Reign of The Dead: An Elemental Shaman’s New Best Friend

Late during TBC, I managed to win The Lightning Capacitor on a Karazhan badge farm run. I was pleasantly surprised at the dps increase it gave me, but my trinkets before it (at that time) were total crap, since they were primarily resto trinkets. TLC lasted me for a while into Wrath while leveling.

Last night, I was the recipient of Reign of The Dead, which is the best in slot trinket for DPS casters. 150 spell power from a trinket slot? Yes, please. But now, that proc…

***INCOMING NOOB THEORYCRAFT/MATH***

The goal with this math is to find an estimate of the DPS the proc from the trinket provides. The average damage from the proc comes out to be 1882. 2023 – 1741 = 282; 282 / 2 = 141. 1741 + 141 = 1882.

There is a minimum of 2 seconds in between the charges for the proc, and since it requires 3 charges, it’s a minimum of 6 seconds in between procs; therefore, you have a maximum of 10 procs per minute. 1882 * 10 = 18820; 18820 / 60 = 313.6, with the 6 repeating, so round up to 314. That’s a minimum of 314 dps from the proc effect. This is assuming you get 10 procs per minute, so the 314 number is somewhat a “best case scenario” assumption. More or less, it’s a ~300 dps effect…or is it?

The proc from the trinket can crit, and it is based off of your spell crit. Raid buffed, my lightning spells hover around 60% crit; couple that with Lava Bursts critting every ~10 seconds (factoring in LB cast time overlap, latency, etc.) and it’s safe to say I’m holding a consistent 50% spell crit rate in raids. So let’s say 5 of those possible 10 procs from the trinket crit: 1882 * 2 = 3764; 3764 * 5 = 18820. 1882 * 5 = 9410; 18820 + 9410 = 28230. 28230 / 60 = 470.5.

So in a “pretty good case” scenario, this trinket’s effect is worth 470 dps. In a not so good case, it may be closer to 400 dps, which is a good napkin math number to provide folks when they ask how much we would benefit from this thing. The proc coming in at 500 dps isn’t out of the question, either. I have also found anecdotal evidence that any effects that modify spell crit damage (such as our Elemental Fury) affect the proc, also…this includes the Storm Cloud buff from the Hodir fight. A comment on Wowhead states the proc from the trinket crit for 10k due to Storm Power…heheh, that’s nuts.

What I’m looking to do now is to determine what my second trinket should be. I have Illustration of The Dragon Soul and Scale of Fates available. I’m sticking with the Scale because the on-use combined with a haste pot makes for a mini-self-Bloodlust for 15 seconds, which has proved to be extremely valuable for burst in ToGC 25 (sup Nether Portals and Volcanoes).

Now if only I could manage to get the heroic version to pair with the regular version…muahaha! Not going to happen, but the idea of having both is lol-ertastic.

Sunwell Radiance, Take 2 – Chill of The Throne

Now for a topic that should be out of water on a blog mostly dealing with shaman, but it is a hot topic, and my history being a former MT compels me:

Yesterday (maybe the day before?), it was announced that Icecrown Citadel would feature a buff to mobs called Chill of The Throne, which will basically mean tanks will have 20% less dodge than what their character sheets currently show. This is Blizzard’s “solution” to the current problem arising since ToC: Tank avoidance. My paladin, who is nowhere near best in slot gear, can reach 50% combined dodge and parry in raids; I would not be surprised if top tier tanks were capable of approacing 60%. Current dungeon design basically makes it necessary for Blizzard to have bosses hitting for truckloads of damage when they do connect with an attack, since so many of said attacks are being completely avoided.

My initial reaction to this announcement, aside from “Welcome back, Sunwell Radiance!” was regarding feral tanks. We have a bear tank, and a fine one at that. Dodge is their primary avoidance stat, since they do not have parry, nor can they block (although block is mitigation). The only thing I can think of is that bears feature dodge to the degree that the other tanks have dodge and parry combined; ie, a well-geared bear would be around ~50% dodge. I am not an expert in the field of feral (although I will be learning since I have my druid right at 70 now), so I can only hope my guess regarding their dodge compared to dodge + parry for the other tanks is reasonable.

