Cataclysm and Elemental: Part 1

First of all no, I'm not dead. As tends to happen from time to time life circumstances made things hectic for a while and posting to the blog took a back seat. Hopefully things will continue to settle and I'll continue to be able to post.

I recently obtained an invite to the Cataclysm Beta from Wowinterface.com. Since I'm an author there I was able to register fora beta key tracking ID and was soon thereafter bequeathed an invite to the Cataclysm Beta. So I thought I'd take some time to go over the changes to date with Elemental.

Spells and Abilities

The primary rotation hasn't changed, we just have more tools to work with on the move.

This spell changes depending on what your weapon is imbued with. For elemental, this should (still) always be Flametongue Weapon. And for those purposes this spell is an instant cast small fire nuke that buffs your next fire spell's damage by 20%.

This is a great little on the move blast of fire that gives us a little more edge to our movement periods. Spiritwalker's Grace (which is not available yet as the level cap is currently 83) will help even more so, but given that it's slated for a long cooldown it can't be relied on heavily. This adds a wonderful little button to press while on the move to buff the next Lava Burst, which becomes a larger percentage of overall damage done during heavy movement fights.

Unleash Elements will also make a great round-off to a rotation where Lava Burst will come off too fast for another lightning bolt. It will probably be optimal to save this ability for a Lava Bust regardless since the extra 20% damage will definitely be best applied there.

This is a fairly dull ability in my opinion. I'm not saying we can't use more crowd control, but coming up with another keybinding for a situational ability gave me a headache. I'm just hoping that we'll have plenty of excuses to use it since this purports to be an elemental-heavy expansion.

Earthquake is fun and sexy. The graphic is pretty rough still, but the damage it does is not too shabby. The only downside is that it's physical but if you pair it up with a magma and earthbind totem you can wreck a group of enemies pretty well.

A cooldown prevents you from spamming it, but in the 5 second window you'll find a few GCDs to reapply totems and fire nova before earthquaking again. You have to make sure and ghost wolf a good distance away when employing this strategy as one or two mobs sometimes seep through and chunk down at your channeling if they aren't knocked down so proper placement of totems and earthquake are essential to pulling this off.

Speaking of chunking down on casting times, a new tool we have to combat this nefarious act is a new water totem. In the most recent beta build Blizzard decided we were the class that would get the previously Paladin only Concentration Aura buff.

The tooltip in game currently reads 0%, but this is probably a tooltip error only as deploying the totem does appear to significantly reduce pushback on casting time. I'd imagine the actual percentage is comparable to the Paladin version.

In keeping with Enhancement's 20% chance at concentrated coolness we now have a talented 20% chance to reset the cooldown on Lava Burst each time Flame Shock ticks periodic damage. This talent has led me to write my Lava Burst into a macro as such:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Lava Burst

Before making this simple macro I suffered from jittery movement spikes and clunky keybindings in an attempt to stay on top of Lava Burst. As the proc is from the Flame Shock DoT component the proc can happen at any time during the rotation and often in the middle of a lightning bolt cast. The above macro helps to ease the quick transition from one spell to your refreshed Lava Burst.

One nice side effect that I hopefully won't get to used to before I start upgrading my gear after release is the interaction between Lava Surge and the tier 10 set bonus. With the DoT extension component I'm able to easily keep Flame Shock up indefinitely on a training dummy. In fact doing this is so effortless that I don't expect to be casting more than one Flame Shock per boss fight once 4.0 hits.

Though I suspect this will change once Cataclysm gear starts outstripping Icecrown loot. At my current gear level (about 50/50 split between 264 and 277 pieces) I've only upgraded a few off-set pieces like boots and bracers. I suspect level 85 dungeons and heroics will change that, stripping off the tier 10 anomaly quickly.

Though not an Elemental spell, this is trainable by all specs and as such it will probably be a good tool or Elemental as well to help with some spot healing.

It acts like a mobile, more powerful Healing Stream Totem, and the mana cost is manageable for Elemental, especially given how mana is even less of an issue than it has been in the past at this point in the beta.

The area of effect is actually quite large so for any fight where parts of the raid clump up in one area this will be a great tool to alleviate some pressure on overtaxed healers.

Rotation

There are two major things that will modify the rotation for Cataclysm: Unleash Elements and Lava Surge.

Lava Surge being the heaviest element of change, it will add a little bit of unpredictability to the rotation. Since it can pop at any time it will become paramount to maintain a Flame Shock debuff at all times, so when Lava Surge procs you won't have to spend an entire GCD sitting on an active Lava Burst while reapplying your DoT.

