Recent Stats

It had been over 1 month since I ran the last WWS for the guild. The CombatLog.txt file was 512MB, so large it made my dual-core beast of a computer sluggish as hell. I was curious to see my own performance as well as the rest of the guild's.

I'll use a consistent format: % of total damage | % crit | % Miss


SSC
Overall DPS: 1071
Swing - 47% | 39% | 10%
Windfury - 30% | 38% | 3%
Stormstrike - 8% | 35% | 1%
Notes: this was a five boss clear night. my highest dps is always on FL Karathress at 1371 because there's no start-stop nonsense like the rest of the bosses.

Hyjal & TK
Overall DPS: 1017
Swing - 47% | 35% | 12%
Windfury - 28% | 30% | 3%
Stormstrike - 8% | 34% | 1%
Notes: we went in and took down Azgalor but didn't have enough decursers for Archi so we headed off to the long-forgotten Tempest Keep.

Hyjal
Overall DPS: 1217
Swing - 42% | 38% | 13%
Windfury - 27% | 39% | 2%
Fire Nova - 9% | 8% | 2%
Stormstrike - 7% | 42% | 2%
Magma Totem - 6% | 7% | 3%
Notes: In Hyjal it's tough to shine if you are not a mage or warlock, but by twisting my Fire Novas and my Magma Totems I'm able to really pump out the dps on trash. I can't emphasize the importance of Fire Nova totem on these trash mobs. It was 12% of my damage on trash! It has its own threat table so the damage does not cause you to pull aggro, and the 800+ damage it does far outweighs just having up a Magma Totem the whole time. If you are in Hyjal you need to be dropping Fire Nova every time its up, and Magma when it's on cooldown.

Black Temple
Overall DPS: 965
Swing - 47% | 40% | 14%
Windfury - 28% | 40% | 3%
Stormstrike - 9% | 42% | 2%
Notes: This was our first foray into BT. We got down High Warlord and Supremus (another melee-hating fight btw). Looking at these stats I see could use some more hit to reduce my white damage miss percentage. It seems that number has been climbing over the past few raids. Maybe I'll start using Spicy Hot Talbuk instead of Roasted Clefthoof. Also, I know we were all a bit gun-shy for our first night. (OK enough excuses, more DPS next time)

Re-gemmed

This week I decided to upgrade my gems. It started out by paying DKP for one Bold Crimson Spinel. Then I realized that I have all of these Badges of Justice in the bank that I'm not going to spend any time soon. OK, I could get Trousers of the Scryer's Retainer over the Cataclysm Legplates I'm wearing now, but I just got the legs, and we are probably only a few weeks off tackling Azgalor who drops Bow-stitched Leggings. When those drop I might want to switch out for the Tunic of the Dark Hour to keep my hit rating up. Besides, I just want to enjoy my T5 leggings while I have them.

Getting back on topic... I spent a few badges on a few epic gems. Specifically, 90 BoJ on 6 epic gems to cut into either Bold Crimson Spinels or Inscribed Pyrestones. I intentionally mis-socketed two items: I filled my Coif of the Jungle Stalker entirely with Bold Crimson Spinel, and put one Bold and one Bright Crimson Spinel in my boots. I lost the +8 AP on the helm and the +3 Hit on the boots. That wasn't a problem as the Enhancement Points of both being socketed as such outweighs the loss of the socket bonus. But since I replaced two Sovereign Tanzanite I ended up losing 12 Stam and therefore 120 HP. This shouldn't be a problem... buuut... for some reason in SSC last night I popped a Fel Strength Elixir which was another 100 HP down the drain, and with no Blessing of Kings my HP fell to 9099 raid buffed--the lowest it's been in months. I was quite disturbed and of course for the Leo fight having low HP is quite a liability. Granted my attack power was also 2004, which is the highest it's ever been (before combat buffs start kicking in) and my crit was sitting comfortably above 30%.

