In Burning Crusade, my introduction came a few months before joining Surreality for the first time, and when they recruited me as Enhancement I was the happiest little cow alive, all decked out in my badge gear and Sunwell Pleateu trash offhand. Somewhat ironically, my first ten man raid with Surreality was a Karazhan that I healed rather than DPSed, with the guild leader’s then-alt-now-main Resto Shaman, who I stole this from. (She said she was impressed that night, and that I carried her heals. She probably forgot, but I didn’t!) In Wrath of the Lich King, this came the day I joined Surreality…again. (Long story, dunt ask. Maybe it’ll be a rainy day blog! xD) Before that, my little ten man group of friends who I unceremoinously dumped my progression content guild to farm 10s with needed me as resto most days, and since I had somehow been promoted to raid/guild leader, it was my job to sacrifice my desire to hit things with fiery weapons for the good of the guild until I managed to escape back to the 25mans that spawned me.

Possibly surprisingly, I actually DO know a thing or two about healing. I’m no where near as competent as our guild’s actual healers, and I’d worry about being asked to help heal on progression content since I’m super rusty, but I do know how to heal as a shaman. And, since I have no life, I have of course read every Resto Shaman theorycrafting article you could think of, so I do at least know the theory of shaman healing. (I also -only- heal on Notelam, my paladin, but I don’t think I have the /played as a healer on her to speak about it much. )

As an offspec healer, and a grumpy one at that, I decided to take up the call to fill out Ms. Medicina’s Healing Questionnaire, mainly for fun.

* What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
My raiding main is Elam, an Orc Enhancement Shaman, who likes to dabble in the art of the glowing-green lights.

* What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mainly 10mans, as there are very few 25mans I pug on my main- and those that I do, I like to tear up the deeps meters a bit tooo much.

* What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Ancestral Awakening. It’s not -actually- a spell, in that I don’t click it. It procs off critical Lesser Healing Waves, Riptides, and Healing Waves, smart healing the person in the raid with the lowest HP for 30% of the amount healed.

If I had to choose an actual spell I click, I’d choose Lesser Healing Wave. After the sadness of not using the spell at all while healing through most of BC, it was great fun to see it make a come-back, and it’s ability to proc Imp. WS and Ancestral Wakening, as well as it’s own strength as a heal AND it’s synergy with Earth Shield through glyphing, LHW has become an excellent tool.

* What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave.  It’s a tool that has it’s place in a healing arsenal and should not be discounted, but beyond the normal Nature’s Swiftness +HW macro that every shaman has had since Ronal Reagan was president, it’s not a strong heal. Elam’s healing gear is considerably stronger than Notelam’s, but her Holy Light his for similar amounts and is spammable.

* What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Versatility, at least in a 10-man setting. While no Holy Paladin, Earth Shield+Lesser Healing Wave do provide strong single target healing, and Healing Wave IS good for needed burst healing. Chain Heal+Healing Stream Totem(raid wide 5-person smart heal, make it happen please Blizzard!) make Restoration a competitive raid healer, and it has the added benefit of looking kick-ass. And while I know that healers hate the assignment, I think through Riptide and Tidal Waves’d Lesser Healing Waves, Resto Shaman make excellent spot healers, for predictabe single target damage on someone not the tank. Incinerate Flesh on Lord J, Penetrating Cold on Anub, Light Bomb on XT are all examples of this.

* What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Mobility combined with a lack of defensive abilities other than Earth Shield. Like both other specs of Shaman, Resto can be described as a turret- great throughput potential, but requires standing in one place for 10mans to shine. For pugs on fights like Onyxia, I genuinely worry on Elam when running in (since I don’t trust other pug healers.) On notelam, I can blessing of sacrifice the tank and keep Beacon of Light on him, using Holy Shock crits+instant Flash of Lights to keep myself and him up while running to position. On Elam, I riptide+ES, and then run in and stop to cast every few seconds, leaving me in potential damage places if I’m not careful.

* In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Bind half my keys to targeting melee, the other half to pressing chain heal, and then letting my puppy walk on the keyboard while I /afk sandwich! Really, though, whilst I was pugging my way through Naxx25 back when Naxx25 was content, I used to love fights like Instructor Raz and Sapphiron where I just chain healed the night away and hit 4-5k hps.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Holy Paladins. They’re just such strong healers. Even mediocre H Paladins can make a fight substantially easier.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Holy Priests. This has nothing to do with synergy, but I’ve just always found the spec to be incredibly boring. I don’t believe they work that well with restoration, though. I’d much prefer a stronger single target healer with me.  

* What is your worst habit as a healer?
Chain Healing the ranged and hitting one person. I might like that spell a LITTLE too much.

* What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

People dying. Honestly, be courteous and try to stay alive, please!

* Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
To quote my raid leader at Altadin.com, “Shamans are in a fantastic place right now.  We are exceptional raid healers and (properly glyphed and itemized) can be strong main tank healers as well.  We buff the raid via totems, which can be tailored to suit not only to the group make-up but also the nature of the encounter.  We have defensive and offensive dispels, a ranged interrupt that is off the global cooldown, limited but still situtationally viable CC, self-resurrection and — of course — Bloodlust.  If anything, shamans are overpowered at the moment compared to other healing classes.”

* What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Beyond the simple “Did we down the boss? Did my assignments die? Did I run out of mana?,” there’s recount- however, healing is not like dps, and maximum HPS is not always the best solution- especially if you’re running at a million percent overheal, or you’re assigned to do something not conducive to throughput.

* What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That we’re still in Burning Crusade, where my 1-4 buttons were multiple ranks of CH, and the question wasn’t “should I chain heal” but “which rank of chain heal will give the least overheal.” SRSLY. THERE ARE OTHER SPELLS. Inorite?

* What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

There are A LOT of keybinds and abilities, and just knowing how to put down your Call of Fire and use LHW/CH/HW/Riptide/ES does not a healer make. Resto shaman might need to purge if lacking an offensive dispeller. Some fights might call for grounding totem. And, don’t assume that because the last fight was a chain heal fest that that pattern will sustain itself through a raid.

* If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I think they’d wonder why I was healing and not DPSing!

* Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. Crit has it’s place, especially in proccing Ancestral Awakening and Imp. WS, but crit is not something you want to rely on as a healer. Crit is burst, and while having on demand burst is great for healing, sustained HPS throughput is achieved through haste.

* What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Holy Priests. :S

* What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I’m an add-on whore.  I currently use Grid, GridStatusDebuffs, and more that I’m totally forgetting. :s Nature’s Swiftness+Healing Wave macro ftw!

* Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I’m currently gemming Spellpower, but only because there were no quick autumn’s glows on the AH, and I sooo wasn’t buying 12 Quick King’s Amber. xD. Given the choice and the money, I’d be on top of haste in a heartbeat.

EP Value- EP commonly stands for “Equivalency Points,” and they’re a way to determine the weight of each stat on your gear. With EP, you choose one stat to be the base stat, which is equivalent to 1 EP. For Enhance shaman, we choose Attack Power, as it’s plentiful- most casters use Spell Power. Your EP value for attack power is never going to change, since it’s the base of all your other stats. 1 Attack Power is ALWAYS 1 EP.

The rest of your gear weight changes, and this is where EP points come in. EP is used to determine how useful another stat (such as critical hit or haste) is when compared to one point of attack power.

Here are the EP values provided by Des in Des’ Simming Service (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677632588&sid=1)

EP                        value     DPS       total DPS      difference

baseline                                      7925.67

ap                                              1.00      0.67      8060.48        134.81

crit rating                               1.96      1.32      7965.24        39.57

hit rating                                 1.88      1.27      7963.73        38.07

expertise rating                    1.02      0.69      7948.26        22.59

haste rating                             1.98      1.33      7965.70        40.03

armor penetration rating  1.76      1.19      7961.27        35.60

spellpower                               1.08      0.72      8034.42        108.75

mh dps                                       4.90      3.31      7950.46        24.79

oh dps                                         2.79      1.88      7939.77        14.10

strength                                      1.10

agility                                          1.72

intelligence*                             1.44
What this sim tells us is that Haste is equal to 1.98 points of Attack Power, Agility is equal to 1.72 Points of Attack Power, and Crit is equal to 1.96 points of attack power. We can then take these numbers and use them to determine how we gear. For example, 40 attack power gems are 40 EP. Right now, Des’ EP for Haste is 1.98. Since Haste gems give +20 haste, 20X1.98=39.6 So, even though it’s a small loss, Des would lose DPS by putting a Haste Gem into a new piece of gear rather than an AP gem.

The really important thing to remember about EP values is that they’re -always- changing. Every upgrade you get can and likely will change your EP. To this end, while Des can supply your ep values once or twice, you should become best friends with your own sim, because there will be times your Haste will hit 2.5 and other times you’re better off gemming AP+crit in yellow sockets.

Also, EP values will change from gem to gem, which makes it pretty impossible for us to just come out and say “if your haste is at 2.5, gem haste.” It’s possible, though unlikely, that two gems later your haste will drop crazy amounts and you’ll lose dps by gemming the next 8 gems as haste. A good solution to this, once you’ve learned to use your enhsim, is to sim that change- drop 400 Attack Power from your stats and add 200 haste (or 7.93% haste).

I highly recommend anyone who hasn’t had the chance to look at their ep values yet to drop by Des’ thread (while logged out in enh gear!) and ask for some help!

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. )

I thought I’d throw this out there for anyone interested: Due to people being bad (as I’ve mentioned in previous posts), people being good (but having real lives), and people being stupid (and lying about being sick in order to join pug raids WHILE WE’RE STILL RAIDING), we’ve been forced to call a few hardmode nights. We’re fine 23-manning normal ToC and so on, but we can’t bullshit our way through hardmodes. To that end, we’re recruiting!

Surreality (H: Black Dragonflight):

A) Is pretty awesome. We’re just cool people. Especially me. (Our bear has fleas, but he’s cool too.)

B) We’re a semi-casual raiding guild. We are -not- going to be getting server first kills. It’s not us. We’re not going to gkick you for not showing up for a hardmode raid because it’s your daughter’s ballet recital/your girlfriend scheduled a “meet the family” dinner/you rlyrly needed to finish that paper on string theory before midnight. It’s not us. Real life comes first.

C) We’re are going to work our hardest-being “semi-casual” is not an excuse for being bad- it’s a description that we have other stuff going on in our lives that we need to work around. We work our butts off on progression (when we have the people), and we expect everyone to come prepared with their flasks/potions of speeds/knowledge of what the fuck they’re doing.

D) We raid Tue-Wed-Thurs, 9:30-12:00 EST, which is also server time.(Though we ask you to be on at 9 for invites!) That’s 7.5 hours of commitment we ask from you- less than any job, significant other, or school ever will! ^_^

E) We are recruiting the following:

• A DPS DK. Blood/Unholy/Frost doesn’t matter, as I’ve got buffs covered myself. Just know what you’re doing.
• A Sapling! We like trees and promise not to light you on fire.
• An arrow-shooting-person thingymabober. Using guns is cool too…I guess.
• A non-frost specced mage. I’d love frost to be viable in pve too…but it isn’t. D:
• Someone who can spam holy lights. (And do the other stuff holy paladins do.)
• No rogues. Srsly, we had like five the other day.
• A Critchicken. We really, really want a starfire spam owlbeast. Plz line up and apply.
• Soul-sucking warlocks.
• A Shadow priest. We somehow lost two to real life in the span of like a week.
• Deeps warriors. I think Arms is preferred for trauma or w/e, but fury is better for dps- I believe either works at this point.
• AN ENHANCEMENT SHAMAN. HINT FUCKING HINT. Not that we don’t love me or anything, but I guess for days I’m not here having another one present to steal my loot would be cool. Plus, you get to chillax and talk enhancement with me…which might bore you to death. I notice our guild leader and other resto shaman have stopped asking me about enhancement. It might be my intensity to blame. xD
• In reality, we’re recruiting most dps. If I didn’t mention you, try anyway. We’re a little high on melee atm, so any applications for a melee spot will likely be met with a more critical eye, and might require more riding the bench during full raids until we’re comfortable with you.

