Path of a Hero

I read an article on WoW Insider about Path of a Hero and I've got to say that I love the idea. I'll be posting some of my blog entries over there as well as here. Of course Windfury Crits will still be Stoneybaby's main home and all my posts will be here. I like the features over there at PoaH and so will be contributing to the community there.

If you guys sign up at PoaH then add me as a Rival and I'll do the same. Should be a fun way to track each other's gear and progression. Unorthodox starts on Naxx10 this week, and by the looks of it we'll be ready for 25's shortly thereafter, so look for Stoney's improvements over time. And I'd like to see how my fellow Enhancers gear upthroughout the expansion.

Get over to Path of a Hero and sign up, then add Stoneybaby as a Rival. I'm not sure if I'll get notified that you added me as a Rival so post a comment here when you sign up and how I can find you.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish all of my readers a very Happy Thanksgiving (albeit 1 day late, but I was offline yesterday). I am thankful that you all read/comment/enjoy my blog--it makes blogging about Enhancement a helluva a lot of fun. I wish you and yours the best over this extended weekend, and if you're online this weekend level and run heroics! Have fun. I'll be back online on Sunday night.

Maces, Mongoose, and Mounts

I dinged 77 last night which of course means Cold Weather Flying finally. What a relief it is to be back on an epic flyer zooming around the continent. It also means that when flying out of Dalaran I don't have to take the long way around on the flight path--I can hop on my mount and directly head off in the right direction.

We also did The Champion of Anguish and I snagged myself a Crimson Cranium Crusher. Going from the sleekness of Vanir's to this honking mass of stone and steel is going to take some adjusting (mentally). Replacing my first epic was a bittersweet moment. It clearly out-powers, out-dpses, and out does Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality. I was sad to see the badge weapon that I worked so hard for, but was comforted by the fact that I had it the day that 2.4 went live and definitely got my money's worth. Of course this also meant that I had to level my mace skill from 92 to 385! I did manage to hit 382 by the end of the night. Those last few points are always the hardest (axes are next).

The real question though is Mongoose. It is still viable at level 80 or do the procs scale back like the did with Crusader from 60 to 70? I couldn't find anything on mmo-champion, wowhead, or Elitist Jerks that said the Agi and Hit boosts from Mongoose were lower or that the procs were less. Since I couldn't find anything contradictory I figured I'd have to test it myself. One of our warriors swore that the PPM was significantly reduced so I downloaded Procmeter and set it to look for Lightning Speed. Through the rest of the night in Grizzly Hills I got a consistent 6.5% chance to proc. I'll keep an eye on this as I continue to level and see if the proc rate goes down. Unfortuantely what I did not check was whether or not the Agi buff remained at 120 or if that is scaling downwards. I'll check that today and post findings in the comments.

EDIT 1:26 PM: CONFIRMED Mongoose still grants 120 Agi per proc above level 70. Mongoose is fully viable in WotLK.

Hitting Hit Cap at 80

OK my fellow enhancers it's time to hit the hit cap. Or at least start preparing to maybe eventually possibly get ready to kinda get close to thinking about hitting the hit cap.

Are you ready for the final number? The goal, the target, the must-hit-this-hit-in-order-to-hit-bosses in raids in WotLK. Are you ready for it?

No, you're not.
Really.
I about fell out of my chair when I read the number.



367 for Horde
341 for Alliance

Ouch.

That number represents the spell hit cap, not the dual-wielding hit cap. It's been shown that we really only need to hit the spell cap in order to maximize our dps. Anything above that is OK, but going above it by much is not worth the trade-off in loss of other stats.

Once you get up off the floor from the initial shock of having to tack on another 190 or 177 hit rating let's take a look at why this isn't going to be so terrible.

First, the stats on gear and gems has been increased, so if you were able to hit the hit-cap before then you should be able to hit it again once you get up to 80 and start raiding. Just by replacing three pieces on my gear I am able to get to 210 with quest rewards greens/blues. Those pieces now make up my "Dungeon Hit" set in Outfitter. I expect by the time I get the next 5 levels I'll be up in the high 200's or low 300's just off reward gear.

