The Pif Factory

Gonna take a second to pause on the enhancement shaman sexiness and talk about something else.

There are benefits to being an altaholic.  

Some are obvious.  Logging on alt because of the four rogues camping you.  Being able to try out different roles and different classes.  Having a bank alt.  But for me, what I love most is running the daily operations of the Pif Factory!

 

The Pif Factory is fully equipped with a 350 Enchanter for disenchanting Northrend Greens and blues, a 450 Leatherworker, a 450 Skinner, a 430 Scribe, a 450 Herbalist, and a bank alt that sits in Exodar.

The Skinning and Leatherworking belong to the hunter, Pifoah.  

The Inscription and Herbalism is provided by your neighborhood friendly enhancement shaman, Pif.

Enchanting services was power leveled on Pifoo.

So this is how the Pif Factory works.

Pifoah goes out a hunting.  Killing anything that can be skinned and anything that drops the raid food mats I need for the week's raid.

Whilst hunting, Pifoah picks up some Northrend greenies, vendor trash, meat for raid food, and tons and tons of skins.

Pifoah heads back to Dalaran, sells the vendor trash for a nice chunk of change, crafts some leg armor, and heads to the mailbox.

The Northrend greenies get sent to Pifoo, the Enchanter, the leg armors and excess skins get sent to the Bank Alt, and the raid food meat go to Pif, your neighborhood friendly enhancement shaman.

Pifoo disenchants the greenies, enchants some vellum in the Howling Fjord (I know he's level 64), learns new enchants, and then sends the enchanted vellum and excess enchanting mats to the Bank Alt.

Pif gets raid food mats, cooks up some yummy pigs for raid time, learns his new northrend glyph, advertises his Inscription services on trade chat, and then heads out all over Northrend to pick herbs.

Pif gets back, makes some glyphs, vellums, and perhaps a Darkmoon card or two, and then sends the vellum  to Pifoo the Enchanter and everything else to the Bank Alt.

Bank Alt then sells the glyphs, enchanting mats, leg armors, skins, and perhaps a Darkmoon card or two on the Auction House.

Meanwhile, Pif has got raid food, mats for some flasks, and mats for enchanting ready for raids.

Pifoah's sitting tight waiting for his next hunting expedition.

Pifoo is steadily leveling his enchanting at level 64.  

Bank Alt is ridiculously rich for a level 23 paladin.

And the Pif factory chugs along nicely without doing a single daily.

:)

Maelstrom Weapon: More than you ever wanted to know

I was gonna write about our attack priority list, but then found that it was totally worth it to explain our newest playstyle-changing talent for that guide to make sense.

So here it is!  Yay!

Maelstrom Weapon Rank 5 Requires One-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Axes, One-Handed Maces, Two-Handed Maces, Staves, One-Handed Exotics, Two-Handed Exotics, Fist Weapons, Miscellaneous, Daggers When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance (higher than rank 4) to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

Maelstrom Weapon is a proc per minute (PPM) ability.  PPM can get confusing, but all you need to know is that gettting a stack of Maelstrom Weapon can't be helped by crit or how hard you hit or anything like that.  It will stack when you hit for a set amount of times as long as you keep hitting.  The confusing part about this is that it scales with haste effects.  See?  It can get complicated.  What you need to know about PPM are two things:

1. Maelstrom Weapon will proc a LOT and you will see 5 stacks very very often.
   
2. Taking less points in Maelstrom Weapon means fewer procs which means fewer LB's which means lower dps which means babies will cry and kittens will die.  Because of you.  Don't let the kittens die.

There's some simple math to be done here for this ability too.  Each stack reduces the casting time by 20%.  It stacks up to 5 times.  5 x 20% = 100%

From here on out and forevermore, 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon will be called MW5.  What Pif says, goes.

Casting time reduced by 100%?  That means, there's no casting time!  That means our cast is instant!  omaigawsh!  Instant cast lightning bolts!  Instant cast Healing Waves!  It's all instantly instant baby.

Now, some people will argue that you should always stormstrike if the cooldown is up, even if you got MW5.  Their argument is that stormstrike does more damage with the windfury imbue.  But not letting those lightning bolts fly at 5 stacks means a few things.  

First, it means that you aren't giving yourself a chance for more procs.  When it stacks at five, and you keep on hitting you don't gain more MW procs to save for later.  There are no savings accounts, leftover minutes, or to-go boxes.  Each hit you do thereafter is a chance for a proc that you're missing because you're sitting on MW5.  

Also, MW5 LB's may not be your biggest source of damage but it's a big chunk of it.  Not sending out the zeus-like thunder bolt of instantness would be taking out a big chunk of your damage not to mention your stormstrike charges going to waste.  I mean, the thing is instant!  The only thing stopping you from casting it would be mana or some type of boss mechanic where casting = bad.  

One last thing,  a crit on a LB is a chance to decrease the mana cost of your earth shock if you have Elemental Focus which is just win.