You can click on the shiny banner at the top of the page to apply, or just go to www.surreality-guild.com. Hope to see you guys app soon. ^_^

Edit: Something worth mentioning: We get very few cross-server applications. We really don’t want people spending real money to transfer over to find out they’re not really a good fit. To that end, I really, really encourage anyone considering this post to take some time to think it over, because it really is a big decision.

What I was not expecting was this:

Screenshot by Shadowxtz o nthe Moonrunner server!

Note some of the pretty things in this image:

A) It’s a 2.6 speed mace! Luvluvluvluvluv.

B) It’s BoE! So even if you don’t manage to see this QT in the next week (it drops off Mr. Direbrew in Blackrock Depths, but he’s shy and only comes out once a year), you should be able to buy one, albeit for a pretty penny.

C) It’s iLevel 226. For those of you for whom the word “iLevel” sounds like a foreign language (my dad included!), iLevel 200 items drop out of Naxx10/Coren Direbrew. ILevel 226 items drop off 25 KT/Reg Uld 25 bosses, meaning that this item is as well itemized as Calamity’s Grasp(and with Agi, Haste, Ap, Crit, to boot!) Because of this, not only are the stats nice, but it also has a whopping 171.5 dps, meaning no more farming H ToC for your dual Aledar’s Battlestar, which is only iLevel 219.

D) It looks preeeeeeetty.

Photo by same person as above photo. I'm unoriginal!

Yes, I want it. Minus the fact that it’s a downgrade.

However, I’m so going after it on my Death Knight Tank’s offspec-but-sometimes-main-spec-depending-on-my-mood. (Remember, Threat of Tharassian DW death knights follow the same weapon speed rules as us!) I’m totally looking forward to being a Femcow with mugs for hands.

This is Elam, signing off from Panera, as I finished my soup before typing (it was so good!) and I think I’m getting weird looks from the other patrons from salivating over this weapon.

Cheers to all who get it!

“Enhance Your Game” is my attempt at a weekly (or bi-weekly) blog column. In it, I’ll be covering integral programs/addons that I feel benefit my playstyle, the melee playstyle, and playing an Enhancement Shaman. This is my first attempt at an actual stable column (small, clouded in mystery aside- this might not be my only column starting in the near future. ), so bear with me! This week’s “Enhance Your Game” will be covering one of the most integral addons of Enhancement Raiding- the Enhancement Damage Simulator.

“Sim It” is a phrase heard weeklydailyhourlyminutely on the shaman forums, a phrase that anyone who frequents the forums on a regular basis has probably read. The majority of them have probably said it at one point or another. Other forums have their own response to “sim it,” and these responses generally include the words “spreadsheet” and “it.” Simming/Spreadsheeting is an important part of end game raiding- a way for you to understand how to get the most out of your class’ dps potential. For this, Enhancement Shaman turn to the Enhancement Damage Simulator. I’m here to offer you a short (2500 word, xD!) tutorial on how to use the Enhancement Simulator.

The first thing to know about using this addon is that you need some form of “winzip” or assorted program to extract it to your computer. I’m not going to cover thise because A) I’m rather computer illiterate, and I’ll do more harm than good, and B) it’s not what this blog is about. Suffice to say, once you’ve figured out how to get the Enh Sim program onto your computer, return to this page and we’ll talk!

So, on to using Enh Sim. As soon as you open your EnhSim folder, this assortment of varied links should become available:

I not so subtly have a certain tab highlighted. Why might that be! ^_^

As you can see by my blatant highlighting of it, the program we are looking for is the Enh Sim Gui. Double click it, right click and go to open, roll your face on your keyboard toward the enter key, or sacrifice virgins to Cthulu, but do something to open that program. Once that happens, you’ll be faced with:

The Scary GUI of Death and Dismemberment. (Click4bigz!)

This is the main tab of the GUI. We like this tab. This is where we get to feel good about ourselves and plug our stats in. ^_^ Head on over to your local World of Warcraft realm, log onto your shaman, and open up your character tab.

It should look something like this. If it does not, you might be from outer space.

Now, this point relies on a lot of alt-tabbing, so you might be better off putting wow into windowed mode for a few minutes and going back and forth. You want to make sure you’re using unbuffed stats to begin with. (The Enhancement Addon Shock and Awe also features an export function. I won’t be covering that tonight, but will in a future Enhance Your Game post.) For most of these stats, your mainhand should be the same as your offhand (such as for the mainhand/offhand crit categories.) However, orcs are weird, and if they have an axe/fist weapon in one hand and a mace in the other, they’ll have 3 more expertise in one hand than the other. Make sure for any category that has a % next to it you put the % number- the simulator does not need to know your critical or haste ratings, just the actual % they increase.

If you're me, your EnhSim GUI probably looks like this now. If you're you, the numbers are different!

The  middle part of the EnhSim is your boss frame. The developers already supplies default boss values for you, so we’re just skiping straight over that tab to procs and stuff. As you might be able to imagine, procs and stuff is where your procs AND STUFF, go. Most of these tabs are pretty self-explanatory. Mainhand imbue is windfury, offhand is Flametongue, not FT9. The enchant section only lets you put proc enchants- agi/ap enchants (you should be using berserking anyway, btw) would simply be stat additions at the beginning. We’ll go besererking/berserking, because we know that’s best.  MH weapon only applies if you’re an orc, so I’m not filling it in- if you’re an orc and you’re wielding an axe or fist weapon, go for it!

For trinkets, totems, and set bonuses either use the pulldown menu or use wowhead! (While the config files for the simulator have been changed to include set bonuses, the gui has not, so you need the spell numbers.

For Trinkets: Blood of the Old God: 45522. Death’s Choice/Verdict Reg: 47303. Death’s Choice Heroic: 47464 Dark Matter: 46038. Comet’s Trail: 45609.

For Totems: Totem of Electrifying Wind: 47666. Totem of Quaking Earth: 47667.

For t9 Set Bonuses: 2Pc: 67220, 4PC: 67221.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, if you have 4pc Enh sim automatically counts 2pc in it’s calculations, but putting both in to be on the safe side doesn’t hurt. If you have glove/cloak enchants, fill them in quickly and we’ll move on to glyphs! For glyphs for your first time, you might want to stick with the cookie cutter Stormstrike, Windfury Weapon, Feral Spirits. The awesome part of EnhSim is that once you know the basics, you can tweak these to figure out what really works for you.

