Well, I finally said adios to my trusted PVP cleaver and welcomed in a Netherbane to my off-hand. A fine upgrade and pretty high up there on my list of weapons for an enhancement shaman. 4th overall in value for an enhancement shaman for off-handers currently. This will change come the 2.4 patch, but a darn good off-hand indeed.

Group:

• Hunter (our guild’s best dps’er on 25-person raids, hands down)
• Warrior (long time great player and tankasaur)
• Druid (feral) / Paladin (prot) swapped in for 1 boss Jan’alai
• Rogue
• Shaman (me)

Totems:

• Grace of Air Totem (sometimes twisted with Windfury for the Warrior and Rogue, but 90% GoA)
• Strength of Earth Totem
• Searing Totem
• Healing Stream Totem

Nalorakk

Just dps like mad and don’t pull aggro.

Notes:

• Heroism at about 35% health left on boss
• My miss rate is better this time at about 13%
• Crit rate (white damage): 38%
• Windfury rate: 29%
• Fire resist rate: over 20% (looks like Nalorakk resists fire a fair bit, hmmm if my spell hit was only better)

Akil’zon

I love, love this boss. Very melee friendly! Just dps like mad and don’t pull aggro.

Notes:

• Heroism at about 40% health left on boss
• Nature Resistance Totem used instead of Grace of Air /Windfury. Could have been higher dps!
• My miss rate: 15.6%
• Crit rate (white damage): 35%
• Windfury rate: 30%
• Earth Shock resist rate: over 23% (looks like Akil’zon resists a fair bit of nature damage, hmmm better spell hit will help, but will effect other melee factors)

Halazzi

Still have a few improvements to make on this boss. Seems like the Corrupted Lightning totem does get in my way of making more dps on the boss, but lasting the entire encounter was more important tonight. I even took a sabre-lash or two. Yuck!

Notes:

• Heroism at about 30% health left on boss
• My miss rate: 15%
• Crit rate (white damage): 34%
• Windfury rate: 29%
• Fire resist rate: over 30% (looks like Halazzi resists heaps of fire damage, hmmm)

Jan’alai

My first ever kill of this boss, heck…. it’s my first ever SEEING this boss. He can be a pain, but I just prioritize my targets for bird adds first, Jan’alai 2nd after the bird adds are down.

Notes:

• Stay alive!
• Heroism at about 30% health left on boss
• My miss rate: 20% ouch! Parries ftl!
• Crit rate (white damage): 27%
• Windfury rate: 25% boo!

Hex Lord Malacrass

I pulled on my PVP gear for stamina buffs. All sorts of any kinds of stamina increases so we can all survive the Spirit Bolts (Shadow) ability from the Hex Lord. Made sure I was topped up in health just before the Spirit Bolts came blasting in.

Notes:

• Heroism at about 25% health left on boss
• Group makeup was changed to Rogue, Warrior, Hunter, Hunter & me.
• My miss rate: 15.9%
• Crit rate (white damage): 38%
• Windfury rate: 31%

Add’l details on his abilities on this fight:

We packed up and held Zul’jin for tomorrow.

We were a bit tired and wanted to try Zul’jin with full rested XP, so we’ll try him tomorrow night. Note: this dungeon will reset in 1 day 3 hrs!

After a few silly wipes to warm us up to Kael’thas, we had a couple of good attempts (#7 and #8). Things definitely get better when the weapons are controlled and downed quickly in phase 2.

Group:

• Rogue
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Druid (feral)
• Shaman

Phase 1 Totems:

The only melee damage needed in this phase are vs. Lord Sanguinar and Master Engineer Telonicus.

• Tremor Totem
• Windfury Totem
• Mana Spring Totem
• Searing Totem

Phase 2 Totems:

Melee focus is on the Cosmic Infuser (mace), then Infinity Blades (dagger), Warp Slicer (sword), and finally Phaseshift Bulwark (shield).

• Windfury Totem
• Mana Spring Totem
• Magma Totem / FireElemental
• Strength of Earth Totem

Phase 3 Totems:

Run like heck, the sky is falling!

• Tremor Totem
• Windfury Totem
• Mana Spring Totem
• Searing Totem

Yeah, we made it to phase 4 on both of these good attempts, but didn’t last long with Capernian and Telonicus still running around. Not to mention, Kael’thas was nuking at will too.