Second, that's the hit cap. It's a hard cap but it's just a target. To maximize DPS you don't want to socket 100% hit gems and wear only greens with +hit while sacrificing other stats like AP, Crit, and Agi. There's a lot of ways to max your dps so keep your eye on the big picture when considering hit upgrades. Just as a guess, I would estimate getting up to 300+ is a raiding minimum requirement, but I'm interested in your opinions/findings on that.

Third, there's a lot of gear out there with +hit on it. Here's a search with EP filters I ran on Wowhead that lists everything in WotLK that is either Mail or Leather and has +Hit. It is sorted by total EP value. (Jaron, can you create a similar search on lootrank.com? I'm a wowhead user and have limited time here at work today)

Fourth, gems, consumables, and enchants. Clickyclick for links. The "consumables" includes links to enchants (listed as scrolls) and other than the enchants there are not many consumables to tap into. One elixir and one food buff. However, if you pop both of those you'll be putting 85 hit on yourself, which is a pretty significant number.

Fifth, the new head glyph for WotLK does not have hit, so if you're not Revered with CE and you need hit rating, you best get ye to Outlands (or rather the AH) and grind up some CE rep for the Arcanum of Ferocity.

OK so those numbers are not impossible and shouldn't be too hard to hit, especially if you use the consumables.

Happy hitting!

Gold Making Tip

This just occurred to me last night: sell your profession materials NOW.

The prices will only steadily come down over time as more and more people begin to sell their mats. But right now every is so highly focused on leveling their professions and still flush with gold from BC that the prices are CRAZY!

I know from an enchanter perspective I never ran out of Arcane Dust and rarely ran out of Greater Planar Essensces, and I'm sure that trend will continue for Wrath with Infinite Dust and the other things (can't look them up right now). So I sent everything off to my AH alt for auctioning at the crazy market prices out there right now.

Also, don't always put up in max stacks. When I have a stack of 20 of something I put up one stack of 8, two stacks of 4, and four singles. You tend to get more per item as people are just looking for what they need.

Two Levels, Lava Lash, and Soloing Elites

I hit 72 last night and decided to take a look at my stats. I run Recount and did not reset it since hitting the shores of Northrend. Here are the results:


If you can't see the image:
39.1% - Swing
14.1% - WindFury
10.4% - Earth Shock
9.6% - Stormstrike
9.1% - Flametongue
7.3% - Lightning bolt
6.2% - Lava Lash
4.0% - Chain Lightning

Two things jump out at me right away. First, white damage output as a percent of overall damage hasn't changed since BC, it's still around 40%.

Second, Lava Lash even with the LL Glyph is weak. And I mean like Milhouse vs. Nelson weak. Wimpy. Lame. I'm really disappointed. I was hoping for a great showing from Lava Lash since I'm using the glyph and I moved it up in my rotation. Looks like LL is getting a demotion. I'll probably keep the glyph for now. Maybe if I go Static Shock at some point I'll swap it out for the LB glyph.

I'm loving leveling. I'm soloing 2 and 3 person quests, soloing 72 elites, and having a great time with the new content (and listening to the new music, too).

If you're not soloing elites or struggling with the 2-3 person quests here's what you do:

1. Make sure your health & mana is topped off and wait for your CD's come back up on Shammy Rage, Feral Spirit, and Heroism/Bloodlust.
2. Set up shop, i.e., get your totems down in a safe spot. I'm using WF, SoE, Mana Spring, and FT totems.
3. Pull with a LB and let the mob come to you where you can safely solo it without patrols.
4. Pop Heroism and Feral Spirit as soon as the elite is in range. The dogs will keep you healed as they do damage and will aliviate the need to continuosly heal yourself.
   
5. Save your MW procs for HWs. Don't worry about the instant LB's and don't bother with Lesser Healing Wave, go for the biggie and use it at 50% health or less. In this case use MW4 or MW5, don't worry about optimizing dps as you're soloing an elite, worry about staying alive!
6. If the wolves die before the mob is dead then pop Shammy Rage. Save that until the very end for the damage reduction.
7. Keep a health pot handy for close calls
   

Following those steps has kept me alive soloing elites. In fact, I actually had to kill Abdul the Insane not once, but twice. I must have left my totems up on the ship because as I was down below deck looting the thing I heard him yell some nonsense and then come below. I asked if I could buy him a beer and we'd be cool--seeing as how I had just embarrased him in front of his crew and all. But he wasn't in the drinking mood so I had to kick his ass again. But he is insane... so I guess you can't exepct too much from crazy people.