Now, once again, if you're me, you might look like this! If you're not, than you'll look differently. Lets move to rotation!

The rotation tab is a pretty packed tab, and one that will be pretty difficult to decipher upon first look. So, let’s try to break some of this information down.

1) MH/OH Auto Attack: Check this, you want to be white hitting.

2) Wait SS w/ WF: Keep this on the default 0.00. This harkens back to a time where we believed it was better to proc after WF ICD in order to increase the chances of a proc. Since SS puts a debuff up that is quickly consumed AND is a chance at at least 2 MW charges, we don’t wait on it anymore.

3)Cast Lava Lash only if WF is on CD: You’ll see I have this checked in my upcoming screenshot- this is a mistake. You might not want to check it. As far as I can tell, this was meant for when we still believed WF on both hands was the way to go, so we didn’t want to risk using our instant offhand attack to proc windfury. You probably don’t want this checked. (I saw a 2dps increase not checking it! xD)

4. Bloodlust Casters/Sync trinkets with bloodlust: First part shouldn’t matter, as you can no longer chain bloodlusts. 1 is enough. Second part you want clicked, particularly if you have clickable trinkets. (I’m not sure how this treats wolves- I don’t think they’re always popped prior to bloodlust.)

5. Cast Lava Burst if “blah.” These three are all only activated if you activate LvB in the rotation bar. They’re useful for testing purposes, but you probably don’t want LvB in your rotation when just learning to use it. Leave these alone, and leave Lava burst unchecked.

6. Cast Flame Shock only if dots left: Once again, requires FS to be clicked in the priority frame. For just learning it, don’t click it.

7. Cast Lightning Shield only if charges left: This means that, once it gets to LS in your priority with nothing else up, it will check to see if it has this many or fewer charges before refreshing. Typically, I do between 0-2.

8. Cast Shamanistic Rage only if mana left: Default setting is 750. With the one minute cooldown, 0 points in improved stormstrike, and less mana back than we used to, I prefer to do it around 3-4k.

9. Use mana potion if mana =: Only does this if mana potion is checked on the consumable page.

Next, on to the actual priority tab.

• SW= Spirit Wolves.
• MW5_LB=Lightning Bolt with 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon.
• ES_SS=Earth Shock if Storm Strike Debuff is up.
• SS=Stormstrike
• ES=Earth Shock
• LL=Lava Lash
• MT=Magma Totem
• LS=Lightning Shield
• SR=Shamanistic Rage
• FS=Flame Shock
• LvB=Lava burst.
• Frost-Frost Shock
• CL=Chain Lightning
• LB=Lightning Bolt
• MW#_CL/LB=Self Explanatory.
• ST=Searing Totem

You organize your rotation in order of priority. Once again, the power of this is that you can fiddle with priority based on gear. For example, I have 4PCt9/5/5 Reverberation, so I go Earth Shock before Stormstrike as long as the SS debuff is still on the target.  Spirit Wolves is put first so that they are always popped as they come off cooldown. Mess with this to see what your ideal rotation is once you’re comfortable!

This would be my priority list, hastily thrown together!

The next tab you’ll see is “Talents.” As you might expect, this is where you would go to input your talent choices. This section is pretty self explanatory, and there’s not much that could be confusing about it, so I’m not going to spend any more time on it. Here is what mine looks like!:

Notice the 5/5 Reverberation, with 2/3 Call of Flame and no Imp. SS. Don't follow my spec- it's not cookie cutter.

The next section is an awesome section, devoted to debuffs/buffs on you. Remember, Enhancement Shaman scale pretty well with almost every buff/debuff in the game, so you want as many of these as possible. If you’re unsure as to what debuffs you do have present, think of your normal raid and compare it to these:

• 20% Armor Debuff. Brought by Prot Warriors/Smart DPS Warriors or Rogues in a Prot Warriors absence.
• 5% Armor Debuff: Druids of any spec, hunters with wasp pets, warlocks.
• 4% Physical Damage Debuff: Arms Warriors/Combat Rogues
• 20% Melee Haste. Yourself/Frost DPS warriors
• 5% Melee Crit: Fury Warriors, Feral Druids
• 688 attack Power: DPS Warriors/Ret Paladins. Tank warriors/other pally specs have worse versions.
• Attack Power Multiplier: It uses your unleashed rage if you don’t put points in, so don’t put points in to this. Would be blood dk/marks hunters, though.
• 5% Spell Haste: Mainly resto/elemental shaman, but you possibly could.
• 5% Spell Crit Buff: Elemental Shaman, Moonkin
• 5% Spell Crit Debuff: Imp. Scorch Mages, Frost Mages, Imp. SB specced Destro Locks.
• 13% (Make sure you change this from 10%): Moonkin, Unholy DK, Warlocks
• 280 Spellpower: Elemental Shaman. If you’re one of the rare few who run with a demo pact lock, this number might be slightly higher.
• 3% Spell Hit: Boomkin/Spriest
• 3% Haste: Ret Paladin, Moonkin
• 3% Damage Increase: Retribution Paladin, Feral Druid
• 3% Crit debuff: Elemental Shaman, most Paladins- in the Retribution tree.
• 10% stat Multiplier: Paladins, any spec.
• 52 Stats: Druid Gift of the Wild
• 178 Agility and Strength: You. Death Knights give 155.
• 60 Intellect: Mages

For flasks, you generally want flask of endless rage, for 180 AP.  Since you’re using a flask, skip guardian elixir. For potion, try out potion of speed, and for food use Fish Feast (assuming they’re dropped in your raid.) 80 AP+46 Spell power? Ffs yes plz.

For mana return buffs, click replenishment if you have one of the million replen giving classes present. Do not use water shield, as you are using LS. Choose either Blessing of Wisdom or Mana Spring totem, as they are the same thing. And, use Judgement of Wisdom if your raids normally have a paladin judging it.

This is what it will look like with a fully optimal raid.

We’re skipping over the EP tab-much like the bosses at the beginning, it is set up with default EP for a shaman. So, we’re going straight to the final side- “simulation variables,” also known as “oh noez scary math class! D:”

First, there is simulation time. This means that the simulator will run and pretend that it was going for however long is in that box. The generally accepted practice is to throw in an extra 0 to make it 10000 hours.

