*Enter shaman spirit dream state* … http://wotlkwiki.info

I’ve been waiting for Hex for like 3 years now. Finally has some potential with WOTLK.

http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1190132

So, this vid demo shows the following casts:

• Hex (magic effect)
• Hex (magic effect)
• Flame Shock
• Lava Burst
• Hex
• Lava Burst
• Hex (yes, dmg does not break Hex)
• Thunder
• Feral Spirit (target drop w/green circle to summon wolves on enemy to pet tank, yes can heal pet too)

Yeah, although all this stuff seems to be *sandbox* ideas at best right now, still interesting to see how <things that class x wants> goes to another class.

Hex: Transforms the enemy into a random critter, reducing the target’s movement speed by 75%.  While moving, the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells.  Only one target can be hexed at a time.  Only works on Humanoids and Beasts.

Range: 20 yard
Duration: 8 second duration
Cooldown: 1 minute

Note: does not break when Hex target is damaged, i.e. able to beat on things without them being able to beat back
Note: magic effect, can be dispelled, cleansed, w/e
Note: doesn’t heal the target like Polymorph
Note: there doesn’t seem to be a debuff after being hexed, so I would think a few shaman could chain-hex a target for a good amount of time while damaging it with some mechanism for diminishing returns to increase resistance to Hex
Note: the cooldown is not really giving Shaman an effective CC as  Polymorph lasts a good 45 sec and can be recast without a 1 min cooldown

Updated weapons index here:

http://enhancementshaman.wordpress.com/best-index/

Updated June 11, 2008 Finally got the 2.4 adjustments:

• Blacksmithing Weaponsmith changes (main-hand to one-hand changed and added to off-hand index below).
• Corrected Talon of the Phoenix Main Hand weapon.
• Weapon speeds adjusted for EP value indexing.

http://enhancementshaman.wordpress.com/best-index/

Ok. I haven’t much time to post, so I’ll snag some combat stats and discuss it later. I went to a full Zul’Aman clear and progressed to Bloodboil in Black Temple. He seems to be a hurdle for a lot of raiders, so I might need some help on how to tackle the big Fel Orc.
This is mostly for historical recording than anything. My Iron Man day of raiding stats here. I’m just going to spill the stats here in a WALL_OF_TEXT, hopefully I can come back and re-edit later.

Zoomed through the 1st 4 bosses in Zul’Aman for the Bear Mount and then continued on to Malacrass and Zul’Jin.

Nalorakk

I know I dropped a Searing Totem and Fire Elemental Totem for Nalorakk, I wonder why it’s missing from the WWS. /shrug

Hex Lord Malacrass

I usually put on a fair amount of Stamina gear, but to survive the Spirit Bolts, make sure to get shadow resistance high (i.e. Night’s End cloak + Medallion of Karabor).

Zul’Jin

Wow. I never thought I’d see the day when I would be tops on that Zul’Jin fight. Hunters have it pretty easy throughout this boss encounter.

Supremus

Can I tell you that I don’t like Supremus? I had to completely avoid him for a lot of time for this fight, mostly because there was no one else to take the hurtful strikes near melee range. He absolutely throws melee dps away regularly, ranged just sit back and target a big, big, big guy and sidestep volcanoes. Stormstrike at only 9% of my total damage, that sux. And, we don’t usually have a good tank on both threat and health, so guess who’s next on Supremus Hateful strike list? *Crunch*!

Shade of Akama

Flask ran out and I forgot to reapply for this fight.

Eek. Look at how low the Windfury Crit percentage is: 18 %

That sux too.

Interesting. I’ll have to look at some past Akama fights.

Teron Gorefiend

Stormstrike at only 17% crit rate. Yuck.

Gurtogg Bloodboil

Gurtogg is our progression block right now. Maybe we need 9-10 healers? How do you enhancement shamans run the Fel Rage? Equip shield? Forget shield, just DPS like mad? Pop Shamanistic Rage? Heroism/Bloodlust when?

[21-May | Edit: woops. the wordpress fudged my image, so I've updated the stats spreadsheet pic below for hammering/clawing.]

I haven’t used my trusty blacksmithing skills in a while, but I still had ole faithful, Dragonstrike in my shed back in Shattrath. I upgraded to the Claw of Molten Fury a while back and haven’t looked back for the speed hammer, until the last patch where Blacksmithing plans for Main-Hand only weapons got a buff: One-Hand.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/28/epic-weaponsmithing-weapons-no-longer-unique/

That’s right, I picked up the old Dragonstrike and it felt so good. Like an old friend that went away overseas for years and came back, just like you remembered him only now more versatile. I kept my Main-Hander the Claw of Molten Fury and tried out some tests with using Dragonstrike in my Off-Hand and instead of the Netherbane.