Another point, brought up by our DKs: Rune Strike. As a foreword, I know very, VERY little about DK mechanics. RS is the primary threat generating attack by DK tanks, supposedly, and that it requires them to dodge an attack in order to be able to use it. It’s basically their version of a warrior’s Revenge ability. Warriors have shield slam, shockwave, and devastate, so even with reduced revenge opportunities, warriors should be okay. Still, though, threat generation by these two classes could be reduced, but from my experience, tank threat is never a problem in fights where there are no “storm cloud”-esque gimmicks.

Something else of consideration: Block tanks. The general idea behind CoTT is to smooth out damage on tanks. Instead of there being giganto-humongous hits weaved in between dodges and parries, tanks will get hit more, but for less damage per hit. In theory, this will help out with healing, and make healing more dynamic, I suppose, since you won’t have to sit their and spam your biggest heals in the event a tank takes 30k worth of a punch to the face. What form of mitigation works great against fast, lighter-hitting mobs, though? You guessed, it: Block. Warrior and paladin tanks are capable of easily being over 3k block value in raid settings, so I wonder how a balance will be achieved. I would not be surprised to see most guilds veer towards having warriors and paladins being their main tanks.

Yesterday, Ghostcrawler went on a posting spree in defense of CoTT, and at the same time acknowledges that they, the developers, brought this upon themselves, and in turn the player base. He posts an response to the most obvious “solution” that players have thought up: Itemization, or how it’s “too good”.

If we had avoided avoidance on tank gear, then every piece of tank gear would have hit and expertise (and maybe crit, haste and armor pen). Stamina and armor are static amounts, and if they were not, then those pieces immediately become the only pieces players would pay attention to.

Armor hasn’t been an entirely static amount. Cases in point include the Saronite Plated Legguards and the upcoming craftable tank legs from the Ashen Verdict. Ok, so they are both leg pieces, but they go to show that there are still pieces of armor that feature more armor than equal-ilvl counterparts. Defensive gear could features loads of expertise, if they wanted to go that route. The hard cap for expertise is somewhere around 60 for bosses, if memory serves me correctly. Hit could also be featured; I’ve noticed a dearth in hit on gear from ToC, for my paladin’s hit has plummeted from hit cap by over 100 points. In it’s place, my avoidance has skyrocketed by a good 4-5%.

I definitely agree with GC that this issue is mainly an item level problem. I was honestly flabbergasted when the ToC loot tables were being discovered. All the gear we had worked on acquiring over the months from Ulduar would be totally obsolete by the time we’ve farmed ToC. Yes, this is a nature of the beast that is a MMO, but the piece-by-piece stat upgrades going from Ulduar to ToC gear was a bit much. Hell, to be honest, I figured ToC gear was going to be sidegrades to Ulduar loot: Items that would fill in “holes” in the loot table for some classes (such as a non-hard mode mail bracer that elemental shaman would use). This would’ve left Tier 9 to come out with ICC, instead of it now being T10.

With the defense stat out of the equation come Cataclysm, tank avoidance should stabilize to a degree that gives Blizzard developers some more leeway with how they design boss encounters, instead of “omg make it hit for 100k unmitigated so that when it hit it actually does damage lolol”. Unlike many forum-goers, I’m not blood-boiling angry at Blizzard for the introduction of CoTT; I fully understand the logic behind it. I am also glad that they acknowledge that it is their own fault they had to tack it on. They made their bed, and now they must sleep in it. Unfortunately for the player base, those that enjoy the game and want to carry on into ICC and beyond, they must lock the handcuffs on the bedpost around their wrists and sleep in that same bed.

Hooray, craftable Elemental mail!

PTR shows 2 new Leatherworking patterns available that are itemized to where both elemental and resto shaman will both be happy to pick them up:

Earthsoul Boots

Lightning-Infused Leggings

Until now, the only craftable gear decently itemized for elemental was the ilvl 200 boots and chest, along with ilvl 200 leather legs. Ulduar and ToC patterns were items with MP5, which is great for resto but a waste of item budget for elemental (although this isn’t to say the crafted items with MP5 aren’t an upgrade; see the comment posted here).

