Accounts shelved. Keep me updated!

/cast [target=this_thread] Resurrect


I would like to bring this thread back to life for its original intended purpose. The original plan for this thread was to use it as a source of updates over the course of a few months. It turned out to be the catalyst to a mass quit wave, of which I have mixed feelings about; boxers are a rare and fairly intelligent bunch, and there are now less of us in WoW :( Then again WoW adds very little to the overall quality of one’s life, so I don’t feel too bad :) More sunshine for all!


None the less, I would like to bring the beast back to life to find out what is happening in the world… of warcraft. My questions are as follows, and are extremely focused:

• Are elemental Shamans viable in a 5s yet? 4 Ele + 1 healer
• Have the classes be roughly balanced yet? (God dam mages)
• Has blizzard started making logical patches yet? (When I left they were changing things about classes just for shits and giggles)

There is much to be said on these three topics, but these topics are basically all I care about. I don’t care much about PvE, raid progression, guilds, or questing.


Recap of where I left:
Elemental was worthless. Burst was non-existent, our survivability was in the toilet, we were manna pigs that did very little damage and had no control over a fight. Mage’s Ring-O-God-Dam-Frost was so OP that it wasn’t evens an insult any more, it was just hilarious. Blizzard still had their heads up their ‘you know where’, and refused to nerf mages to the ground. I left just as they killed druids (Shape shifting), if that helps set a marker in your mind of where I was at.

The game was a cesspool of imbalance, win trading, hopping on bridges to collect your free loots, painstaking weeks of grinding for those that missed the bridge, and a fight being won by how many mages you had on the team.


Anything changed?

Have not quit the game after all.

Played a set of Exorcism/Shockadin Pallies (five), on the horde side.
Got them up to 57th, without RAF, in five days or so (two 10% heirloom items).

Then started on the 4x DK + 1x Paladin team.
Leveled 5 DK's to 80th, then dropped one for a healer.
Played Paladin, then Priest, then went back to Pally healer.
Have been doing lots of BG's (initially, for the honor grind) and then the minimum number of Arena games for Conquest points each week.
I've basically quit the Alchemy transmutes, as all my teams either have 310% flying or have the gold for it for when they level up high enough; my main team has Vial of the Sands x5, and I have 800,000 gold and nothing to spend it on.

I play basically Tue and Mon, for the Conquest Points.
And that is about it.
I'm playing a fair bit of Starcraft II at the moment (and going through Day9 Dailies... started at 1, watched 192 last night).

But the summer seasonal work is quickly approaching.
So my online forays will quickly become rather sporadic.
Which is good and bad, as the game is always far more fun after a break.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

Have not quit the game after all.

Played a set of Exorcism/Shockadin Pallies (five), on the horde side.
Got them up to 57th, without RAF, in five days or so (two 10% heirloom items).

Then started on the 4x DK + 1x Paladin team.
Leveled 5 DK's to 80th, then dropped one for a healer.
Played Paladin, then Priest, then went back to Pally healer.
Have been doing lots of BG's (initially, for the honor grind) and then the minimum number of Arena games for Conquest points each week.
I've basically quit the Alchemy transmutes, as all my teams either have 310% flying or have the gold for it for when they level up high enough; my main team has Vial of the Sands x5, and I have 800,000 gold and nothing to spend it on.

I play basically Tue and Mon, for the Conquest Points.
And that is about it.
I'm playing a fair bit of Starcraft II at the moment (and going through Day9 Dailies... started at 1, watched 192 last night).

But the summer seasonal work is quickly approaching.
So my online forays will quickly become rather sporadic.
Which is good and bad, as the game is always far more fun after a break.

---

Oh man… derailed in 1 post! :P So… about my questions :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

My questions are as follows, and are extremely focused:

• Are elemental Shamans viable in a 5s yet? 4 Ele + 1 healer
• Have the classes be roughly balanced yet? (God dam mages)
• Has blizzard started making logical patches yet? (When I left they were changing things about classes just for shits and giggles)

Anything changed?

