the Iron Man run | Zul’Aman and Black Temple to Bloodboil

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?

Dragonstriked! Again! | all one-handed epic weaponsmithing weapons will be non-unique as of 2.4.2

[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.

Supremus | Shade of Akama | Teron Gorefiend

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.

 

Kael’thas Sunstrider | Woes of Phase 1 through 3

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.

Twisting Totems

As we fumbled around with Al’ar for a day or so, we got our act together for another lead up to Kael’thas Sunstrider. We’re working on him now, and boy-o-boy is that phase 3 a tough one. Here’s a review of my battle with Al’ar.
Group:

• Warrior (protection)
• Druid (feral)
• Rogue
• Rogue
• Shaman

Totems:

• Windfury & Grace of Air Totems
• Mana Spring Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem

I also dropped Wrath of Air for the beginning of the fight so I could hurl better bolts of lightning at Al’ar. Before the Embers of Al’ar adds start coming, I just try to range damage the boss for a few moments before the melee hilarity begins. When the adds get to about 30% health, I run away from them and do more range lightning bolts so I don’t get punted from the death of the Embers by standing close to the adds.

This Al’ar battle I decided to use both Windfury & Grace of Air totems to show what happens when you twist totems. It’s easy and as long as you have plenty of mana regeneration (through Shamanistic Rage or Water Shield or both), it can be done during a long 10 minute fight. I do twist totems from time to time, but I wanted to record this fight and show you how it worked.

How to twist totems?

• Step 1: macro this and click it once at the beginning of the fight.

/castsequence reset=8 [combat] Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem

• Step 2: wait for a pulse so all the weapons of your party members get the weapon imbue (Windfury 5).
• Step 3: macro again to drop Grace of Air
• Step 4: count to 8 (repeat w/Step 1)

If you have Deadly Boss Mods addon, there is a nice timer to remind you to re-apply the Twist.

/castsequence reset=8 Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem
/dbm timer 00:08 Twist 

I managed to get 700 dps and ranked 8th in damage output. I need to find out what I can improve for next time.  So I read the stats report.

My summary of the fight stats below:

Post combat analysis key indicators:

• White damage: 39%
• White damage crit: 38%
• Windfury: 29%
• Windfury crit: 37%
• White Damage Miss rate: 22.7%

Overall, my output was mediocre and now I see that my miss rate was well above what I would normally like: 22.7% is a lot of misses. My +hit was a little over 100, so I can bump that up to +190 for the next round with Al’ar. Also, it seems my crit% is good, but I need more Attack Power. I hover around 2000 attack power, but I’ll need to gain more AP and less crit as we move into Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.

And thanks to Ashuna for this clarification on my Miss %. There were some parried attacks from Al’ar, mostly because the Flame Patches were just behind the big bird, so I could only melee from the front area near his beak.  I was forced to fight this way until either the Flame Patches subsided or the tank re-positioned Al’ar to move so melee could attack from behind the tail-feathers.

See this pic below for the Overall miss % | Block % | Parry % | Dodge % rates.

Overall miss: 22.7%
Miss: 12%
Block: 0 %
Parry: 4%
Dodge: 5%

Judgement of Wisdom helped me get mana back so I could keep twisting totems for Windfury and Grace of Air.   Ok.  Fair enough, JoW 814 mana ain’t all that much, but it’s better than nothing.  Shamanistic Rage gave back the most w/ 9,920 mana, Mana Spring Totem next with 4,380 mana.

Totem Twisting & Buffs Summary

Unfortunately, one rogue in my group died a bit early on (49% presence during fight). Warriors just love Windfury. See the warrior here got heaps of extra Windfury attacks: 29! The feral druid only gained additional Agility and Unleashed Rage, but nothing from Windfury Totem.

All group members details in pic below:

Next up: more Kael’thas attempts. We are working on perfecting each phase, so it may take another week or two to get it right.

Vashj swims w/the fishes

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

SSC & Zul’Aman

 

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.

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.