Perhaps this week we will finally see the artwork for our Tier 10? Hmm…

Gear Score, WoW’s Catch 22: A Fail Concept

Alright, so I’m borrowing an idea from this blog entry by my guildie, Kitts. I intended on simply responding via comment, but then my brain started rowing through the gears, and what would be a comment will instead go here.

Over the past month or so, notably with the release of 3.2 and ToC, I’ve noticed this new trend of “gear score”. Initially, I never thought much of it. But over time, it has become more and more prevalent with pugs and in the LFG system. The other trend is that you must link the achievement for having completed said instance/raid already. While in Wintergrasp after a victory, a discussion formed in general chat when someone was requesting a 4400 or 4500 gear score in order to do 10 man VoA. For reference, I asked a friend of mine that has this gear score mod to provide me with my gear score, which is 4660 or somewhere around that. I’m in 5/5 T9, 2 of the 5 being ilvl 245; a large majority of my off set items are ilvl 245 also. Therefore, people were wanting folks that are pretty much in ToC gear in order to run VoA, which can easily be done with folks that are in Naxx/T7 level gear. The newest boss, Koralon, would be a PITA with a T7 tank, but T8ish tanks are easily available now…hell, my paladin alt could MT for most guilds.

Part of my last sentence leads to my next point: Alts. An alt will not have a full set of badge gear once they ding 80, so they will rarely meet these outlandish gear score requirements for things such as…Naxx? Yes, there have been people forming Naxx pugs with gear score requirements! 10 man Naxx requires no more than some crafted epics/blues along with some heroic drops as far as gear goes, yet I’ve seen pugs insisting that you have ilvl 226 gear in order to go. Give me a fucking break. Even better: This weekend, a guildie of mine (on his rogue alt) was kicked from a heroic group because of his gear score. That’s right, he was KICKED FROM A FUCKING HEROIC GROUP BECAUSE OF GEAR SCORE. Seriously, people? Cmon.

Back to that chat in Wintergrasp over the gear score requirement for VoA; another group forming was requesting the achievement to be linked rather than a gear score. An argument ensued over which method was the best for weeding out fail.

Person A: Any scrub can be carried through and get the achievement.
Person B: Well, any scrub can be carried through to gear and gear score.

Upon seeing this, I seized the opportunity:

Me: “Any scrub can be carried”
Me: There is a pattern here.

Afterwards, the argument ceased, and I received some forms of applause via general chat for the point I made.

With the upcoming emblem change in 3.3, I can only see this gear score dilemma becoming worse and worse. Folks will be able to faceroll their way through heroics en route to tier 9 gear along with other assorted ilvl 245 items. Blizzard’s new mantra of having every raid accessible to everyone in some form looks like a double-edged sword; I can see pugs requesting gear scores equivalent to what I have in order to run Ulduar 10 or some other easy mode raid, like ToC 10.

I may as well get prepared to get denied/kicked from groups on my upcoming druid because he won’t have a gear score on par with my main as soon as he hits 80. Fortunately, I’m in a guild full of solid players (regardless of whether they are on their main or an alt) and will be happy to take me along for any heroics and even some raids. With the ridiculous requirements PUGs are suddenly having, being in a solid guild with people you know and trust (and who know and trust you in return) is critical.

Now, as much as I’m ragging the whole gear score concept, it CAN be used logically. For instance, I’m forming a pug, and 4 of us are at, say, 4200. I get the last person, and they are at 3950. Do I immediately boot them? Of course not. I exam their gear and try to get an idea of WHY it’s lower. I make this statement based on the idea I actually have a gear score mod running, which I don’t and won’t. Person with said 3950 score could be having piss poor luck with drops, or they recently hit 80. Now, say this person was a warlock, and they were gemming for agility and strength…GTFO.

