Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (Part 4/12)

Deathbringer Saurfang

A rather simple fight in terms of mechanics, the Saurfang the Younger fight starts off with a monologue from papa Saurfang that touches the childhood and his life expectations of Jr. You can use this to get into position or go for a bio break, there’s an almost 2 minute mark for the yapping.

Saurfang Jr, whom we will only refer to affectionately as Saur or Jr, has an interesting gimmick up his sleeve that will kill your defense if you’re not paying attention. He casts Boiling Blood at a random target, an ability doing 5k dmg every 3 seconds and you want to be 11 yards away from your closest teammate if you get tagged otherwise upon him using Blood Nova (another interesting ability) he would get more blood energy back, 1 for each player within 11 yds of the Boiling Blood target. When he reaches 100 energy he will cast a Mark of the Fallen Champion on a random target except the tanks, who will take the same damage taken by the tank each hit Saur lands.

Because of the above abilities, positioning is crucial. If your team is bunched up he will get the chance to cast a helluva lot of Marks and that will bring extra stress to the healers (most comps are running 2 healers for 10 man and 5 for 25). If the target of the Mark dies, Jr will be healed for 5% of his total HP so you will not be only down a player but also will have a harder task ahead of you.

Periodically Saur will also call a couple of Blood Beasts and they will give him 1 energy per hit made as well so it’s important to kill them on sight and not get gibed. Here is what smart positioning does. Ideally you will want more ranged DPS than melee for this fight because you can keep your spacing for Boiling Blood and be able to kill the Beasts until they reach you. As a Shaman this is where you shine, with Thunderstorm and Earthbind Totem.  With a bit of luck you won’t need to use the totem if you have a strong partner that can also CC the beasts (they cannot be feared) so you get some damage done on them plus some mana back? Good times!

You will want to be at maximum range from Saurfang, that’s a given, but you also want to be in a place where you can easily kite the beast around without having to get into somebody’s 11yd bubble. I found that the location I’m most comfortable with is at the bottom of the big platform leading up to him, far into the corner. You would then be able to kite the beast towards the enclosed area of the balcony (where the loot chest will spawn) without anyone else having to run out of your way.

If carefully executed, the beasts thing will at most have you move one or two yards back, if TS isn’t enough or on CD, just then use the totem and /profit.

The beasts will be spawned roughly every 10% of HP the boss looses so you will know when they will be summoned. Plus, if you’re using DBM or BigWigs or any other similar addon you’ll have a visual representation of the CD on this ability.

The best time to use BloodLust (again, wait for the RL to call out for it or ask when he wants it used) would be around 30% HP left on Jr. That’s when he will hit a soft enrage and the healers will need the breathing room. That’s also when adds will be summoned so you get to not go full out DPS on the boss because you have to kill them dead. Not a big win for us ranged but at least we’re helping out so it should be cool. Remember to always switch to the closest beast to you as soon as possible.

Elemental Tips:

1. When beasts are spawned you don’t actually need to immediately (as in split second) switch, as long as you make sure your CL is off CD. Hit the button for the extra damage on the boss plus both adds (in 10 man) and then rock your beast’s world with DS, LvB, LB and then TS if you’re the one with the aggro.
2. When you see that Blood Beasts are about to be summoned and the LvB CD just ended don’t blow it on the boss, instead LB again so that it will be up from the get go when the beasts actually spawn. You really want your hardest hitting attack fly as soon as possible (except if you want to go with 1.)
3. If you are the target of a Mark of the Fallen Champion, depending on how far into the fight it’s cast, you would rather want to keep yourself alive rather than doing damage to Saurfang. For instance if you’re it before the 30% soft enrage you will want to let the healers handle this. If you’re tagged on the enrage or immediately after (that would be down to 20% on the boss, until things cool off in their department) you will want to keep yourself alive. Spamming LHW will be enough for this. Another moment when you will want to self-heal is if you get gibbed on the last 10%. A lot of players relax early and might miss the Mark, if you get it and die that’s another 5% more HP that they’ll be too relaxed for.

Totem Selection:

Earth: Stoneskin Totem, for the extra mitigation on the tanks, thus making it easier for any Mark victim. Switch for Earthbind only if needed.

Fire: Go with Fire Elemental in the start and then, when it expires, ToW is the best choice.

Water: Depending on if you have a Paladin that dishes out GBoW, Mana Spring or Healing Stream Totem

Air: Wrath of Air Totem all the way, baby!

The 25 man version doesn’t bring a lot more, just 5 beasts and more HP on them and the boss. Well, that and, given the extra numbers, more Marks will be cast so watch out.

Threat

This one is inspired by the wall of text that BBB posted yesterday. He goes on for 4000 words about how tanks, and particularly bear tanks, can handle happy trigger DPS pulling threat. I must confess that at times I too have this problem, I start unloading everything I’ve got the second the tank charges/pulls/taunts the far off mob. While I know it can be a problem for most tanks, as you don’t see that many with a red GS joining the daily heroics, I sometimes can’t help it. I’m'a tell you a little somethin-somethin’ about how to do this and live.

Just to be clear, I don’t condone this kind of behavior (we have a local saying, do as the priest says, not what he does) even though I sometimes get carried away and start mah blasting early. Early but not before the tank, mind you.