Second is Simulation Time Combatlog. This is what is used if you choose combatlog output vs. simulate.

Fight length: The number of minutes of each fight. So, if you’re doing 10000 hours of simming, it might be simming 120,000 5 minute fights. Fight length is important because it determines the amount of time cooldowns/trinket procs/bloodlust/etc are active. 5 minutes is a pretty stable amount of time, and is what is used in the Enh. BiS Gearing thread.

Report count: Actually not sure, will look into it. Same with threads.

Lag. 0-0 MS. Enh Sim is awesome because it can tell us how well we can play at perfect latency. However, the world doesn’t operate on perfect latency, and neither do our reflexes. Set this lag for what you normally play at- for me, 100-200.

Simulate Mana: Simulate mana is a powerful tool, but also one that can ruin your report if you forget to prioritize something like shamanistic rage. You should learn to use simulate mana to your benefit, but it is understandable to run your first few sims without this box checked. I know I did!

Output file: Output.txt

Combat log output file: Combatlog.txt

Simulate is a clickable box that will simulate your damage over the simulation time.

Calculate EP is a powerful tool that can be used to teach you how to gear better.

Combatlog output shows a basic breakdown of your damage over the past (however long you put in the combat log time box.)

Info shows you relevant information, such as caps you might have gone over by a small bit.

And finally, use the button after the box at the bottom that says path on top, and find the file that ends “EnhSim.exe” Throw that into the box, and then go up and click one of the buttons!

(Also, make sure to check out the organe donate button: these designers work hard.)

This is what my Simulation Variables typically look like prior to a sim!

Now, after all that hard work (It really only takes ten minutes at most), we’re finally ready to simulate! Hover your mouse over that nice simulate button and press it down. Watch the numbers scroll past. (note: If the simulation length is set to 10000 hours, the numbers won’t scroll fast initially. The simulation will take a bit long.)

Yes, that is 7366 DPS!

So, as you might be able to notice, there is a wealth of data we can see here. However, I’m only going over the very basics- I think next week I might go into what sort of conclusions/knowledge we can gleam from the simulator. And remember, these numbers are based on an ideal, patchwerkesque, five minute long fight- fights are often much different in reality.

Now, really quickly, I’m going to do a quick show of the other great function of the Enh Simulator-Calculate EP values. This one is a really useful tool- EP values are the value of an item as it relates to one point of attack power. I’m also not going to go in depth into thise (maybe next week! ^_^), but they are useful, so clicking that calculate EP values button helps.

Look at that stunning 3.09 haste EP. I've never seen numbers that high before. O_o

That’s it for my guide to using the Enh Simulator. I hope everyone who reads this can enjoy it, or at the very least use it. It is now 5:45 AM, and I’ve been working on it for nearly three hours, so I’m going to take a well deserved nap. xD

(That said, I think I’ve put as much effort into this blog as my enhancement sticky, and I’d really love to get the word out there. Even if people don’t want to read anything else on my blog, I would love to see anyone who needs help with simming get directed here! ^_^<- I’m addicted to this emote omg.)

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler.

I wish I had tusks like that. ;~;

Gormok the Impaler is a stupid, stupid fight for Enhancement shaman, and one that might make you nerdrage. At least, that’s how it worked for me. First off, it’s not a melee friendly fight, not only requiring target switching, but also requires that your fellow raiders value downing the boss more than watching their dps skyrocket. After a 2-hour stint of wiping on Northrend Beasts last week, myself and the rest of Group 3 (gogo melee group!) were raging pretty hard in private (and, at times, publicly) at the number of people who could not grasp the basic concept of “with great snobolds comes great responsibility to RUN THE FUCK INTO THE MELEE.” So, for anyone who isn’t melee reading this, please do your local enhancement shaman a favor and skedaddle yourself onto Gormoks ass, so we can go about merrily stabbing things.

For anyone who is melee, here are a few tips (complete with a screenshot!) for getting rid of those pesky snobold nemesises. First off, set yourself up with some sort of way to indicate when a snobold is spawned. There are a few ways of doing this. A) Listen in vent for the caster who isn’t running into melee to scream “OMG SNOBOLD ON ME WTFF MELEE.” This will normally happen twice before you and the rogues do something about it, and then you’ll snicker about it until you get firebombed because you ran into range. B) Work with your addons. My personal choice for this fight is Power Auras Classic, which you can set up to notify you any time a raid member if afflicted with “snobolled.” I believe Grid also has a functionality for this, but I’m not positive about that.

^Click for enlarged.

Note the gigantic fucking snobold icon in the bottom left corner. Af ter that, the issue becomes finding a snobold. I did not want to clutter up the screenshot with nameplates, but they’re your best bet for actually finding the small things. Once you find it and you’ve managed to get in melee range, watch out! as people tend to move with the snobolds on them, and will likely keep dragging them out of your range. >.<

(Also, notice the lack of debuffs on the snobold in that screenshot: since most of your ranged are busy dpsing Gormok, you’re losing out on a lot of damage capability by losing debuffs such as 13% spell damage or Imp. Scorch. Since they’re generally not tanked, you probably won’t see a full stack of sunders up, either- thankfully, we have an awesome combat rogue who maintains high dps AND exposes armor every 30 seconds.)

If that’s not all for the fun on this fight, here is the real kicker: Snobolds are immune to AOE damage. This means A) Chain Lightning will only hurt them if you target them with it- it will not chain from Gormok to Snobold. This also means that one of our primary single target damage abilities- magma totem- is rendered useless. If you’re close to Gormok this doesn’t matter as much as he’ll still be hit by it, but it’s useless any time the snobold is dragged outwards. Additionally, fire elemental’s nova does absolutely nothing against these bad boys. (Note, this is not a problem unique to us. Ret Paladins are highly hurt by the loss of both Divine Storm and Consecration on snobolds, and Fury Warriors most likely lose out on Whirlwind damage- all aoe attacks that are included in their single target dps rotation.)

