I stumbled upon a Karazhan pug. We wiped on Maiden. (Our eventual victory got me a Shard of the Virtuous, though!) We wiped on Curator. We wiped on Shade of Aran multiple times. We called it after wiping on our third attempt on Terestian Illhoof after hitting the enrage timer for the third time…an enrage timer that WowWiki doesn’t even list because it’s -that- forgiving. (Something like 12 minutes.) We called it there, but I was hooked to raiding. Part of it might have been my topping healing meters (BC chain heal sup?), part of it might have been realizing that despite our wipes the fights weren’t so complex that I couldn’t make a difference (shade pooped on my comp though), and part of it might have just been running with another 9 people who were in the same awkward and afraid boat as I was, but Karazhan went being a scarier place than the Republican National Convention to being number one on my list of “things I want to do each week playing wow.”

My point isn’t that I conquered my fear of raiding, though. My point is that at one time, I suffered the same fear of raiding that a lot of new players have, and that while we might sneeze on heroic gear and say “10s are so easy a Geico Salesman could do it,” there is a legitimate and real fear of trying them. There was a thread on the forums yesterday asking about a “BiS heroic gear list.” Some laughs were to be had, as we assumed the guy was talking about Heroic ICC25 gear, when in fact he was talking about heroics five mans. It got me thinking, though, that while my server might spoil me when it comes to progression (Ranked 15th with 8/12 ICC25 Hardmodes, wut?), there’s a large amount of players playing now for who heroic five mans are the norm, who might not believe that Heroic raiding is ever going to be within their grasp but who still want to do their best when they step into a raid.

To that end, I took it upon myself to utilize Rawr and EnhSim to develop a BiS “Pre-Raid” list- that is, a list of gear to strive for without ever having to step foot into a raid. This is not exactly a “Heroic 5s” loot list, because “BiS Pre-raid” means “Best in Slot out of any gear available without raiding.” To that end, it includes craftable gear and Bind on Equip gear. While I totally understand that not everyone has the funds to buy BoE and craftable gear, this is the utmost “Best in Slot,” and you can make substitutions as you deem necessary. (For example, Boots of Living Scale simmed at 10-15 more dps than Spiked Toestompers, so you should be fine with either. Boots are the clear winner, though.)

The criteria I followed:

• I assumed the character was a Tauren with no professions. Racials and Profession Bonuses will add extra dps, but I wanted a gearset that would apply to everyone and could be tweaked from there. (On a totally random note, all the t9 gear is Alliance gear, because I totally forgot there was a difference until I was actually editing the links in here.)
• All gear choices were simmed with Standard Enhsim settings, assuming 200 latency. As a note, this includes both your internet connection, fps, and reaction time. Most of us aren’t actually playing at 200 latency.
• All Debuffs/Buffs were assumed. While this is a list of pe-raid BiS gear, the design is to make you the best you can be when you step into raids.
• Glyphs were Feral Spirit/Stormstrike/Flame Shock. Flameshock was a shoe-in due to the 4pct9, simming at a 60dps increase over the next competitor.
• Priority System and Spec are cookie cutter, taken from the Enhancement Sticky.
• All raid caps are achieved, assuming Imp. Faerie Fire/Misery.
• Just like I assumed you would have the money to buy BoE gear, I assumed the money for epic gems and the best possible enchants. I also assumed you would spend the time to level up reputations you would need.
• I assumed that you would spend on average a month gearing up. Without stepping foot in a ICC10/25 or a Weekly raid, your EoF intake would be 2 a day. Because of that, I thought a reasonable amount of Emblems of Frost would be 60. Everything else is Triumph/Craftable/Boe/Heroic Gear.
• There is not enough quality off-set gear to make up for dropping 4pc t9. (None of the iLevel 245 Emblem of Triumph gear is worth losing the 4pc for.)
• This is set to net you the best dps. It is NOT a gearscore set. I fully support getting gearscore items like the 245 EoT gear to use it to trick retarded people who use gearscore into letting you raid, but I do not support you than using those pieces in a raid.
• In theory, Enchant Boots – Icewalker is more paper dps than Tuskarr’s Vitality. However, it’s commonly accepted that having 8% runspeed takes the cake on any fight that isn’t Patchwerk (i.e., you need to move), so while there is a 15-20 dps loss not using Icewalker I kept to the conventional choice of Tuskarr’s.

Without further ado, my “Pre-raid BiS loot list.”