---

I believe Elemental gets some major buffage in 4.2, which is not here yet.
They will be able to cast Lightning Bolt while moving.
And if Flame Shock is dispelled, they'll have 90% haste which is a lot of pew-pew or healing.
Don't think they're that good now, but totems do stack and all, so probably not the worst combo either.

I don't think you'll ever see balance, they have to weigh PvE and PvP large and small scale.
My DK's are very dominant, more so than my Elementals were in late BC or early WotLK.
So they're a bit over powered in relation to other classes or compositions I've tried.
Mages aren't horribly annoying for these, as I have four death grips on round-robin which refresh often, plus strangulate and mind freeze.
Rogues are the class the DK's despise, because of Sap on one team member after the other; since Rogues can now move at 100% speed while stealthed, I recently experienced an arena game where my five killed four of theirs and then I resorted to watching a movie since the lone surviving rogue was playing chicken shit and wouldn't engage.

Mages have not been nerfed, they're pretty much the same.

Druids have power shifting with any shape shift if they're Resto spec, or with Boomkin form only if they're Balance.
Feral doesn't have power shifting to break roots, but the 83 roar ability is raid-wide and makes affected targets immune for the duration... so almost a minute every 3 minutes of root immunity; nothing against the fear break/immunity that was lost.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

I believe Elemental gets some major buffage in 4.2, which is not here yet.
They will be able to cast Lightning Bolt while moving.
And if Flame Shock is dispelled, they'll have 90% haste which is a lot of pew-pew or healing.
Don't think they're that good now, but totems do stack and all, so probably not the worst combo either.

I don't think you'll ever see balance, they have to weigh PvE and PvP large and small scale.
My DK's are very dominant, more so than my Elementals were in late BC or early WotLK.
So they're a bit over powered in relation to other classes or compositions I've tried.
Mages aren't horribly annoying for these, as I have four death grips on round-robin which refresh often, plus strangulate and mind freeze.
Rogues are the class the DK's despise, because of Sap on one team member after the other; since Rogues can now move at 100% speed while stealthed, I recently experienced an arena game where my five killed four of theirs and then I resorted to watching a movie since the lone surviving rogue was playing chicken shit and wouldn't engage.

Mages have not been nerfed, they're pretty much the same.

Druids have power shifting with any shape shift if they're Resto spec, or with Boomkin form only if they're Balance.
Feral doesn't have power shifting to break roots, but the 83 roar ability is raid-wide and makes affected targets immune for the duration... so almost a minute every 3 minutes of root immunity; nothing against the fear break/immunity that was lost.

---

Now that was a comprehensive wrap up! Thank you :)

So it sounds like right now they are still shit, even with 4 of them, but maybe in 4.2.

Yea I started a DK team, but I have leveled at least 4 solos up to 80, maybe 3 to 70, and then the boxing team. I will never level another toon again. I hate the game by the time I hit the cap. So Shammy is my only option, and Ele as a boxer.

Thank you again for the info Ualaa.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

I believe Elemental gets some major buffage in 4.2, which is not here yet.
They will be able to cast Lightning Bolt while moving.
And if Flame Shock is dispelled, they'll have 90% haste which is a lot of pew-pew or healing.
Don't think they're that good now, but totems do stack and all, so probably not the worst combo either.

I don't think you'll ever see balance, they have to weigh PvE and PvP large and small scale.
My DK's are very dominant, more so than my Elementals were in late BC or early WotLK.
So they're a bit over powered in relation to other classes or compositions I've tried.
Mages aren't horribly annoying for these, as I have four death grips on round-robin which refresh often, plus strangulate and mind freeze.
Rogues are the class the DK's despise, because of Sap on one team member after the other; since Rogues can now move at 100% speed while stealthed, I recently experienced an arena game where my five killed four of theirs and then I resorted to watching a movie since the lone surviving rogue was playing chicken shit and wouldn't engage.

