Weekend - (19 Feb) JB Dominates the Weekend, Again

Weekend - (19 Feb) JB Dominates the Weekend, Again

Friday - Building a Spec

Now that JB has gotten her Raider rank with the guild as an enhancement shaman, she has been putting a lot more effort into getting her elemental spec up to speed.

There are three "recommended" specs for elemental shaman, but JB wasn't sure which she should use. Bd has a raiding elemental shaman alt (Br) that seems to do well, so JB patterned her talent spec after Br. She began her off-spec aspirations as a pvp healer, and had originally decked herself out in the best "off the rack" (ie, the crafted Vicious set) pvp gear. Now, her task was to rid herself of that gear and replace it with pve gear of equal or better quality. At the same time, JB was working with Wild and Philly to get her enchants, gems, and glyphs together.

As of Friday, JB had reduced her pvp gear to four pieces, and had an equipped gear score of i365. JB is spell hit capped at 17%.

Once she was ok with the state of her gear (at least for the moment), she had to take on the bigger issue - learning how to be an elemental shaman.

Doing some research, JB was pleased to discover that the spell priorities were fewer and simpler than those JB contends with as enhancement. Spell priorities work like this: Searing totem, Flame Shock, Lava Burst (on cd), Earth Shock (with Fulmination), and Lightning Bolt (filler). These five spells make up all of JB's single target attack. There are two procs that JB has to watch for, and JB has to ensure that the Flame Shock DoT and the Searing totem are always active. And that's it. AoE attacks against multiple targets are pretty simple as well. Finally, elemental shaman like to open a boss fight with a Fire Elemental. Fire elementals get all their spell power from the shaman at the point it is called, so all cooldowns are blown right at the start so that the fire elemental gets the max spell power.

JB read that mana regen was not an issue for elemental shaman because of special procs that restore mana as fast as it's used. JB had a hard time believing that, but it bore out in tests on the target dummy. JB could not run out of mana no matter how hard she pushed. As JB gains more haste to get more spells off faster, the issue may eventually come up. But from all I've read, elemental shaman mana is virtually infinite.

In tests on the Raid Target Dummy, JB was consistently hitting over 12k dps using only her own buffs, which is better than JB did with enhancement at that gear level. She needs 15k dps to be raid ready, but I'm not going to push it. It's an off-spec, not main spec.

JB also spent a couple of hours farming reputation in Mount Hyjal. Revered Hyjal rep is required to get the +int head enchant. As enhancement, JB didn't need that enchant, so never worked on getting the rep. It went pretty fast, though. 

Stay tuned. JB plans to test the waters in normal cata dungeons this weekend. The JPs earned from those runs will go to getting som i378 gear upgrades.

Saturday - No, It's Not Saturday Yet

JB didn't wait until Saturday to test out her elemental spec. Friday night JB was too late in game to join the Firelands run, so she joined the random dungeon queue. For once the queue went quickly. The selected dungeon was Tol'vir, which was predictable. There are nine Cata dungeons the dungeon finder can pick from, but the only two it ever offers is Tol'vir and Halls of Origination. I know why, though. Of the nine dungeons, only three are level 85 only, and once at level 85, the finder won't pick a dungeon rated less than 85. That third level 85 dungeon is Grim Batol, and JB did get that one once in the past. JB also got into a HOO dungeon.

Anyway, JB was locked and loaded and ready to go. JB has done both dungeons many times already, although it was her first time in this spec. The things she learned:

* Chain Lightning is AWESOME! Tol'vir has many mob packs, and spamming chain lightning burned those mobs down in a hurry. The tank was decent, but JB did pull aggro quite a bit. JB eased up at the start of the pull, making a round or two of single target attacks before lighting 'em up with chain lightning, and that seemed to help the tank get a firmer grip on the mobs.

* It's true about elemental spec mana regen. For awhile I checked on mana usage, but after awhile I forgot all about it. The mana regen is that strong and the mana pool was endless. One caution, though: Non-dps spells such as dispels and healing WILL rapidly burn mana down to nothing.

* JB tended to move too close to the fight, a tendency built up by long practice fighting as melee. It wasn't until JB was halfway through HOO that I conscientiously started forcing JB farther back to take advantage of the long range of her spells.

* JB has gotten so used to making sure that Searing totem is active when she fights in enhancement spec, it became a habit JB had to break when using elemental spec. On the final boss JB cast Fire Elemental at the start of the fight instead of Searing totem. The Fire Elemental is very powerful, but it has a 10 minute cooldown, so it's only good for one fight in the dungeon. The two totems share the same cooldown, and can't be active at the same time. JB's Fire Elemental was up for maybe ten seconds when JB automatically cast Searing Totem when I saw it wasn't up. Finger response was faster than brain in that case, and my big DPS attack was wasted.

