Endgame Shaman

Shaman PTR 3.2.2 Patch Notes

2009-09-11T07:47:00.000-04:00

Shaman
• 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.
Enhancement
• 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).

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

Items
• Totem of Quaking Earth: Attack power value increased to 400.

Bug Fixes

Shaman
• Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.
• Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).
• Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.
• Stoneclaw Totem's pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.
• Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.

Elitist Jerks, part 1

2009-09-10T17:43:00.000-04:00

Q: Which of the following terms best be defined as: “Foolish, rude, or contemptible persons who believe they deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority”?

A) Arrogant pricks.
B) Pompous asses.
C) Elitist jerks.

A: The terms are synonymous so as long as you picked one, you are a winner. Extra credit to those who picked C as the above definition is a fustion of the dictionary.com entries for ‘elitist’ and ‘jerk’.

Freshly eighty, looking to raid, and inexpert with my class, I discovered the Theorycrafting Think Tank at Elitist Jerks. It was gospel. I carried a papercopy with me from home to work and back everyday. When I had a new idea or discovery about my class, I would make an annotation in the margin. Frequently I found myself reprinting and transcribing my notes when they had overtaken the page. As my expertise grew, I found that there was less I could reconcile between what I found to be most effective and what the TTT declared correct. As the mechanics and formulae of the game changed and the TTT wasn’t keep current or lagged significantly behind, my bible was tucked in a drawer to gather dust.

Arena Season 7 Gear Released

2009-09-01T12:38:00.000-04:00

For those of you pro enough, here is what you'll look like with the Season 7 Shaman Gear.

Here are the stats for Elemental's Mail, Enhancement's Linked, and Restoration's Ringmail pieces.

Thank you MMO-Champion.com. You're fast becoming my goto.

Banned from Elitist Jerks

2009-09-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

I was banned from Elitist Jerks for my post in the [Elemental] Optimal Gear & Item Discussion for posting a far better BiS list than was available there. To this end, I'm going to post the whole process I went through here over the next week. I'm going to post EPs with that gear and EPs derived from the totality of the gear with procs/on use abilities taken into account. I'm also going to provide the comparison of the hit and no-hit pieces for each slot to defend my choices as well as evaluate hit:iLvl ratio on a number of pieces of gear.

It will have to wait a few days as I'm in accounting and it's the end of the month.

Updated Elemental Shaman Best-in-Slot List

2009-08-28T10:23:00.001-04:00

This list is for Horde shamans (expect an Alliance list in the near future):

258 Suffering's End
258 Bastion of Resolve
245 Totem of Electrifying Wind
258 Thrall's Helm of Triumph
258 Cry of the Val'kyr
258 Thrall's Shoulderpads of Triumph
272 Aethas' Intensity
258 Thrall's Hauberk of Triumph
245 Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers
258 Thrall's Gloves of Triumph
245 Belt of Biting Cold
258 Leggings of the Awakening
258 Sabatons of Tremoring Earth
245 Firestorm Band
258 Circle of the Darkmender
258 Reign of the Dead
239 Flare of the Heavens

This list was developed under the assumption that the user has every normal raid buff but Focus Magic, Amplify Magic, and Heroic Presence (as I'm Horde).

The optimal consumables are Flask of the Frost Wyrm, Fish Feast, and Potion of Speed.

Here are the contributions from the gear:

Stat	Gain	Percent	EP
Stamina	1224	--	--
Intellect	1154	--	0.78
Spell Power	2929	--	3.36
Hit	294	11.21	6.64
Haste	889	27.11	2.74
Crit	853	18.51	2.28
Combat MP5	186	--	--

Please comment and return. I will be putting quality content in here and updating regularly.

N2K: Hit Rating and Elemental T9.5

2009-08-04T15:35:00.000-04:00

Elemental Tier Pieces:

Thrall's Shoulderpads of Triumph
Thrall's Kilt of Triumph
Thrall's Helm of Triumph
Thrall's Gloves of Triumph
Thrall's Hauberk of Triumph

The full t9.5 set gives 272 hit rating which translates to ~10.37% -- overcapping raid-buffed Alliance shamans and putting Horde at only 17pts shy of the cap. As the kilt contributes the most points at 102, this is probably the piece that most will choose to omit as it was with t8.5.

I will be looking at the alternatives to tier pieces as more data becomes available.

Up next: An in depth look at haste, the soft cap per instant, 1.5sec, and 2sec cast times, its interaction with GCDs, and factoring in the 8sec and 18/27sec CD/timeouts that affect our rotations. But before I can do that, I need to figure out why my listed Armory haste value and percentage aren't at a 32.79:1 ratio. My hopes is that the patch is screwing with the numbers.