I enjoyed the high AP but decided it was too much of a liability anyway and popped a regular Elixir of Major Strength for the second attempt and kill. I didn't use a Flask because we weren't sure if we were going to Mags or Hyjal next (Leo was the only boss standing in SSC other than Lady V). We ended up going to Hyjal and one-shotting Rage, incidentally.

With my gear re-gemmed I haven't had a chance to crunch the numbers in WWS yet, but the loss of 3 hit was not tragic--my miss percentage stayed below 10%. And being in the high 1900's in AP out of combat made me quite happy.

Enhancement Specs

I really only run with one spec now and that is the PvP focused one because it barely sacrifices any utility in PvE. This is the spec I stole from Push, Diivide, and all the other top arena Enhancement Shamans: 0/47/14

The 2 points in Guardian Totems and 2 in Imp Ghost Wolf make it the PvP spec of choice. The 2 second improved cooldown on Grounding Totem makes a big difference in long arena matches. And the Imp Ghost Wolf I love for chasing down crafty Druids. You think you can Travel Form away from me? HA! Frost Shock + Ghost Wolf and I'm on you. I'll even chase Taurens deep behind enemy lines in AV--I actually get past the usual wall of defense because I'm a bit less conspicuous in Ghost Wolf. That poor druid will be dead before the rest of the horde around him knows whats going on. Getting out is another matter...

Back to the spec. I'm not going to get into the Elemental Devastation debate. You can read all about the myth of that here. I went down that road one week and decided it was garbage. I am however going to point out how important the Nature's Guidance is for raiding as well as Totemic Mastery. Simply put, if you don't have points in Nature's Guidance as an Enhance Shaman you don't belong in a raid.

Prior that spec, I was spec'd 0/44/17 with 5 points in Anticipation being helpful when I did pull aggro (save my butt vs. Gruul a few times) . Also the Improved Reincarnation I considered to be a benefit to the raid. I took Tidal Focus and Healing Focus 3/5 to throw a few Lesser Healing Waves to the MT during some particularly nasty boss fights.

That's actually one of the great things about being a Shaman: so much utility. I can be a chart-topping dps'er and with one eye on the tank can toss in quick heals as back up when say 2 MT healers get Watery Graved in the Tidewalker fight. In fact I specifically keep my MT-Heal macro hotkeyed during that fight. I never used Healing Wave, only Lesser. And being an Enhance Shaman I'm never worried about going OOM. 15 seconds on swings on the boss and I replenish my mana completely.

Now in this spec the Toughness helps across the board against ranged & melee whereas the Anticipation would be a liability against Warriors and less helpful against ranged. Toughness is also unique that it reduces movement slowing effects by 50%, which is of course a huge help to keep from getting kited.

The biggest question for me was should I go 3/3 Mental Quickness and 4/5 Unleashed Rage, or 2/3 MQ & 5/5 UR? I ended up going with the 3/3 & 4/5. I think the extra heal power helps when I have to backup heal our druid and the reduction in shock will help in the final throes of a tight race to eek out one more wicked interrupt despite being so close to OOM that it hurts.

Not Much Action

Stoney's not been getting much action recently. I was out of town for the weekend--back to see my family for Mother's Day and so I didn't run ZA or Kara. Then due to some nasty spring showers my return flight was canceled and I missed our Monday Mount Hyjal run, which is too bad because I do enjoy Hyjal. On top of that the resto druid in our 3v3 is being punished by his parents and his keyboard was taken away! So not much action for arenas lately; in fact I didn't even get in throw-away points on Finn last week.

For raiding, this week we got a very late start in SSC on Tuesday and only got Hydross, Lurker, and Tidewalker down. One shot each. But the trash clearing and boss killing left us with no time to take down a fourth. We went back in on Thursday and finished off Leo and Fathom Lord Karathress. Then hopped over to Mags and one-shot him.

