Sunday, October 23, 2016

Enhancement Resources for Legion

With the retirement of Totemspot and seeing a large swath of incorrect information flying around, I thought it was time for me to come out of my perpetual silence to share with you all a list of resources and FAQs to help you combat the Legion as an Enhancement shaman. Please keep in mind that this is accurate as of patch 7.1. For the most up to date information, keep an eye on the Enhancement channel in Earthrine.


General Resources

Earthshrine - The official Shaman Discord channel. Better than IRC or a forum! Check the pins in the appropriate channels for links to all sorts of resources. Check the #Welcome-Readfirst channel for a list of links to the other class Discord channels.

Wordup's Enhancement Guide - Found on Wowhead, this is your best starting point for Enhancement. Yes, he keeps it up to date. No, Icy-Veins is not 100% accurate at this time (sadly). No, Noxxic is not even remotely useful, stay clear. Keep to Wordup's guide.

Wordup's Enhancement Weakauras - I run a watered down/altered version of this set. Most of what you could want to track as Enhancement can be found within this pack.

Hekili's Priority Helper - If you need help with your rotation, this is the best there is. Hekili keeps this well up to date and is constantly making tweaks to help you get the most bang for your button press. Also available for Retribution and Windwalker.


FAQ

Any Frequently Asked Question not found here can be found within Wordup's guide over on Wowhead. I may add on to this list at a later date.

Q: What are the benefits of playing Enhancement?
A: Strong single target damage, strong consistent cleave, decent mobility, decent self healing. Some nice utility (AoE root/slow OR AoE stun OR AoE CC, strong single target CC, AoE movement speed) that can benefit a raid but especially shines in 5 man content. Plus, some pretty neat aesthetics. Outside of burst AoE scenarios, we're one of the stronger melee specs in game currently.

Q: What are our stat priorities?
A: Mastery > Haste > Versatility >> Crit

Q: When I Sim myself, haste comes out higher. Why?
A: Trinket types or current gear can skew Sim results. Incredibly low haste levels could be causing your Sim to favor more haste. In most scenarios it's still more beneficial to continue to stick to mastery gems and enchants. Chances are you'll gain and change out gear frequently as you continue to improve your ilvl, which will alter your stat balances.

Q: Icy-Veins says I need 17% haste, is this true?
A: No. There is no haste soft cap for Enhancement. Hardcap is 100% and we'll likely not see that within this expansion, even with stat bloat.

Q: Is there a mastery hardcap?
A: Nope. The more, the better.

Q: Where can I find a BiS gear list?
A: There isn't one. Thanks to the Warforged/Titanforged system, it's a complete pain in the butt to Sim every gearing scenario. Take what you can get and when in doubt, Sim it.

Q: Is there a BiS list for trinkets?
A: This is the closest thing you'll get. Up to date as of October 17, 2016 by Wordup. Keep in mind that you'll need to Sim yourself if you have trinkets of varying ilvl; secondary stat levels may change how well certain trinkets perform for you.

Q: Everyone keeps telling me to Sim myself! How do I do this?
A: Check out this guide to get you started.

Q: What's the best artifact path?
A: You can find Wordup's quick and dirty recommendation chart here.

Q: Best race for Enhancement?
A: All races Sim very closely. If you're asking this question, you're likely not playing at a level where the race of your character will impact your performance. Choose whichever race you like best and which racials you think you'll personally benefit from the most.

Q: Best Shaman Class Hall followers?
A: Here's a nifty chart. If you'd like to keep Rehgar as a bodyguard, consider deactivating Avalanch.

Q: Best Shaman Class Hall traits?
A: Personal preference.


Media Links

The following are the fellow Enhancement Shaman folks that I personally recommend. My media production as of this post is on semi-hiatus. You'll see some videos from me crop up here and there, but nothing particularly useful.

If you're ever in need of Restoration or Elemental people to follow, please don't hesitate to give me a poke on Twitter. I'll happily redirect you to some awesome folks.

Wordup's Youtube - Guides, previews, and Mythic content, oh my!
Wordup's Twitter - Enhancement talk and occasionally some sass.
Wordup's Twitch - Best hair EU. Streams sporadically, but worth catching when he does.

 Hekili's Twitter - Best taco dog on the net. Addon stuff, terrible puns.

Maelfus' Twitch - Streams more frequently than Wordup, but not by much. Dies a lot. I'm often in chat heckling him.
Maelfus' Twitter - Food, shaman stuff, general nerdery. Best beard in the shaman kingdom.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Enhancement - Revisiting Playstyle and Talent Options

 Anyone who has played Enhancement this expansion is well aware of the weird state we've been in. Coming out of Mists of Pandaria where we were the kings and queens of burst damage with excellent healing utility, where stat stacking ruled all, and a simple opening macro could mean the difference between 1-2 million burst and being left in the dust of your raid mates, to now where we are the nearly forgotten children of a game that seems highly distracted by bigger and shinier things.

If you dare to wade into even the shallows of the official WoW forums, you'll hear the screams of how our bandaid buffs to bring us up to par of other dps specs are "uninspired." How our totems are easily countered in PvP and essentially useless in PvE. Naturally there will also always be a smattering of "bring back 2h enchantment shamans!!1!" and some variance of "Hey, I have this excellent idea of how we could either turn Enhancement into a tank spec or add in a 4th tanking spec!"