I declare the concept of gear score to be a microcosm of the old catch 22 from back in Vanilla; in order to raid, you have to get the gear, but to get the gear, you had to raid. Nowadays, you have to get the gear to get a decent gear score, but you need a decent gear score to run a raid that will drop gear. Hell, apparently you can substitute the word heroic for raid, based off what happened to my guildie this past weekend. Heroics have been on farm ever since Wrath was a week old, and that was using crafted items and quest blues. Why someone would need more than that to run them now is beyond retarded.

To paraphrase Kitts, who summed it up best: If people would actually use their brain and think while playing, life would be a lot easier and better. Apparently, that’s asking a lot of the general WoW population.

Disclaimer: Last sentence is coated in sarcasm. Not all WoW players are morons.

Observations as of late

Things haven’t been terribly rosy in our little raiding corner of the world. Attendance over the past week or so has been dismal, to put it nicely, but for the most part we knew of the abscences. I’m cool with that. Some folks have gone AWOL on us, and when you’re already scraping to fill raid spots…not cool. Fortunately, a recent injection of 4-5 new members should help to alleviate the problem of 18-20 people online come raid time.

Initially, I was a fan of the new “raid”, Trial of the Crusader. But now, less than a month and a half since it was fully available, I have to say it’s one of the poorest major content releases in WoW. I know, I know…how could I possibly find a loot pinata such as ToC to be a piss poor raid? Easy. You find yourself running upwards of 4 times a week. A better design for ToC would’ve been for it to be 1 lockout, and before each fight begins, there could be a “switch” to set it to hard mode or not. Of course, this wouldn’t work with the current implementation since Blizz has decided to reward guilds/raids on how few wipes they incur (or as we found a few weeks ago, there added a new “Immortal” achievement…seriously Blizz, cmon). I, for one, would like to work more on heroic ToC, but as a guild there are still a LOT of upgrades people could use from regular ToC 25.

There there’s Trophies. I absolutely HATE the trophy drop concept. It wouldn’t be such a PITA if the badge cost for every item didn’t go up by 50% since you have to run ToC 25 just to get the trophies. Of course, each boss only drops 1. We’ve had ToC 25 on farm ever since it came out, and we are still a ways away from having everyone in at least 4 piece T9 245. Being somewhat selfless, I went ahead and filled out the rest of my T9 with the 232 pieces; despite the almost nonexistant spell power gain, I gained ~70 haste, and the T9 4 piece is sex. Now I can upgrade my pvp gear with the leftover badges at this point…heh.

On badges/emblems…I have mixed feelings about the emblem drop change coming in 3.3, where bosses/fights that drop emblems of conquest will then drop emblems of triumph. For folks with alt-itis like moi, being able to kit out alts in full T9 and/or Furious Gladiator gear is hot. On the other hand…we get to farm heroics…AGAIN…hooray! I honestly miss the days of early Wrath when the heroics were actually a reasonable challenge. Once everyone farmed Naxx for a month, though, heroics became a joke, and they’ve been a joke ever since. The hard mode “switch” concept I mentioned for ToC would be interesting to see in some heroics, although at this point I think it would be really cheesy to add that in as “extra content”.

I think it speaks volumes that when we run short of folks to run 25 mans, the overwhelming response from our guild leans toward running Ulduar 10 for hard modes and rusted proto drakes. It’s not about loot with Ulduar, although I believe most folks want in on that for the aforementioned drakes. I also think it’s due to Uld being a breath of fresh air compared to ToC, even though it’s been out for months now. Ulduar is IMO one of the best raid instances Blizzard has sent our way. There trash, but not a lot of it (anyone whining about Freya’s room needs to go back to AQ or MC…or hell, any vanilla raid). There are plenty of boss fights. Hard mode versions of most fight tend to change the dynamics of each fight enough to where it’s the same, yet different; ToC heroics mostly boil down to LOL I HIT HARDER N HAV MOAR HP LOL.