* Speaking of finger response, despite dealing with fewer spells, the automatic reflex isn't there yet, so JB was a little slow getting off special procs and making sure her DoTs stayed on the target. JB also had moments when she was so in groove she'd discover that her spells stopped working - why? the mob had died and JB needed to target another. Targeting is a bit easier as elemental, since at range it's much easier to be facing the target. Most of the time JB can use the tank as the assist target, but I still have trouble when I try to direct target a mob.

* Her favorite moment of the night was against Siamat, the final boss in Tol'vir. Siamat is on an open platform and periodically tries to knock players off the platform. Siamat also grabs random raiders and flings them around in the air for several seconds. Since JB can cast Lightning Bolt even when moving, JB was able to continue to smack Siamat around, lancing out with lightning bolt from mid-air.

* JB didn't need the Fire Elemental in these dungeons, and despite still learning the spec she did very well. JB was hitting around 12k dps on the target dummy. In Tol'vir JB led the group with 11.1k dps. Overall, JB was extremely happy. 

Saturday - JB The Grinder

The first thing this morning JB checked on the Auction House for gear. JB tried to talk Happy into paying 2200g for an i378 cape, but settled on buying the i353 spirit caller cape for 350g. The plan is to get JB's off-spec ready for Heroics, and pick up the higher ilvl gear from there. However, there were exceptions. AH hound Lost, on the alliance side, found a great deal on i378 bracers for 450g (the horde side was selling them for 1500g). Finally, Happy authorized JB's most expensive need, the [Darkmoon Card: Volcano]. This is a mastery trinket that also has two outstanding on equip procs: A +fire damage proc and a +int proc. This a potent trinket that JB will wear well into Twilight and even the lfr DS. It's that good. The average price was 6k gold. Happy got it for 4k. JB was able to retire an i333 cape, pvp bracers, and an i305 trinket for the new gear. Her gear score improved from i365 to i369. JB has been pleading with Happy to buy the Power Torrent enchant for her dagger, but at 2k gold Happy has balked. Her dagger has Heartsong on it now, but it procs spirit, which is next to useless as a proc for elemental shaman. JB is eventually going to win that argument, although she might be paying for it herself. Update: JB got her Power torrent enchant, and was able to get it pretty cheap. That's because Wild recently took some time to update his two professions, Enchanting and Tailoring, buying a number of patterns. One of those was the Power Torrent enchant. JB got the enchant for the cost of the mats.

There has been no slowing JB down. On Saturday afternoon JB entered her third normal Cata random dungeon, and wouldn't you know Grim Batol came up. All JB had wanted was a quick Tol'vir to get the VPs she needed. GB is a long, multi-boss dungeon, but JB was game. Bring it on.

Our first tank (and you know things aren't what they should be when talking about a "first" tank) got us through the first boss. The tank didn't know the fights, and frankly the rest of us weren't all that forthcoming with information, either. None of us could remember much about this dungeon. So, even though we were successful on the first boss, the tank took his leave after the kill.

We waited a couple of minutes, and a new tank showed up. He saw that we were already past the first boss, and turned around and left.

Our third tank was really slumming. He probably could have soloed the place. That meant we moved fast. We downed another boss, got halfway to the third one, and then that tank left us. Maybe he realized he should be in Heroics instead. Maybe his battleground popped. Maybe he got a better offer from his girlfriend. Whatever the reason, we had lost our third tank. We waited more than five minutes this time. The fourth tank stayed for about ten seconds, and then he, too, booked.

Really? There was nothing wrong with our group. All of us were doing 10k dps or better, the healer was great, nobody died ... ah well. JB had had enough and she, too, said goodbye.

JB still accumulated some JPs from the two boss kills, and went to check on what she might want to buy. JB bought an i378 necklace (replacing a pvp necklace), and an i378 relic (replacing the i346 one she was wearing). JB's gear score rose again, to i371. I wonder if she can hit 15k dps now?

Saturday Night - Wild eventually got some game time, completing the weekly lfr Siege and Fall raids. The tanks were very bad on the Fall run, wiping three times on the first boss, Ultraxion. That raid fell apart completely, which is hard to do. Wild got his 500 VPs for the two runs, but failed to win any Tier pieces, which are the only things left of any value as far as Wild was concerned. Wild has an i390 gear score and most of the i384 gear from the lfr. Our Dragon Soul raid is going to have to step things up for Wild to improve on that.