• Head: Nobundo’s Faceguard of Triumph, ReD Meta, Accurate Ametrine, Arcanum of Torment
• Neck: Wodin’s Lucky Necklace, Quick King’s Amber
• Shoulder:  Nobundo’s Shoulderguard’s of Conquest, Quick King’s Amber, Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back: Accursed Crawling Cape, Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed
• Chest: Carapace of Forgotten Kings, Quick King’s Amber x 3, Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
• Wrist: Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers, Quick King’s Amber, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault
• Gloves: Nobundo’s Grips of Conquest, Quick King’s Amber, Enchant Gloves – Crusher
• Belt: Belt of Dragons, Precise Cardinal Ruby x 2, Nightmare Tear, Eternal Belt Buckle
• Pants: Nobundo’s War-Kilt of Conquest, Precise Cardinal Ruby x 2, Icescale Leg Armor
• Feet: Boots of Living Scale, Quick King’s Amber x 2, Tuskarr’s Vitality
• Ring 1: Band of Stained Souls
• Ring 2: Dexterous Brightstone Ring
• Trinket 1: Mirror of Truth
• Trinket 2: Herkuml War Token
• Totem: Totem of Electrifying Wind
• Mainhand: Cudgel of Furious Justice, Enchant Weapon – Berserking
• Offhand: Nighttime, Enchant Weapon – Berserking -Note that this simmed at ~2dps over Black Icicle, meaning that there will be little to no recognizable difference.

The end result of this gear combination says that your Maximum Theoretical DPS is 8488 DPS. You’ll have a little over 40% unbuffed melee critical hit, 4110 Attack Power, 142 Expertise, 375 Hit (Now you guys get the helm gem choice!), ~20.75 melee haste…and like 200 armor pen. Even with all that haste (736 rating in mostly 232 gear!), Haste is still simming as the most desirable stat, with an EP of 2.80.

There you go, future raiders! A BiS gear for all of ya’ll too. Hope it helps!

However, thanks to Eklo, this has all changed. For those who don’t know Eklo, Eklo is famous for perfecting the art of what is called “Eklocleave.” Commoners refer to this “Eklocleave” as “Davidbowiecleave,” but they don’t know that this is because it’s always been Eklo’s dream since he was a young blueberry shaman to be a 1980s glamrocker, and frequently laments the fact that time machines have not been invented yet after singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on vent.

At any rate, Eklo’s history behind us, Eklo decided to be cooler than everyone else (but me, ofc) and pony up some money to get a vent working for shaman to talk in/ask questions/not cyber. He deserves a pat on the back and many Black Bruises to drop for this noble effort. (However, since he is an Alliance, the fates will have it that Black Bruise drops weekly but he always loses the roll. That’s what you get.)

Beyond Eklo the Loaded, this vent will have a few administrators that exist to make sure that the rules (more on these later) are followed and the e-fawning over Elam doesn’t get out of hand. They are as follows:

Des, Hero of Orgrimmar, the Silent.
Yuuzu, Lord of the Torrented Anime, Resident Meme Master
Elam the Studmuffin (oratleastthat’swhathisgrandmothercallshim.)
Rival Clous, the Unaware
Private Eklo the Patient Jenkins

Anyways, we have a few groundrules to follow. Eklo isn’t aware of them yet because I only told him “Dibs on writing the introductory post” and didn’t explain what that entailed, but they’re totally the rules.

First off, these are the people we want to see in this vent:

Abhorrent
Palioh
Kiyolano
Your Mom
Hoofz
Renzolongjapanesename
Those girls from The Shining
Gurls in general
Koios
Ghostcrawler, Destroyer of Hopes and Dreams Jenkins
Levva
Rouncer
Darth Vader
Shaman who are interesting
Rita Repulsa
Shaman who have fun and worthwhile questions
Shaman who want to talk
Natalie Portman
Frequent Posters who we know but I somehow managed to forget. (I’ve done this before and I’ll do it again, and I’m sorry to anyone who I’ve done it to. I still <3 you. For instance, writing this, I just realized I totally forgot Liax. Rather than edit him in, I’m writing this so that he knows I remembered him. Hi Liax!)

People we don’t want in this vent:

Anakin Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Lord Zedd
That level 79 shaman from the summer who complained about everything when he never hit 80. That kid was a prick.
Your dad.
Ash Ketchum
Your pug raid. Srsly. You will get permabanned if you decide to be cute and bring your pug icc25 onto vent with you.
13 year olds. Or 14 year olds. Or anyone who can’t pay for this game without parental assistance, really. Nothing personal, but I really don’t want to have to talk with your babysitter about letting her charge be corrupted by the likes of Des.