Mages have not been nerfed, they're pretty much the same.

Druids have power shifting with any shape shift if they're Resto spec, or with Boomkin form only if they're Balance.
Feral doesn't have power shifting to break roots, but the 83 roar ability is raid-wide and makes affected targets immune for the duration... so almost a minute every 3 minutes of root immunity; nothing against the fear break/immunity that was lost.

---

Stampeding Roar doesn't act as an immunity as far as I recall. I play a feral druid as my solo character, I'm pretty sure it just breaks roots on the initial cast. So two root breaks every ~3 minutes - one for dash, one for roar. Unless they've changed it recently.

LB on the run? link the notes on that! thats kind of op. Also TS will snare the target for a few seconds after the knock back 8)

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=43407

Post #3.
Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (Prime)

4.2 is live. Anything changed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

4.2 is live. Anything changed?

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What is this thread about again? You want to know if Elemental is viable in 4.2?

I believe Nikita has his 4 shaman at 1750-1800 arena so far

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zub

I believe Nikita has his 4 shaman at 1750-1800 arena so far

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that's Correct,

Ele shamans are good in 5s now. Im really positive that I can reach 2000 rating or more this season. BUT I tend to lose against rogue teams, so Im still learning how to play against them. I lose certain fights due to not enough burst, I have countless fights where I get a target below 5000 HP, then they LOS me or gets healed up.

Another positive thing is that I dont have the ruthless weapons yet, and once I get them I will do more dmg which equals more pressure, and I can top of my priest or shamans faster if Im being trained.

Second thing is that most team doing 5s now are resilience capped, and I know certain ppl are conserned about the opposing teams will get better gear and more HP as the season go by. But remember that Ele shamans is one of the classes which scales the best with gear, eles burst will kill ppl in 1 or 2 GCD once we're in full ruthless :)

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2677/dmgn.jpg

Just added a picture showing ele shamans burst.

The rotation I used is:

FS, UE, LvB, CL, Earth Shock (9 stacks on all 4 shamans)

The total dmg done is within 4 GCD and did a total dmg of 678 358.

I popped Elemental mastery and trinkets, and ToW was up aswell

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikita

But remember that Ele shamans is one of the classes which scales the best with gear, eles burst will kill ppl in 1 or 2 GCD once we're in full ruthless :)

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It's actually the exact opposite, hence why they buffed shamanism (which they'll have to do again upon a next tier as scaling will be poor).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikita

Ele shamans are good in 5s now. Im really positive that I can reach 2000 rating or more this season. BUT I tend to lose against rogue teams, so Im still learning how to play against them. I lose certain fights due to not enough burst, I have countless fights where I get a target below 5000 HP, then they LOS me or gets healed up.

Another positive thing is that I dont have the ruthless weapons yet, and once I get them I will do more dmg which equals more pressure, and I can top of my priest or shamans faster if Im being trained.

Second thing is that most team doing 5s now are resilience capped, and I know certain ppl are conserned about the opposing teams will get better gear and more HP as the season go by. But remember that Ele shamans is one of the classes which scales the best with gear, eles burst will kill ppl in 1 or 2 GCD once we're in full ruthless :)

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2677/dmgn.jpg

Just added a picture showing ele shamans burst.

The rotation I used is:

FS, UE, LvB, CL, Earth Shock (9 stacks on all 4 shamans)

The total dmg done is within 4 GCD and did a total dmg of 678 358.

I popped Elemental mastery and trinkets, and ToW was up aswell

---

Still dont think full ruthless will be awesome without buffs from Blizz?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikita

Ele shamans are good in 5s now. Im really positive that I can reach 2000 rating or more this season. BUT I tend to lose against rogue teams, so Im still learning how to play against them. I lose certain fights due to not enough burst, I have countless fights where I get a target below 5000 HP, then they LOS me or gets healed up.