It seems that the days of stat stacking and where Ascendance, one of our "big" button cooldowns, meant half a hoot are long gone. Today we play like a paladin, with all of the flavor but half the utility. We easily have three times the number of buttons of other dps classes, a much steeper learning curve, and yet we struggle to be recognized outside of the AoE gimmick corner we've been thrust into.

We are in a rather precarious place, my shaman friends.

Those of you who have followed me for a length of time probably have a pretty decent idea of where I stand on any and possibly all of these topics. I also have a pretty decent idea of what I personally would love to see in the continued evolution of this crazy class we call shaman and this ridiculously addicting and frankly, masochistic, spec we call Enhancement.

Strap in folks, this is going to be one hell of a wall of text.

---------------

Button Bloat

In a world where homogenization is the name of the game in terms of balance, it's no small feat to bring 11 unique classes and 24 dps specs onto an even playing field while retaining their particular flavor and identity. In the great button culling of Warlords, shaman were relatively over looked in this regard. Instead of button pruning, we mostly only received a few change outs. Frankly, I'm alright with that. If I wanted to play a class/spec that could fit its rotation and utility on two hotbars or less, I'd play those one of those classes/specs. I don't enjoy that particular level of simplicity. I enjoy having a rather large toolkit in which to draw from, a myriad of buttons to mash (provided that they, you know, do something meaningful), and I personally love the quirky and spiritual flavor that shaman has always offered, regardless of its state.

It's one of my deepest fears that we venture into the new expansion with our class' head on the chopping block, so to speak, and we get the treatment warlocks received in Mists. I'd rather not see our class, let alone this spec in particular, stripped down to a 3-4 button rotation. That's not us. It has never been us. I'd personally prefer to keep our high button identity while bringing it into a more manageable state.

Playstyle

While our number of buttons didn't see much of a change in Warlords, our playstyle did. Though, this wouldn't be the first time we've had an interesting change in playstyle. In Cataclysm, we were the turtles that could win races, provided a fight lasted long enough. Slow and steady, we were the masters of consistent damage. We couldn't target swap, burst, or until later on in the expansion, AoE to save our lives, but sometimes slow and steady could win the damage race. Then came Mists where we rose to burst, healing utility, and to some extent, AoE fame. Aside from the obvious fact that we took stat stacking and scaling to an overpowered level and did need to be brought down a notch, this was probably one of the best states we have ever been in. Was it perfect? No. Warlords has brought a few quality of life changes that were sorely needed, namely in the Echo of the Elements redesign (the original design worked exactly how Multistrike does now and the original redesign in Warlords was a proc nightmare, never forget!), the Flurry redesign, and in the form of Lava Spread glyph.

Here's what I like about the playstyle changes and what I think can go into the bin.
- Paladin Playstyle (haste): The Flurry redesign, which mimics how we interact with haste much like how Retribution interacts with haste, has grown on me over this expansion. Initially I had worries that it would make an already button heavy, but dependable, predictable rotation far too chaotic. While that in part is true, it has added a certain zest to the pace of the spec. I'm still not 100% sold on having ridiculously fast button mashing moments during hero/lust or during trinket procs, as that takes a certain smoothness and consistency away from the rotation (two things that are major draws for me), but I will admit I enjoy the overall faster pacing better than I did the older, slower pace. Even if my hands occasionally miss the moments of downtime, especially during AoE encounters.

- Paladin Playstyle (procs): My biggest beef with our paladin redesign (I'm sorry, I see too many parallels to call it anything else!) is the fact that the Lava Lash reset from our tier 13 set became baseline. While yes, at the time it helped us keep up in those situations where mobs didn't live long enough to get proper spreads of Flame Shock off, or to take the sting out of a bad Flame Shock set up in general, it was a thing that never felt good to me. To me Enhancement has always been that predictable, steady as she goes, fluid spec. Suddenly, there's a Lava Lash proc. It's awkward, knee jerking, and demands your attention like a screaming toddler. With lower GCDs, improved initial spread of Flame Shocks, Glyph of Lava Spread, Glyph of Fire Nova, and the redesign of Echo of the Elements, I'd be incredibly happy to see this proc be removed. It only adds chaos, undependable chaos at that, to an already crazy queue.

If I wanted to play with procs, I'd play Retribution. Unfortunately, this little Enhancement shaman never enjoyed her pally much!

Buttons, Revisited

Alright, so now that we have what I do and do not like out in the open, let's start addressing things that I'd change, starting with our buttons.

- Chain Lightning, remove it!
I'm speaking specifically for Enhancement in this point, it can stay in for Elemental and Restoration.

For a while during the Warlords Beta, Chain Lightning was actually removed, and it was a strange feeling to me to have this button gone. It was reimplemented, but if this expansion has taught me anything, it's how useless this button is to us in a world where Fire Nova is our overlord. At best, it's a spell cleave. At worst, it's a spell that has an excruciatingly small jump range due to the weird hitbox sizings of most bosses. For example, Twin Ogron in Highmaul. Unless both bosses were 100% on top of each other, perfectly, Chain Lightning would not jump. Two massive creatures that I'm sure could conduct a good bit of electricity between them couldn't get Chain Lightning to, well, chain. Similar issues arise with smaller mobs that aren't stacked perfectly as well. More often than not we'll try to gauge whether or not mobs are close enough together, take a gamble, and a good chunk of the time we'll get a glorious Multistrike proc...on a single target. Please, just chuck this spell for Enhance. There are more interesting ideas out there to address!