Ok, moving on. There are two types of aproaches, as Elemental, to this issue. Bear in mind that this is trash we’re talking about and not bosses, single-target threat should not be an issue.

1st way: This I recommend for the times you feel hyped up or see that you have a well geared tank at the helm of the group. It will yield the most DPS but it’s also the risky thing to do, specially at higher gear levels. Once the tank starts running in/charging/whatever you should wait a second and then run behind him. Figure out on the fly where he wants to do the tanking and drop your totems (Magma as Fire) on the spot. Don’t stop running, go a couple of steps further (but not too far, just outside melee mobs cleave) and as soon as the GCD from dropping the totems is up Fire Nova. Then assist the tank and start with the usual rotation of FS, LvB, CL off CD, FN off CD. Remember, this is a high damage – high mana requirement rotation so try not to go in at less than half mana. Usually if it’s executed right, this will net you some decent damage done and won’t pull any aggro off of the tank. Unless it’s a bear and he’s off attacking another mob from the one you were assisting with.

What you want to do in this scenario, as you are only a few yards away from the upset skelly or vrykul or whatever, is to make a judgement call whether you can CC it enough to burn its remaining HP down or you need to get it back to the tank. Fortunately (for us) we can do both just fine, but my personal phylosophy is that of tanks (got one myself, maybe that’s why), namely ‘if you pull it you tank it’.

So: if mobs’ health < than [DPS you can push in to kill it until it reaches you] then /cast Eartbinding Totem, blast away
else position yourself so that the tank, mob and you are in a straight line and Thunderstorm when it’s close, sending it to the tank’s loving Axe or Shield. Or Axe and Shield. Depends.

2nd way: You play it safe. You use ToW for the extra punch and you only Assist the tank. Grabbing aggro and thus a munchy thing off of your face doesn’t become an issue unless you have a tank that is severely undergeared compared to you.

For both situations, make sure to have Wind Shear handy for when you see the threat percentages go up.
Wind Slap, Biatch! I no threatening, I be cauliflower, garden rose, I be in fact a squirrel under a heap of mail armor! You no want me!

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (part 3/12)

The Gunship Battle in ICC is one of the easiest and more exciting battles that you will find in end-game content by far. It is, in fact, so easy, that it doesn’t even merit a walk-through but I’m’a do it anyway because it is also one of my favorites.

OK, so you’re on the boat. Remember to always equip the jetpack. This is mighty important for you, as a shaman, because otherwise you will not only not contribute to the success (or only marginally) but you can also be the bringer of death and sorrow, namely of a wipe. This is, of course, given the fact that you are stepping into ICC for the first time and are not at a vast disadvantage, gearwise, compared to your group. After you have the jet-pack equipped it’s very important to ask what is expected of you for this fight. There are a number of viable scenarios as to how this battle can be won so make sure you know what your part in it all is. Most likely you’ll be on add duty and that is the easiest part of the easiest battle. You just have to grow roots in one place near the ledge of your ship and go all out on the dwarven riflemen on the other side. CL is a good idea for this part, because said riflemen will be shooting at your ship and try to take it down. More on this later.

You will see that there are two cannons you could use but usually they are assigned to specific people so unless told otherwise, stay clear of them because you’ll be most likely mocked for your gunnery affinity. If you are assigned to be in a cannon, however, the only thing you need to do is to spam 1 until the heat bar to the right of the ‘vehicle’ UI goes up to around 75%-90% and then pres 2. A normal way to start causing more damage (albeit not a lot) is to pre-heat the cannons by starting firing them once the gunship is on the move so that you can use the special attack as soon as possible on the enemy ship.

Now down to the nitty-gritty, (if only) the fight itself. Your job will be to kill the enemy’s riflemen. Normal rotation on these guys, FS, LvB with the addition of CL off CD. Don’t worry about mana, it’s EZ mode, trust me on this one.

From time to time you’ll hear Muradin asking for a mage to come to the stage (‘Get a Mage in here to freeze those cannons!’ I believe are his exact words), and your cannons will be enclosed in a block of ice and their respective gunners will be ejected. At this point the jetpack kicks in and you’ll have to board the enemy ship and kill that pesky mage as soon as possible. Once he’s down the cannons return to normal and the group can have at it again. Rinse and repeat until the enemy ship starts going down in flames. Loot. But make sure you’re not actually aboard the enemy ship when it starts descending or you’ll be going down with it. Like a captain. With a another faction’s ship. Erm… yeah…

A little tid-bit about the riflemen. Make sure you snipe all of them, otherwise the longer they stay up the stronger they become and the more they hurt your ship.

This was the offensive part, now for defense: to make your healer’s lives a lot easier when you see that there’s a circle under your feet get outside it’s radius and start blasting again. That’s where a rocket is going to land and even though it doesn’t hurt that much, multiple rockets can kill you if you’re not paying attention. Be wary also of Muradin’s cleave. It hurts like a MOFO even though you’re wearing mail so make sure that when you jump over to the enemy ship:

a) You’re not the first one otherwise he will come get you and turn you into a smear on the floor.

b) Make sure that you don’t target him at some point and start unloading damage in his arse or you’ll be getting some back in retaliation – this doesn’t hurt, some 1.5K ranged attack (while you’re on your boat) but it’s better to not cop damage at all, if possible, as your healers would appreciate it.