Things we want people to talk about:

Shaman. Norly.
Dragon Age: Origins
The Plagueworks
Power Rangers
How cute Elam is in that shirt
Davidbowiecleave
Puppies
Pokemon
Writing hearts on your notebook.
The Food Network
Star Wars
Why Daft Punk is better than topping dps, and why topping dps listening to Daft Punk is better than…puppies?
SNES
Dinosaurs.

Things we don’t want people to talk about.

Politics. For rl, no one cares that you’re voting Palin 2012, or that you think Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was the best thing since Maelstrom Weapon. Save that @$@# for a first date you don’t want to score on or a boring people convention.
Why Elam plays his hunter more than his shaman. :3
Stupid Shaman questions, like whether WF/WF or WF/FT is better, or when to start gemming ArP. We’ll laugh at you and call you names like poohead and festergut.
Kittens. Vastly inferior to puppies.
Eklo singing on vent.

With all of that out of they way, the vent info is:

cobalt.typefrag.com
40147

1. On the list of 10 hottest things in the world, post-patch Enhancement DPS beat out that dude from Desperate Housewives for the number 1 spot.

For real. As some of you may know, Deathbringer Saurfang is the new Patchwerk for melee DPS. Seeing myself hitting number 1 consistently for our first four attempts on him was super cute. And by super cute, I mean “my sleep-deprived mind was desperately trying to figure out if I was actually dreaming.” Honestly, if WoW was based on Dragonball Z, Enhancement DPS just went Super-Saiyan 1. Jekell, our newly-and-finally-promoted-to-raider other Enhancement Shaman (just saying, he’s awesome) and I traded whispers all Wednesday night about how amazing our friendly neighborhood Fire Nova is. Beyond just having an entirely new ability that fits nicely into GCD gaps, there’s also the fact that we were able to use Fire Elemental consistently. As in almost every fight. Between trash before bosses, lengthy speeches, long-walks (as opposed to rezzing in the same circular room for the 825423th time), and popping FE at the beginning of boss attempts so as to let it’s cooldown wind down during the 5-6 minute boss fight, Fire Elemental went from being a clutch “I hope we down the boss or I just wasted my dps cooldown” spell to “pure sex.” And, I’m speaking about this purely from a single-target DPS standpoint. I’mma have to pug an Onyxia later tonight and post about my hax dps.

I wish my Shock and Awe had a priority icon for "Print Screen."

In regards to Enhancement DPS, I’ve not actually updated the sticky with optimal practices yet, but here are a few words of wisdom for now. The math is still being done and stuff, but these are what our thoughts are now on what works.

A) How to Spec nao:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent#hVhhqbZhbxsoxdIhuskuVo:Nfh -Personally, I went a 2/2 Imp+SS 0/1 Elemental Focus spec, but that was mainly because I was speccing from memory and didn’t do the research on which talent is more Mana-per-second. It may very well be that with our reasonably-high spell crit that Elemental Focus is more MPS back than a guaranteed 800 mana return every 8 seconds. Seeing as how it’s the new “cookie-cutter,” I’d advise this spec.

B) Once again, tentative, but this is a pretty solid look at our priority system now: Wolves->MW5_LB->Fire Ele->Magma->FS->ES_SS->SS->ES->LL->Fire Nova->LS As you can see, there are a few changes. Having a fire totem down takes priority over almost anything, other than Wolves and Lightning Bolt at 5Stacks of MW. Flame Shock should be used on any mob that lasts longer than 18 seconds. Fire nova comes after lava lash, as Lava Lash procs Flametongue, and can proc Lightning Shield and MW charges. This of course is a single target priority list-Fire Nova is much higher on the priority when adds are introduced. It might even be that we start carrying around extra glyphs with us, and switch out glyph of windfury weapon for glyph of fire nova on add-heavy fights.

C). Mana Conservation is a small issue. -

Shamanistic Rage Early, to make sure you’re filled to full.

Make sure you shamanistic rage 15 seconds before phases where you can’t guarantee 15 seconds of meleeing the boss.

D). Stop gemming haste.

