Shaman on Ramen

We’ve gotten pretty beast at ToGC25, if I do say so myself. Going from not being able to put a raid together two weeks ago to one-shotting Northrend Beasts AND learning/downing Lord Jnaxxaramas and Varian Wrynn’s Worthless Scrubs the week we got to them makes me pretty damn proud of my guild. (Certain flea-ridden raid leaders not listening to me when I explaiend heroic Twin Valks is another story, and one he will never, ever live down. /maniacal laugh. B)) Our progress on Twin Valks tonight has me impressed as well- last Thursday we were 30second superstars, spending attempts going out in blazes of glory as we stood in the bad. (Protip: This bad moves! INORITE?) Today, while we lost 1-2 people pretty consistently within the last 30 seconds, and our dps was pretty bad at actually collapsing the empowered Power Word Shields (I got to call out for trinkets/bloodlust! /pride), we actually managed to survive longer than a virgin’s first time, and that makes me quite happy. To top it all off, I made a channel for our initiates to ask questions in without feeling embarassed asking the raid, and it worked out ok…where ok means that the initiate hunter was the only person talking in it other than me. But still, I think it will work out well.

So, what am I ranting about? Well, first:

Dear Mr. Hunter. (You know who you are.)

I respect you and like you. You’re fucking awesome dps, a good person, and will be shanked in the back by my rogue buddies if you take Death’s Choice over me. I still remember and feel pretty awesome about those early Ulduar 10s you got me in on, even if they were with Cynical, Karmadillo was the only worthwhile non-us member, and we couldn’t down Mimiron. So yes, you’re awesome.

HOWEVER, I FUCKING KNOW BLESSING OF PROTECTION IS ON THE KILL TARGET. And Earth Shield. And Hand of Freedom. And every other purgable buff. I know that vent has no global cooldown, but my abilities do- rest assured that unless I fatfinger lava lash, or had to target switch to hex/focus purge/Wind shear the hellfire, within the next 1.5 seconds I -will- be casting purge. My reaction time is not much less than yours, and most of the time I’ve noticed as you started speaking- but that does not mean I have the free ability time to purge.

One rant down, one to go.

So, heroic Twin Valkyrs- we learn it. We learn it well. During the course of our learning, because I had nothing better to do and I was feeling a little proud, I took this screenshot:

I know, I know, I should have lightning bolted- Screenshotting is not high on the Priority List. D:

Yaay, me on top. Amirite? But what annoys me about this screenshot is how low the margin is between myself and the other dps…considering I had to use a 20minute cooldown ability to get this high. Enhancement Shaman DPS at the moment is the lowest of the melee hybrids, which is fine- someone always has to be the lowest. We’ve been competitive throughout WoTLK, and we’ll bounce back. 3.3 changes are already looking positive. What is not fine-to me- is that the only way for us to BE competitive is to rely on a cooldown that is only up every 3-4 boss attempts. Fire Elemental, since it’s 3.1 buffs, has been made into a powerful DPS tool. On a single target fight, it does a good 1k dps. On a Cleave fight like Twin Valkyrs, it does even more. On burn phases/times where your damage is buffed (such as XTs Heart Phase), it really shines. (On a side-note: It does replace magma, which can do 800ish dps itself, so even if your FE is doing 1200 DPS it’s not an insanely more powerful dps tool- it’s a great one, though. Also, magma requires much finer control, and can be a bitch on moving bosses- an issue Fire Elemental does not have.)

I could understand the 20 minute cooldown if we enjoyed a place on the DPS ladder similar to Death Knights, where we’d be fighting the pures for dps meters. Currently, though, we’re not top dps, and I’m not sure why I need to feel naked for the 18 minutes he/she is not alive, or worry about popping it on attempts knowing that we might wipe later.

(Note: I’m not an advocate for the idea of no cd on FE. I do think we should be required to make the choice of when in a boss fight to pop FE-these choices are needed to make DPS an interesting thing to play. I just don’t think we should need to make the choice of which boss fight we’re going to purposefully lower our dps on in order to provide higher dps for one that we may or may not see within 20 minutes. Personally, I think FE should get a bloodlustesque treatment- 10 Minute CD and 10 minute Sated debuff, allowing it to be up for every progression attempt.)

(Second Note: Fire elemental is not the only reason my topping the DPS meter is rare. As the rest of our DPS- particularly our melee- gear up with 245 weapons, I’m still sitting her rocking Uld25reg/toc10 weapons. Both of our ret paladins are currently running iLevel 258s, and on quite a few fights I have to work my ass off to just come near them. This isn’t a complaint- RNG with weapon drops simply isn’t working in my favor, which is fine. I’m just pointing it out because I said earlier in the post that I was proud of my topping dps- now you know why. )