Another trip, another trip back in the endless drip

 

The endless drip of the Naga infested underground Serpentshrine Cavern.

Group:

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

Totems:

• Windfury
• Healing Stream
• Strength of Earth
• Searing

We dove hard into SSC last night with the full intention of clearing all but Vashj.  We came up 1 boss short of our goal.  Three hours to clear all bosses except Morogrim Tidewalker and of course the cursed fembot, Vashj.

1st up: Hydross.  681 dps here for yours truly, it’s ok but I just don’t enjoy Hydross anymore.

2nd up: Lurker Below (even though I’ve lobbied hard to skip this boss because we just waste too much time killing him for less than legendary loot).  I just blast through the adds and /tickle Lurker when I get the chance. 713 dps.

Next up: Leotheras the Blind

With only 1 mage in our raid for polymorph duty, it was tricky to cc any groups with confidence.  Our one warlock did a fine job as usual to Seduce and cc other mobs as we worked our way to Leotheras.  934 dps. 

Last boss before the end of our 3 hour raid to SSC, the crowd pleasing Fathom-Lord Karathress. 

My job tonight ended as a pure dps class, because Fathom-Lord demands healing interruption duty by yours truly, so I didn’t get to dps a-go-go on the Fathom-Lord fight.  I only get to dps on the last part of the fight where it’s Fathom-Lord solo vs. 25 person raid.

 I went to Karazhan after the SSC raid to down 4 bosses and then I went to sleep, hard!

Pauldrons of Primal Fury

On a side note: I got my picture approved for Pauldrons of Primal Fury, I’m the 5th picture in the screenshots list of the shoulders. 

Raiding DPS Progression History

Historical progress of our guild on some of the SSC/TK bosses plus some Zul’Aman as well. These are all the recorded WWS kills (except for Vashj, still working on her).

Serpentshrine Cavern
	Date	Duration	DPS
Fathom-Lord Karathress	2008/01/17 11:30 AM	8’28”	9895
	2008/01/03 2:15 PM	7’52”	9243
Hydross the Unstable	2008/12/19 12:13 PM	8’13”	8916
	2008/12/12 1:40 PM	9’58”	8127
	2008/12/05 1:01 PM	10’08”	7735
	2008/12/05 1:01 PM	10’06”	7735
	2008/12/03 12:32 PM	10’17”	7569
	2008/01/23 11:51 AM	7’37”	9862
	2008/01/02 1:08 PM	10’02”	7847
Lady Vashj	2008/01/29 1:01 AM	5’44”	6736
	2008/01/29 12:46 AM	5’31”	7917
	2008/01/29 12:28 AM	6’16”	8081
	2008/01/29 12:04 AM	5’43”	8725
	2008/01/28 11:33 PM	6’29”	7429
Leotheras the Blind	2008/01/23 1:53 PM	8’05”	8506
	2008/01/09 1:55 PM	8’34”	7800
	2008/01/03 12:27 PM	10’05”	6869
Morogrim Tidewalker	2008/01/10 12:42 PM	8’56”	13936
	2008/01/10 12:17 PM	10’42”	10612
	2008/01/02 2:31 PM	9’00”	13915
The Lurker Below	2008/12/19 1:16 PM	11’03”	8203
	2008/12/03 1:19 PM	13’59”	6957
	2008/01/23 12:22 PM	8’51”	9441
	2008/01/02 12:20 PM	11’21”	8011
Tempest Keep
	Date	Duration	DPS
High Astromancer Solarian	2008/01/14 2:03 PM	7’34”	11476
	2008/01/06 12:22 PM	6’14”	10145
Void Reaver	2008/12/10 1:56 PM	8’32”	8945
	2008/11/29 12:53 PM	9’53”	7688
	2008/01/14 1:21 PM	3’59”	10758
Zul’Aman
	Date	Duration	DPS
Akil’zon	2008/12/20 1:25 PM	5’24”	4223
	2008/12/04 11:33 AM	7’24”	3096
	2008/12/04 11:33 AM	7’24”	3096
	2008/12/01 12:08 PM	5’34”	4136
Halazzi	2008/12/20 2:04 PM	8’41”	2638
	2008/12/01 1:41 PM	7’03”	3804
Nalorakk	2008/12/20 1:01 PM	5’09”	4470
	2008/12/15 12:05 PM	5’25”	4254
	2008/12/04 10:59 AM	6’50”	3365
	2008/12/04 10:59 AM	6’50”	3365
	2008/12/04 10:59 AM	6’50”	3365
	2008/12/01 11:24 AM	5’18”	4349
Zul’jin	2008/01/07 3:09 PM	8’59”	3238

Offhand matrix | 2 minute tests of Windfury Rockbiter Flametongue Frostbrand

Q:

A: I use Windfury on my mainhand weapon and also on my offhand.  Why? I want more WF procs.  More WF procs = More WF swings and more damage.  This will almost always beat any other weapon buff.