With the introduction of fire nova into our rotation, we’ve added in another ability (like shocks/lava lash) that gains absolutely 0 benefit from haste. This further pushes attack power as something we want to gem, and reduces hastes usefulness. This does NOT mean haste is bad, or something we don’t want on gear-it simply means that we’re less inclined to gem for it than we were pre-patch.

2) Icecrown Citadel is what raiding should be. (Spoilers wut)

A) It’s like Lord of the Rings, with half the endings.

Whether you’re racing through 5-mans with Lady Sylvanas at your side, or helping Overlord Saurfang commit filicide in 25s, Icecrown Citadel is a literal loregasm. This is a distinct break from the other well-designed raid of the expansion, Ulduar, which left a lot of us sitting back and wondering “De donde esta el lich king?” This is not to say I disliked Ulduar, or that I disliked the lore behind it, but it was a random break from the theme of the expansion. (Which might even have been needed, tbqh.)

B) Bosses that I don’t hate!

I can’t remember the last time I was happy with a boss in ToC. Northrend Beasts was a mess of Enhancement Shaman hating monsters that liked to knock melee back, spawn adds that melee had to kill, or focus on cleave damage that we were notoriously lacking. I spent the past 3 months raiding and listening to our fearless guild leader refer to our Ret Paladins as our “best melee dps” (and they are really quite good) while they cheezed meters with A)Not killing adds that were AOE immune (for good reason) and B)Doing insane cleave damage on fights that allowed it, even without rocking seal of cleave. Oh, and C)They didn’t have their mainhand axe taken by a rogue who couldn’t wield it less than a month prior, and didn’t have the only weapons useable by them drop off the last boss of the instance (or, in one’s case, PVPed for his axe). This meant that when we were doing ToC25, I was behind the curve in that pretty much –all- of our melee dps had 245 mains and offhands before me, and when we did ToGC and didn’t down anub I was stuck with a 245 mainhand and a 232 off while our mut rogues and 2hander users were making ^_^ faces after getting weaps from easy kills. Calling them our best melee dps was enough to give me a complex!

ICC (so far) isn’t like that. Marrowgar seems to be weird, as I can’t tell what the point of his whirlwind ability is other than minor aoe damage to everyone. His coldflame ability is fun, though I’m admittedly bad about not running across it when I’m trying to get to a bone spike or something else. :S Lady Deathwhisper is what Kel’thuzad should have been, as she has a non-excruciatingly boring add phase in the beginning, utilizes a fun concept that is based on in-game abilities (mana shield), and has an intense burn phase. (I love burn phases!) My one issue with her is that, dealing 45% melee damage and 55% spell damage, when the adds come up that are immune to one or the other I wonder if I’m just better sitting on the boss where I’m 100% effective. (Which is something I’ve heard enhancement shaman/ret paladins talk about.) She’s still a fun fight. The airship battle is #$@#ing intense and I love it. It’s honestly a loot piñata, and that’s perfectly fine- not everything in the game has to be hard. Rocket packing between ships, dodging cannonballs, and pretending you’re Legolas in the middle of a fucking MID-AIR MAGICAL VERSION OF PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN is honestly just awesomesauce, and I give major props to Blizzard for making an encounter that is that fun. Deathbringer Saurfang is an interesting fight, that I think gives the healers carpal-tunnel syndrome and requires a few of the ranged dps to consider disengaging off the walls, but for melee it’s like Patchwerk with twice the HP. Sitting at between 8-9k on almost every attempt left me a very, very happy Elam.

Also, speaking of Saurfang as a melee snoozefest of a fight.

I swear to god, this is all true. >.<

C) Ugh, gated raid.

They did this to stall for time in Sunwell. They did it with ToC. They’re doing it now. And honestly, I don’t think it was a problem in Burning Crusade, where guilds were still working through Black Temple and gearing themselves up. But now, after 3 months of standing in the same fucking room for 4 Alt 10mans, 2 ToC 25s, and a ToGC25 every week, I want to @#%@#% @#%^ whatever asshat suggested that we farm the same four bosses of ICC for a month before we move to the hard ones.

Looking it over, a few things come to mind:

They’re itemized pretty nicely. There’s some haste on a few pieces, crit on every piece, and loads of that beloved attack power and agility on all of them. They also include some hit, but not -too- much- 116 combined. This is significantly less than we need, but at a point in the expansion where every class in the game is complaining that they have hit coming out of their ears (seperate links), we can be fairly certain we can make up the extra hit with offspec gear. (It might even give us a reason to use the emblem of triumph trinkets! Wutwut.)