So there ya go!  Maelstrom Weapon in a very large and verbose nutshell!  Next, a guide on our attack priority list!  

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? A Review

Who Am I? A Review

Who Am I? Part I

1. We are a hybrid class and a hybrid spec and this affects us in many ways
2. Hybridness means our damage comes from melee attacks AND spells and the damage from spells is nothing to cough at.
3. Nearly all buffs of all kinds, add up to help our melee physical damage AND our spell damage.  We needs all of them!
4. Your gear and talents needs to reflect your hybrid nature.  No more strength stacking or just rolling on agility for all that attack power.  We wantz hunter mail!

Who Am I? Part II

1. We provide massive buffs
2. Our massive buffs are the Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Mana Spring/Healing Stream Totem, Flametongue Totem (*), and Unleashed Rage
3. We don't cast our buffs on other classes, we place them which means you are responsible not just for putting em down, you gotta make sure the totems are in a place people can use them.
4. Your gear and talent choices don't just need to reflect your hybrid nature, you need to make sure you're offering all the buffs for your raid.  Raid first, you second.

Who Am I? Part III

1. Forget whatever we were in BC, none of that is true anymore.
2. Our damage output is competitive with other classes
3. Our damage is only competitive if you gear accordingly and use the attack priority list.
4. Your gear and talent choices aren't just for your hybridness or raid buffs, they need to make sure that you yourself are putting out the best damage you can do.

Most importantly:

• Every single choice you make adds up into one thing, your skill.

And even Moster importantlyest:

• Putting out the damage and buffing the group makes you sexy and that gets you babes and fast cars.

This just in!

Yum....

I don't want to comment on it until things are more established, like until it's live.  But I don't know if I can contain myself.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14910002204&sid=1

Read for yourself what they got coming for Shamans.  There's a couple things in there that really make me all spicy and gitty.

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? Redemption

As Jackie Chan said in one of his great roles in The Forbidden Kingdom, 

Exactly, how can you fill your cup if already full? How can you learn Kung Fu, you already know so much. No Shadow Kick, Buddha Palm! Empty your cup.

My sentiments exactly, Jackie!

What we were pre-WotLK we are not in WotLK.  In this last issue of Who Am I? we want to look at how we play and take a glimpse at what we're really capable of doing.

Ok, so we understand our hybrid nature and how we are the most hybrid of the hybrids, and we also understand that we bring some very massive buffs which make us very powerful in the raid.

But the mentality of the enhancement shaman in BC needs to change in WotLK.  Where before we would say, "I'm not topping damage meters or even getting close to the top but my buffs make up for it."

Now we should say, "Holy taquitos! My damage is super sexy!"

And it's true.  While we aren't as formidable as some other classes on the meters, we are no longer scrubbing the bottom of the list.  Our damage is competitive as long as you have prepared your gear thoughtfully and you are following the attack priority list.

Now from this we come to two conclusions.  First, we are totally gear dependent.  Sure all classes are gear dependent, but because of the hybrid nature of our spec, we need a good mana pool, lots of attack power, a ton of crit, and all these stats  accumulate to make us competitive.  We need everything we can get in all stats in order to stake our claims on yonder damage meters. 

Second, the attack priority list (soon to be covered in another post), means that we are not attacking willy nilly.  The buttons you push and the order you push them in makes the difference between massive damage and just enough damage.  Don't be that person.  Every single choice you make in gear, attacks, and consumables/buffs/glyphs, will accumulate and add up.  While gear takes a considerable amount of time, a commitment to your guild/raid group, and weeks of instance/raid farming, those other things will define your "skill."

Remember, like Jackie said, forget what you know, learn it right, empty your cup, and get hot babes!  Well, that isn't what he said, but it's close enough.

Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? Part Deux

In our previous installment of "Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I?" we talked about our hybrid nature and how we compare to other classes.  We can't start to talk about tuning our talents and gear without understanding what we're all about.

In this issue, we'll look at what we have to offer to the raid.

We are a buffing class.  It doesn't matter what your spec is.  All of the shaman specs bring some very hefty buffs and all classes and specs will benefit from the different shaman specs.  In a raid environment, it is very very win to have one shaman of each spec so that the full spectrum of their buffs can be utilized.  Furthermore, we have one of the sexiest buffs  of all time, which no other class can reproduce in this era of buffing homogenization: HEROISM!

Every class brings buffs.  So what do I mean by being a buffing class?  I mean one very very important thing.  The buffs we bring greatly outweigh any personal dps gains we want to make to sacrifice those buffs.  This is very very important.  The talent points we spend, the gear choices we make (specifically in terms of crit), and what we do when we're fighting is all affected by this.  Raid first, you second.  It's the life of the enhancement shaman and it's one that makes us respected and appreciated.  You can theorycraft all you want and use spreadsheets and use simulators trying to maximize your dps but it's very difficult to factor in how much dps you are adding to your raid through your buffs.  In fact, this could be a general rule for all classes and specs, but for us especially since we have a number of buffs we need to be aware of. 