- Lava Lash
I believe it was Wordup (if it actually was Purge, I'm sorry!) on the latest Enhancement Episode of Finalboss who suggested adding a proper cleave onto Lava Lash. Personally? I absolutely love this idea. He was spot on in saying that we already have the visual, why not roll it onto the ability. It already semi acts like a cleave in regards to the spread of Flame Shock, and since we're removing our only "cleave" spell, aka Chain Lightning anyways, why not roll a proper frontal cleave into Lava Lash? It'd bolster us in an area we're struggling in greatly, shouldn't help nor hinder our single target, and best of all, it doesn't add another button to our rotation. This is assuming multi target tuning would be more aimed in Fire Nova's direction than Lava Lash's, though we could have simply have reduced damage to secondary targets based on number of targets present as well. Meaning, target A (primary) receives 100% damage always, but target B only receives 85%. If a target C is present, targets B and C receive 80% damage each. Something a bit easier to adjust while not making our already potent AoE more so, doesn't affect our single target, but does help to bolster us in cleave and low mob health AoE situations. Numbers are of course factitious, but you get the idea.

All of my love for this change! All of it.

- Ascendance
Hey, remember when it felt really cool to hit this button? I'd like to bring that back. Maybe not to the level of crazy that it was back in Siege of Orgrimmer, but I'd personally really love that level of oomph feeling to resurface.

We can no longer stack stats like crazy since reforging is gone, sockets have been severely reduced, and enchants likewise reduced, so we in theory shouldn't skyrocket like crazy, unless of course the gear bloat continues to spiral out of hand. Therefor I think we're safe with bringing mastery scaling back to Ascendance, if only on a much more mild manner than we saw in the past. Yes, I know, this would be another number to jiggle around, but it'd hopefully help alleviate some of our scaling issues. You know, that thing that we currently need continual buffs to address?

I'd love to see Ascendance also bumped down to a 2 minute cooldown. This was a wonderful quality of life thing to have back in Siege of Orgrimmar which came from having the Assurance of Consequence Trinket (cooldown reduction time approximately 2 minutes, fuzzy memory is fuzzy and it was slightly different for each version of the trinket you had). If we're to continue to have low damage lulls as a spec, bosses with small windows that need high burst (Gorefiend says hello!), and if we want cooldowns that actually matter, it'd be really beneficial to have a shorter cooldown on this ability. Not to mention, as other shaman who are much better with numbers than I have pointed out, other classes have shorter, more and yet much more potent cooldowns than us shaman. Elemental has seen the Ascendance cooldown reduction and us Enhancement folk would love to see this as well change. While we don't need to behave like other classes or our sibling spec, we do need our cooldowns to be meaningful. Addressing both the cooldown length and mastery scaling would address this issue.

Oh, and please give us our awesome graphic back. Yes, it was noisy, but it was absolutely epic. I'm tired of fanning my enemies to death.

Signed, a good chunk of the Enhancement community.

- Feral Spirits
This point is going to be a bit of a spitball. Personally, I like how Feral Spirits is both a dps and self healing button. The cooldown is in a decent place, better if you have/had the 2pc bonus from Blackrock Foundry and use Echo (especially for soloing!), and it's not overly powered. Okay, maybe opinions will differ on that last point, depending on which aspect of the game you're playing.

Our wolves/raptors present an interesting problem. The damage they give us is minimal at best. It's another thing to balance, another button to press, another damage source that is both not coming from the shaman directly (which many shaman players seem to have an issue with) nor is it 100% controllable by us via pet bars. On the healing side of things, they can potentially give us a lot of self healing when glyphed, making us extremely self sufficient in most scenarios for that period of time, but much like the issue with Shamanistic Rage being tied to a dps increase with our old t10 set bonus, we're unable to use this wonderful self heal when we need it. Instead we're stuck using Feral Spirits on cooldown for their dps component.

So, what do we do with this ability? It's been a staple in our spec for the longest time and it's not something I'd ever like to see go, but it does need addressing. Do we turn it into a talent, increasing their damage output and allowing us the ability to control our wolves once again via a pet bar? Do we remove the damage component, allowing them to be healing guardians of sorts? Or do we leave them as is?

For the sake of brain storming, I'm going to roll all these ideas into one weird conglomeration that may or may not work in practice. Baseline, I'd like to see Feral Spirits become a personal (or maybe even raid wide!) healing cooldown. Yes, damage component 100% removed. They attack our enemies as they always have, no visual change needed, but they only grant us healing from it. Scales with our AP and secondary stats, naturally. Improved Feral Spirits can be a talent, perhaps replacing Unleashed Fury, which in itself can become baseline (more on this later). Being on the same tier as Primal Elementalist, there would be no interference of pet bars. Improved Feral Spirits would of course have a substantial dps aspect to it, as well as self healing for the shaman, the return of Twin Howl (taunt), and perhaps some minor passive splash healing for the group/raid.

- Shocks
Separate cooldowns, damage component of Frost Shock removed, done. Universal for all shaman specs. Enhancement's rotation is busy enough to often not even need Frost Shock as a filler (especially during cleave/AoE scenarios and more so with higher amounts of haste on one's gear), therefor adding Earth Shock back in is pointless. Frost Shock can stay as a slow ability, can still use a GCD, can still interact with the Frozen Power talent for PvP, but otherwise for PvE it can be more or less another free button slot.

