that are working for your Enhancement Shamans are most welcome.

Stoney's Bear Mount

So much to say about this.

Should I talk about the 11 months of work in here? The fact that we would be rolling in bear mounts if I didn't take a break from the game in August? Should I reminisce about when we first stepped into ZA and were wiping so bad that most of the guild stopped running it forever--well, until my groups started getting close to the 4th timed chest and then many wanted to come in and partake in the loot. Should I bring up the heartbreaking 1% wipes on Hexx & ZJ? Or the night we wiped 10 times on Jan'Alai due to my stubbornness? What about when the mace dropped off ZJ on our first kill and an initiate won the roll over Awl and I gave it to the initiate--and Awl didn't speak to me for a few days. Or two weeks ago when we missed by 30 seconds? So many experiences. So many times I took groups, pushed them to their limits and tested them against the clock; pushed to the edge and brought back again. So many strategies laid out, pep talks given, and tongue lashings administered. So many damn Healthstones!

The bear mount is the culmination of all of this for me. To most it's a mount and a helluva fine trophy mount at that. To me, it's every wipe, every win, and every moment of my time I've invested up to this point in the Burning Crusade. This represents the blood sweat and tears of hundreds of hours of work, practice, and play.

To be honest, I did loot it to myself. I took advantage of my position of power and asked the raid if I may be so bold as to take it. Almost everyone said for me to take it. But almost isn't unanimous. No one spoke up either in raid chat or in a whisper to say, stop. But I know that some wanted to do so. And so I broke our loot guild policy. I do apologize to you for taking advantage of my position. I promise you this mount means more to me than it possibly could to anyone else. That's not to diminish your desire for it, but only to say the meaning it takes on for me. I mean, I couldn't even look at Awl and Dwarfknight on their mounts for the past two weeks. And when we blew our chance at another one this last Saturday I was devastated--and pissed.

To some it may seem strange to wrap up so much emotion in a virtual item, but again to me the item is symbolic. Raid leading is not easy. I've endured plenty of name calling both to my face and behind my back. I've driven some away and pulled some in closer. I've managed conflicts and dealt with drama. I've yelled at people for their mistakes and apologized profusely for my own. I've cool hot heads and breathed vigor back into those who stopped caring. I've earned this fucking mount.

Amani War Bear with 4 Minutes to Spare!

Done! Did it! Complete! Tonight Unorthodox earned its first Amani War Bear.

Congratulations to Awl, Paladin extraordinaire of Unorthodox and a good friend who was with me from the very beginning of Zul'Aman and stuck with me through all of our trials and tribulations.

Before we started I gave everyone a quick pep talk about Sunday's run and how we missed by 30 seconds. It could have been hesitating at bosses, or taking too long to loot, or any number of things. We all agreed to keep moving forward at a solid pace but without rushing and getting into trouble.

We did just that. We took every shortcut we knew. We didn't CC. We left it on Free For All loot the entire time. I didn't even bother to pick up the loot for DE. Eagle went down fast. Next to bear and we ripped him apart. Things were going smoothly even when on Jan'Alai's trash we had to face down 2 Flame Casters in the first pack and 2 again in the 5 pack around the bend. Things got a little dicey at one point because I didn't allow any CC and I kept missing the interrupts on the volleys. We were getting pummelled with fireballs, everyone's health was low and it looked like chaos in there. To the healers credit and the with no deaths; we recovered and got up the the platform.

Jan'Alai dealt us 3 deaths--one mage died twice and one of the healers bit it at the end (I think). It was a sloppy kill whereas our other two kills and clears were nearly flawless. We had 16 minutes left on the clock. Our previous best time was with 12 minutes remaining. I knew we had it at that point but I couldn't let it show for fear of the raid thinking it was in the bag and getting sloppy.

Awl and Lasthope, our Prot Pally and Feral Druid, kept the raid moving along through Halazzi trash. I got smashed to little bits by the gators on patrol, got a rez from Arkuss our Shadow Priest so the healers could keep moving. The pulls were coming along perfectly. With one mob still up the tanks would move forward and pull the next group. Mana was running low but we had to keep pressing forward. Up to Halazzi's room and the patrol was just coming around the bend. The patrols in this instance seem to be on a perfect rotation--as long as you are on pace to get the 4th timed chest.

With the three packs dead in the lynx's room we still had over 6 minutes on the clock. Everyone was anxious and ready to go; people calling for the pull but I needed healthstones and I'm sure others did too after the MC mobs and Flame Casters took their toll. It was OK at this point to take a minute to be sure everyone was buffed, had full mana and a healthstone. But the group couldn't take it anymore, they were on the edge of their seats and itching to down him. And we did.

We unleashed holy hell on Halazzi. It was going so fast I didn't know what phase we were in towards the end. When he did his split into the final Phase 2 and we got hit by the Transfigure it totally caught me by surprise--I thought we were already in the split phase! Awl peeled the lynx off Nosferot, the resto Shaman, and we just completely decimated the boss. At 2% with everyone alive and full health people were starting to get excited. A quick shout to finish stong and we did just that.

Halazzi dead.

4th chest opened.

A journey that began 10, nearly 11, months ago was completed for the very first time in Unorthodox.

Before we opened the chest Zhentar, Warlock and long-standing member, told the raid that he is rolling on the mount but if he wins his roll goes to me. Nearly half the raid chimed in with their agreement. I was really moved by the sentiment. Thank you everyone for offering It means a lot to me because the bear mount is more than just a prize, it's a symbol of a player's dedication to overcome a very difficult challenge as a team member. For a raider to offer up that symbol is very moving. It means more to me than you'll know--and believe me I will take you up on that!

When ZA first opened we set out to just gear up and get some loot. Then we started clearing timed chests and we got better and better at it. By the time we were getting close to the third chest the instance started to take on a new life for us as a team. It became a new challenge and a very difficult one that required flawless execution and cutting every spare second of slop out of the raid.

With our first bear in the guild I want to say congratulations to Awl and to everyone who's run ZA with me. Thank you for the hard work, for ever second saved, and for every sacrifice made.

We'll be back in here after every reset until the patch to collect as many bears as possible!