Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Or is it last year? I'm in so many different times and places right now... 

I have a minor Bronze Dragonflight obsession. It's growing - especially for Chromie. She intrigues me and one of these days I'd like to dedicate something a bit longer to her. For now, a quick doodle!

10 v. 25

Guild attendance has been lacking a bit these past few weeks. I'd blame Skyrim, but it hasn't been out quite long enough to get blamed for everything. Either way it means our 25m heroics have had to drop to 10m. Now that I have perspective on both sides, I would like to add my two-cents to the 10 v. 25 debate:

They're both harder and easier.

Here, I'll break it down by boss.

1. Shannox: 10m wins this one, but only barely. Heroic Shannox is pretty easy on both, but I find 25m slightly easier because you have more people for Rageface to eat. This makes the DPS race easier.
2. Beth'tilac: Again, 10m is harder. Less people handling the adds. Someone misses the spiderlings on 25, you just throw another body at them. 10m not so much. 
3. Rhyolith: Tie. He just sucks. The end. 
4. Alysrazor: 25m, but only because the caster adds shoot more often and take longer to go down. 
5. Baelroc: 25man is harder. So. Much. Harder. The whole "25man raids are more difficult because it's like herding casts" argument defines this fight. There are so many reasons 25m makes me want to slit my wrists, while 10m took us 20 minutes and bam! the boss we had been working on for a month is down.
• Two shards instead of one. That means more people with tormented and one of the shards is in ranged. And it loves healers. 
• Decimation attacks come way, way faster in 25m. While you have more healers, they're still split over 2 shards and the tanks. The quicker attack time means you can't recover as quickly if a healer gets tormented.
• 25 people running around like chickens with their head cut off. 10m has SO MUCH ROOM. 25m means someone sneezes and half the raid has tormented. Or the guys with Countdown have to run through people because there's not enough time to go on the outside of 23 people. 
• Sure, if we were a perfect guild with perfect reaction times, 25m would be no harder. But we are not, so 10m seemed like normal by the time we tried it. 
6. Staghelm: Tie? I think 10m is harder in normal because you have less cooldowns to eat cleaves with. In heroic you're not taking that many cleaves anyway. I guess 25m wins slightly because you have 14 more people that want to blow you up with their seeds. It doesn't matter how far away you stand. They will find you. 
7. Ragnaros: Hah. Right. Like we've killed him on heroic. Pffft.

Mind you this is just my experience, so take it with a grain of salt, but overall I'd say 25mans are easier in fights with lots of adds, while 10mans are easier in fights with very specific mechanics. Not rocket science, I know.

What's that? Mist of Pandaria talents? Lalalala I can't hear you. I refuse to make judgments until it's way, way closer to the actual expansion. Or, since I sold my soul to Blizzard for  Diablo 3, I withhold judgment until I get my MoP beta invite.

Countdown (to Insanity)

I didn't post anything on the Firelands nerfs when they came out because it really seemed like a non-issue to me. My group was only 2/7 in heroics at the time, and  getting Lord I-Can't-Step-On-Volcanoes seemed more luck than anything else. We were about to hit a wall.

Then nerfs came  and we got up to 5/7 in one week. Hint they were too easy? Maybe. Alysrazor, Domo, and Beth gave us a bit of a hard time; but, we adjusted our strategy, tried again, and got them a couple times later. Sure they'd been 'dumbed down,' but it was nice to be able to see the fights and make progress on them.

Enter Heroic Baelroc. 22 attempts on him tonight. The level of confusion in our raid may have killed some of us. Thank goodness none of us were playing in the same room. Bodily harm could have resulted after that one melee dragged tormented through all of us. Or the healer ran into melee, got tormented, then ran back out. Or countdown targeted both channelers, as they stared helplessly at each other, unmoving.