I set out to do a lot of tests and get some data vs. Flametongue & Frostbrand & Rockbiter.  I just ran out of time to do more data gathering, but I came up with a starting set of 2 minute tests.  I believe non-WF buffs on your weapons will yield consistent damage, but it will be lower in total than off-hand Windfury will produce for you.

Tests all included the following setup…

• Drop down only 2 totems: Strength of Earth and Grace of Air
• 1 Lightning Bolt to start the test
• 2 minutes of constant autoattack along with
• Bloodlust Brooch trinket activated whenever it was ready
• Stormstrike whenever it was ready

 That’s all.  No Heroism, no potions, no food buffs, no extra shocks.  I just left combat after 2 minutes and here’s the results.

1. 2 Minute Test w/Windfury main & Windfury offhand
2. 2 Minute Test w/Windfury main & Rockbiter offhand
3. 2 Minute Test w/Windfury main & Flametongue offhand
4. 2 Minute Test w/Windfury main & Frostbrand offhand

Looks like the average damage has Windfury offhand the best with 1019 dps, Flametongue 2nd with 953 dps, Rockbiter next and Frostbrand last with 793 dps.  You mileage may vary especially when crit rates are hard to measure reliably … but hey… welcome to being an Enhancement Shaman!

As you can see here, the number of hits varies as well as crit %, but I want to point out one key stat among all 4 offhand buffs: the % of Windfury from you. 

• w/Windfury offhand: 32% of total attacks are Windfury
• w/Rockbiter offhand:  24% of total attacks are Windfury
• w/Flametongue offhand: 23% of total attacks are Windfury
• w/Frostbrand offhand: 20% of total attacks are Windfury

But, hey Asirae, what about Rockbiter?  The Rockbiter offhand buff produces a higher average Windfury damage (ignoring the crit % of course).  What gives?

Rockbiter does produce an average Windfury damage of 842.  Nice indeed.  Better than a Windfury offhand buff average Windfury damage of 639.  However, a Windfury offhand buff increases the total Windfury procs (in this case the offhand of Windfury increased the number of procs by 25%).  The total damage output of Windfury (both mainhand and offhand procs) wins over the average Windfury damage gained by using Rockbiter purely by having more Windfury procs. 

1st look at Kael’thas Sunstrider

We managed to cook the chicken and take down Al’ar, so that lead us to some more interesting trash to get to the prince of all Blood Elves, the highbourne himself *drumroll* … Kael’thas Sunstrider.  He’s pretty cool and has a group with him that reminds me Maulgar’s crew & Fathom-Lord’s posse.

First look at Kael’thas Sunstrider:

Next look at Kael’thas Sunstrider:

We high-tailed it back to Shatt city and I forged a Stormherald for pvp.

Called it a night after that. /tired

I’ve been called to try and kite the Coilfang Striders on Vashj.  I suppose I will have to spec to Elemental Shaman in order to range kite the Striders effectively.  Our guild dps is just so strong, that enhancement shaman w/Frost Shock might not be the best kiting strategy around.  We are using a Warlock to tank at the moment, but I want to try it out so any advice on how to kite Coilfang Striders on Lady Vashj with Enhancement Shaman, please comment! 

Totems:

• Strength of Earth Totem
• Windfury Totem
• Poison Cleansing Totem
• Mana Spring Totem
• Searing Totem

I have to catch up on some promised chores both in-game and RL, so I’ll be back in a few days with another update.  Buenos Nachos and good night.

Al’ar Warmed Up

 

25 Warcrafters ordered a bucket of fried chicken from Al’ar last night, and experienced some grief but learned a lot.  Your friendly neighborhood enhancement shaman was there of course and has the following to report. 

My job? 

Al’ar Phase 1: Melee dps on adds (easy enough to do, paladin tanks w/hunter misdirects to gain the aggro to tank, then dps until an add is like 15%, then run away from the birds before they blow up).  Tanks working on Al’ar are busy and have to be well coordinated.  Ranged classes just go crazy with dps, no aggro problems on this phase.

Al’ar Phase 2: Melee dps on Al’ar while ranged works down the adds.  Apparently ranged and others were having a more difficult time with adds on Phase 2, because we didn’t get past it.  Keep clear of the outer borders of the room when a Meteor comes down because it will likely hit you hard if you do.  Keep out of the fires that appear on the ground.  We plan to work on it more tomorrow night.

Party:

• Rogue
• Rogue
• Warrior (protection)
• Warrior (protection)
• Shaman (me) 

Totems:

• Windfury Totem
• Fire Resistance Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

 My usual position:

High Astromancer Solarian, take II (and some takes on Hero Classes for WOTLK)

So I was talking with some Draenei in Ironforge the other day about how the Guild was progressing and they laughed at me and said “it’s nawt dat hard, missy, jus dps-a-go-go”. I slinked back to the Outlands to see what was shaking out & low and behold… Tempest Keep tonight. Praise Farseer Nobundo!