Another positive thing is that I dont have the ruthless weapons yet, and once I get them I will do more dmg which equals more pressure, and I can top of my priest or shamans faster if Im being trained.

Second thing is that most team doing 5s now are resilience capped, and I know certain ppl are conserned about the opposing teams will get better gear and more HP as the season go by. But remember that Ele shamans is one of the classes which scales the best with gear, eles burst will kill ppl in 1 or 2 GCD once we're in full ruthless :)

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2677/dmgn.jpg

Just added a picture showing ele shamans burst.

The rotation I used is:

FS, UE, LvB, CL, Earth Shock (9 stacks on all 4 shamans)

The total dmg done is within 4 GCD and did a total dmg of 678 358.

I popped Elemental mastery and trinkets, and ToW was up aswell

---

How can you have 7 or 9k dps if you do 150k damage in 4 gcd's?

Assuming that 4 GCD is six seconds, then 7k DPS x 4 shaman x 6 seconds is 168,000. 9k DPS x 4 shaman x 6 seconds is 216,000. 678,000 damage would require about 28.5k each for four shaman.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

How can you have 7 or 9k dps if you do 150k damage in 4 gcd's?

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Did a few others tests, I know why the dps is low. I took the picture around 2-3 sec after I was finished doing my rotation, probably dropped the dps abit. But the numbers are correct.

Flame Shock, Unleash Elements, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock. I used the glyph for shocks, so its probably around 4,5 GCD

Wait, so am I to understand that Ele is viable again?!?

A few follow up questions then:
What changed?
How it our survivability?
Mobility?
and manna consumption?

Or is a DK team still the only hope?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

How can you have 7 or 9k dps if you do 150k damage in 4 gcd's?

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Because damage meters suck and don't stop "counting" DPS uptime until combat falls off (at least on target dummies). If you call it 6 seconds just to pad in some fudge, the real DPS over those 6 seconds was about 31k/28k/28k/26k. Not too shabby.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

Because damage meters suck and don't stop "counting" DPS uptime until combat falls off (at least on target dummies). If you call it 6 seconds just to pad in some fudge, the real DPS over those 6 seconds was about 31k/28k/28k/26k. Not too shabby.

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Just bought the ruthless weapons on my team, lava burst is hitting for 55 000 on target dummies with a combo of FS, UE, trinket and lava burst. Ele shamans are back :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

Wait, so am I to understand that Ele is viable again?!?

A few follow up questions then:
What changed?
How it our survivability?
Mobility?
and manna consumption?

Or is a DK team still the only hope?

---

In PVE, elemental is one of the top damage dealing classes at the moment. From last position it jumped to the top. And it only gets better with gear. The 2 set T12 pve bonus means you can have your fire elemental out nearly all the time.

In PVP, mobility is great now, but still no real defensive cooldown. It's possible the global people again with multiple ele.

Mana conservation is shit, but it depends on your playstyle. You can't heal yourself from nothing to full without going oom.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

Wait, so am I to understand that Ele is viable again?!?

A few follow up questions then:
What changed?
How it our survivability?
Mobility?
and manna consumption?

Or is a DK team still the only hope?

---

The 4 set bonus on the PvP ele gear is amazing, you get lightning orb stacks by taking/doing dmg. Which means more fulimination, which equals insane burst potential.

Survivability is decent, I can survive burst waves from 3 players by using TS on round robin, grounding totems, earthbind, and the stoneclaw shield glyph.

I havent put points into insta ghost wolf form, its a waste if you ask me. But casting lb on the move is awesome, helps alot keeping the pressure up. Some fights both healers on the other team is oom due to the pressure I do.

Mana is still a huge issue, when my healer gets trained I need to heal him, and it doesnt take long before I start using TS for mana instead of blowing melees away. I wish Blizzard would fix that issue for ele shamans. BUT I often get time to drink in arenas cus of the other teams runs away to reset the fight since I killed 1 of their players. Cant wait to see what this season will bring.