I took the token off FL for a shiny new pair of Cataclysm Legplates. According to my EP numbers it's about 10% better than my Vengeful Gladiator's Linked Leggings once socketed. I was debating putting in a Bold Crimson Spinel, but decided against it as I would be upgrading these legs again in Hyjal with Bow-stitched Leggings or could spend 100 Badges on Trousers of the Scryers Retainer. We have some gems sitting in the guild bank available for DKP so it's just a matter of being sure I put them in something I'm going to keep for a while. Being pretty sure I'll replace these pants sooner rather than later I just went with the Bold Living Ruby. And of course the Nethercobra Leg Armor.

Damage-wise in the raid last night I was putting out some good numbers. Once again I was over 1100 dps overall, but boss fights saw lower numbers to the nastiness of the Leo fight. We actually had a very clean kill on Leo this round. The healers did an awesome job keeping everyone alive. We won't mention how a certain Enhancement Shaman raid leader pulled the boss by running up to show where warlock tank stands and ended up aggroing the Spellbinders. Nope. Not going to mention that you can proximity pull them and it's not like the Mags fight where you have to damage-pull them. No mention of the 1/2 raid wipe as a result of that.

Ah well, I'm typing aimlessly at this point because I can't hit the Publish Post button because my internet is down. I better stop now before this becomes a massive nasty wall of text. Too late? Yep. (Yay for neighbors with unsecured Wi-Fi!)

Kiting Coilfang Striders

Last night was our third attempt in 8 days at Lady Vashj. The fight is nasty. Phase Two is pure unadulterated chaos. Everyone is doing at least two things. Some people are doing three or more. We are struggling with this fight right now and only have two barriers down in our best attempt. My role in this madness is that of the Coilfang Strider kiter.

I run the fight in full PvP gear, except with Shard of Contempt instead of Battlemaster's Determination, and I start with both my left and right Fists of Brutality. (The Medallion of the Alliance helps in the first phase if someone in melee range gets static charge while we are rooted.) When phase two starts I have time before the first strider appears so I get prepared. First I click off salv--actually I made a macro for it because one attempt I forgot to do it right away and was frantically clicking off buffs while I was running to the strider. I ended up clicking off my flask and Blessing of Kings. The macro is simple btw:

/cancelaura Greater Blessing of Salvation

Once that's done I equip my s2 axe and my s1 shield. My armor goes up to 13k and my resilience to somewhere in the 320 range. This will actually allow me to absorb a hit from the strider if something goes horribly wrong, or suck up a cleave if a naga is too close to the edge. We've found that a loose strider is a guaranteed wipe so I do everything in my power to stay alive.

The other thing I have prepared for the fight are Swiftness Potions. They are very easy to make and saved my butt in a few close calls. While I'm waiting the 50 seconds for the strider to pop up I spend my time dodging Vashj's forked lightning. I need to keep my bearings because when the strider pops that side will call it out "Strider at west!!" and I need to be running to the west and not the east. A split second can make a difference in keeping that thing off a healer. Everyone is instructed or net or stun the strider as soon as it shows up on their side giving me an extra few seconds to pick it up. And then the fun begins.

Constant Frost Shocks on the strider keep it slowed and angry at this ol' shaman. I drop Earthbind Totems whenever I have the chance. I always kite clockwise so that when the 2nd strider pops--we are not yet strong enough at this fight to get 1 down in 50 seconds--the 2nd kiter can pick it up and also run clockwise. For most of the fight I can walk backwards and frost shock while keeping it at a safe distance. I found that running from it required me to run back to it when I needed to frost shock. Now I just calmly walk backwards along the the platform doing my best to keep it off the edge where the healers are standing and acting as Tainted Core relays. And also keep it out of the middle where the healers (shield clickers) and melee wacking away at the nagas are standing. Everyone that can net the naga does. Everyone that can dot the naga needs to do so and for the most part does. I frost shock every 6 seconds, walk backwards at a nice pace. If I think it's getting too close I will drop an Earthbind, turn and run about 20 yards and then wait until it's 25 yards away to continue my cycle. And yes 25 yards on my shocks, not 20, thanks to my S3 gloves.

That's the plan. Following that I'm able to stay alive and keep the strider focused on me, consequently giving more time for the raid to kill those tainted ele's and loot their cores.