I was frustrated at first, but I know we'll get him eventually. The main point of this little post? THANK YOU BLIZZ FOR NERFS! If this is what all of the fights would have been like pre-nerf, I'm pretty sure I would have snapped and murdered my guild. You'd see it in the morning news,"girl loses it, stabs guildies, screaming 'tormented take the crystal! NO THE OTHER CRYSTAL!!' ".

But she's 3 feet in front of me!

Everytime Beth'tilac is about to do Smoldering Devestation, this part of Mulan is all I can hear in my head:

Dragonwrath!

Congratulations Ale! I expect you to carry us through every raid now. I hope my many, many deaths were worth this shiny staff.

I think my favorite part were the people who logged on after the beginning of the event. "Why is there a dragon?" "What's going on?" And, my personal favorite, "DPS LFG for whatever that thing in the sky is!"

Finally!

Ragnaros finally down! My guild has had him for a few weeks, but I managed to miss the first two times we got him and 10man, and we've been training everyone to get him in 25man, so I haven't actually been in on a Rag kill until now. ...and I just realized I didn't take a screenshot of it. Ffffff.

Oh well. That means this weekend hopefully I'll get the strat for Rag up.

Ragnaros and No Shamans

Paragon downed Heroic Ragnaros without any shamans and whether or not it really matters, it got people talking. As all of the hubaloo seemed to be about why they didn't take a *resto* shaman, I don't really feel I have anything constructive to add. I think Jadiera of Totem Forest covered it very well.

Nevertheless...it got me thinking. My guild is working on regular Ragnaros right now. At first I kind of thought, "well no wonder there aren't any shamans, we can't add much to this fight." We don't have any fall mitigation to take magma traps with. We only have slows, not stuns, which don't work on the transition adds. Our AOE is dismal and won't work well on the phase 2 adds. All we do is normal damage.

Then I realized two things. 1) I needed to stop whining. 2) We have plenty of abilities to help.

Sure I can't stun the adds during the transitions, but  I can drop magma totem near his hammer. It's saved my butt a couple times damaging the adds just enough to slow them while I was over dpsing another. During phase 2, ghost wolf is amazing. I can switch sides faster than almost anyone and drop my totems, signaling to others where to stack.

This isn't supposed to be a guide on "how-to" Ragnaros (I'll save that for when I actually down him), but it reminds me to keep things in perspective. Just because one group decided shamans won't work for them doesn't mean you should dismiss what your class can do. Sure it may not be the most optimal - where optimal means most streamlined - but it can work, and work well. Especially if the player behind the shaman thinks outside the box and finds those slightly wonky but just as useful solutions.

On an almost entirely unrelated note, one of my friends mentioned this the other night and now I cannot forget it. Ragnaros, I will never look at you the same again.

The longer you stare...the more it makes sense...

A Plea (for Pants)

I hate robes.

I mean really, really hate them. My favorite tier set for Shamans is tier 5. Why? It has pants. Glorious, glorious pants. I didn't even play WoW until Wrath and I still like tier 5 the best. My entire playable shaman existence has revolved around robes. Bah.

Shaman Tiers 1 - 12 (Note the distinct lack of PANTS)

I realize this is a contentious issue. My elemental and restoration brethren might feel that pants are beneath them.  They are world-class casters and healers, they deserve to wear the robes of their station. I get that.

I, however, am down in the trenches. With the paladins, rouges and the warriors and the bears and the kitties (who might be wearing robes, but you'd never know).We're moving about, running around, whacking big things with our bodies or sharp things attached to our bodies. How - I ask you - how can I effectively maneuver around Shannox's traps or dexterity shamble over Beth'tilac's web, if I am wearing a DRESS?!

Is that why my expertise rating has to be so high? It's not to learn how to hold an axe, it's to learn how to move around without tripping on the hem of my skirt.

I'd say ret paladins understand me, but it would be a lie. You guys got pants all the way until Tier 10. Tier 12 also gives you a robe, but that's 2 out of 12. My sympathy is slight.