That all said, something distressing about it is the fact that there is absolutely no expertise on any piece. We need a fair chunk of it (~100 for us qt green goblin wannabees, 140 for everyone who has yet to make the leap to change ). Unfortunately for us, we share mail with hunters who get absolutely nothing from expertise, which means offset pieces generally don’t have expertise. (They do have gobs of armor pen, though. >.<) We’ve historically gotten quite a bit of expertise from our tier, and not having that might be of concern. However, all this really means is certain offset pieces like the Seal of Many Mouths will most likely become BiS. (Or, we might use a single leather piece, such as Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder- this piece alone would bring me just shy of expertise cap with axes/fist weapons, which are very vogue weapons in ICC.)

Something that I really enjoy about this set is it’s gem slots. Exactly two slots matches the two blue gems we need for our meta, both with fairly attractive set bonuses- a +12 ap bonus on legs, and a +8 on shoulders. While it’s possible we may see offset pieces with higher socket bonuses than +8, the shoulder bonus stat weight is petty characteristic of gemmable rings/bracers/neckpieces, and these are all pieces that will be designed with other classes in mind too, which means possible armor penetration/hit rating/etc. bonuses. Beyond that, we have FOUR red sockets, including one on a helm with a +16 attack power bonus- a veryveryvery nice addition. There’s one yellow socket on the chest, but the +12 apbonus means that as long as your haste/crit have an ep higher than .8, a 20AP/10 haste or crit gem will be a dps increase. (Also, if ICC hard-modes are anything like ToC, we’ll likely not use the chest as BiS, provided they itemize heroic chest pieces with an extra gem slot again.)

Finally, the shoulders have a nice equip effect. “Periodically calls forth the spirits of the Shoveltusk to bolster the bearer’s spirits in battle.” Most likely, this is simply a reference to the Shoveltusk ghosts the emenate from the shoulders, but it’s still cool to see on the shoulders.

Quick note: I used the 251 gear here because it was simplest. The 25 gear is very similar, just with higher numbers.

(As a total asides from this post, the designer of the EnhSim addon asked me today to become a part of the EnhSim development team. This makes me fucking ecstatic, and yea. I can’t wait!)

Between 2 @Elam threads, 3 people logging on level 1s on Black Dragonflight before my avatar updated to ask what I changed to (after posting once “why won’t my avatar update. ”), and 40 people I had never talked to before asking me why I changed race, I realized two things: A) I’m kind of a big deal. and B) Race Matters (and not just Cornell West style.) People all across Azeroth were weighing decisions and arguing with themselves about the value of looking good vs. performing well.

And so now, two weeks after my therapist-reviewed sex/race change, I figured I’d post the positives and negatives of my character transformation, and what I think everyone else should do.

A)Size matters too. In his “If I was Grecian I’d be a minotaur” form, Elam was a beast. His shoulders blocked out the sun, and the rest of the raid pew-pewd in the shade. More importantly for me, he blocked out humanoid–sized mobs, from trash mobs to Grand-Widow Faerlina. On quite a few of these fights, my only way of telling whether I was in front of or behind the miniscule mobs was by figuring out if I was surrounded by other meleers. And, since most of them fit inside my hitbox anyway, this led to more than a few instances of me standing on our cratchety undead tank(Ironically, he is now a cow-man) thinking I was standing our cynical corpse rogue.

This issue was exacerbated by my computer- a Dell Studio laptop, with an…18′ screen, I think? (I do have a 22′ monitor screen that I could hook up, but it was stolen by my family two months ago when they blew out their screen. They finally bought a new monitor yesterday, so hopefully I’ll be back to playing on a monitor where my raid members are bigger than a thumbnail soon.) Right now, this small monitor is my only problem with Elam’s new waistsize- when running fights where my camera needs to be set at max view distance, trying to discern which blob with axes in the center of the screen is me on an 18inch screen can be more challenging than the fight itself.

2. It is hard to get used to. Really. At least twice in the past two weeks I have confused myself for our male tauren enhancement shaman initiate, resulting in me standing out of melee range on two trash fights because I didn’t realize my weapons weren’t swinging. Moreover, messing with viewdistance has gotten stupid. I actually died to Pewx2 on Mimiron easy the other day because I had my camera zoomed in closer than I used to have it on Elam, and I didn’t realize this was a problem until he started to spin up on p4 and I couldn’t see the middle. I lost “Champion of Ulduar” for two people that night (as well as sabotaging my own chance at the achievement, since he was one of 3 bosses I still need too. ) I felt pretty damn silly.