TL;DR Gormok:

• DPS Race, but fight is short. Use Fire Elemental here, as it will maximize Fire elemental’s time on target for maximum dps. Both Icehowl and Worms will be less affected. Do not use wolves, as you do not want them on cooldown for when worms come out and you pop bloodlust.
• Refresh Magma Totem while running out towards any stray kobolds. You might clip a tick, but it’s better to miss one tick when it has 5 seconds left than have a 15 second gap while you’re hurting the snobold.
• Don’t allow meters to distress you. Your dps will be lower here than normal, and that’s fine. Ranged is king for this phase. You’re badass yourself on Twin Valkyrs.
• Use addons to your advantage. They’re there to benefit you!
• Be nice to your ranged so they run to you.

2. Acidmaw and Dreadscale

Acidmaw and Dreadscale are a bit of a bitch for any melee, and there’s not much that makes them any worse for Shaman than it is for any melee. They do an unavoidable tail swipe that will knock you back- the most important thing here is to make sure you’re not standing in any place where you might be knocked in front of the other worm, as they have killer frontal cone attacks. Remember to pop your wolves prior to Bloodlust, which will probably be used within the first seconds of the fight. Fire Elemental is rather useless on this fight, as it tends to get confused after the worms bury and tends not to reaggro unless the worm pops back up under itself.

The more important thing about this fight is staying alive- the majority of your raid needs to make it through in order to avoid hitting the enrage timer on Icehowl. For that, here are a few tips:

• Do not do not do not follow the worms too closely as they go underground. They aggro wipe down there, and will pop up and one shot you if you’re too close/hit it before a tank does as it comes back up.
• Deadly Boss Mods is great for monitoring your poison, but it’s always nice to bring a back up. Once again, I use Power Auras classic.

This works for any Poison effect.

-As you can see, you choose debuff as the activation method, and write in the word “Poison.” (I use “Paralytic,” just to be safe.) This should notify you anytime any debuff is present on you that includes the word poison- this is useless for things like aoe poisons on the ground that do not show debuffs, but great for Lana Stouthammer/the Worms, etc. I chose lime green and the cool exclamation point, but there are other nice textures, such as a gigantic “Danger” sign. (Note-I took this screenshot at school where I couldn’t log on with my addons enabled without disconnecting, which is why my UI looks so plain! )

• If you have the poison, and your wolves are making their merry way eating worm face, make sure to use their Spirit Walk ability to try to compensate for the paralyzing effect and get you back to the worms in minimal time spent.
• Set up your bars with some flame shock/lava burst. If you get Burning Bile, you really don’t want to be standing near anyone. You can find a nice spot to sit and spam lightning bolt, but once Stormstrike wears off use a FS/LvB combo to try to keep Elemental Devastation up for when you run back in. You might not be able to get in range to Flame Shock without hurting someone (like a Holy Paladin. D:), but if you can, try this.
• Poison clouds spawn under whichever Jormungar that is not rooted in the ground currently. There’s no debuff to set up  a Power Aura for, so you need to actually watch for these ones. Try to stand at max range, as they start off small and grow fast.

3. Icehowl

Sleeping Beauties!

Icehowl is probably the least specific fight to try to explain. First off: make sure you spread out. If you see a knot of melee standing around you, strafe to another direction- just remember to do your best at standing behind him. Eventually, after stabbing icehowl long enough, he’ll jump to the middle and send you all flying into the wall. Position yourself so that you’re not thrown into any of the doorways surrounding the room, as it makes it infinitely harder to avoid the charge. Remember that the sprint buff Icehowl gives you on normal does not happen on heroic- if you’re worried about this, swiftness potions are you friend.

After you and your guildmates demonstrate your proness and avoid his charge is probably the best time to pop wolves, as they’re normally up by this time. You can utilize Spirit Walk to your advantage if he charged someone across the room, but regardless of how close you are Spirit Wolves will benefit from the extra damage Icehowl takes. This is probably a bad phase for Fire Elemental, as Icehowl moves around a lot- an extra 15 seconds of Fire elemental damage won’t make up for damage lost from leashing.

That’s about it for my take on Northrend Beasts. Hope you thoroughly enjoyed! (PS: Comments r 4 nice.)

1. Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).

I can’t pretend this is anything but a nerf to Enhancement pvp. I’m also not sure I can pretend this change is anything but needed. The way it works on live, every time Earthbind totem pulses it provides a (5?) second buff that makes everyone in your party immune to snaring. Given that Earth bind pulses as soon as it is dropped, and is on a short 15 second cooldown, this means your party is immune to snares 1/3 of the time. If you’re good at dropping totems out of LoS, or your opponent is bad at totem stopping, you can keep that immunity to snares to your entire party up for a long while. This change removes the 5 second immunity after pulse, but still removes snares on pulse. It’s a reasonably balanced change, provided you’re good at hiding your totems. Also, Ghostcrawler brought up a good point: “We think Earthen Power and the Ghost Wolf change were trying to solve the same problem. Together they felt like overkill to us, and we thought the Ghost Wolf change was more interesting so we kept that one. Your mileage may vary and I would be surprised if many shaman agreed since they were the target of the nerf.” (Source.)

2.

• Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.
• Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.

• Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.

To explain how this changes things: The current Flame Shock glyph makes flame shock not be consumed by Lava Burst, and increases it’s duration by 6 seconds (allowing more time for lightning bolt/cl between flameshock renews.) This glyph is considered mandatory for elemental dps. These changes are awesome for elemental dps, as it A) Allows anyone with 2Pc elemental t8 to use a different glyph, such as 10% more lava burst damage, in their glyph slot, or B) allows anyone in any other tier set to use their flame shock glyph and get a higher dps increase than pre-patch.

But anyway, less about Smellemental, and more about a real spec: The first buff we get from this is a minor buff to our dps on any fight that requires us being out of melee range for any length of time. (Think burning bile on Northrend Beasts, for example.) With stormstrike doomed to fall off, we can throw up a flameshock on the baddie boss, and then enjoy two free instant crit lava bursts+elemental devastation while we wait to run back in. It’s not amazing, and very situational, but it’s nice.