Pawn: an Enhance User Guide

I'm all about user guides. Here's a quick-and-easy guide for using Pawn addon.

Wondering if that level 72 neck is better than the SSO neck? Or if you should replace the Belt of the Black Eagle with a level 80 green? Pawn will help you make those calls in a snap. It allows you to assign values to all possible attributes, then integrates those values into tooltips for your gear.

Start by downloading the addon here. Once installed open your character window and you should see the Pawn icon in the lower right-hand corner like this:

Click that button and you'll see this screen:


My screen shows Enhancement values already input. But starting out new you want to

1. Click New Empty button to create a new scale
2. Name the scale
3. Start entering the values according to your EP

Pretty simple really. Just click a stat in the left-hand window and it will pop up in the middle. For example below I clicked on Agility:

And entered 1.88 which updated the window automatically.

Keep changing your pawn values all the way down until you have everything in, then click Close and mouseover your gear. You should see a blue line of text in your tooltip that indicates the Pawn value for that particular item.

You can create multiple rating scales and each one will appear on its own line in the tooltip. For example if you want to collect healing gear then you can have a resto version with different Pawn values.

"Yes yes Stoney, this is all well and good, but where do I get the damn values in the first place?!"

Good question, voice-in-my-head. Here's the answer: from me. Actually your best bet is to run EnhSim to create your own customized EP values. But short of that you can cheat and use some I came up with a few weeks ago:

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

Those values were optimized for WF/WF and right now I'm going WF/FT so I imagine the values will be a bit different. But for leveling it's not going to make that much of a difference.

If you have EP values you've calculated for leveling or for other builds please share with the rest of us.

Happy leveling!

First Impressions of Wrath

I have to say that I'm loving Wrath. I started in Howling Fjord and already ran Utgarde Keep. It was a pretty easy instance. I'd have to say the first boss was the hardest of the three. It wasn't a hard instance by any means and I think if we knew the pulls we would be power-clearing it, especially because we went in with a group of our regular raiders (most of whom are in T6 or equivalent).

Anyway, as always when I pull aggro a MW5_HW saves the day, the only downside is that I'm usually still getting attacked and have to pop a pot. Thankfully I just need to last long enough for the tank to taunt--provided he wants to do so. Other than me pulling aggro a few times we had an easy run in Utgarde. At our gear level we'll be walking through the first round of instances.

I only had limited play time tonight. I worked late and had to get to bed for work tomorrow. However, I plan on a caffeine-fueled all-nighter tomorrow.

Anyone hit 72 yet? 73? 74!?!? Where did you start? HF or BT?

In the works

I have an Enhance Shaman WotLK gear file in the works that lists everything accessible to players from badges, PvP, instances of all levels, heroic instances, raids and heroic (25 man) raids and it ranks them all by EP values. I plan on using this to see just when I should be upgrading my BT-level gear.

The other thing that I use to compare gear is Pawn, and I'm working on a guide to use that tool this weekend as well. I should have posts for both this weekend.

Lava Lash Glyph

On Tuesday night I had some terrible fun in Hyjal and BT. I was a monster on bosses that didn't require the usual melee run-around-like-an-idiot routine.

With 3.0.3 the Strength of Earth Glyph was replace with the Lava Lash Glyph. (Interestingly, Blizzard didn't depreciate the old glyph instead they just replaced it using the same item ID so the Wowhead listing still says SoE but the tooltip is for LL). Anyway, I had to respec out of Static Shock/PvP and into my raid spec and replace the LS glyph so I figured why not give FT a shot.

At first I started out with the Prowler's Strikeblade from ZA, a 1.50 speed OH, and a WF/FT but I felt the damage output was anemic. Considering that both Lava Lash and Stormstrike get their damage coefficient from base weapon damage, you want the slower more powerful weapon in your OH. So back to Vanir's I went looking to top out my damage. And I did.

I ripped apart bosses keeping up a steady stream of damage. My rotation priority was MW5_LB, LL, SS, ES. I moved LL up in the rotation priority to take advantage of the glyph. In the end I think it worked.