Fun things to do while in this fight:

1. Just as you’re about to jump back on your ship after killing the enemy mage position yourself between two riflemen , select your landing target and as soon as you’re in the air Thunderstorm. You’ll get some mana back and do upwards of 15 k dmg if you’re lucky enough to hit 3.

2. I’ve never actually tried this but you can leave your fire elemental on the Alliance boat, in the furthermost left corner. You want him there otherwise he might wonder up to Muradin and he won’t be happy about having a big ass fire thingy wondering about on his wooden boat.

Totem Selection:

Earth Totem: Stoneskin. It will help everybody and it’s the safest choice.

Fire Totem: You want to go with ToW on this one unless you’re trying the Fire Elemental thing mentioned above. Searing might also be a fun choice but it always chooses a random target and might end up shot at by a rifleman.

Water Totem: Unless GBoW is on the table, really, really go for Mana Spring, otherwise Healing Stream.

Air Totem: Wrath of Air, plain and simple

The difference between the 10 man and the 25 man version is in the number of cannons available to your side (2/4) and the HP of the mobs.

Happy Sniping!

Shaman Changes for Cataclysm

I’m quite sure that everybody’s heard about the new tricks your favorite class will learn once Cataclysm hits so I won’t list them, I’ll stick to the Elemental side of things.

“Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we’re considering for this ability:

Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman’s Haste for the next five swings.
Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman’s next Fire attack by 20%.
Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman’s next healing spell by 20%.”

That is the exact blue post. While pretty straightforward in the way it will and should be used, this Unleash Weapon thing is something that will need to be worked into our rotation and for spice it up. It’s not just a damage boost, it can also be very, VERY tricky to get right if and only if the Flame Shock ticks aren’t considered an attack. I’m quite new to  the theorycrafting and I might have my facts wrong but to me damage done = attack. If I’m correct this will be very problematic because you’d always want to use it for your main nuke, Lava Burst. Now, with the FS ticks being affected by haste you will most certainly not be able to do so unless you use Elemental Mastery and stand on top of the boss so the spell don’t need to be flyin’. I’m guessing I’m either wrong in my assumption or there will be future clarification on how this will work or it will turn from an OMG GIEF! spell to something that won’t be really worth the GCD and nerves. Only time will tell.

“Spiritwalker’s Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.”

This is really sweet for us and our resto brethren as well. The main problem with the Elemental play-style is that in order to be competitive we need to be rooted in place and go back to being the TBC turrets. While moving we’re crap and unless while going from point A to point B we get a lucky Lightning Overload proc and we get to squeeze in a Frost Shock (if not on CD) that’s dead time right there. I’m guessing that they’ve thought of this for a specific reason and not just because of the countless QQ threads so… yeah… I’m looking forward to it and to putting it to good use. Here-here!

“Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group’s spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock’s Demonic Pact, so you can’t benefit from all of them at once. We’re also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.”

1. Yay, we get to throw totems around!

2. Yay, we get ToW to scale!

3. Yay, we get to throw totems around!

4. Only Searing? QQ to come

*Edit : they’re toying with the idea of making any totem one that can be used at range. I hope they include Magma as well, it’s getting really old really fast to gave to run in, drop magma, run the fuck away from Cleave damage then to run back into it in about 15 seconds (2.5 for running in and out). At one point I said fuck it, I haz shield, i no di….! And then got cleaved in half by Marrowgar. The tank decided to WALK instead of RUN in to pull and somehow I got ahead of him in my race to find the perfect spot for mah totemz (Fire Ele in this particular case).

“Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.”

Moar range? Good! Moar options and moar running to drop in magma if they don’t make it ranged.

Earthquake? Yes, please! On trash we really can’t hold a candle to other classes so this is a very nice buff. It will be channeled tho but just imagine magma + persistent AoE. Key word Persistent, mind you!

“With the Mastery system, we’re also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature’s Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.”

This can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. In giving you more freedom to choose fun talents or those that will let you develop your own play-style they are opening up a horizon of opportunity to what can safely be called a pretty boring rotation and, some say, spec. As is the current state of things in the game there will always be a cookie-cutter spec and you’ll find it over at Elitist Jerks. PuGging, on the other hand, will make you see even crazier things that you see now. 71 points in the Elemental tree? That’s NOTHING! 75 is better, or even a 44/32/0 spec might seem viable to some, for some of the added benefits from the Enhancement tree. While I love the option to be able to come up with my own spec I dread the diopters I’ll get from staring at others’ specs in awe.

“Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.”

No more +hit gems sounds nice, although they won’t be removed or completely useless. Chances are that the better your gear will get at 85 the less you’ll need to gem or enchant hit. Either way, this will be really sweet talent exactly because you might need it or you might not, thus freeing one point to put in Improved Stormstrike or whatever.

“Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Elemental
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Elemental Overload

Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful ‘bonus” version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.“

Nice but I’m not sure if it’s nice enough, it seems a bit lackluster. The big bonus for our tree is something we’ve had all along +1? Oh, how… wonderful…

Of course,  Blizz said that this is a work in progress so I hope we get more juice out of the ultimate Mastery bonus. As a side note, I’d like to see a haste bonus instead of crit but meh…

Stories of failing. Chapter 1/153246

Definitely not a new concept and one of the oldest and best implemented thoughts in the mind of WoW players and not only. There is a big amount of Fail out there and you have to try to not be a part of it. It’s impossible, lemme tell you that. It might not be your fault or it might not have anything to do with you personally but everybody fails at one point or another. I’m’a start you off with an example of my own failing and then move on to the really bad part: others’.

My latest FAIL moment on my shaman was a couple of nights ago, and, of course, by night I mean 6 AM. Random HC pops up and it’s ToC. I was actually relieved that it’s not HoR which can drive you bananaz if you get that one tank that is gearing up, or the healer with lag or the dps that can’t tie his shoelaces alone (I have nothing against you, guys, but I think I wiped in Halls of Reflection more than I did in ICC. And it was your fault! /sob). An instance that is not HoL or HoS or any other instance where half the mobs resist my spells? Gief! OK, so the loading screen does its thing, we mount, kill faction champs both horse, or rather wolfback and after dismounting and then comes the part where you loot the chest, watch everybody else roll on the item Disenchant and then talk to the Belf. Side note: this was always a point of high suspense for me. I wanted Eadric and I wanted him to Drop Aledar’s Battlestar for my Enhancement offspec. Farmed for 2 of them for 1 month and then the first ToC 10 I ran I got upgrades. Meh. Still, it was one of my “oh, GOD, let it be him, let it be him!” moments in the game. Surely enough, he comes and the 3×3 mobs assume position.

The tank goes to the usual starting point, left as you look at Eadric, and does his thing (seriously, are there groups that start on the right? Anywhere?). I cast my totems and start LvB and CL-ing away. The priestess goes down and I’m half asleep at this point. Getting a heroic I like is nice but it’s not going to race my pulse. I then TAB to the next target which just so happens to be the priestess from the second group of mobs and paying no attention I start my rotation of OMFGIMBADPS. In two or three seconds I have all 3 on me and while the tank and melee dps are slowed down by the stupid bubbly Argent Monk that had just died and can’t intervene, the healer is getting omnomnommed for trying to heal me. Wipe. Plain and simple. The group was cool, though and we laughed through it and then went on to get our two frosties each. After that I logged my DK which I am insanely trying to gear up right now, to the point where I no longer care if an item has STR or AGI on it, if it has a better GS than what I have I’ll take it! Not really, but the principle stands. I want to have the GS to be able to PuG ToC 25 and I have to carefully plan this as I do not have “Achie” and need to find the Tuesday night group that is desperately in need of people. It wasn’t meant to be this week. Maybe the next. Short inner pep talk.

A surprisingly short queue has me standing in HoL. The warrior tank looks really good with his 47k HP unbuffed and the healer is a 40K mana paladin. Good short run, says I, and then I go on to greet everybody with my baby blue writing. I always queue as Dungeon Guide. Don’t really know why, tho, I guess I like the color. Or maybe it’s the closest that I’ll ever be to leading a raid, despite not having any actual powah. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The tank says Hi and then turns around, runs through the swirly instance entrance and vanishes, not dropping group. “Erm… tank?” I say in a squeaky pigtailed Belf voice. I hate it when somebody calls me by the function but that never stooped me from doing it. Do unto others? Nonsense! “You’re all on your own,” the tank replied. “Come back or drop group,” the pally healer stepped up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you lol” And we were all flabergasted. He did not drop group, but the healer and a rogue did, immediately. The balance drood and I waited out the 5 (?) minutes and then kicked the tank, I switched specs and tanked for the new group. I really hate tanking. With fervour, especially tanking trash. Bosses I can handle, the taunt button is hit off CD and I manage to pull it off but invariably I have one DPS in the group that keeps dying when I tank. Statistically it’s the 3rd one down, dunno why. The new group consists of me, DK tank, Boomkin, Resto Shaman, Ret Pally and Hunter. The hunter apparently did not agree to the slow pace I had in mind and kept pulling. And pulling. And pulling. Without any Misdirect. He just pulled 2 packs at a time and after that let me and the healer deal with it. The shaman was awesome and did a bang up job but we were both growling. As we had kicked the previous tank we were all out and had to deal with it.

At one point I tell the hunter, in a very polite manner, that if he is going to pull for me he can at least MD. He does not. I tell him again to MD, explain while auto-attacking, inbetween taunts and casting D&D and Howling Winds, so in extremely short sentences, that I haz 2 taunts, Dark Command and Death Grip and that he is pulling to many at once and my gear doesn’t allow massive threat generation. Heck, the best item I’ve got is the Onyxia Head quest trinket reward! Nothing. He was from Hakkar and that might explain it. It’s better if you’re not in the know but if you’re curious go Google the stories about them. They’re all true, I swear!

After a short talk with the Shaman we decide to let the hunter die the next pull. Which we promptly execute, in outstanding fashion. He was dead within 2 seconds and I did nothing. NOTHING, you hear that? After he died I D&D’d and did my thing and we moved on.

