Know your Role - Beasts of Northrend

Know your Role will be a new series of post breaking down an Elemental Shamans role in raid boss encounters. We will explore the encounter and what you should be doing to help your raid group succeed. This is not written as a raiding guide but written in respect to what an elemental shaman's role is. As an elemental shaman one of the most important roles you fulfill is DPS. Now any shaman can DPS but it takes knowing your role to really shine. Since you are a pew pew stationary caster the most important thing you must learn is where to stand on each fight so you can maximize your dps potential. Every boss encounter is different, some with multiple phases and there are many adjustments you will have to make during the fights. Blizzard has stated they prefer to keep boss encounters to approximately 5 or 6 minutes. The second role you provide is utility through use of your totems. This is very important to understand as your raid group will need this utility to be more successful. Remember you have 22 different totems at your disposal some more useful than others. The third role you can fulfill is a back up healer in case your healers decide to stand in fire.

The first boss encounter will will discuss is 25 Man Heroic Northrend Beast. This encounter is a 3 phase fight with 3 different sets of bosses you will have to take down. The 3 bosses are Gormok the Impaler, Acidmaw and Dreadscale and finally Icehowl. For this segment of Know your Roll I will break down the fight into 3 phases. For phase 1 Gormok the Impaler it is very important to start the fight standing near the middle of the room since your raids tanks should be tanking him near the coliseum door that he came through. There are two reasons you should stand there. One it gives you the ability to move left or right when the snobolds start fire bombing your raid group. Don't Stand in the Fire. The second reason you will be in the best position to start burning down the snobolds that jump on any of your ranged dps or healers as they work their way to the melee dps to clear the snobold off of them so they can rejoin the fight. Don't Stand in the Fire. As an elemental shaman your role will be to sustain dps on Gormok until a snobold jumps a ranged or healer, then immediately focus on that snobold. For this phase you should use a combination of Totem of Wrath, Wrath of Air, Healing Stream, and Stoneskin Totem. ToW and Wrath of Air are staples but use healing stream as you should have wisdom from a paladin and even tho the ticks are very weak any extra healing you can provide will help your tanks and the people that still don't understand that standing in fire is bad. Stoneskin Totem will provide your tanks with an additional 1150 armor to help with the impales Gromok hits them with. This phase is timed and your raid will want to make quick work of Gormok before Acidmaw and Dreadscale enter the arena. Remember Don't Stand in the Fire.

Phase 2 begins when the next boss timer expires whether Gormok is dead or not. In phase 2 you will face two giant jormungars Acidmaw and Dreadscale. Again positioning will depend upon where your tanks decide to set up but they should be facing them away from the raid. Try to position yourself within 25 yards from the tank on Dreadscale in case you get the toxin debuff from Acidmaw. Dreadscale's tank should have a debuff called Bile and you will be able to cleanse Acidmaw's toxin. Your raid should be focused on Acidmaw to start the fight. The same totems you used in Phase 1 apply here, try to lay them in between the bosses some where near the center of the arena. This phase the the real dps check of the encounter. If your raid does not have enough dps you will not be able to defeat the jormungars before Icehowl enters the arena. This phase will require the use of Bloodlust/Heroism to finish the dps burn. One tip you can apply to your raid is using BL/Heroism after they have burrowed one time. If you pop the spell then your raid should be able to burn down Acidmaw right before they burrow again. If successful when Dreadscale comes back up he will not enrage making this phase much easier on your healers and tanks. Continue the dps race on Dreadscale and you should have him down before phase 3 starts and Icehowl enters the arena.

Hopefully things have gone smoothly and your raid is ready to take on Icehowl. In phase 3 your role is pure dps as you and the raid will be up against the enrage timer. The most important thing you should be paying attention to is positioning as clumping together with other ranged will ruin you dps when Icehowl does his Artic Breath spell that will freeze you and you will not be able to dps during the effect. During phase 3 Icehowl will perform a move called Massive Crash blowing you backwards into the wall at the edge of the arena stunning you for a few seconds while you take massive damage. Hopefully you are topped off as it normally hits my shaman for 18,000 damage. If I am still feeling the effect of Artic Breath a well timed healthstone before Massive Crash my be the only thing that saves me. Once he has knocked the hell out of you he will pick a target to charge. If his target does not move out of the way before he gets to them he will enrage and probably wipe your raid. If he misses Icehowl will become dazed and take an additional 100% damage for 15 seconds. Remember that enrage timer this is what phase 3 is all about, burn him with every cooldown you have. It is also important to drop your totems in range of your fellow raiders so they can take advantage of your utility and increase their dps. After a couple of charges Icehowl should be down and your raid can enjoy their new shinny epics.

Thursday, October 15, 2009 | posted in Know your Role, Raiding, Trial of the Crusader | 4 comments [ More ]

Faction Champions

This weeks maintenance came on Tuesday and with in a new Trial of the Crusader raid boss. This new boss is called Faction Champions. The first thing I am going to comment about is finally a decent degree of difficulty from a boss in the new instance. Faction Champions is a PvP arena style fight against your opposite faction. Each week your raid will be drawing a different mix of Races, Classes and Specs. Our raid drew this combination: Warrior, DK, Enhancement Shaman, Pally(heals), Druid(heals), Priest(heals), Priest(Shadow), Warlock, Rouge, Hunter.