- Totemic Recall
Relatively useless, but something I wouldn't want to remove. While totems may no longer draw aggro by simply existing, it still feels right to be able to withdraw you totems as well as summon them.

- Tremor Totem
For the love of every puppy to have ever existed, please either 1) allow us to drop this while under Fear, Sleep, and Charm effects once again, even if this totem needs a longer cooldown as a result or 2) make all Fear, Sleep, Charm effects have a cast time (this is for both PvP AND PvE, looking at you UBRS and Highmaul) so proper counter measures can be made. Currently everyone with these abilities has their cake and are eating it merrily, while shaman everywhere are munching on rocks over in the corner with a confused look on their face. Makes me wonder why I still have this totem on my bars. I'd love to see it have a proper place there once more.

Talents, Reworked

This is a bit of a hot topic section, as balance between our respective specs and overall flavor of class resides within our talent choices. We have some good tiers, we have some bad tiers, and while we've also had some traditionally unbalanced tiers, those have at least been addressed or adjusted in one form or another. Let's dive into what I'd like to see for each talent tier.

Level 15 - Defensive
Overall, this tier is in a decent place. Could use some minor adjustments though.

- Nature's Guardian is fine as a reactive, oh crap I should have died there, fail safe.

- Stone Bulwark Totem I'd like to see scale a bit better, preferably with mastery as well as AP, or barring that, scale percentage wise with the shaman's health pool.

- Astral Shift isn't a particular favorite of mine, being only 10% stronger than Shamanistic Rage, on a 1.5 minute cooldown, and only lasting 6 seconds, versus the 15 seconds of SRage. As a talent, I think it's a bit weak, even though in PvE situations it is often numerically the superior talent in this tier. If SBT gets the scaling I think it deserves, I'd also like to see Astral Shift's duration and/or damage reduction increased.

Level 30 - Crowd Control
All three talents fine as is. Perhaps make the roots on Earthgrab Totem a little harder to break, but otherwise I see no need to adjust this tier.

Level 45 - Totem Control
Ah yes, the tier no one really cares about or utilizes. All three of these talents should be baseline. Yes, that would potentially add in 1-2 more buttons to our already bursting bars. This is how I see things playing out.

- Call of the Elements, baseline. No change to the current workings of this ability, aside from perhaps making it on the GCD to prevent any sort of chain cc'ing abuse.

- Totemic Persistence, baseline. No change, even for Fire Totems (I agree with Blizzard about not having two fire totems up at once, sorry!). It's fairly rare that we have two utility totems of the same school up at the same time, assuming we even have two or more utility totems of the same school (water for Elemental and Enhancement), so being able to double up on them without worry of overriding one should be minor at worst.

- Totemic Projection, baseline. This is a quality of life change for all three specs. Instead of adding in a button, perhaps this talent can have some sort of double tap interface. Click once, totem is placed. Double click in quick succession, target indicator comes up. Move target indicator where desired, click again, totem is instantly placed. Ideally this would work in one smooth motion, interface willing. If the interface can't be made to function in this way this is another button for us, as it'd remain as it is now, just a given now instead of a talent.

Alright, everything is baseline. What are we replacing these abilities with?

Why, improved Crowd Control of course! "But Saaaz," you may say. "We already have a CC tier!" I can feel those who counter shaman in PvP grinding their teeth already, as well as the devs who have to balance these talents. Any PvP shaman knows the feeling of not having solid control during a skirmish and any PvE shaman not specced into Totemic Projection knows the frustration of having a tank move a bunch of mobs out of Capacitor Totem before it pops, or having someone use a knock back and again having mobs out of range of your already placed Cap Totem, or someone breaking your Hex. Some of these things have been cried for by players to make certain adjustments baseline, but personally I'd like to see a bit more choice. Yes, implementing these talents would remove a few glyphs, but I think ultimately that's okay.

Fret not, I'll try to keep these talents relatively in focus.

- Improved Capacitor Totem. Takes the existing glyph and makes it baseline. Glyph of Capacitor Totem is removed. Totem's base health is increased.

- Improved Hex. Removes the cooldown of Hex. Reduces the cast time of Hex by 10 seconds. Enemies affected by Hex can no longer control their characters. Glyph of Hex is removed.

- Lightning Whip (new). 15 yards. Instant cast. 45 second cooldown. Frontal cone attack that stuns enemies for 4 seconds and leaves behind a trail of forked lightning on the ground, lasting for 15 seconds. Area of effect slows enemies standing within it for 6 seconds.

Level 60 - DPS (Minor)
I have only two main wishes for this particular tier.

- Elemental Mastery remain on a 2 minute cooldown, no change UNLESS Ascendance remains on a 3 minute cooldown. In that event, I'd like to see EM reverted back to a 1.5 minute cooldown. Yes, it's boring that you can macro everything together. I don't care if a macro sets the good Enhancement shaman apart from the great. Save our sanity, please let us properly line up our cooldowns again.

- Ancestral Swiftness. Please either make the instant cast ability once again scale with Maelstrom Weapon (at the end of the day the boost was incredibly minor at best because of the 1.5 minute CD), or remove it all together and instead give a minor bump to the haste given by this otherwise passive talent.

- Echo of the Elements. I hated you at the start of this expansion, but you have evolved wonderfully. Don't change you glorious bastard.

Level 75 - Healing
Frankly, scrap the whole damn tier.