Now, specifically the enhancement shaman provides some very meaningful buffs to the physical dps classes in the group.  Even more specifically these buffs are the Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, and Unleashed Rage.  These buffs could be argued as the three strongest physical dps buffs in the game and we got all three of them.  Win.

When I say that our buffs are specifically meant for physical dps classes it's because I mean exactly that.  It used to be that our greatest contribution was to the melee classes through totem twisting.  That's no more with the new Strength of Earth totem, and furthermore we cannot forget that all of our buffs provide a hefty buff to hunters and their pets as well (except for our Windfury Totem).   

I didn't mention the flametongue totem because it's a special case.  The flametongue totem boosts spell power and thus isn't a great buff for physical dps classes.  It is, however, a nice little boost for spell casters and they'll appreciate that.  One thing to mention: if you've got an Elemental Shaman in range, then they win because theirs is better.  If not, then drop it like it's hot.  

One more thing, unlike other buffs, we don't simply cast them on a player for them to have.  Many of them come through our totems which means that if we don't put the totem down in the right place, then we aren't doing our jobs. 

Alright.  We understand that we are a great buffing class and as enhancement shaman we provide major physical dps buffs that we are responsible for.

In our last installment of Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I? we'll cover the actual playing style of the enhancement shaman.

Enhancement Shamans' Who am I?

No, this isn't a reference to Jackie Chan's greatest movie of all time.

And I only briefly talked about it before here.

But before I talk about what choices you can make to perform better, we've got to understand who we are.

Enhancement Shaman are the most hybridy hybrids in the game.  Many people say it and don't understand why, and it isn't quite clear until you a) compare it to other hybrid classes and specs and b) start gearing up and you have to make tough choices.  

The pures:  Mages, Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks

All of these classes can only spec to do one thing: bring the pain train.  The specs have totally different playstyles, strengths and weaknesses but none of these classes can really tank or heal in any sort of sustainable way.  Unless you are this dood or this dood.

The hybrids: Warriors, Paladins, Death Knights, Druids, Priests, Shaman

Hybrids can fulfill more than one role.  When I talk about roles I talk about the holy trinity: tank, heals, and dps.

Warriors can tank and dps. Paladins can tank, heal, and retlol.  Death Knights can tank, dps, and do things that no class ought to be able to do.  Druids can tank, heal and dps in TWO different specs. They unfortunately can't be tamed by hunters yet, but enough QQ ought to get Blizz to change their minds.  Priests can heal, dps, and discipline other people (I just have no concept or understanding of that spec).  We shamans, like druids also have two dps specs and a healing spec.   

This makes us a hybrid class.

But what makes the enhancement shaman the most hybrid SPEC among all the specs available to these classes?  Aren't we just a dps spec like any other hybrid's?  Well, no.  The way we do dps is drastically different than other specs, or rather the sources of our damage while we dps is drastically different.  As enhancement shaman our dps comes in the form of hard hitting weapon-imbued dual-wielding weapons in ADDITION to shocks and maelstrom weapon stacked lightning bolts.  We are doing melee physical damage with a huge chunk of our total damage being done by casts and spells.  No other class really behaves in this way.  Hunters have pet damage but so do warlocks.  All those clothies and boomkins dps through their spell casts and if you see a mage daggering bosses, then I'm not sure you want to group with that mage too often.  Rogue poisons technically count as spell damage but all they do is apply it to their weapons.  Retlols and DK's do a significant portion of damage through judgements, consecrate, diseases, and so on, but none of them benefit as much from these spell stats as much as enhancement shaman.  And our spell damage makes up a bigger portion of our total damage than theirs.  So have I convinced you that we are the most hybrid spec of them all?  

The implications are really important for you and needs to factor in to your decision making.  Fish Feasts are the best raid food we can get because of hybrid nature.  There isn't a dps buff under the sun that we don't benefit from.  Boomkin spell crit boost?  Take it.  Elemental shaman totem? Yes, please.  Arcane Brilliance?  Thanks!  Oh yeah, I'll also take those battle shouts, leader of the pack buffs, armor debuffs, and all those buffs I bring myself.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you.  

Your gear choices are also affected.  Don't listen to those conservatives.  Those who say strength is what we should stack, those who say intellect does nothing for us.  They are hate-mongerers and loath to see you succeed!  We are mail wearers and we wants them!  Hunters, back off!  I'm giving a /roll 10000.  

This hybridness makes my gears clink and the brain go choo choo because it makes gearing choices a heck of a lot more interesting.  What we give up in agility we may gain so much more in intellect.  Attack power is a beastly stat for us but sometimes all that int is too much to turn down.  Can you imagine wearing one of these?  I really don't want to but an upgrade is an upgrade.

Next post we'll look at another answer to the question of Enhancement Shamans' Who Am I?