“Rez plx”

…

“REZ PLS”

…

Hunter drops group.

Damn, that felt good. Tomorrow I think I’ll ride a bus without a ticket!

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A love Story (Part 2/12)

On to part two of the ICC and Elemental Shamans, the never ending story of life and love. Or loot pinata:

LADY DEATHWHISPER

I’m not sure if this was intended or not, but the only raid boss in this instance that has the Lady title is a chatterbox. She keeps yapping about how the LK is the savior and you are doomed and about apple pie recipes. Or something like that. After the first time you fight her you sorta zone out while she blabbers and go on a mental afk.

Remember the room heading up to Blackheart the Inciter, In Shadow Labyrinth? It’s about the same, with nasty ass mobs that you need to kill plus two priests on the sides. Word of warning:  while it is possible to AoE the trash here, be careful not to pull one of the priests as well, they have a nasty AoE and do a bomb-type thingy on a random player (this time it can be a tank too) that will act like a DoT and explode after a few seconds. Once you have this, and if you’re using DBM you’d have to be legally blind and deaf not to notice, move away from the raid, 20 yards will do. Once you explode you can go back and hit that if you want to. You might get it twice or more in a row so look out for it!

The fight itself is not a lot different than the M’uru fight. It boils down to managing adds as soon as they spawn and dropping them, if possible, where they stand, and then on to phase two and kicking the oh, so honorable lady’s behind. Also known for us shamans as the BL BL BL BL BL BL phase. You’ll get it.

First phase:

This begins when somebody throws a random punch or kick or spell at the good lady. She will be so afraid of the lot of you that she will immediately shroud herself in a mana barrier. The faster you DPS it down, the faster you push onto phase two.  Mind you, this phase is not a DPS race. You have to take care of the spawning adds and then, until the next wave spawns, go for her shield. If you have a very good group with lots of people dishing out insane amounts of hurt you can have one or two people DPSing her shield at all times. Not recommendable tho, it can all go to hell in a hand basket really quick if the adds are not controlled.

For the 10 man version the adds will spawn alternatively from your left and right, in this order. On 25 they spawn both left and right with a couple thrown from behind for some surprise buttseckz if your tanks aren’t paying attention.

There are two types of adds to begin with, Cult Fanatics and Cult Adherents. Usually you’ll set your melee DPS on the Adherents and Spell Flinging DPS on the Fanatics. Don’t fret, if their names are just as I’ve written them above you can actually use Chain Lightning and Magma Totem freely. The problem becomes when Lady D. brings one back to life. Now if you’re not careful you can haz a cup o’ death by 1 shotting yourself. The assignments above, melee-> Adherents, ranged ->Fanatics are in placed because at this point they will be almost immune to spell respectively melee attacks.  Their names will change to Reanimated Fanatics/Adherents and your sole concern is to down yours. They hit twice as hard as well, as an added bonus. You might also encounter the Deformed A/F, just as deadly and just as almost immune to specific damage. They deal thrice the damage but have their speed cut in half. All fanatics hit like Mike Tyson so melee (and you, if you had to go Enhancement for this one) will need to be behind them while someone kites them.

Be careful with the buffs they get. Your priority, the Fanatics, get something to further boost their damage done by 25% so Purge it immediately. For this fight I have my Purge button bound to one of the side mouse buttons, just like for the Jaraxxus fight if you don’t have a couple mages handy. Be on the look-out for Curse of Torpor, which is cast at random by the Adherents on a healer/caster DPS. If you get it stop casting and wait for it to be removed, it’ll make your GCD some 8 seconds and you don’t want that. The boss will cast at times Death and Decay on the ground so MOVE! ASAP, it ticks for some 4-5-6 k and will get you killed din no time flat if you’re not paying close attention.

Time the death of the adds very well when the the Lady’s shield is low so there aren’t any adds up when you move on to

Phase two:

At this point it becomes a DPS race, albeit not a very challenging one after a while and some 6 K DPS raid average.  You will only have Death Yeller, erm, Whisper to handle.

You will get Raid Warnings, Whispers, Yells and so on telling you to BL! Do it! Watch the boss’ cast bar, she will only cast Frostbolts which ARE interruptible. If you see nobody else is doing it, go for it. Even if you see somebody else kicking go for it, they deal a decent amount of damage and can cause death when combined with:

a)      Death and Decay, which she will continue casting at random

b)      Ghosts

Yes, Ghosts! They will spawn at a random location and target a random player, to explode on impact for some 10-12 K-ish AoE damage.  When you see them just run for the hills, they don’t have a very long life and move slower than you do. After they explode go back to DPS-ing and barring any tanks not switching when their debuff hits the mark and/or healers dying from Frostbolts/ Ghosts you should get a kill.

And that will shut her up! Or at least until the next week, that is.

Totem Choices:

Earth Totem:  Stoneskin is your best choice in this fight hands down.

Fire Totem: You might want to start out with ToW and after Lady D’s barrier is down switch to Fire Elemental Totem. If you have a Demo Warlock with the right speck you can go Searing instead in P1 and Fire Elemental in P2.

Water Totem: Unless you absolutely must use the MP5 totem, go with Healing Spring.

Air Totem: Haste, pure and simple.