ToC could’ve been tuned for guilds as a extra raid to run parallel along with Ulduar, rather than a higher tier raid. It would make more sense that way so that you wouldn’t have folks loading up on 245 gear only to go back to Uld and roflstomp most all of the hard modes there. Not only that, but then they could have the faction-oriented T9 sets as part of the Icecrown Citadel raid, since there’s going to be a heated battle between the two factions there.

Hopefully Icecrown Citadel will blow our proverbial socks off. I will be happy to tackle a real raid as progression content once again.

Picking My Brain = ???

So I’ve observed what search results have turned up my page and figure it’s about time I toss out my ideas on elemental, how it works, etc.:

Spec: Mine is odd because I’m a whore for Improved Ghost Wolf. I also have Elemental Warding maxed out to help reduce incoming raid damage; I honestly believe that talent has saved my hide a couple of times while working on Firefighter. With 3.3, I will have to shift 2 points into Improved Fire Nova when the patch goes live, which may mean I have to lose my beloved insta-cast GW. I’m currently waiting to see if there will be any other changes made before I finalize a spec.

Gear/gemming: 4 piece T9 is money. Just picked up the rest of my T9 last night and the 4 piece is VERY noticable. Consistent 11-12k LvB crits are delicious. Reach hit cap first (289 for raids if you have a shadow priest or boomkin; 367 otherwise), then stack spell power, haste, then crit in that order. Gemming is pretty easy; Chaotic Skyflare for meta, which will require 2 Glowing Dreadstones in your gear. Put those 2 in items you can get a spell power socket bonus from, preferrably a bonus of 7 or more spell power. For the rest of your blue sockets, as well as all red sockets, stack Runed Cardinal Rubies, and if you have yellow socket items that give a bonus aside from spell power, toss rubies in those, too. If the yellows do grant spell power, you can toss Reckless Ametrines in them.

Glyphs: Note to self, replace ToW glyph with Lava. Lightning Bolt is a given (4% more damage on your most used spell), and with the recent changes, Flame Shock still remains as a glyph, unless you still have 2 piece Tier 8, in which you won’t need the FS glyph. In that case, you can drop FS for Lava.

Tier 10 set bonus initial preview

Tier 10 set bonus info has been datamined as of the most recent PTR build, and here’s what was dug up for elemental:

2 piece – Lightning Bolt reduces the cooldown of Elemental Mastery by 1 second.

4 piece – Reduces cooldown on Lava Burst by 15 seconds.

The 2 piece is interesting. I suspect that each LB cast reduces the CD by 1 second, which based on my napkin math would more or less give us a 2 minute CD on EM (by default it is 3). For simplicity’s sake, I don’t see why they don’t code it to just reduce EM’s CD to 2 mins. I suppose leaving it as is gives the bonus a form of scalability.

As for the 4 piece…I’m safely assuming that as it is, that’s a typo. 15 second cooldown reduction on a spell that has an 8 second cooldown? I think they misplaced a decimal point there (1.5 second cd reduction). Shame that we wouldn’t be able to fit in this 4 piece with 4 piece T9…that would be baller, heh. Of course, I make that statement under the assumption T10 won’t be an 8 piece set…or will it? I suppose I can dream.

More later. Work beckons…argh!

Late to the party, but hey, it’s done!

After dicking around with it on and off for the past 3 months, our guild finally completed Firefighter on 10 man. Had we went weeks at a time without attempting this thing, we’d probably pulled it off right before 3.2 came out, which would’ve made it feel a bit more…legit. It feels “dirty” getting this done for the first time while running around with bits and pieces of ilvl 245 gear.

I suppose the optimistic way of looking at it is that there are many guilds that even with 245 gear (or higher) will not be able to complete this achievement. Poor argument, though, in my eyes, for that’s akin to saying that with level 80 gear and characters, folks can’t complete AQ40. Perhaps that’s a stretch since we’re taking into account a difference in character level along with gear level. Nonetheless, despite my apparent bitterness, I’m actually very happy because the biggest hurdle between me and a rusted proto-drake is now out of the way; in fact, all that’s left is the retarded Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare achievement, and I’m about halfway through that already (12/25). Any achievement that requires you to purposefully wipe (in order to get it done in a timely manner) is just silly. Hopefully, our success with Firefighter, plus other hard modes will get a larger pool of people eager to go and finish this stuff off.