I'm back online this weekend after an extremely busy week IRL at work. I'll probably be doing some more PvP.

OH! One other thing I forgot to mention, I actually did something a little different with this PvE spec--I only put 2 points in Unleashed Rage. I believe that it overlaps with Trueshot Aura. I should probably test this out, but I dished out that damage with only 2 points in UR.

2434 DPS

Just did 2434 DPS on Anetheron with Slow/Slow WF/FT, Lava Lash & WF Glyph. Will post more tomorrow as I'm in raid right now and going to be right after. Will post more tomorrow.

UPDATE 10:35 PM EST: 2364 DPS on High Warlord Naj'entus with same setup (Hyjal cleared in 2 hrs)

PvP Last Night

I respec'd to 0/61/0 for some PvP action. In retrospect I should have taken 2 points in Earthen Power instead of Improved WF totem. I also didn't change my glyphs to match the Static Shock build, but I'll do that today (after RL stuff). We are raiding SSC or TK tonight as a guild PUG, and my ZA run is scheduled for just before that so I will have some results of my output in both PvE and PvP.

But as for PvP last night all I can say is... WOW. It's like gaming in fast-forward. The speed of the action is twice as fast as pre-patch. We have all the buffs and hard-hitting abilities without the stam increases that will be coming in WotLK. So it's bambambamdead. Of course you all probably know this already, but last night was my first PvP action since August when I needed to take a break from all the filthy rogues out there.

Here's how I fared against different classes:
Druid - didn't get to square off with any droods last night. I recall getting smacked with Starfall and thinking OMG I can't get away from these damn things! But other than that no interaction.
Hunter - Still a struggle. This is where I needed Earthen Power to break the wingclips.
Mage - Actually found mages easier to kill post-patch. Seems they didn't get any crazy new tricks.
Paladin - hmm. Yes they got killer buffs, and yes the long duration stun sucks, but considering that they were always hard to take down for me before I didn't find them that much worse. Grounding Totem, Medallion of the Alliance, and MW5 HW are life savers. I always struggled against Pally's because of the combination of high armor and healing ability (prot Pallys were a waste of time for me pre-patch). Now if I have grounding totem up that'll eat up the hammer, a quick switch to shield for more armor, and Medallion for the next stun. What was pleasing was that I was able to rip apart the poorly-geared Pallys despite their stuns.
Priest - Disc priests still take a loooong time to kill, which post-patch means like 10 seconds. But I would say they are easier to take down now because the insane boosts to damage outpaced the buffs given to heals.
Rogue - still filthy. I both love and hate rogues. OK, I don't love them, but I can appreciate a well played rogue who uses all of their dirty filthy cheap tricks. The jury is still out for me as to whether or not rogues are easier, harder, or the same. Right now I'm leaning to easier/same. My damage is just as bursty as yours filthy rogue! But I get ARMOR!
Shaman - Elemental shaman... as long as I can get in before getting smacked in the face with a Chain Lightning crit then they're toast. But on more than one occassion I went in at full health and by the time I closed that 30-40 yard gap (in Ghost Wolf no less) I was at 50% health. I know they didn't get buffed as well as other classes but that initial hurt is NASTY. Once I'm in and above 50% health... pffft. ES that next cast and /wave /goodbye.
Warlock - Ouch. Warlocks got nasty. I used to be able to take down locks on a consistent basis--it was all about totem management and timing heals against dots. Now those dots bring the pain faster and harder. I found myself having to choose between dpsing them or healing myself. And when you get to that point you have to ask yourself, is this worth it? Of course with a healer behind me these guys are just another bloodstain on my fist weapons.
Warrior - BBBBBBBLADESTORMMMMM sucks. I thought I'd take advantage of that "cannot be stopped unless killed" part... yeah, not so much. Word of advice: when you see a Warrior doing the whirling dervish - run away bravely.

Things that are awesome:

• Spirit Wolves - I love my wolves
  
• Spirit Walk - I love my wolves even more
  
• MW5 HW - thought you had me didn't you filthy rogue?! HA! Insta-heal!
  
• Windfury Crits - of course :D
  

I know not much about Static Shock in here. Jury's still out until I can look at some numbers post-raids tonight.