3. The racials are excellent. There is no making this any prettier: Orc racials are simply the best that exist for Enhancement shaman, bar none. 5% expertise when wielding axes frees up at least 2-3 gems for Attack Power. Blood Fury gives 322 Attack power, 163 spelldamage, and through mental quickness you get another 107 spell damage (322x.30), so 270 spell damage. That’s the equivalent of at least a blue/bad epic iLevel 200 trinket, such as Loatheb’s Shadow. And, Command gives 5% extra damage to Spirit Wolves while they’re up, which is a minimal increase, but still not terrible. And, I’d need to check this to make sure and google is not making it easy, but I think 5% to fire elemental totem- something that will be excellent assuming permanent fire elemental totem is not changed for 3.3. Any one of these racials is an upgrade from the void of terrible tauren racials (for pve), and all 3 of them together blow tauren out of the water.

4. But Elam, races will be changed for Cataclysm!: This game is perpetually changing, and the idea of choosing to do anything  without remembering that is just silly. It’s just like people rolling fotm classes for pvp: they will eventually get nerfed. Recognize this fact, and use it roll with the blows. (E.g.: Enhance DPS is the third worst in the game right now, right before Elemental and Shadow Priest. However, we’ve been consistently good the past two patches, so pretending that our low performance in ToC is proof that the end is near for our dps is not really intelligent. This is even more true now that we’ve seen the patch notes for 3.3, and enhance is getting some considerable dps increases.)

So yes, Orc racials WILL be nerfed/changed. Honestly, they might even be made better- as far as I can tell, they’re not up to par with Goblin/Worgen Racials, and those two will be the new standard for racials sometime soon. I’m fully prepared for this, and was prepared the moment I typed in my card information on Blizzard Account Management. I’ve grown accustomed to my new green body, and I even like it, but I won’t mind eschewing it if tauren get beastly racials. (And, tbqh, I’m planning on going goblin in Cataclysm anyway. Free gap closer for a class that has no gap closer? Yesplz.)

5. I can wear boots. Seriously. You people who have worn boots your entire wow career might take them for granted, but for someone whose first 3 80s were a Cow Deathknight, Cow Shaman, and Blueberry Hunter, NOT HAVING HOOFS IS AWESOME.

6. I’m kind of a big deal. Hehe, to be honest, this did factor into it. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people questioned my race change, and even more people log onto BDF to whisper/mail me questions, etc. People ask me stuff on the forums. It’s generally believed that I have a clue what I’m talking about, and I felt guilty about the prospect of telling people “Orc is the best class for pve,” when I was unwilling to make that sacrifice myself. Practice what you preach, that whole thing.

All of the above said, I don’t advocate race changing. There is absolutely no challenging the fact that orc racials blow Tauren (and trolls, for the most part) out of the water, but there is also no challenging the fact that it is your $15 a month to play. Will going orc increase your dps? Yes. But is 200dps(arbitrarily assigned- I can’t put an exact number to the increase atm) worth you spending $25 to play a race that you don’t want to play? That’s not something for me (or for anyone else) to decide for you. We can criticize your putting a 20 crit gem in your helmet, or using the higher dps weapon in your offhand, but when it comes to a question of spending real money AND possibly sacrificng enjoyment- that’s a personal choice, and there isn’t a wrong one. I’m a min-maxer who had cash to spare and felt that I was holding my guild back by not doing the best to maximize my dps, but that’s my personal opinion on the situation. I can’t/won’t criticize anyone for playing the race they want to play, because ultimately this game IS about enjoyment, and no one wants to loathe their character.

(PS: I didn’t get into the gender change, so here’s an addendum about that. I find male orcs to look vapid and clueless, and really they embody the traditional masculine charcteristics I hate. (Honor, unhealthy obsession with violence, competition, etc.) Female orcs don’t look stupid, have cool ponytails, and certainly do not typify stereotypical female gender roles. {“Estrogen? What’s that? Can I eat it?” }While my boyfriend glares at me whenever I bring Elam’s sex/race change up {apparently, he entered into this relationship with a male tauren! xD}, I think I made the right choice. )

“As someone who has written quite a few Shaman forum posts and a blog or two about the need to have Fire Elemental more available during raiding, I have to say that I was pretty stupid ecstatic to see the cooldowns cut in half.