Next up: Algalon. Too bad I had to vendor some of my older gear, but I’m thinking other guildies have done the same (bank space isn’t exactly infinite, y’know) else we could get a more legitimate kill of Algalon despite higher level gear being available by completing Herald of The Titans. Not a big deal if we don’t get that, plus I don’t expect to.

Hopefully with the help of some new recruits, we can start working on heroic ToC 25 man. Attendance the past couple of weeks has been pretty lackluster, though, so who knows?

AMG Alts!

I tinkered around most of this weekend on various alts, mostly splitting time between my druid and warlock. With the price drop on flying mounts, I picked regular flying for my hunter and priest. I’d like to at least get the druid, lock, and priest leveled for the sake of the extra professions they would give me access to: Inscription (Druid), Alchemy (Priest), Tailoring, and Enchanting (latter 2 on the warlock). All I would be missing then is Jewelcrafting…and I could level that on either my hunter or rogue; I’m at 80-something JC skill on the rogue, so I will probably keep it on him.

Heirloom items definitely don’t help with alt-itis, as it’s often called; I find they promote it, heh. I believe I have almost every heirloom item I could possibly want: Mail chest/shoulders for my hunter, who shares dual daggers (1 is the pve dagger, the other pvp) and the bow with my rogue; the rogue also shares pvp leather shoulders and pve chest with my druid, who I purchased the 2h mace for last night. My warlock is rocking the robe and shoulders, along with the pve staff, haste trinket and spell power trinket, plus the pvp heirloom trinket. I also have 2h axe and plate shoulders sitting in my paladin’s bank. I don’t believe I’ll be playing a DK in the near (or distant) future, so I doubt I will pick up the plate chest anytime soon.

There is a fair possibility that my druid will end up 80 eventually, since I am leveling him along with a friend, mainly to help her get to 80. Being level 66 just after having cleared Hellfire Peninsula of quests is crazy (in a good way; big thanks goes out to heirloom gear). I’ve decided that if I do get him to 80, the only thing I’m going to spend gold on him for would be epic flying; I’m not going to focus on gearing him up. The combination of me as a druid (feral, but focusing on tank spec now) and my friend (she plays a warlock) is proving to work really well. I run off and round up 4-5 mobs at a time, and she dots them up and AOEs them down.

Also, it is really REALLY nice having flying pretty much as soon as you start Outland questing. My paladin, druid, hunter and priest are all products of the Recruit A Friend deal that went into effect about a year ago, which is why they were already 60 soon as they hit Outland (thus were eligible to buy flying mounts to start in Outland). RAF resulted in folks like my guild leader, along with yours truly, to pick up a second account and dual box 2 characters and level them up using triple xp from quests and kills. Word of warning to those who are like “ZOMG that’s awesome, I wanna do that”…you will need a main character with gold to spare, because you level so fast you won’t get enough gold from quests/kills to train, heh.

I wonder if there’s some sort of account-wide Feat of Strength for having an 80 of all 10 classes on one server…must…stop…OCD…impulse…ARGH!

That didn’t take long…

Not a surprise, but the PTR for 3.3 is among us now. Initial patch notes can be found here. Key note for shaman:

Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.

Glyphs/talents corresponding to Fire Nova have been changed accordingly.

I find the change…intriguing. I don’t know how well it will work for elemental shaman, but for our enhance bretheren, this could be quite the amazing buff. For us elementals, we will still have to run into close range in order to plop down (in most cases) Totem of Wrath, then run back some. I believe the blast radius can be extended up to 16 yards via glyph, so that’s one band-aid fix to this issue.

The last couple of tweaks we received brought up our DPS fairly well, so I believe we’re still going in the right direction, even though I’m not blown away by these fire nova changes. I think it’s just me; I need to stop being lazy and step into the fray in order to deploy totems in range for fire nova nukes.

Now to download the newest PTR and check things out…