The fight starts out as an all out zerg fest where your raid group must work together to get the Champions under control by using your raid groups CC abilities. For the 25 man version there are 3 healers that use every trick in their bag to keep themselves or fellow Champions health topped off and dispelled. There are 2 melee classes that really started to be a problem for us. The Warrior and the DK were able to destroy and cloth member of our raid in seconds so they became the focus for our raid. While our Prot Warriors worked on taunting and trying to contain them we focus fired down the healers, at the same time anyone with CC rotated on keeping the rest of the Champions under control.

The real trick to this fight is having members of your raid group work together in small groups to manage their Champion they are responsible for. It took some getting used to and our guild was finally able to figure out we needed to move the Warrior and DK as far as possible from the rest of the raid to minimize their chance to annihilate our clothies. Unfortunately we ran out of time on Tuesday night and Wednesday we continued working our way through Ulduar 25 hard modes so we won't be finishing ToCrusader until Sunday night. I will attempt to shoot a video of our killing encounter and post it here for our readers to see. If anyone has any good tips on this raid boss please share your comments below.

Elemental Shaman's roll for Faction Champions

The main roll of an Elemental Shaman in Faction Champions is to keep sustained dps on the raid's target. The secondary roll is to provide a combination of spot heals and CC. I used my Hex spell on the Hunter's pet to keep it off our healers/casters. Remember that your CC spells will suffer from diminishing returns during this encounter so it really help if you switch Hex from the pet to any Champion that is freely damaging your raid. I keep the shadow priest or hunter under Hex as much as possible. Another this to remember it that Wind Shear is off the shock cool down now and must be used to interrupt a healer or caster whenever possible. Keep an eye on the 2 melee dps that your tanks will be trying to control and help them with earthbind totem and frost shocks to keep them off of their target. Also a spot chain heal will help your healers if they are kiting or being interrupted. As you take each Champion down the fight will become easier and easier so pop Bloodlust/Heroism right away to get the fight under control.

The best tip I can provide is make /target marcos for the different Champions so you can easily switch to help with CC and interrupts. This fight is very chaotic at the beginning and trying to click on your target is just not efficient so create some marcos to help you out.

Thursday, August 20, 2009 | posted in Raiding, Trial of the Crusader | 2 comments [ More ]

Trial of the Crusader Part 2 + Some Best in Slot Gear

Barb of Tarasque

Last we we covered a few of the items you should be aiming for in Trial of the Crusader 10 man. this week we will cover the 25 man version and the loot elemental shamans should be looking to acquire. This 25 man instance will drop some Best in Slot Elemental or BiS gear so if you are looking to upgrade your Ulduar gear this is the instance for you. Hopefully you guild has been able to get through Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxus and if you were lucky a few elemental items have dropped. With today's maintenace Factions Champions should be released. I am really looking forward to that fight and I was lucky enough to grab Pauldrons of the Spirit Walker off Northrend Beasts last week.YEAH!!!

This 25 man instance drops a dagger that every Elemental Shaman must try to get their hands on. The Barb of Tarasque is BiS until your guild can start working on Heroic 25 man Trial of the Crusader. With 621 spell power, 45 hit rating, 58 haste rating and no spirit at all make this the perfect dps caster weapon. Also because of the lack of spirit we should not have to fight against healers for the dagger.

OK now that we are done drooling over that dagger lets look at the rest of the 25 man loot.

Suffering's End - Alternative to the dagger if you like to use a mace. But still an awesome weapon!!!

Bastion of Resolve - Another BiS item until you can run the Heroic mode.

Sabatons of Tremoring Earth - BiS boot for you elemental shaman.

Shroud of Displacement - BiS cloak again until Heroic mode.

Drape of the Refreshing Winds - A nice cloak but not as good as the Shroud of displacement beacuse of the spirit on it.

Circle of the Darkmender - Not exactly an elemental ring but still worth mentioning.

Lurid Manifestation - Very nice ring with some Crit Rating on it.

Cry of the Valkyr - An awesome necklace with great itemization for elementals shamans.

Reign of the Dead - Trinket with 150 spell power and a proc like the Lightning Capacitor. I am going to do some research on this trinket to really see how much dps it can provide, but i am sure is has some limitations.

Well that wraps up with week's review of the 25 man Trial of Champions loot. With all the Best in Slot loot and 4 additional pieces of mail armor to throw in the mix this raid should be keeping everyone very busy for a while. Next week I will review Trail of the Champions 10 man Heroic raid and discuss the loot upgrades you should be really looking to get and the ones not to waste DKP or a roll on.

If I missed an item that you think should be on the list please leave a comment below and I will update the list.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 | posted in Best in Slot, Trial of the Crusader | 1 comments [ More ]

Trial of the Crusader

This will be a 4 part posting on the new raid instance Trial of the Crusader. This new raid comes in 4 flavors. Normal 10 and 25 man versions and 10 and 25 man heroic versions. I will breaking down the loot Elemental Shamans should be looking to acquire. This week we will start with the normal 10 man version.



Trial of the Crusader 10 Man Normal



All of the loot dropped in this 10 man raid is ilvl 232 which will be an upgrade to the gear from Ulduar 25. Both Alliance and Horde factions will have the same items drop but each faction will a different name for items. The following items should be the loot you are aiming to get when your guild starts raiding the Coliseum.

Sunreaver Disciple's Blade

Pauldrons of the Spirit Walker

Darkbane Amulet

Fetish of Volatile Power

Helm of the Crypt Lord

Firestorm Band

Good luck on your raids in the new Coliseum and remember when you are fitting loot into your new raiding set to watch how you effect your stats. Do not sacrifice your hit rating or haste rating to show off your new gear.

Sunday, August 9, 2009 | posted in Raiding, Trial of the Crusader | 0 comments [ More ]