(For those of you who don’t know: Enhance shaman drop magma totem, which an average ToC-geared shaman will have contribute about 800 dps. Every 20 minutes currently, we can drop Fire Elemental, who contributes about 1300dps- a difference of 500 more dps over 2 minutes. The problem with FE is that we have to be incredibly selective about the when/where/why we drop FE, and on Progression raid attempts with hard dps modes, such as I choose you Steelbreaker ({not calling the progression, just pointing it out because it was a dps race in p3}, we’re often left without one of our main dps cooldowns for the next attempt.)

As someone who has advocated this change for a long time, I can’t really say anything but thank you!

I am interested, however, in the fate of glyph of fire elemental. It currently reduces the fire elemental cooldown by 10 minutes, which would mean fire elemental would no longer have a CD. Personally, I think this is an awesome idea, as it’s a sustained dps boost. (I’d hesitate to say it’s needed, because I think it’s pretty hilarious how every class seems to disillusion itself that they’re the worst dps in the game.) However, the unholy AoTD talent for Death Knights was changed, so I am wondering- what is in store for Fire Elemental totem?”

It’s not a huge buff. BUT, Fire Elemental can now be up 1/5 of the time, and is going to be able to be used at least every other boss attempt, rather than every fourth or fifth. Considering FE is a good 500ish dps by itself, that’s exciting.

Thanks, Blizzard.

(Note- Fire Nova+Fire Elemental are somewhat clunky to use together. I suggest logging onto the PTR to make sure you get down the FE placement for maximum Fire Nova damage!)

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!

This may come as a surprise to a good number of you, but I really am. From my late high school days of secretly statting out Dungeons and Dragons Rangers in Journalism class to my first excursion as a fatty cowman trying to figure out why I couldn’t shoot a gun while running to the next plainstrider, I’ve played bow-toting foresterers whose best friends are animals. Prior to Elam’s creation, I had three hunters: Minotauren, my first cowman who reached level 7 before my trial expired, Lethreyn the blood elf male, who was deleted out of frustration with my inability to solo the level 30 hippogryff in Ashenvale at level 27, and another Tauren whose name escapes me.

Even after Elam began his massive trek from Mulgore to Mount Hyjal, I stalled his leveling at level 61 to start a Draenei Hunter. I had literally no interest in ever playing Beast Mastery, which was a vogue (read: most viable dps spec by a long shot) spec at the time, and I had read that Survival was beast CC- something Shaman were (and are!) notoriously lacking- while offering a unique raid buff in the form of Expose Weakness. Darwinism the Survival hunter (proudly SV from 10-80!) and his pet’s  <Charles> (I’m on <Charles> the sixth atm) were born, Alliance on Uldum, a rl friend’s server.

I’m not quite sure what happened, but shortly after Darwinism hit 62 (a level above Elam), I for some strange reason saw an appeal in leveling Elam. As Resto. Wtf. (I blame a certain British Protection-turned-Retribution Paladin, who IMed me one day with her glorious stories of tanking regular Mechanar and how she needed a good healer because all of her friends were terrible and wanted to dps.) A million lightning bolt casts, 11 mana tombs runs, and a particularly nasty attempt at regular shadow labs later, I was 70 on Elam and Darwinism was a distant memory, abandoned on a backwater server in the services of the lesser-faction. This was May, 2008. Darwinism sat at 63 for the rest of Burning Crusade, and the Wrath of the Lich King saw Elam, my Shaman who is very rarely on Ramen, and Grazeless, my Femcow DW Tankard O’ Terror DPS DK hit 80.

Finally, a little frustrated with being sat on the bench with nothing to do (I was a Surreality initiate in the Spring, and I had  terrible computer: I was the last person invited. ), I headed back over to Uldum one night as an escape. And, I fell back in love (part of it was my leaving Zangarmarsh and leveling elsewhere- I really hate that zone.) I felt the same way I have everytime I’ve played a hunter in the past, some sort of strange idea of returning to my roots. I got passionately into leveling Darwinism, ignoring the fact that it was my third time through northrend, I had no heirlooms to make life not suck, and Survival is -so- not optimal leveling. June of 2009, close to the anniversary of Elam’s level 70, and nearly 16 months after his creation, Darwinism hit level cap.