A noticeable difference. In fact: 2% more dps. In most combatlogs I was seeing 3% more DPS for each fight.

Here’s some stats from 1 hour of hammering/clawing on a Servant of Razelikh; no buffs, no totems, no Stormstrike, no Shocks, just /autoattack:

The low-down…. I got the following by using Dragonstrike over Netherbane in my off-hand weapon spot:

• 2%+ more DPS
• 1.2 Haste procs per minute (vs. 0 Haste procs with Netherbane)
• 23% more Windfury procs per minute

Now… the only thing to test is dual wielding 2 X Dragonstrikes! Do they share procs or act more like dual Mongoose procs? Hmmmmm… I’ll have to test this theory now.

2 Dragonstrikes cannot proc twice; the 2nd Haste proc will refresh a current Haste proc from an ongoing Haste thus granting more Haste uptime. In general, a 2nd Dragonstrike will grant you 2% more Haste.

I’ll post some numbers.

http://www.twentytotems.com/

Enuff Said.

Been awhile since last enhancement news.  The Oceanic lag from 2.4 has effected me personally, so I haven’t had a lot of fun playing with 800+ ms of latency when I normally have about 220ms.  Never been this bad before, but hopefully the folks at Blizzard will come up with something.  I cannot imagine healing with this kind of lag.

Anywho… we tried out Black Temple and Naj’entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama were relatively fruitful encounters.  We currently are on the learning curve for Teron Gorefiend.  I’m not so bad with the ghost mini-game during Teron’s fight, but I know others are having troubles, so we keep trying him out to get more experience with it.  I think the Grounding Totem helps with the Teron Incinerate attack, so I tried to keep that totem down most of the time.

Any other hints for Teron?

The Shade of Akama fight details.

The Teron stats for now.

 So, next up we con’t to work on Gorefiend, then the real Shadow Resist fights come into play.

After months and months of SSC/TK & finally downing Kael’thas, our guild decided to enter Hyjal Summit. I have to say, it is a welcome relief to the drip drip drip of Serpenshrine and the 1-shot wipes of Tempest Keep.

The waves and waves of gauntlets are really fun (even though I love the Horde side with Thrall more than Jaina Proudmoore’s side). We were able to get jiggy with Rage Winterchill and Anetheron. Our first ever kills of these two.

Rage Winterchill

Totems:

• Windfury
• Healing Stream
• Frost Resistance Totem
• Strength of Earth

Still trying to work my way around this boss and learn from some mistakes, 1108 dps and 5th overall.

Anetheron

First time for all of us vs. the Vampric Aura boss. We faired well against the trash wave leading up to him, but when the fight vs. boss came up down we had some new things to learn.

I died and I had some trouble with Sleep debuf, in fact, I got more sleepy time than anyone else.

All-in-all, I got lots of fun to get some Swings at this boss and we all learned a lot.

I don’t know if this ever happened before in the history of drops: we had both Molten Fury fist drops.

• Claw of Molten Fury Awesome main hander for PVE enhancement shaman.
• Fist of Molten Fury Lousy for PVE enhancement shaman, but great for rogues.

More next week.

The new version of WWS supporting WoW 2.4 is out and even though it’s got a few minor bugs, it’s heaps better based on the accuracy of the new fangled /combatlog mechanics.

New WWS is easy as pie, just point to a /combatlog file and upload with your WWS login.

No “Actors” to sort out, no pets with the same names giving credit to only one player.

The “Melee” ability has been renamed to “Swing” for white damage. Sultans of Swing! Cue up Dire Straits music. Go go Mark Knopfler!

Tested the mechanics with a simple Servant of Razelikh test under the following:

Test A: the standard dps shock cycle for enhancement shaman

• Drop Mana Spring Totem
• Drop Strength of Earth Totem
• Drop Grace of Air Totem
• Drop Searing Totem
• Engage Servant of Razelikh
• Cycle dps through this rotation: Stormstrike, Activate Bloodlust Brooch whenever available, Flame Shock, Earth Shock, <repeat for 2 minutes>

Test B: the Earth Shock only dps cycle for enhancement shaman

• Drop Mana Spring Totem
• Drop Strength of Earth Totem
• Drop Grace of Air Totem
• Drop Searing Totem
• Engage Servant of Razelikh
• Cycle dps through this rotation: Stormstrike, Activate Bloodlust Brooch whenever available, Flame Shock, Earth Shock, <repeat for 2 minutes>