Now that I’ve mentioned ‘Farseer’, that got me to thinking about the Hero Class in Wrath of the Lich King expansion. You know the Death Knight will not be the only Hero Class, Blizzard always tries to ‘balance’ things and only 1 or 2 hero classes will just not be equal to all the hardcore altaholics out there, so I wanted to write down my thoughts on Wrath of the Lich King especially focusing on Hero Classes. Since there will be some siege warfare in the next expansion, I’ve tried to give some mass units control to the Hero Classes. Here’s a list of possible Hero Classes derived from the base class (ordered by the most likely to I-really-can’t-decide).

Class	Hero Class	Abilities
Paladin	Death Knight	Damage dealing tank caster, short range AoE
Priest	Prophet	Heals with near unlimited range, Mass Heal
Mage	Arch Mage	Mass Teleport, Mass Polymorph
Shaman	Farseer	Spirit Wolf pets *cough cc* (i.e. maybe a Banish like effect where the target lives in a spirit world for 30 seconds unless the Spirit Wolf is damaged, mass Bloodlust
Druid	Arch Druid	Starfall, Giant tree of massive damage w/zero movement
Rogue	Warden	Blink and short range Fanstrike AoE
Warlock	Necromancer	Death and Decay, Mass Demon Summon, Shadow Volley
Warrior	Champion	/shrug if I know, Mirror Image, Spellbreaker
Hunter	Ranger	Mass Tame Pets, Stealth, Track Target Until Death, Freezing Shot

My fear is that too many players will charge into Hero Classes and it will end up as a world wide DOTA.

Now back to raiding. The following week we are back in Tempest Keep, locking down the farmable stuff. Solarian wants to chat with us, but we only manage to excite the mage. I myself like this fight a lot, it’s not hard as long as the healers do their job, the Paladin tanks do theirs and people run away quickly when they get Wrath’d by the Astromancer. Piece of cake.

My party:

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

Totems:

• Windfury Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem
• Healing Stream Totem
• Fire Nova Totem (for Agents)
• Searing Totem
• Tremor Totem (for last stage of fight vs. Solarian the Voidwalker)
• Fire Elemental Totem (for Agents)

A very respectable #6 on total damage. My Dragonstrike is finally paying off.

Buffs gained in battle:

• Shamanistic Rage (Mana) 10,987
• Judgement of Wisdom (Mana) 7,770
• Water Shield (Mana) 610
• Drums of Restoration (Mana) 600
• Focused 35
• Flurry 25
• Elemental Strength 13
• Unleashed Rage 11
• Haste 6
• Lust for Battle 4
• Lightning Speed 4
• Leader of the Pack 4
• Drums of Battle 2
• Rejuvenation 1
• Lifebloom 1
• Heroism 1
• Greater Blessing of Salvation 1

Al’ar is next on the hit list.

Morogrim vs. Shaman

Not a whole lot of update here today. We went into SSC and wiped a number of times on the Tidewalker, Morogrim. This is a real test of healer perfection, and the simplest mistake at the wrong time can cause many deaths. After slogging it out with the giant for about an hour (groan!), he finally went down….and….not loot for me (as usual)!

Party:

• Rogue
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Druid (feral)
• Shaman (me)!

Totems:

• Windfury Totem
• Frost Resistance Totem
• Mana Spring/Healing Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

Can you believe that my dps was *exactly* the same as last week’s measurement?  And I thought I had upgraded my gear. Phhhht!

WoW Combatlog | WWS | Totems-r-not-us

 

I type in /combatlog, I update the log to wowwebstats.com, but I don’t see the correct totems for the correct owners. 

For example, if I lay down a Searing Totem for the entire Solarian fight, I will see not only my totem but the other two Shamans I raid with as well.  Most damage meters don’t provide the right data either, lumping the totem damage output into overall raid output.

Our dps classes in our guild spam damage meters all the time (gets annoying even if I am on top of the meters), so I decided to look deeply into WWS parsing and see what (if any) I can do to remedy the inaccurate shaman totem syndrome.

 

Unfortunately, the WoW combat log does not keep the names of the pets with their owners.  In WWS, you assign an “Actor” to a mob type (i.e. player, pet, mob, totem) and if you have a pet for tha actor, WWS will provide a space to assign the pet to an owner.  However, for shamans the totem names are the same (e.g. three shamans pop Searing Totem and therefore you will see three Searing Totems doing damage, but we cannot identify any one totem to a shaman).

I started keeping track of totems by having my fellow shamans throw down a lower rank totem when they are using the same totem type.  I plant a Searing Totem VII and my other shaman buddy throws down a Searing Totem VI.  If I scan the combatlog, all my totems with VII are assigned to me, all totems with VI are assigned to the other shaman in the raid. 

The end result of all this is…. I’m missing out on 8.9% of my total damage output in the WWS reports.  Based on this fact alone, I might be changing to SWStats because it uses the WoW API to identify pet owners correctly.  More testing in store for me.

Can you believe it?  After patch 2.3.2, we hurled into SSC and 6 Nether Vortex drops in less than 2 hours.