Like celebrities, our love affair was passionate and brief. Try as I might, I couldn’t make playing alliance on another server from my home guild and friends work, especially when the Alliance guild I was in on Uldum was full of turds who wiped on Ignis for an hour and 30 minutes,(No lie- I was there.) and my only friend on the server is the biggest introvert I know, who I’ll go out to dinner with and hold entirely one-sided conversations with myself while he sips beer and doesn’t talk. (Whispers are even more painful. >.<) I left Uldum behind for another two months, and actually grew to disdain my hunter as a representative of all that was bad on that server. I did end up trying to level a THIRD tauren hunter during this time, but she reached 13 and I got bored. :S

When news of having level 80s of both factions on one realm hit, I didn’t consider transferring Darwinism, because I still was feeling the aforementioned disdain. Rather, I cleared out his 1500g bank account, spent all of his emblems on heirloom gear, and loaded up my unfortunately named Paladin alt “Idrawaggro” with everything he needed to make the leveling process not suck. Idrawaggro spent levels 55-73ish on Uldum, before one night changed his identity changed forever, making the move from Idrawaggro, the male human paladin from Uldum to Notelam, the Female Blood elf on Black Dragonflight. A week or two of question and Notelam hit 80 in Early September, gearing herself up as a Holy Light bot. Darwinism still lay neglected.

And then, about two weeks ago, Frost PVE changes were announced on the PTR that made Frost Specced Mages look like they might be close to viable dps in 3.3. Excited as heck, I took my level 32 Frost Mage out of retirement, gave ger some nice heirlooms, and started the grind towards 80, because I am the quintessential alt-oholic. This grind was different, however, as my guild leader accompained me on it- queuing us for BGs on her hunter  (Btw, Warsong Gulch is horrid for leveling.) and pewpewdpsing Uldaman with me.

Somewhere in the midst of watching Villanie (and her pets- Elam the Raptor and Buttercup the Scorpid-) ENJOY her hunter play (srsly, she loves it),  and getting mercilessly owned by them in 40-49 BGs, my interest in Darwinism was renewed. I had been planning on transferring him Horde side for a while, but the cost dissuaded me. (Really, my boyfriend’s opinion on the cost dissuaded me. ) I struck a deal with him four nights ago- I’d realm transfer him this paycheck, and then NEXT paycheck I’d faction change him. It was great…until I gave into temptation upon deciding I wanted to play him that very night and blew the extra 30 bucks on a faction change, too. And Darwinism, the female orc with pig tails, was born.

I took a lot of little liberty on her gear. :S Those definitely are not the naxx10 epics she's actually wearing. xD

Now that the history is all done, here is the crux of what this post is about: Darwinism is an orc now. As I might have mentioned in this post, other than one blood elf male who was deleted for being useless, all my attempts at Horde hunters were tauren. Why? Because Tauren are the single coolest race in the game, bar none. On sheer awesome factor, from 1-Elam, Tauren come in somewhere around 32 million.

However, when I was actually PAYING to make Darwinism an orc, I had to put more thought into it than “what looks best.” Tauren racials are piss poor for Hunters- while war stromp may situatinally be useful, you don’t want to be in melee range. 5% base health increase is negligible, the herbalism bonus is not something I worry about very often, and I don’t pvp enough to care that Balance Druids are hitting me 2% less often. On the other hand, Orcs offer Blood Fury, a 2minute cooldown DPS trinket, and command- a racial that is equivalent to the 2pc t7 bonus. (5% pet damage.) I didn’t want to deal with the “lol why tauren hunter” comments; not did I want to fake naivety and not knowing when I made the character that the racials were subpar. And, I wanted to maximize my dps- and that meant orc.

I think this is really important, as it is a question a lot of us are going to be asking ourselves within the next month or so, once race changes become viable: At what point does min/maxing take priority over personal pleasure? I never want Elam to be an orc- I don’t like the race very much, but 5% feral spirit damage, an AP trinket, and 5 expertise for each axe I equip seems a hefty tradeoff for the please of looking awesome. However, when race changes become available, would I be willing to face the critique of “why didn’t you go orc?” Because, in effect, it becomes the same as not getting epic gems in your gear or enchanting it properly- I would have to willingly forego a proven DPS increase for no visible gain. Is that a choice that I would be willing to make? I’m not sure yet, and I’d love to hear others feelings on the matter.

(I’m going to try to comment on comments as much as I can, but I doubt I’ll be posting much this week. Besides a side-project I’m planning, Ciderhelm from Tankspot gave me the go ahead to develop a text-based guide to playing an Enh Shaman, so I’m planning on using a lot of my free time this week working on that. )

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. )