- Rushing Streams, removed. Instead Healing Stream Totem's healing has been buffed for all specs, more so for Restoration.

- Ancestral Guidance, removed. AG, I loved you so, but you and your lag have gotta go. I'm so sorry, but it's not me, it's definitely you. It was fun while it lasted.

- Conductivity, removed. This was one of those abilities that was really cool on paper, but no good in practice. In a world where stand still patchwerk fights simply don't exist, this talent no longer has a place in our talent tree.

I do like the idea of a purely offensive healing tier, so we're going to be sticking to that theme.

- Water Elemental (new), instant. 5 minute cooldown. Summons a Water Totem at the feet of the caster, summoning a Greater Water Elemental to help aid the shaman and his/her allies, casting Rip Tide once every x seconds in on those in the most need. Lasts 60 seconds. (This would be a slightly more potent version of the shaman's Rip Tide)

- Thunder Cloud (new), instant. 40 yard range. 2 minute cooldown. The skies break open in a torrent of rain and lightning, healing allies for the next 8 seconds. (visual: clouds somewhat like what Moonkins have for Hurricane, light on the lightning effects, rain in the AoE but not heavy enough to be visually impairing or lag inducing)

- Ancestral Infusion (new), instant. 40 yard range. 3 minute cooldown. Call upon the ancestors, bolstering the resolve of the shaman and his/her allies. Damage reduction is increased by 30%, healing taken is increased by 10%. Will not stack with other Ancestral Infusions. Lasts 10 seconds. (visual: everyone becomes spectral, minus spells to avoid the visual blinding issues we ran into during Mists with the Darkmoon Fair card trinket)

Level 90 - DPS Major (1)
There are a few tweaks I'd like to see made for this tier. Keep in mind that some of these play back to other ideas I have mentioned earlier in this post!

- Unleased Fury, removed (baseline). I like this talent. I'd like to see this talent be part of what defines a well practice shaman from a not as practiced shaman. I think UF as a baseline, under the hood mechanic will help to provide that high management, high reward aspect that so many of us Enhancement players would love to see. Not to mention, it'd open up space for its potential replacement.

- Improved Feral Spirits (new), instant. 1 minute cooldown. You summon a pair of empowered Feral Spirits to protect you, with additional abilities, and acting directly under your control.  Lasts 30 seconds. (Would deal damage, unlike baseline Feral Spirits. Increased healing given to the shaman caster. Twin Howl (taunt, does not taunt off of people in tank spec) reintroduced via the pet bar. Call of the Wolf, increases the speed of all party/raid members by 50%, 25 yard radius)

- Primal Elementalist, no change. New addition, Primal Water Elemental. The Elemental's Rip Tide is increased by x%. In addition to casting Rip Tide on allies every x seconds, it will alternate casting Tidal Waves every x seconds in the direction of those in greatest need. (Tidal Waves can be intercepted as they travel. I see two scenarios for healing behavior. 1) potentially do a finite amount of healing which can be divided among those it hits.  Say one Tidal Wave heals for 100k max. Person A jumps in and intercepts the wave, for top off of 20k. Wave has 80k left to split between Persons B, C, and D that are in its path next. 2) Alternatively, remove the finite aspect and simply have Tidal Wave hit for x amount done to each target it hits)

- Elemental Blast. Now replaces Lightning Bolt. Cooldown removed.

Level 100 - DPS Major (2)
For now, I'd like to leave this line of talents relatively untouched.

- Elemental Infusion. An interesting talent in theory, but is an absolute nightmare to track by default. If Frost Shock was to be removed as a dps spell though, this talent would potentially no longer have a place on our talent tree. Mixed, non-definitive feelings about this one!

- Storm Elemental. I like this guy, despite his flaws. I'd like to see a bit more lightning action from both his forms, which I'd gladly sacrifice his wimpy healing component for. I'd also like to see him cast on the move. The movement speed this elemental grants either needs an increase in range or removed all together and maybe replaced with something else neat. Perhaps his special bonus thing (like Empower/Reinforce) can be a tornadic well of sorts, a bit like Ursol's Vortex mixed with Gorefiend's Grasp.

- Liquid Magma. The only change I'd like to see with this ability is for it to mind its manners properly. No more breaking CC, no more aggroing mobs that aren't already in the fight. Yes, I know you can't control where lava will flow in real life, so from an immersion standpoint it's true to its self. From a usability and mechanical standpoint though, this guy is a butt. I'm a shaman, I should be able to bend magma away from things I don't want it to attack!

Closing

*deep breath* Whew, almost done!

Please realize that these talent changes were made mainly with Enhancement in mind. I'm also well aware that there are hundreds of variations of this post on the official forums and that not all of my ideas are original or all that novel, and I'm pretty certain not all of them are that great! However, I do believe that it's important to keep these discussions kicking around in hopes that we land in a better place come the next expansion.

Ideally we'd see a divide between specs and talent choices, meaning if you spec differently you'll actually be presented with slightly different talent choices, much like what priests and druids have now. I'll leave the variations of the Elemental and Restoration specs up to the players who spend much more quality time with those roles than I ever do however.

On top of all these changes, because there certainly wasn't enough, I'd like to shuffle some of the tiers around for the sake of getting certain goodies are certain times while leveling up. For the most part, everything remains where it was, save for the Healing Tier which I'd like to see moved from the level 75 slot down to the level 30 slot, the CC tier moved from the level 30 slot up to 45, and the new stun tier (formerly totem control) to be moved into the level 75 slot. Completely personal preference, of course!