What the 25 version brings, besides from more adds, is that Lady Deathwhisper will periodically Mind Control a random player (not a tank but I could be wrong here). Do NOT kill him, CC his ass instead. Frog him! Go on! Do it! You know you want to!

This is, at least for PuGs, the make or break fight. A lot of 25 man pugs can’t manage the adds and disband. If you’ve leading said raid try to assign people to sides. It should go something like:

3/4 Ranged + 1/2 Melee on the left + Tank

3/4 Melee + 1/2 Ranged on the right + Tank

At the back you only need a tank, really, because what spawns there is random. If you feel like it then assign somebody, otherwise after side adds are down the respective DPS should switch there and the rest go on the Mana Barrier.

And during P1 always know how much of the mana shield is left. Trust me, it’s important!

Yo Momma!

Yo momma’s so fat that Chain Lightning bounced around and hit her 3 times!

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A love Story (Part 1/12)

I’m more acquainted with the 10 man version so this is what I’ll be focusing on, with some additions for the 25 man version.

Without further addue, I bring to you

LORD MARROWGAR

Simple enough fight and you should kick his arse long before the enrage timer starts flashing red. He has three abilities that concern you, the small and slightly undergeared (if you’re reading this you’re just stepping into ICC and don’t have the gear yet) shaman. The first one is called Bone Cemetery. What he does is to target a random player (non tank) and impale him with a Bone Spike. You will be unable to move cast, drink a pot, Thunderstorm and whatnot. You will also take a moderate amount of damage over time that will need to be healed through until you escape.  To get out of it you will need your raid to dps the spike until it’s dead. There’s an achievement to doing this too. All Spiked players must be released within 8 seconds of impale and you get BONED. Get it?

The second ability (or first, in order of cast) is Coldflame. This will start at the bottom of his hitbox and head towards a wall in a straight line. In the classical style of Don’t stand in bad shit, you should run away from it as soon as possible, preferably before it reaches you. It will do a damage per tick kind of thingy and a lag spike might kill you. Healers will need to be on the ball with damage from coldflame because it usually happens that once a bone spike is down you will find yourself in the coldflame. For the most part, this is avoidable damage and you shouldn’t be taking it at all unless spiked.

• To avoid this ability you can stand behind the boss, inside his hit box. The flames will start just outside it and you’ll get no damage and will be close enough for melee to DPS the spike, if you’re chosen.
• If you go ahead and do this make sure that you’re not ahead of the tank on the pull. You won’t grab aggro but he does a cleave like melee swing that is shared between the tanks. Learned this the hard way.

The last of his abilities is Bone Storm. He will drop aggro and whirl around the room chasing random players. Big ass radius for the damage on this one but totally manageable with a couple of good healers or just one. If you want to play it safe you can run towards the closest wall (thus putting some distance between his melee whirlwind swing towards his current target and you). This is a very good time to refresh your water shield if you’re having mana problems, because you will get hit and you will get some mana back. You can also use TS at this point, it’ll do the damage and give you the mana. I would suggest however keeping it until the spike he does is close enough for TS to do some damage on it. Instant cast decent damage? Good!

• If you have good healers you can actually ignore the running jumping part of this, the damage is in the 4k-ish area per swing if you’re using a shield and you can keep DPSing Marrowgar merrily.

After a Bone Storm is finished it’s all rinse and repeat.

Shaman Tips:

Time your Bloodlust/Heroism for after a Bone Storm for maximum DPS uptime. A god time to use it is after the Storm that he does when Marrowgar’s in the 2 mil-ish HP area.

Totem Choice:

Most of the bosses in ICC do a truckload of physical damage and unless your tank/s is a druid who asks you for Strength of Earth Totem, go with Stoneskin as your Earth Totem.

Fire Totem. Oh, the possibilities! If you have a Demonology Warlock that is specced right you can and should not use ToW. Instead use Fire Elemental Totem and Searing Totem when the first one expires. Watch its timer and refresh when needed.

Water Totem.  If you have more than one paladin in the raid chances are you have GboW and the safe choice is Healing Stream Totem. It’s not much but it helps and your healers definitely won’t mind it.

Air Totem. Depending on the composition of your raid, you can:

a)      Use Wrath of Air if you have at least another caster DPS in the group. Your healers will be thankful for it as well. This is the default choice.

b)      Use Windfury Totem if you have good healers but not so awesome melee dps and no Frost Deathknight DPS.

The only difference with the 25 man version of Marrowgar is that he will spike 3 people at once and will have more HP.

Class / Spec Conundrum

A recent conversation with one of my IRL and WoW friends gave me the idea to this post. Lemme paint the setting: we were both on my balcony, smoking, after he had just watched me get ROFLSTOMPed in AB by a very friendly combo of gnome rogue and dwarf paladin. In fact I almost got deaded by the dangerous duo, the game came to an abrupt end just as i was under 3k HP and stunned, with the rogue sprinting towards me and the paladin falling off of the LM cliff in a bubble. Yes, I had Thunderstormed them away. Yes, it’s fun. Yes, I was dead regardless. Yes, we lost. I suck at PvP.