Test C: Fully buffed with Elixir of Major Agility

• Eat Roasted Clefthoof (+20 Strength, +20 Spirit for 30 minutes)
• Quaff Elixir of Major Agility (+35 Agility, +20 Crit rating for 1 hour)
• Read Scroll of Agility V (+20 Agility for 30 mintues)
• Read Scroll of Strength V (+20 Strength for 30 mintues)
• Drop Mana Spring Totem
• Drop Strength of Earth Totem
• Drop Grace of Air Totem
• Drop Searing Totem
• Engage Servant of Razelikh
• Cycle dps through this rotation: Stormstrike, Activate Bloodlust Brooch whenever available, Flame Shock, Earth Shock, <repeat for 2 minutes>

Test D: Bloodlust/Heroism

• Drop Mana Spring Totem
• Drop Strength of Earth Totem
• Drop Grace of Air Totem
• Drop Searing Totem
• Engage Servant of Razelikh
• Cycle dps through this rotation: Stormstrike, Activate Bloodlust Brooch whenever available, Flame Shock, Earth Shock, <repeat for 2 minutes>

And just so you know where the buffs are going and the procs are for each test cycle.

Maybe I need to rethink my dps cycle a bit. Any thoughts?

Summary:

• Stormstrike, Flame Shock, Earth Shock still beats any other cycles for a simple damage output on low level targets. Use all your shocks when possible to keep your dps high.
• I don’t know why /combatlog or WWS 2.4 is reporting “Swing” as a debuf, but it’ll probably get fixed soon enough.
• All pets are accurately tied to their real masters now, unlike the behavior of the old /combatlog.
• When totems are called up or dismissed, the /combatlog actually registers this as a “unit death”, but WWS interprets it correctly.
• Procs matter: even with a fully buffed and elixir quaffed player, a lucky proc or two can put an unbuffed player shoulders above the buffed player.

Bloodlust – Heroism impacts:

Bloodlust/Heroism gained the following over the standard shock cycle based on my simple 2-minute tests:

• 200% more Flurry uptime
• 300% more Haste procs
• 10% more Windfury procs
• 50% more average Windfury damage output
• 113% more average Stormstrike damage output, probably because of 50% more Stormstrike crits
• 37% less Lightning Speed procs (I have Mongoose Enchant on both weapons at the moment).  Weird, I’ll have a look at this some more.  Faster attack speed relates to less Mongoose procs?  Hmm.
• 29% less Swing crits.  Bad luck?  Seems like bad luck and I just need to perform longer test session (1 hour or so) because I see that tests A and C were both 45% crit rate, but the tests B and D were 32% and 38%.  Hmmm.

I really need to get some Ignore Armor gear. Or Expertise. Or both! Until then, back to the new daily quests to help the Shattered Sun Offensive.

Updated here to include the following two weapons….

March 30, 2008 Added two more Patch 2.4 items:

• Claw of Molten Fury Awesome main hander for PVE enhancement shaman.
• Fist of Molten Fury Lousy for PVE enhancement shaman, but great for Fury warriors and rogues.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus.

I went and filled out the zillion questions from Easydamus to find out that ….

I Am A: Chaotic Neutral Human Wizard/Sorcerer (3rd/3rd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-15

Dexterity-19

Constitution-14

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-17

Charisma-14

Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal. However, chaotic neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Secondary Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good —– XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)
Neutral Good —- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
Chaotic Good —- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Lawful Neutral — XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
True Neutral —- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)
Chaotic Neutral – XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
Lawful Evil —– XXXXXX (6)
Neutral Evil —- XXXXXXXX (8)
Chaotic Evil —- XXXXXXXXX (9)

Law & Chaos:
Law —– XXXXXX (6)
Neutral – XXXXXXXX (8)
Chaos — XXXXXXXXX (9)

Good & Evil:
Good —- XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Neutral – XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Evil —- (0)

Race:
Human —- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf —- XXXXXXXX (8)
Elf —— XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Gnome —- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling – XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Half-Elf – XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Half-Orc – XXXX (4)

Class:
Barbarian – (-2)
Bard —— (0)
Cleric —- (0)
Druid —– (-6)
Fighter — XX (2)
Monk —— (-23)
Paladin — (-19)
Ranger —- (0)
Rogue —– (-2)
Sorcerer — XXXX (4)
Wizard —- XXXX (4)

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!

Badges of Justice, the new economy will be here soon. Pokemon… gotta catch ‘em all fever is nearly here. Patch 2.4 is coming soon, the download is already upon us all. So I ask ye of little hope, what benefits are you going to first grab up?

For the enhancement shaman, I wholeheartedly look forward to the the Vanir’s Right Fist of Brutality for a main-hand upgrade. Right?