Is it a coincidence that the best-in-slot legs for enhance shamans in 4.1 were pants? I think not! I once volunteered to sit out on a heroic Mamgaw run. "Sure, let some others in so they can get experience, we've got him on farm status," I said. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. The pants dropped. My beautiful beautiful pants. I could see them but I could not equip them, as my guildies reminded me over and over gleefully linking them in chat. They have never dropped again since.

Please Blizz, alleviate my pain (caused somewhat by constantly tripping over my robes and flat onto my face) and give enhancement shamans pants. 

Looking more closely I realize Tiers 1, 6, 8, and 12 also have pants. The only problem? They're hidden by robes. So it's as if there are no pants.

On UIs

I decided a few nights ago to tackle my UI. I had the required addons (DBM, recount. omen) but it was a pretty messy set up. Sure nothing was floating in the middle of the screen - but it wasn't sleek and streamlined like the super-glossy, super-organized UIs I've seen.

So I spent a few hours downloading more addons, making everything aligned to the bottom, color-coordinate, and all. After I was finished I stared at my new UI and then realized, I had no idea where anything was. The next day I ran a dungeon and I swear my dps was a couple thousand lower just because I didn't have visual confirmation I was pressing the right buttons.

Shadowed Unit Frames was gorgeous, but  I'm so used to seeing the interrupt bar on the Blizzard UI that I kept missing it on SUF (and yes, I remembered to turn it on). I've been playing with my messy set up for so long I think I'm doomed to use it forever. On newer alts I've taken to making my UI pretty first thing,  so I'm used to where everything is. But on Kaezhol, well, at least it's got an uh...eclectic charm? Maybe? 

Back to chaos it was. I scrapped half the addons I had added and decided my UI was ugly and proud of it. At least I know where stuff is again, that's what matters right? I did keep Omni CC and set up some PowerAura timers though - it really helps me to know when I can fit an earth shock in there and squeeze out just an extra bit of dps.

Up, up, and oh this is so a glitch

While wiping (one of the many times) on Alysrazor the other night, I decided that I wanted to see what it was like to fly. So as the tanks died around me I grabbed three feathers and shot up into the sky. Then I had an even better idea. Could I make it across the gorge and to Ragnaros' side?

The answer is YES - just remember you only have 20 seconds. You can fly from Alysrazor's domain straight across and land on the other side with a few seconds to spare. Staghelm is not there though and Ragnaros is blocked via a very angry fire elemental and a very fire-filled bridge. also, Alysrazor won't reset till you die, so you'll leave your guild wondering very loudly and angrily why the @!#%$ boss is still !#$@)$ alive. Totally worth it though. I'm sure it'll get fixed eventually as it would be possible to get three people to fly over, lock summon the rest of the raid, and possibly unlock Ragnaros. Not sure if the fire barrier remains after that big add goes down if Staghelm is still up - I wasn't exactly in a position to solo it.

Also, while we're on the topic of Alysrazor, does anyone else find the fire vortex portion of the fight zen-like? It's just follow vortex, left 180, follow vortex, left, follow, left, follow, left...bam! You can now see the matrix!

Surviving with Stoneclaw

As they say, "a dead dps does no dps." With Firelands out it's back to progression and learning new fights, so I thought I'd provide some tips on how to track our "lesser" damage cooldown. Your healers will thank you.

I use glyphed stoneclaw as my second damage reduction spell after Shamanistic Rage (sometimes in conjunction with). I use it for attacks like Beth'tilac's Ember Flare, Staghelm's Flame Scythe, or if I need to take a few more stacks of Torment during the Baleroc encounter.

It absorbs roughly 14% of my unbuffed health. Casting it will replace SoE totem and so it is a dps loss. At the cost of 2 GCD's you can drop Stoneclaw, get the shield buff, then reapply SoE.

Macro to cast Stoneclaw then reapply SOE:
Originally by gojant in the For your Health! thread on EJ.