As I left the BG and the Northrend loader screen was well, loading, we stepped out to discuss my inherent lack of peeveepee skills. The conversation started on a very light note, with him mocking me doing battlegrounds in my PvE gear (shaman PvP gear is kind of Naruto Gay looking but the reason i did this is because I don’t have PvP gear) but soon we, and by we I mean I, came to a very interesting finding:

I know how to PvP, what I lack is either hand-eye coordination, motor skills good enough or enough buttons on my keyboard. As an elemental shaman you have little to no survivability from what I see, and take this with a grain of salt, I haven’t PvP’d since 3.1 hit.

We started coming up with all these interesting scenarios, starting from duels and up to 2 vs 2 arenas. He plays a Balance drood so he knows, man, he knows the pain. Two internts for the one who finds the extremely vague movie reference there. In the old tradition of orcs strengthening through individual training against critters and whatnot he started shooting classes and abilities at me and I had to counter and then, when possible, take the offensive. A bit of verbal pen and paper PvP, if I may. We started off with the spec he knows best, moonkin. Boy, was that a short one. He managed to get two Moonfires and a wrath before I had killed him, or so to speak. We then went through Retribution paladin, which thanks to the terrain I was able to beat too (PURGE, baby, PURGE). Bottom line, we went through all the classes he knew and all those that I knew and tried to see if the Shaman class is viable in PvP. It is. Just not for me.

The one thing that did stick somewhere in the back of my head was the class/spec thing. Something felt strangely weird to me when discussing PvP and taking racials into account.

For instance a true Paladin in my opinion shouldn’t be anything other than Retribution (I shall smite thee with the wrath of all that is holy, in a very southern accent. Yes, all paladins come from Tennessee).
As much as I love the Subtlety tree for all the gimmicks and tricks you have available, a Rogue should only be Assassination according to the same probably twisted logic I have. Keep in mind, I am not talking about class or spec functionality, I am just saying that these are the specs that seem right to me according to the lore.
Warrior – the jury’s still out on that one. I managed to boil it down to faction allegiance:
If Horde then Fury
Else Arms. (for those that remember Pascal)
Another class that I’m not so certain about is Hunter. All three specs really seem viable from a lore point, given that these are times of war. Beast Mastery is for the Rexxar type of hunter, just him and his pet in the wilderness. Survival is what I see a true hunter as. ‘t was just me and da dragon, eye to eye, him breathing fire, me breathing onion type of thingy. And, like I said before, these are times of war so when drafted the hunters would obviously be marksmen.
Next up – Priests. No brainer on this one, really. Holy and that’s it.
Mages should really only be Arcane. Because they’re frickin mages and not matches or elemental eskimos, that’s why.
Death Knights is another one that’s not hard to figure out, they’re Unholy. They’re the oposite of Paladins. They’re from New York and they don’t like your attitude no matter what that is.
Warlocks should be Demonology because they’re warlocks. ‘nuf said.
Durids should be trees. They like the nature thing and like to boogey with trees and bushes. They nurture them and heal the land. Stick’em in a tree form and start’a'choppin’.
Last but definitely not least, Shamans should be Elemental. They too are one with nature but they communicate with the Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart! Go, Planet! And because this is the class I enjoy playing the most, I’ll go a little further and explain why not Enhancement or Restoration. Enhancement is a very violent approach to handling them balls that fly around you. If anything, this is close to the bestiality aproach. Not THAT kind of bestiality -.-. You pummel animals to death and then cry a bit (oh, brother, I too was running across the plains just yesterday as a ghostly wolf but now some dude needs your Lean Flank and will give me 15 s for 10. Where’s your momma?).
Restoration isn’t really my cup of tea, and I say this as someone who’s leveled to be resto in arenas during TBC. The problem I see with it is that… there’s nothing on resto anywhere. I think they needed a third spec and brought resto because what is nature after all if not the rebirth of all that’s good?

Now I’m not expecting anyone to actually read this post but I want to stress out again that this is my take on the lore from what I have seen in the game and from what I have read. I’m sure I could be wrong on a number of counts and that there are people who could tear this bit to pieces and for good reason. My blog, my idea, my rules. I’m just putting this out there.

Now it’s time to do like the gnome rogue and Vanish!

The beginings

I realize that the below contents may seem wrong to say the least to some, all is nevertheless true.

So, just to get the first blog post out of the way, I thought i’d make you privy to the kind of e-mails I get on a monthly basis. Word of warning, I may be getting them because I have been hacked once at the begining of December. Helluva time to get hacked too: 3 days after rolling a 99 on the DPS mace in Anub ToC25 (and it being the winning roll)and 2 days after winning the caster (more like healer) shield in Anub ToC10.

And how can you tell that the e-mail is a scam? Well there are a number of things (I have included the full e-mail, not just an excerpt):
For one, there is no part para clientes espa?oles. The second is that they are referred to as espa?noles.
The third is that cute legit-like website they link, which is definitely not the real one (in the lines of worldofwarcraftaccountsecurity). And fourth, Blizzard does not leave two spaces between words – look at the highlighted fields:

English speaking customers: Please refer to the start of this mail
Para los clientes espa?oles: Por favor vayan hasta el fin de este coreo electrónico

An investigation of the World of Warcraft account has produced evidence that the account has been accessed by someone who is not allowed to use it. Now you can bind your mobilephone to your World of Warcraft account for free. This will protect your account from being stolen: I SHALL NOT BE THE CAUSE OF OTHERS BEING HACKED.