Based on my little poor-man’s EJ calculations my current Dragonstrike main-hand weapon value for enhancement shamans is 970.1 EP. The Vanir’s Right Fist of Pwnage! is more than a tier upgrade at 1015.4 EP. Heck, the Big Bad Wolf’s Paw (834.6) to Decapitator (912.8) upgrade is 78.2 EP points. The Vanir’s Right Fist of Brutality (1015.4) vs. Dragonstrike (970.1) is a whopping 45 EP points. Ohh. That’s not too much of a change.

Ouch. I was hoping for more when cashing in my Badger tokens. 105 BoJ for a 45 EP upgrade. Hmmm. An upgrade is an upgrade, isn’t it?

Geez. That’s a lotta Badges. Lemme look at what else I can get (on the cheap) for enhancing the enhancement shaman.

X 45: Off-hand weapon | Vanir’s Left Fist of Brutality

X 60: Back | Dory’s Embrace

X 60: Wrist | Steadying Bracers

X 60: Ring | Angelista’s Revenge / Sunwell Badge Loot – Melee Ring

X 75: Hands| Gauntlets of Rapidity

X 75: Hands| Belt of the Silent Path

X 100: Leather Leg | Trousers of the Scryers’ Retainer (leather)
X 100: Chest | Tunic of the Dark Hour

What will be your first Badger purchases for Patch 2.4? Enquiring minds wanna know!

A clearing of Tempest Keep (except for the old head-honcho himself, Kael’thas) tonight and more badgers to round up in Karazhan.

I want to improve (gear & skill) for each Tempest Keep run so I keep the stats and compare with previous fights.
Al’ar

Starting off, we downed Al’ar the Phoenix in Tempest Keep with a #10 ranking in overall damage output.

Miss rate (white damage): 18.9% much better than the 22.7% miss rate from last time.

Crit rate (white damage): 32%

Windfury proc rate: 29%

Void Reaver

Loot Reaver still kills a lot of raiders, even on a 1-shot. My damage done getting to #4 overall output to Void Reaver. In fact, I was #4 ranked in damage done back in Dec. 11, 2007.

Miss rate (white damage): 17.8% is actually worse than 15.7% back in Dec. 11, 2007. Hmmm.

Dps now: 784 vs. dps then 689.

Crit rate (white damage): 22%

Windfury proc rate: 27%

Strange that my crit rate and miss rate are worse now compared to Dec. 11, 2007, but my overall dps is higher.

High Astromancer Solarian

I continue to look forward to this fight because the mage has low armor and I can do more dps than any other boss in Tempest Keep. I did get 1626 dps vs. Solarian at one point. That’s the best I’ve done on any Tier 5 (SSC/TK) boss. Overall dps this time was #8 and 1053 dps. Even though I was ranked #6 back in Jan. 14th, my overall dps was 936.

Miss rate (white damage): 12.7% is mucho better than 18.1% on Jan. 14th, 2008.

Crit rate (white damage): 26%

Windfury proc rate: 30%

Karazhan

Still looking forward to the 2.4 badge rewards? I know I am. I just hope Blizzard doesn’t pull a frosty one on us and make the Badge rewards 2.4 Badges only or something.

Moroes

#3 ranked damage output on Moroes at 730 dps. Miss rate was 17.3% (not too bad) but that ole rogue can still dodge a fair bit (7% dodge rate). Ayep. The only difference from last week’s Karazhan is that I was in survival mode for most of this fight because the Moroes adds were running around mostly free. Last week dps: 946. Last week’s miss rate: 18.8%. Last week’s Windfury crit rate: 50%. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Crit rate (white damage): 20%

Windfury proc rate: 30%

Maiden of Virtue

Maiden was full of melee this go round. Again like last week, I ranked at #3 in overall damage done. My dps was slightly better at 780 dps vs. 754 dps last week. Only a 22.3% miss rate this time vs. last week’s parry-extravaganza 35.6% miss rate. 15% parries are serious, so I stayed behind the big lass as best I could this time.

Crit rate (white damage): 22%

Windfury proc rate: 34%

Opera – Big Bad Wolf

The Big Bad Wolf event from Opera was fun (and I don’t remember getting the Little Girl debuff) so I was one of three people who didn’t get killed and survived to rezz up the fallen raiders. Is he really that hard? Or people just not knowing the encounter, bad luck, etc.?

Miss rate (white damage): 12.9% (nice!)

Crit rate (white damage): 27%

Windfury proc rate: 18% (that’s all?! geez. unlucky)

Nightbane

Nightbane last week was horrible. This week was a little better because I only got one Charred Earth near me, so I could dps a fair bit this time. I was the main assist for the Rain of Bones. Managed up a 660 dps and #2 overall damage done to the scary skeletal dragon.

Miss rate (white damage): 15.1%

Crit rate (white damage): 33%

Windfury proc rate: 27%

More next week. Enjoy your WoW.

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.