I really wanted to tackle glyphs in this post, both major and minor, but I think I'll save that project for a later date. There's also the can of worms to tackle about possibly tacking on yet another tier coming in the new expansion, assuming they go that route. Likewise, this speculation and wish-listing can be saved for another post. For now, enough words are enough.

Until the next post, keep swingin'.



Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Soloing Throne of Thunder as Enhancement

Throne of Thunder is an instance that's been mostly soloable by Enhancement since 6.1, depending on the amount of gear one had and how nicely RNG on Jin'rokh wanted to play. 6.2 has brought some nice quality of life changes to the soloing scene, mainly with Jin'rokh himself, making this instance a little less of a hassle to solo.

In this post I've included all of my ToT soloing videos, up through Ji-Kun. At this time Durumu does far too much damage to allow non-tanks such as ourselves to survive, but thankfully us mount hunters only really need up to Ji-kun anyways. So unless you're someone who's missing a raid drop pet from one of the later bosses or are looking to get your mits on some transmog that drops from a later boss, you're in luck.

What are the benefits of soloing ToT?
- Transmog! As long as you're not after an item off of the Council of Elders (loot drops currently do not exist for some reason - bug), this place has some pretty nifty items that have a troll vibe to them.
- Mounts! There are two rather neat looking mounts to gain from this instance.
Spawn of Horridon - 1.7% chance and drops from Horridon.
Clutch of Ji-Kun - 1.8% chance and drops from Ji-Kun.
- Pets! There are several pets that can be collected in this instance.
Living Sandling - 4% drop chance and comes from the trash between Horridon and Council of Elders.
Ji-Kun Hatchling - .94% drop chance and comes from Ji-Kun herself.
Son of Animus - 1.13% drop chance and comes from Dark Animus. While you're currently unable to solo your way through Durumu and Dark Animus, it's worth a mention since it will be possible someday. For now, bring a (tank and possibly healer) friend!
- Toys! Okay, there's only one toy that drops from this instance, but it's a fun and incredibly rare one.
Gastropod Shell - .69% chance to drop and comes off of the Gastropods (aka Gary!) between Megaera and Ji-Kun. His name is Jerry.
- Achievements! There are numerous achievements in this instance, which when all completed award Glory of the Thundering Raider. At the time of this post *most* of the achievements are not soloable, or at least not easily soloable. Cage Match, One-Up, and Head Case are your best bets for now. Heroics modes are out, and several other achievements will require at least 1-2 other people.
2/1/2016 Edit: It's now possible to solo Heroic ToT up until Durumu, who seems to be still impossible for non-tank classes, even on norma
l.

How do I do the thing?
Take a gander at the following videos. I've put how to tips on the videos themselves (it's text, not VO, sorry!) that should lead you in the right direction. As always, I'm happy to answer any and all questions either on this post, on the videos themselves, or on Twitter.

Jin'rokh

Horridon

Council of Elders

Tortos

Megaera


Gary

Ji-Kun


Good luck, have fun, and may drop luck be on your side!

Monday, May 18, 2015

Shaman WeakAuras (2)

As of Legion, this post is completely out of date. If you've stumbled upon this post looking for Enhancement Weakauras, allow me to redirect you to Wordup's Weakaura setup. I personally use a stripped and modified version of his string.


Back in March I had put together a little post of the WeakAuras I had been playing around with. Since then I've come across several incredibly useful auras that other players have put together, customizing them to my taste in certain cases, and I've even made a few shaman-specific auras myself.


The image above show all of the auras I'm currently using. Looks a little noisy, but keep in mind most of these will not be displayed at the same time. I've divided these auras into four sections: Defensive and Healing, DPS, Procs, and Interrupts.


These auras come in the Defensive and Healing pack.
Upper Left - Glyph of Lightning Shield is activated, applying the 10% damage reduction.
Upper Right - Shamanistic Rage is active, displays remaining duration.
Bottom Row - Spec dependent. Shown is Nature's Guardian activation, duration, and cooldown. The "?" will display the shield value of Stone Bulwark Totem, SBT's duration will be an icon placed under where Shamanistic Rage is shown. Astral Shift will likewise appear underneath Shamanistic Rage's aura.


Here we have miscellaneous auras split between the Defensive and Healing pack and the DPS pack.
1 - Fire Totem tracker (DPS). Will display an image of either your Fire Elemental, Searing Totem, or Magma Totem (depending on which you're using at the time) when you have 10 seconds remaining on the totem's duration. Incredibly useful for when you're specced into Liquid Magma.
2 - Elemental Mastery duration (DPS). Pretty self explanatory. Will only be displayed while the talent is actively being used.
3 - Elemental Fusion tracker (DPS). Will display one icon for one stack of EF, two icons for two stacks of EF. Very necessary for getting the most out of that talent.
4 - Ancestral Guidance tracker (D&H). Will display anytime any shaman in the raid activates AG. Also displays remaining duration of the current AG being used.
5 - Unleashed Flame tracker (DPS). Displays if you have an unused Unleashed Flame buff.
6 - Feral Spirits tracker (DPS). Only displays while wolves/raptors are active and displays remaining duration.
7 - Liquid Magma tracker (DPS) - Displays when LM is activated and displays remaining duration.
8 - Healing Rain duration (D&H) - Displays the remaining duration on your current Healing Rain. Timer is accurate when using the talent Conductivity, though the visual bar may be a little funny at times.