The last fun thing about this change is what it might due to Enhancement’s rotation, as we might end up dropping glyph of windfury for glyph of flame shock. The numbers are still being crunched, but Elitist Jerks is hinting at the return of Flame shock to the enhancement rotation-especially with 4pc t9. Bacially, we’d use a 1:2 rotation- throw Flame Shock up first, six second laters ES, six second laters ES again, and then back to Flame shock. This is a pretty awesome idea, as it adds a new dynamic to a system that hasn’t changed since 3.0. (We also need to see if Flame Shock tick crits proc Elemental Devastation. It would be amazing.) I’m also wondering what effect this will have on speccing into reverberation- 1 second off shocks won’t matter since you’ll want to wait for the FS dot to tick all 18 seconds anyway.

3. Cleansing Totem: It’s overpowered. Long-term we need some kind of overhaul to the dispel system so that you can free allies who get debuffed or CC’d but you aren’t constantly losing important class abilities because of cheap, fast and sometimes pulsing dispels.

I’m being vague because we haven’t announced any 3.2.2 or 3.3 changes yet. Those won’t be the overhaul I described, but we hope to do something.-Ghostcrawler.

I’ll preface this by saying: I’d hate to see Cleansing Totem nerfed, especially on fights like Maexxna/Faerlina, where it excels. Even never stepping foot in the arena, I’d hate a nerf to my beloved cleansing totem. That said, much like Earthen Power, a nerf might be needed. Cleansing Totem is a spammable, fire-and-forget totem that takes the thought out of removing diseases/poisons. It also servers to render a Death Knight terribly impotent, which might be something us as shaman players don’t mind, but is severely in our favor.

That said, I’m not even positive we’ll see a nerf. Ghostcrawler called the totem overpowered, but rather than saying straight up that it would be nerfed he suggested an entire overhaul of the dispel system. Do I doubt Cleansing Totem will be as powerful as it’s current incarnation? Yes, I do- but Blizzard hasn’t said anything permanent yet, and allowing ourselves to become overly concerned with what might be is stupid.

We ran in and engaged Koralon. I had a few slight issues at the beginning because, while I was intelligent enough to set up to tell me I had the cinder debuff, I happened to make the aura red. So, while this aura WAS trying to tell me I was standing in bad all the time, it was also camoflauged against the backdrop of the entire room! My bad. D: Nonetheless, I got to battle our combat rogue for the top of the meter for the majority of the fight- he ended up kicking my ass, clocking in at something like 7300dps to my 68 or 6900 (I think I spiked around 7400 at one point, but my sustained dropped quite a bit after my Fire Elemental said goodbye). Nerf melee friendly fights.

Koralon, being a qt, dropped my first piece of mainspec tier gear that I ever saw in a Vault of Archavon. (I’ve seen others, but they all seem to drop AFTER I have them. ) Much to the dismay of EVERYONE ELSE IN THE RAID, especially the two resto shaman and the two elemental shaman, Koralon also dropped by second piece of main spec tier gear ever. Coupled with the cute shoulders I got (I have to admit: Given the choice, I will -always- go for tier shoulders before any other piece of loot. Shoulders look badass on Tauren. And t8 shoulders are so last summer.) Two heroic dailies later, I grabbed the iLevel 232 50 emblem of triumph chest piece-I’m planning to replace this as soon as I get another trophy with the head, and grab the H Northrend Beasts chest, but at the time I was choosing items the helm would have put me over 600 hit rating. Now, I know Hit still EPs pretty high until you hit the dw hard cap, but that gets annoying to explain every single time someone goes OMG U HAZ 2 MUCH HIT. So, I dropped my slightly RNGy but still amazing t8 4pc for 25% more shock damage and 50% more static shock damage, as well as iLevel 245 stats. 4300 unbuffed attack power is qt. (Also, remember the 25% more shock damage is base-for me, I went from hitting for around 1600 unbuffed with earth shock to hitting around 2k. When you add in raid buffs like 13% spelldamage debuff, your 4PC ES will hit even harder.)

This changes my rotation and my spec a small bit. First off, while MW5 Lightning Bolts are still the priority, Earth Shock moves up on the priority list- as long as the stormstrike debuff is on the target, Earth Shock trumps Stormstrike. So, instead of MW5Lb>SS>ES>LL>Shields/Totems, it becomes MW5LB>ES_SS>SS>ES>LL>Shields/Totems. Second, I took two points out of improved shields, two points out of improved stormstrike (really, quite a pvp talent. With the change to shamanistic rage, running out of mana is even less of a problem for us), and one point out of call of flames to grab Reverberation, for 5 second shocks rather than 6. (And a 5 second windshear!) Assuming I get to shock as soon as it comes off cooldown, this means I get an extra Earth Shock every 30 seconds, or 20 extra Earth Shocks over the course of a 10 minute fight. Cool beans. (Note: Elitist Jerks BiS thread suggests 3/3 Call of Flame, 4/5 Reverberation. My OCD wouldn’t allow me to do 5.2 second cooldowns, and we’re probably talking a -very-slight difference in dps. )

Isn’t he super cute now?

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy28/FueledByShaman/SupAnub.jpg

I think we’re as bad at posing for pictures as anub was at avoiding dying.

He dropped his axe, and I did in fact nerd rage offline for a good fifteen minutes before calming down and realizing A)The Rogue who got it has spent all of WoTLK trying to make Combat work since he loves the spec, and now that it’s competitive with mutilate and he has this axe he never has to respec. B)He’s both good, and has been with the guild way longer than I could even come close to. C) It’s my fault I didn’t have the EPGP priority. One or two more raids I hadn’t missed would have meant the axe was mine, so the only person I could be annoyed at is myself. Doesn’t make it suck less since I still need two, but I’m happy for him.

At any rate, here are my first impressions of ToC (Number/5 is my personal rating system-1 is worst boss in instance, 5 is best):

Northrend Beasts, 2/5: To be quite frank, I’m not sure how this belongs in a raid that drops iLevel 245 loot. It’s not the loot pinata that non-hardmode Flame Leviathan is, but it’s fairly close. Snobolds on the first phase can be somewhat annoying-even with nameplates on, I find some of them spawn too far out of range of my nameplates and I don’t see them, so I watch for our qt rogue leader man to take off in a random direction.