/castsequence reset=15 Stoneclaw Totem, Strength of Earth Totem

Cast once to put down Stoneclaw and again to reapply SoE. Stoneclaw's shield buff will remain on you, even if the totem has been recalled, for 15 seconds or until used up.

Because I like to visually see how long the absorb lasts, I have Power Auras set up. I've also provided the Need to Know equivalent (though without the cooldown timer). 

Power Auras to show Stoneclaw shield up
Version:4.21; b:0.1137; g:0.9765; icon:Ability_Warrior_DefensiveStance; buffname:Stoneclaw Totem; r:0; texture:21; alpha:1; mine:true

Text indicator to show when stoneclaw totem is usable again (with timer)
Version:4.21; b:0.2078; icon:Spell_Nature_StoneClawTotem; buffname:Stoneclaw Totem; r:0; x:260; bufftype:15; texture:148; aurastext:Stoneclaw!; textaura:true; size:1.87; y:84; timer.enabled:true; timer.y:105; timer.x:242

(without)
Version:4.21; b:0.2078; icon:Spell_Nature_StoneClawTotem; buffname:Stoneclaw Totem; r:0; x:260; bufftype:15; texture:148; aurastext:Stoneclaw!; textaura:true; size:1.87; y:84

Need to Know:
Buff = Stoneclaw Totem
Bar type = Buff
Buff settings = Only show if cast by self
Time Format = Fractional Seconds

It's a Trap!!

H. Magmaw and H. Omnitron still on their way. I've been a wee bit distracted by 4.2 - my guild chose to start with 25m Shannox. All I can say is, if/when DBM updates to announces traps, please oh please let them use Admiral Ackbar's famous line. Oh please.

Rebellious Elementals

Here's a quick question: if Deathwing tore Azeroth asunder and sent all the elemental planes into disarray/turned them against us players...why don't shamans have to deal with the backlash of it in their personal usage of the elements?

I know there are a few quests that have the player in general calm the elements or put unruly ones down, but I kind of wish there was something specific for shaman's that said "oh crap! Your fire elemental has gone rogue, you must get him back, prove to him he should be fighting for not against you!" (Of course, considering the amount of times my fire elemental has gone to stand in the corner instead of fighting mobs like he was supposed to, I might welcome his abandonment.)

What I'm suggesting kind of sounds like the return of class-specific quests, and it seems more like Cataclysm has moved away from those. Maybe that's a shame...I really think with how much the elements are going cuckoo in this expac we shammy players should feel some of the repercussions of relying on the elements. Even if it's just in a quick quest.

Heroic Chimaeron up next. Probably H.Magmaw in the same post since Chimaeron changes so little from the normal fight.

Hello

As a recent college grad (yet to be gainfully employed), I find myself with some spare time. Since I often find myself thinking about shaman related things in my head, I figured why not start a blog about shaman related things? At least this way I can pretend I'm talking to an audience instead of just myself. Keyword: pretend.
But wait! Do I actually know anything about the wonderful class that is enhancement shaman? Sort of. I raid every week with a progression guild. Sure we're only 6/13, but I think that's doing rather well all things considered. I keep up with Elitist Jerks postings, am an avid WoW Insider reader, but - more importantly - I really really love playing my shaman. She is my main and I intend for her to always be my main. I have stood by her through nerfs and buffs, and even though enhancement shaman may be at a weird place for a patch or two, I'll keep on swinging with her.

So - what will this blog be? I intend for it to be sort of a "lazy raider's" guide to enhancement shaman. There are already good guides out there for raiding tier 11 normals as an enhance shammy (thinking WoW Insider in particular), so I plan to start with little shaman-orientated strats for heroic raids. These guides are based on my personal experience, and may not be the best way to do things, but they're a way that's worked for me and I'd like to share them with others. They come with a bit of fun too, I think. We'll see...

Heroic Halfus up later tonight.

Cheers!