It seems that I have been convinced to give it another go :) Looks like Bliz will give me 7 days free.

Nikita,

Do you use Lava Surge?

I have seen something like it set up for DKs where one spell takes priority 1, then what ever spell you are clicking Priority 2. Its done with down and up clicks treated independently (As separate spells).



I left before they even changed tremor totem. What else has changed from a boxer point of view?

Also are Mages still OP as f$%#?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

Nikita,

Do you use Lava Surge?

I have seen something like it set up for DKs where one spell takes priority 1, then what ever spell you are clicking Priority 2. Its done with down and up clicks treated independently (As separate spells).



I left before they even changed tremor totem. What else has changed from a boxer point of view?

Also are Mages still OP as f$%#?

---

No, I dont use lava surge, when you go for a kill there is a high chance LvB would be on CD on 1 or more shamans. Fights are tougher, but in a good week I should be able to get to 2000 rating. Kinda depends on the teams im queing against.

Mages are decent, I blow em up fairly quick, one of the classes on my n1 kill prio list in arena. Just train the mage until he iceblocks, switch to another target, and when hes out, switch back to him. He wont last long :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikita

No, I dont use lava surge, when you go for a kill there is a high chance LvB would be on CD on 1 or more shamans.

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Lava surge: Gives your Flame Shock periodic damage ticks a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of your Lava Burst spell.

So provided each shaman casts flame shock at the same time on a target chances per tick of flame shock that 1 lava burst comes off cd is:

1- (0.8*0.8*0.8*0.8) = 59% chance per tick of flame shock that you get 1 lava burst cd reset

which basically means that if you have used your lava burst on target one, the chance is much higher that you can go for a kill faster with lava surge than without. having fs up on multiple target increases this effect even more

withpowerauras on your main you could easily create a symbol that shows up if all 4 lvb are available, or just how many

Well, Ive tried using Lava Surge in my spec earlier in Cataclysm, but wasnt that happy with it. Think im gonna stick with my spec for now :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikita

Well, Ive tried using Lava Surge in my spec earlier in Cataclysm, but wasnt that happy with it. Think im gonna stick with my spec for now :)

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There is no doubt that it is a good ability, the question is if it can be utilized well. I think the ONLY way to use it would be as a steady form of DPS. Probably bound to Number 1, where every DPS key you press hits 1, then the DPS key.

It will however add a 'out of sync' element to your team.

Ill try it out some time. Still getting everything re-set up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

There is no doubt that it is a good ability, the question is if it can be utilized well. I think the ONLY way to use it would be as a steady form of DPS. Probably bound to Number 1, where every DPS key you press hits 1, then the DPS key.

It will however add a 'out of sync' element to your team.

Ill try it out some time. Still getting everything re-set up.

---

I use it in PvE, but find little use of it in the arena im afraid :) as I said earlier, its too RNG based. And when I want dmg, I want my DMG! I go for mastery, so everytime I use my kill rotation, I get atleast 1 LvB/CL proc divided on all 4 shamans, and thats all I need!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

Lava surge: Gives your Flame Shock periodic damage ticks a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of your Lava Burst spell.

So provided each shaman casts flame shock at the same time on a target chances per tick of flame shock that 1 lava burst comes off cd is:

1- (0.8*0.8*0.8*0.8) = 59% chance per tick of flame shock that you get 1 lava burst cd reset

which basically means that if you have used your lava burst on target one, the chance is much higher that you can go for a kill faster with lava surge than without. having fs up on multiple target increases this effect even more

withpowerauras on your main you could easily create a symbol that shows up if all 4 lvb are available, or just how many

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Lava Surge is good, in theory - but for multiboxing it's just not that effective. Having 4 lvbs hit at the same time is far greater than getting a proc on one. Raw DPS may go up, but it's all about smashing a dpses face in with burst.