The two jormungars are relatively easy, with the only real problem being slime pools- I got poisoned, ran toward the tank with burning bile on him, and a slime pool spawned. He turned left while I was running right around the slime pool, and I and two other melee would have been paralyzed had the worms not burrowed and he ran towards us.

Icehowl is obnoxiously easy (this coming from someone who died on him on his first attempt in 25man-I thought you had to click whoever he targeted to see if they were near you. xP) Beyond the fact that he spins around to face the direction he’s going to charge, Deadly Boss Mods now offers a GIANT BLUE POPUP OF TEXT saying “Charge near you, run!” so as to remove -any- doubt that the giant thing now staring you down might be charging you.

And, taken as a whole, I dislike this fight because it isn’t melee friendly, and it definitely isn’t totem friendly. First phase: Chase down Snobolds. Second phase: Avoid slimes, run debuffs, chase down burrowed worms. Third phase: Increased damage for 10-15 seconds!…which doesn’t help when I’m across the room because he targeted someone in the complete other direction. However, not every fight can be melee friendly, so it’s not worth being mad about. xD

Lord Jaraxxus 5/5: I love this fight. I’ve loved it since we first engaged it weeks ago and our entire group of melee got one shot by a portal we stood too close to. It’s a mindfuck for DBM-I don’t think I’ve ever had that addon go off more in a fight than it does on Jaraxxus. Part of my enjoyment comes from the kind of epic high-fantasy feel of the fight: You’ve got succibui, demon lords, creatures made of green magma, magic volcanoes, fireballs, curses, gigantic purple portals and more. Part of my love for it might be because I get to do more than just dps on it- I’m a windshear and purge spambot. And, the last third of my fangirl tendencies towards Jaraxxus come from the fact that it’s very melee-friendly, while the ranged get to be the ones who chase down the adds.

On a side note, healing Jaraxxus is fun too. I wasn’t able to figure out how to make incinerate flesh show up on Grid, and I may have forgotten to earthliving my weapon…but I’d do it again if I had to. I’m actually really enjoying the more spot-healing aspect of restoration at the moment.

Faction Champions, 1/5: I very rarely feel negatively towards Blizzard. They’re a hardworking group of people who will never be appreciated by the majority of players who feel that their class is somehow more worthy than others to be better. That said, Blizzard’s Human Resources department needs to have a chat with whatever designer came up with the idea of Faction Champions (and, preferably, put him/her down for a mental health evaluation.)

Seriously. Does no one remember the massive amount of QQ that surrounded Priestess Delrissa in Heroic Magister’s Terrace? She was hated. And no, the “You just don’t like it because it forces you to think outside of the box” argument holds no water. PVPing is not thinking outside of the box, it’s just a different box. I choose not to partake in that box, I like my box with the shiny PVE label, tyvm. At least I already have my nice expertise trinket, so I don’t need to do a Burning Crusade and do this mockery of a real fight 33 times in a row. :/

Twin Valkyrs 4/5: Twins are a fun fight. The relationship of light and darkness is a theme that’s been explored in almost every form of media, and it’s fun to see how they took that idea and designed an encounter around it. Execution-wise, it’s a cakewalk. Provided your rogue leader doesn’t forget to tell the melee group that all physical dps are on the left valkyr and you and two others end up going right and the raid wipes due to lack of dps on the left side twin pact. Other than that, the only semi-difficult aspect of the fight is avoiding the globes of color opposite what you’re buffed with, and doing your best to grab the ones that match your color. Or, you could do a me and switch colors to avoid a dark vortex, but then end up one shotting yourself because you forget that when you switch colors to avoid taking aoe damage you don’t want to continue picking up the same colors as before.

Anub’Arak 3/5: This fight deserves more than 3 stars. It has an epic intro- if you haven’t seen it yet, I won’t spoil it for you, but make sure you bring your glyph of water walking and a guild member with a sense of humor/your worst enemy and have fun murdering them. Beyond the intro, the fight itself is well designed. Phase 1 is pretty melee friendly, as your ranged friends get to shoot down pyrite permafrost and nuke the adds, and phase 2 is more ranged friendly as you run around through snares avoiding Anub’s spikes and try to kill adds. Phase 3 is a good old fashioned dps race, and DPS races are always a tension-heavy way to end an instance.

As I said, this fight deserves more than 3 stars…but it doesn’t get them, simply due to the rather terrible tuning of Anub 10.  4.2 Million HP is 2/3 of what Kel’thuzad had- and with adds that barely require any attention from the ranged (we just let the single bad add be tanked on anub and die to incidental aoe) and a really small health pool, Anub’arak can be kept from going under more than once just from average (4.5-5.5kish)dps per person. On 25 man, the fight is much more finely tuned (it took us 8 attempts, iirc, vs. the 1 attempt with not deaths we got in ten man today.) I kind of hope they stealth buff Anub- I don’t want to be elitist, and I really don’t want to be the type of person to throw out cliched phrases like “catering to casuals,” but Anub really is too easy.

As a Whole: I like ToC Reg. With the exception of Faction Champions, the idea behind every fight is cool to me, and they all seem well designed. But, it’s entirely too easy of an instance. Ulduar was difficult at times-we’ve been perpetually cockblocked by Hard Mode Iron Council for a month now (partly due to end of summer attendance issues), and our first Yogg kill came on an off-night where we decided to push through the slump of days of attempts and kick his ass. Anub was not Yogg. There was accomplishment, but there also was the feeling of “we should not be able to down the last boss of an instance the day it’s released. We’re not that hardcore.”  I do understand the casual-logic of “Well, hardcore players are not the only ones that deserve to see [major lore character], but they should at least have to work for it, aand I don’t get that sense from ToC.

That said, I am quite excited to see the heroic version, as I do believe it will be harder. I’m also excited to see Icecrown Citadel-it seems quite apparent that ToC was the side project to keep us tied over until IC, and I’m perfectly fine with that- provided IC is badass. I have faith in Blizzard that it will be so.

(I’m also excited to see Cobra Starship and Boys Like Girls in concert together on November 20th. Just bought tickets. )

((Yes, it is 5AM in the morning, Yes I am blogging, and No I have not slept yet. :/)

*I have nothing against Ringo Starr, though I do prefer every other Beatle to him. I just thought it was a catchy first line, so don’t flay the skin from my body or something.