Attempt #7 here:

Attempt #8 here:

My basic praises/gripes here are:

• It’s not a melee friendly fight (aren’t they all?).
• Ranged can basically contribute effectively to all phases
• I’m not doing nearly enough dps
• Heroism/Bloodlust on phase 2 is nice, but I would rather have it more towards the end of the fight (Phases 4 & 5). I know I might get Mind Controlled by Kael’thas after phase 3, but I always like to have it late in a fight for the “FINISH HIM!” Bloodlust dps frenzy. If you do get your Bloodlust/Heroism taken via a Mind Control, then Purge it from Kael’thas quickly! And Purge it from any adds from Phase 3.
• I like having melee targets assigned before hand so I don’t have to run around like a mad dog trying to dps something that will only contribute <5% vs. what ranged can do

So, I’m asking all my shaman brothers & sisters out there: what tips can you provide that will help me out vs. Kael’thas? I’m looking for looting weapons help, more dps help and anything ‘weird’ that you do to survive this long phased encounter.

Now that 2.4 patch information is coming out of the woodwork, sprouting flowers and green possibilities everywhere, the mindless farming of badges continues. Karazhan madness, exit stage left. From Moroes to Prince in two hours & with three shaman, it was as easy as training a pigeon.

Moroes

Ayep. Moroes was first up on the hit list. Pulled a respectable 946 dps and 2nd only to our always-raid-leading-hunter & hunter class leader, Wolfus.

Personal details vs. Moroes below. A few parried by Moroes, but not too bad 18.8% miss rate. I love that 50% Windfury crit rate. That rocks.

Attumen the Huntsman

Attumen next up and I pulled a lame 717 dps. #4 on the damage done chart. Must have been tired or something. A raw 20% base miss rate didn’t help either.

My personal details here & a lot of misses by yours truly. That’s crazy to have a melee 26.8% miss rate? I must be doing something wrong, but maybe just bad luck, but I probably need more armor reduction.

Maiden of Virtue

Maiden up next and another lackluster showing by yours truly. Only 754 dps and #3 ranking but it just seemed like I was stunned the whole fight. This and my %miss rate was *gulp* 35%! A 15% parry rate and 8% dodge rate leaves me with only 12% misses. Geez shaman, get behind her for pete’s sake.

Misses were bad enough, but 35.6% miss rate and it didn’t help that our tank can’t seem to stay in one place so I was forced to frontal attacks on Maiden. 15% parried = Yikes! 15% Windfury crit rate? Geez. It IS interesting to see how much Windfury can be parried. 20% parry rate vs. my Windfury plus the 5% dodges sure does limit my damage output.

Nightbane

Nightbane now and yep, I got Charred Earth near me every time except for 1 time Nightbane decided to throw one to the ranged people. I dislike this fight so much. How many ‘Blizzard-Don’t-Like-You-Melee-BURN!’ encounters do we face? Heaps of them, I tell you! Heaps.

Wound up running out of Charred Earth the whole time and guess who’s job it was to slam the skeletons? Yup, Mr. Enhancement Shaman. Why not just get a rogue to do it? Sheeesh. 21.5% miss rate.

Curator

Now! Finally for the fun melee fight. Downing Curator on his first Evocation is such a joy. I remember wiping to this guy a year ago, now he’s just easy-peasy. Yep, you saw it right. 1814 dps and #1 damage done overall.

36% white damage crit rate. A marginally low 19% miss rate. And see that 6506 max hit on a Windfury attack? Niiice.

Shade of Aran

I must have gotten a 2nd wind on that Curator fight, so I blasted up on Shade of Aran too. 1101 dps and #2 on the damage done.

2% parried, 13% miss rate are fantastic. 40% crit rates for white damage & Windfury are super as well.

Prince Malchezaar

Prince was last on our hit list. I was enfeebled a lot so I basically just sat back and watched the ranged dps him down. Pretty boring for melee if you ask me.

We’ve cleared Tempest Keep to Kael’thas. Bring on the wipe fest!

Any tips for an enhancement shaman during Kael’thas encounter? Send em my way via comment or email Asirae AT hotmaIL dot c0m.

Some lackluster presence from the raiders tonight as we downed attempted Lady Vashj. A heavy healer raid (4 x shaman, 5 x priest, 2 x paladin) does not bode well on Lady Vashj. Despite the obvious ‘less than desirable‘ raid mix, we had a few attempts on Lady Vashj, but did not make it anywhere clear in phase 3 so we tucked tail and ran. Ran all the way to Magtheridon.

Our best attempt on Lady Vashj. Overall, I was #2 on damage done to Lady Vashj, so that should tell you something was lacking from our hunters/rogues/dps’ers.

Group:

• Warrior (main tank)
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Warrior (fury)
• Shaman (me)

Totems:

• Grounding Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

My details during the Vashj fight here:

We turned to Matheridon and turned the pit lord over on a BBQ spit. Not a bad turnout from yours truly with #3 damage done spot to the enhancement shaman!