In this image we see a bunch of trinket, ring, and weapon procs, along with a duration timer for your potion. This series of auras (aka the Procs pack) is from a much larger pack someone else put together, which you can find here. Since I'm still using it, I've also included an aura for Scales of Doom. The larger pack includes ALL trinkets from Blackrock Foundry, as well as all weapon enchant procs. Ring procs may also be found within, though I've included both versions in the smaller pack as well.


Last up we have the interrupt aura. Stumbled upon this little gem in one of the WoW subreddits and found it somewhat useful, especially if not all of your interrupters run with some sort of announcing addon. The word 'Interrupts' will be replaced by the name of anyone who successfully interrupts a spell, bosses included. I've brought down the opacity of this aura just because of personal preferences.


I'm still very much getting used to WeakAuras, both in utilizing them visually in a raid setting and on the creation side of things. If anything seems off/doesn't work quite right, please drop me a line so I can go about fixing it!

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Shaman WeakAuras


I've been slowly getting more into using WeakAuras, as you can display a lot of useful information with this addon that otherwise may be hidden or not easily referenced in the middle of an encounter.


Currently I'm only using four different strings of auras, with plans on expanding upon them once I return to the game. My focus has been on managing Liquid Magma optimally and tracking my defensive uptimes. These auras originate from pre-existing strings put together by other players, modified slightly to suit my specific needs and to fit the theme of my layout.

Shamanistic Rage Activation/Duration
Icon shows up when Shamanistic Rage is activated, bar to the left counts down the remaining duration of the ability.
Tier 15 Defensive Activation/Duration
Talent specific icon shows up when any of the abilities are active. Each variation shows the duration of the ability. To the left of the SBT icon, the current shield strength will be displayed. NG portion still needs tweaks, but should show activation and I believe the ICD.
Fire Totem Expiration Warning
Pops up when your current fire totem has 10 seconds left on its duration. Icon adjusts to match your current fire totem. A must have for anyone running the Liquid Magma talent.
Liquid Magma Duration
Displays the duration of the Liquid Magma talent to help prevent premature clipping when refreshing fire totems.


Friday, January 16, 2015

Them Dummies Did It Again!

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter/Facebook or have missed the announcement, those two guys who run The Training Dummies had me back once again as a guest on their podcast! Apparently I'm their first threepeat guest and theirs is certainly the first podcast that I've had the pleasure of being a repeat guest on. We spoke a little bit about the changes in Enhancement, how to up your game, transmog, and a whole pile of other things I've forgotten about, since they just let me ramble on for hours. Enjoy!

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Seven Commandments for the Everyday Shaman

Dost thou wish to ascend into the mighty ranks of shaman? Dost thou wish to be the sultan of swinging wind, a mighty wielder of lightning, and/or a commander of the tides?  To acquire this wisdom, thou must first learn and abide the following commandments:


If thou dost not know when to Lust, thy shalt never be a Hero.
- Translation: If you're not sure when to hit your Bloodlust or Heroism button, ask. If you're someone who is prone to hitting said button at awkward times by accident, move the button elsewhere. Nothing is more sad, or aggravating when certain mechanics are involved, than to experience a raid-wide cooldown being used incorrectly.

This also goes for you mages with your wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff, you hunters and your hysterical dogs, and those of you who decide that playing your bongo drums on trash is a good idea, so you all best be paying attention.

Thou shalt use Stormlash Totem as oft as possible, except for when thy shaman brother or sister hast used it first.
- Translation: Stormlash Totem is a rather potent raid cooldown that is often ignored by unpracticed shaman, or is commonly overlapped, causing waste. (Don't worry, Stormlash will be a thing of the past come patch 6.0!) Watch your buffs!

Thou shalt not override a thy brethren's Earth Shield.
- Translation: This is one thing that drives me absolutely nuts in LFRs - some other restoration shaman comes toddling along, overriding the Earth Shield on whichever tank you have it on. Don't be that guy! If you see a tank with an Earth Shield on already, put it on the other tank. More than two resto shaman in the raid and Earth Shields are already covered? Toss it on that noob taking damage over there! (Thankfully, another thing of the past come patch 6.0)

Thou shalt not use Thunderstorm inappropriately.
- Translation: Dude, seriously. You probably know who you are, but really. Don't be that guy/gal who runs up into the middle of a pack of mobs that a tank is dealing with and Thunderstorm them all over Diablo's creation. Nothing will tick off your tank and melee dps faster. I get it, it's an AoE ability. If you want to use it as such, glyph it.

It's completely acceptable to Thunderstorm people off of the side of cliffs in PvP though. Fair game, boomchickens! Or any druid really, now that Typhoon is accessible by all four specs.

If it spinnith, thou shalt not winnith.
- Translation: This mostly applies to my enhancement brothers and sisters, but can also apply to the unaware restoration/elemental shaman as well: If something, be it a weapon or mob, is spinning...run the hell away. Just, run.

All circles on the ground are not created equal.
- Translation: If it's blue and wet (or green and leafy/gold and sparkly), stand in it! Almost anything else, apply the logic of the previous commandment.