Please be sure to review the information below to help prevent future security  issues:
Account compromises are usually the result of the registered player of the account sharing his or her login information or playing on a computer that has a virus.
Please remember that it is your responsibility to keep your login information  confidential. Any account that is registered to your name may not be shared with anyone except for one minor, of whom you are acting as a parent or guardian. You are also responsible for every use of your login information, whether authorized or not.
For your own protection, we encourage you to keep the following security tips in  mind when using any computer on which you play World of Warcraft:
- Keep current with the latest operating system and other software updates.
- Make use of firewall protection if possible.
- Regularly scan for viruses, Trojan files, and key loggers.
- Be wary of “spoof” emails and websites and when downloading new software.

Ok, it does look legit enough if you haven’t been hacked once and aren’t really account security freaked.
I forgot the biggest hint that the email is a scam: Gmail will flag it as such and give you a big-ass warning on a red background. I’m just putting this out there for those that may be using different e-mail providers.

Ok, now a bit of information about the shaman behind the blog: I’m 24, going on 25 (Sound of Music anyone?), I’ve only been playing a shaman for about 2 years now, previous to that I’ve played a rogue aaaaand… oh, the suspense is killing me…..

I’m one of those players that started out on a private server and then moved on to the real deal. /hides
There’s actually a long story behind this. I was originally a Lineage freak, with hours and days on end spent in game. I had a nice group of IRL friends that made the impossible grind look a lot more appealing but then we finished highschool and separated so i slowly waned off of that game and went into hardcore single playing offline due to the fact that I did not have any Internet access where I first lived (away from my hometown). But then I moved and had teh Internets all for myself and after a very short period in which I actually thought that I had seen all the Internet had to offer (funny clips, funny pics, sad pandas, 4chan) I remembered that it was actually fun to play MMOs. I remembered L2 as a bore (farming ToI for 11 SoEs heads in particular… seriously, you need 11 staff heads to make a staff? Seriously?) and thought I’d try WoW, being the huge WoW lore fan that I was (and still am).

I had a friend at that time which in the meantime has moved on to greener pastures IRL and no longer plays that had his own WoW server and I gave it a try. I really liked it, no more farming YAY, or disguised as quests (get me 10 wolf flanks or i’m'a huff and puff and not give you XP). I first leveled a mage because well, they are awesome and turn huge monsters into sheep OMG! Then after I saw how full of bugs and errors the server was (around level 47 I think) in that I was able to get into Caverns of Time and dot the 1 HP mobs that gave me a whooping 2k XP/mob I gave it a second thought.
Another friend was on a different but just as private server that was clearly working better by the looks of it. I rolled a rogue there and he rolled a druid and we leveled together. We had an almost gaysh good time doing that and then, at lvl 70 (this was during TBC) we joined the best guild there was Alliance side. Pretty much all of the abilities were working (not all as intended but again, this was a huge upgrade from what I had experienced before. That is where I learned about diminishing returns (WTF, my Kidney Shot isn’t working every time QQ) and glimpsed into the world of raiding. We raided KZ with all bosses doing what they are supposed to, Gruul, Zul Aman, Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern but enough about this.

The reason that I moved on to the real WoW was in fact PvP. More exactly an EOTS match, in which I, as one of the best geared (and supposedly most skilled rogues on the server according to /1) decided to do things a little differently. Allow me to elaborate a bit on this. I know you will, coz it’s my blog and I do whatever the hell I want with it.
The action took place just as you get off of the bridge and on route to the Fel base. We had captured the base and were now into flag carrying. To this end 2 priests which I respected enormously (one of which was a warlock’s alt) for what they did during our 25 man raids and I grabbed the flag and were met by a group of 4, a resto shaman, a warrior, a resto drood and a rogue. I was not the one carrying the flag, one of the priests was, and disc at that. I knew that we pretty much had no chance in hell at winning (the shaman was imba and the drood was also a fierce contender for the imba status).

I decided to play decoy so as the priests could score. I swung my cock… err… my swords (Subtlety FTW), KS’d one, blinded another Vanished, KS’d again, Gouged… and on and on. To my surprise I was not dropping but the chaos was more than I could handle and didn’t really check to see why I was not a smear on the purplish floor. Long fight and situation short, one priest healed me until he was OOM, during which time the other one capped the flag and then the OOM priest went for the flag and the other one healed me. We won the day and the match but afterwards, as we were in the same guild, I got a rectal exam size worth of swearing and criticism for playing decoy. In the biggest fit of rage I quit playing on that server and moved on to the good shit – Blizz.

Am I sorry that I played on a private server? Yes and no.
Yes because I know and knew at that time that I was doing something entirely wrong. I was in a financial slump. I know that’s not an excuse.
No because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be playing WoW today and would have missed out on some of the most exciting and fun moments in my life.
So… would anyone respect a player less for having a background similar to mine? Would this matter if it were true for someone in your guild?

Disclaimer: English is not my first language so at times I may miss a tense or invent a word or five.