Group:

• Warrior (main tank)
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Warrior (fury)
• Shaman (me)

Totems:

• Windfury Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

My details here:

So, #2 dps on Vashj, and #3 dps on Magtheridon. Hmm!

More next week! Stay tuned.

3 weeks and finally got her down. Phase 3 is *jump*, *hit*, *jump*, *hit*, *jump*, *hit*, *jump*, *hit*, *jump*, *hit*, … <repeat>.

Overall, the many wipes in the last 2 weeks we worked on Vashj prepared us for the survival in phase 3. My job was fairly simple, dps Vashj on phase 1, dps Naga in phase 2, dps Vashj in phase 3.

Group:

• Druid (feral) and main tank
• Warrior (fury)
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Shaman (me)

Totems (phase 1):

• Grounding Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

Totems (phase 2):

• Windfury Totem
• Healing Stream Totem / Poison Cleansing Totem
• Searing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

Totems (phase 3):

• Grounding Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem / Fire Elemental
• Strength of Earth Totem

Ignoring the WWS/Combatlog bug of including Static Charge (I was tops with 4 Static Charges during the fight) with players dps, a quick summary:

• White melee miss rate: 15.4% (not bad)
• White melee crit rate: 31 % (it’s my own enhance shaman goal of 30% or better vs. Vashj)
• Windfury procs: 30% (WF crits 26%)
• Living Free Action potions saved me (and my close rooted neighbors)
• Heroism/Bloodlust at Vashj 20% life

Total totems dropped, buffs and debuffs listed here:

Loots:

• Helm of the Vanquished Hero
• Helm of the Vanquished Hero
• Runetotem’s Mantle
• Serpent Spine Longbow
• Vashj’s Vial Remnant

All in all, a notable event has passed us. Now, for the guild-breaker Kael’thas Sunstrider. Wish us luck!

Your friendly neighborhood enhancement shaman,

- Asirae

We are just on the verdge of getting Mount Hyjal attuned, and the patch 2.4 notes show us that Blizzard has used the nerf bat on attunement again.  No Eye attunement, you just get “Champion of the Naaru”.  No Black Temple attunement, you get the “Hand of A’dal” title.  A giant big “ha ha!” to all the people with the title.   Now anyone can run into Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, so gather up your 25-pugs and get ready to wipe!

Getting less and less turnout from our raid healers, so we farmed up some content from both SSC and Zul’aman tonight.  In hopes of getting our great healers back into the swing of raiding, we downed bosses from Lurker Below to Morogrim in Serpentshrine Cavern then turned out and downed three bosses in Zul’Aman.

• Hydross @ 6th for total damage.  646 dps. blah!

• Morogrim @ 10th overall damage for 919 dps.  Mucho good, but AoE damage rules in this fight.

• Nalorakk  @ 2nd for damage output and 831 dps.

• Akil’zon @ #1 in damage output and 797 dps.

We’re going heavy on Lady Vashj and Kael’thas this week.  Stay tuned for more.

We traversed the endless drip of Serpentshrine Cavern in hopes of our 1st guild snake in a bag. Overall, this friendly neighborhood Shaman did ok with 7th on damage output & 784 dps*.

Group:

• Druid feral (MT) 21k health!
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Warrior (fury)
• Shaman (me)

Phase 1

During phase 1 I went crazy dps on Vashj and planted Grounding Totems in order to absorb the Phase 1 Totems targeting our main tank, a big butt bear druid with 21,400 health.

Phase 1 Totems:

• Grounding Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem / Fire Elemental Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

Phase 2

I was on Naga dps duty during phase 2. Don’t be afraid to burn Heroism/Bloodlust during phase 2 as this is the diciest phase for the Vashj encounter. If your party gets any poisons from the Elementals, drop a Poison Cleansing Totem to counter it.

Phase 2 Totems:

• Grace of Air Totem \ Windfury
• Poison Cleansing Totem \ Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

Phase 3 

Phase 3 is similar to Phase 1, so return to Grounding Totems to eat the Shock Blasts. I’m really torn on Phase 3 because I want to drop a Nature Resistance Totem to counter the 99% of attacks that are Nature based in this phase, but the Grounding Totem is direly needed to survive the Shock Blasts. Possible Totem Twist needed here.

Phase 3 Totems:

• Grounding Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Searing Totem / Fire Elemental Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

We have consistently reached 13% health on Vashj on more than 2 attempts, so I am sure it will happen soon: Vashj will die.

*  One note on the Static Charge: Vashj you evil, evil water snake. How dare you root all melee and then Static Charge them all right after rooting? That’s just diabolical. I got 2 of those root-and-static-charge fiascos last night and it was not fun to blamed for 26% of the damage to the melee!