If thou uses thine healing abilities while thine raid is healthy, ye shall perish.
- Translation: This applies to both the healing and damage dealing shaman of the world. One of the larger rookie moves I see made by many a shaman is a) to use Healing Tide Totem on cooldown, regardless of raid health b) macro Ancestral Guidance into Ascendance (there are rare times when this can be useful, but as a general rule it often ends up being a complete waste of AG)  or c) completely forget that any of these abilities exist.

Repeat after me:
+ Healing Tide Totem is not a rotational ability.
+ Healing Tide Totem is for raid-wide healing. Drop it a second before raid-wide damage goes out if the raid isn't completely stabilized, or drop it immediately after raid wide damage goes out to stabilize/heal the raid.
+ Ancestral Guidance is not a rotational ability.
+ Ancestral Guidance is for raid-wide healing. Pop it a second before raid-wide damage goes out if the raid isn't completely stabilized, or pop it immediately after raid wide damage goes out to stabilize/heal the raid. Best when used when you're able to use AoE abilities or paired with Ascendance, if raid strategy allows (highest burst healing yield), however should not be used exclusively when those situations arise, as the raid may not need that healing at that moment.
+ Healing Stream Totem is friend. He's just a little guy, but he likes to help heal people often. Call on him often, especially when there are people he can help heal. This goes especially for restoration shaman, but he should not be forgotten by enhancement or elemental shaman.
+ Mana Tide Totem is healer friend. MTT should be used early and often, but not on the pull early. Unless your tank(s) was awful and pulled while the healer(s) had little to no mana. (Soon to be a thing of the past, come 6.0)
+ When in doubt of knowing exactly when to pop your healing cooldowns, ask! Bug your raid leader or bug your healers. Go in with a plan, come out with loot!


Go forth and be awesome, so sayeth the Saz.



Writer's Note: While this article has been written as a comedy piece, there is a good bit of truthrage behind these words. As a veteran shaman, raider, as a well seasoned raid leader, all of the above are things that I notice on a regular basis. The commandments listed above are the things that truly drive me bonkers. I hope that I've not only provided you all with bit of a laugh, but also with some helpful insight on how to better improve your shamanistic skills. /salute

Writer's Note 2: I'm fully aware that I probably slaughtered the usage of Early Modern English. Linguist/literary folks, I apologize. Mostly. Kind of. I might only be marginally sorry.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

WoD Alpha: Keybind Interface

When it arrives, Warlords of Draenor will come packed with several quality of life changes. Some of these changes will go unnoticed by many (especially addon using) players, but some of them will certainly make things a bit easier for everyone else. What change am I talking about this time around? The keybind interface. Here are some previews.





(Click images to enlarge)


As you can see, the layout is much more clearly defined than it is on the live servers. No more scrolling through a massive list trying to figure out where to configure that one bar. Everything is beautifully labeled and easily accessible. For those who prefer to use the standard UI bars, or those of us who are on a rare occasion forced to use the standard UI bars instead of our favorite mods, this is a most welcome change.

Friday, June 20, 2014

WoD Alpha: Toy Box and Mounts Interface

Hoarders, rejoice! For the time of the Toy Box is nearly upon us. For those of you who are interested in getting a sneak peak at what the interface will look like, have a screenshot of it!





As you can see, our Toy Box will have a pretty snazzy search and filtering system, one that's nearly identical to what we have currently for our non-combat pets. Finding your favorite item should be pretty easy once this system is in place. I know that I'm definitely looking forward to this feature, as my shaman has been crying about inventory space since Wrath of the Lich King.

One thing to note about the toybox: it currently doesn't automatically add the items into the toy spellbook. You'll have to click on the item (current new Beta interface will actually indicate this), and it'll be placed in your spellbook, thus being removed from your inventory.



It appears that our mount page will get a similar treatment as far as sorting is concerned (hooray!), though it doesn't seem like all of the sorting functions are implemented at this time. My assumption/hope is that they'll break it down further into achievements, instance drops, crafted, and vendors as well.

Edit: Looks like they have a bit more filtering added in now!


I'm really looking forward to both of these quality of life implementations, small as they may seem. Personally I don't think they can get here soon enough!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

WoD Alpha: New Ghost Wolf and Feral Spirit Models

Those of you who happen to follow me on Twitter and Facebook may already know that I'm one of the lucky ones who have managed to snag an invite onto the Warlords of Draenor alpha test servers. Over the next few weeks I hope to write about my thoughts on the changes to Enhancement and shamans in general. For now though, I shall answer one of our most pressing questions: With all of the new model revamps coming in WoD, will we get a new wolf form?

The answer is apparently: Yes!


As you can see in the above images, we're most definitely getting an updated version for our ghost wolf forms. Both are rather transparent, much along the lines of our current unglyphed wolf form on live, and are nearly invisible when seen against light backgrounds, such as snow. Unlike the Glyph of the Spectral Wolf on live, the spectral version of our wolf is the same size as our unglyphed version.

But what about our Feral Spirits? Well, we're definitelly getting new versions of those too!

New Feral Spirits

As you can see, they're much larger than our ghost wolf forms. Currently on live servers, if we have Glyph of the Spectral Wolf activated, we're roughly the same size as our puppy pals. Since both glyphed and unglyphed versions of our ghost wolf are the same size, our new wolves will always seem large in comparison.

How about raptors? Well, at this moment in time our Spirit Raptors (if you use Glyph of Spirit Raptors) do not have new models. Perhaps we'll see those in future builds, but I have my doubts on those being terribly high on the priority list right now.