Thats right Alemi, I feel the same way. I know that FS, LvB, CL and earth shock x 4 will kill someone if I have 9 stacks on my shield. And since Im a mastery whore, I get procs from LvB and CL everytime I use my kill rotation.

Ok, you guys have a fair point. I ran a bunch of 5s, and they went really well!!! I like the changes to Shammy, I must say. I had a positive win ratio! Ha ha ha.

One thing my healer made me do, that I came to LOVE after a few games was to use Earthquake. Its a manna pig, but it locks down ALL the melee and rogues trying to stun lock my healer.

My games go like this:

• Run right at their gate,
• pop a macro that does Damage trinket, Spirit walkers grace, and drops totems (With 4 grounding, 4 Stone claw),
• Do a heavy burst rotation on an easy target,
• Even if he does / doesn't die, I drop a Earthquake on my feet, then Mass hex their entire team. By this time I have a full 9 stacks of Shield,
• Healer stuns some1, and I blow their face off. The rest of their team is hexed / stunned form the Earthquake.

It is working amazing!

Best part is that games are only 2 min, win or lose. Nice and fast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

One thing my healer made me do, that I came to LOVE after a few games was to use Earthquake. Its a manna pig, but it locks down ALL the melee and rogues trying to stun lock my healer.

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EQ pairs up with clearcasting btw.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

EQ pairs up with clearcasting btw.

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You saying that clearcasting will null all 4? That would blow...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

You saying that clearcasting will null all 4? That would blow...

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No I'm saying that clearcasting affects the mana cost of earthquake.(so it costs 40% less mana). You get to clearcasting state when you crit, so if you want to use earthquake, it's mana efficient to do it after a lava burst (provided flame shock was on the target).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

No I'm saying that clearcasting affects the mana cost of earthquake.(so it costs 40% less mana). You get to clearcasting state when you crit, so if you want to use earthquake, it's mana efficient to do it after a lava burst (provided flame shock was on the target).

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^ Why I love these threads. Always something I don't think of.

I was confusing concentration aura. Now that I think of it though, will concentration aura null it? It's, what %20, and EQ is %10. I'm not sure how WoW does the math though. %10 - %20 (%0), or %10 X %20 (%2).

I'm on my phone with a bad connection, so no googleing or spell check :))

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

^ Why I love these threads. Always something I don't think of.

I was confusing concentration aura. Now that I think of it though, will concentration aura null it? It's, what %20, and EQ is %10. I'm not sure how WoW does the math though. %10 - %20 (%0), or %10 X %20 (%2).

I'm on my phone with a bad connection, so no googleing or spell check :))

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With 5x earthquake down you have 41% chance that 1 of the 5 will cause knockdown (probability is (1-(0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9))*100

When you cast and take damage, it adds a delay to your spells (push back effect). Concentration aura and totem of tranquil mind reduce/negate that effect.

Earthquake knocks down players, so concentration aura should not have an effect on that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

No I'm saying that clearcasting affects the mana cost of earthquake.(so it costs 40% less mana). You get to clearcasting state when you crit, so if you want to use earthquake, it's mana efficient to do it after a lava burst (provided flame shock was on the target).

---

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zenga

With 5x earthquake down you have 41% chance that 1 of the 5 will cause knockdown (probability is (1-(0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9))*100

When you cast and take damage, it adds a delay to your spells (push back effect). Concentration aura and totem of tranquil mind reduce/negate that effect.

Earthquake knocks down players, so concentration aura should not have an effect on that.

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What pally thing am I thinking of that reduces your chance to be interrupted? (works against thunderstorm and things like that). Was that the old concentration aura that I'm thinking of?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lpwned

What pally thing am I thinking of that reduces your chance to be interrupted? (works against thunderstorm and things like that). Was that the old concentration aura that I'm thinking of?

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Are you talking about Aura Mastery? http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31821

Thunderstorm will still knock back during AM, which should still interrupt if they're moving, right? Knockdown affects work through AM (Earthquake, Throwdown).

Wind shear is ineffective.