Unleash Elements can be looked at in two different ways; a good rotation round out or an on-cooldown nuke and Lava Burst buff. Finishing out a rotation smoothly to get out a Lava Burst on cooldown is important to maximizing Elemental DPS, but Lava Surge adds an element of unpredictability to Lava Burst's cooldown. The proc doesn't happen during every single Lava Burst cooldown, but often enough that rounding out the rotation may become less of an issue.

As I haven't tested the dungeons extensively yet it's hard to predict much more about how the gameplay will evolve during beta. At the moment the level cap is 83 so the full picture is still out of focus slightly.

5 Awesome Uses for Thunderstorm

Yes, this is in fact an Elemental Shaman's blog and I'm pleased to finally bring some content specifically tailored to this niche spec. The problem is that I don't want to just regurgitate all the baseline mechanics of the spec because, well, that stuff is posted everywhere. I will instead be bringing quirks, tips and tricks that you may not have learned by simply researching a spell rotation or stat priority.

The highlight of the first entry in the spirit of the Elemental Shaman revolves around the gimmicky (and often glyphed into mediocrity) PBAoE spell, Thunderstorm.

Any raiding Elemental will know that the spell is typically used as a mana regeneration mechanic, cast out in the middle of nowhere where the knockback won't confuse and irritate the raid or glyphed to remove the knockback altogether. The knockback, of which thunderstorm boasts the farthest pushing in the game, does have it's uses. And though most of them take place on the PvP side of the game it can be a very useful utility in PvE as well - if you know how to use it.

So here are the first 5 awesome uses for thunderstorm in both PvP and PvE venues...

1. Auriaya

The Crazy Cat Lady as she's called to hard mode raiders, Auriaya starts out with a host of feline sentinels that will usually be DPSed down very quickly at the start of the fight. Shortly after, however, she'll raise another cat called the Feral Defender. This cat has nine lives, so killing it the first eight times won't be the end of it.

The real pain the Defender brings is twofold. Firstly, it randomly resets aggro every few seconds so it can't be tanked reliably. This tends to force groups to clump up to prevent the cat from bouncing all over the place. Secondly, it will leave a void zone that does significant damage over time to anyone standing in it on the place it was killed so it's preferable to move the Defender out of the raid group just before it dies. However, coupled with it's rapid aggro resets this doesn't always go as planned.

Try watching the Defender's health and once it drops below 10% thunderstorm it away. Often enough residual DoTs and ranged DPS is enough to kill the cat as it's traveling through the air. This isn't a foolproof strategy, as often the void zone can be left where the cat was before the knockback instead of where the corpse actually falls if it was killed in mid air, but in addition to other methods of controlling the Defender's positioning a well timed thunderstorm can mean the difference between a well placed void zone and a raid group forced to scatter.

2. Deconstructor

Have you ever been asked to handle the Deconstructor's adds during a heart phase? If not, then you should volunteer!

When the Deconstructor shows his heart at 75%, 50% and 25% health repair bots that heal the boss and bomb bots that explode need to be handle before reaching the boss. It's well known that blowing up a bomb bot near a group of repair bots is a fast an efficient way to handle adds, but often you'll need to stall for time.

Using a combination of earthbind totem and thunderstorm knockbacks can help significantly in putting more distance between the adds and the Deconstructor.

3. Defending the Flag in Warsong Gulch

Everyone is familiar with the lumber mill in Arathi Basin. This place is the Elemental Shaman's claim to PvP fame - especially since we're at such a horrible disadvantage the rest of the time we PvP.

It's also commonly known that the flag spawn point in Eye of the Storm is another thunderstorm hot spot, but there's a great place for thunderstorm high jinks in Warsong Gulch too.

In each faction's base there are three levels: the ground floor, balcony and rooftop. Generally speaking when your team picks up the enemy flag they'll take it back to your base and wait for the opportunity to capture it. Most teams will keep the flag on the ground floor for a quick capture but this is quite dangerous as the ground floor is quickly accessible to enemy players approaching the base on mounts.

If you can get the flag carrier to bring the flag up to the rooftop you can single-handedly fend off multiple attackers at one time for an extended period with properly placed thunderstorms.

Position yourself near the roof entrance and watch for approaching players. The occasional rogue may be able to slip past you but the vast majority of enemies will be seen coming from a mile away. Once they pass onto the roof make sure you're positioned so that they are between you and the ground floor and knock em right outta there!

Be wary of groups of players and time your thunderstorm to knock off all but one of the attackers if possible. You and the flag carrier can then mop that last attacker up and thunderstorm should be back off cooldown by the time those you sent to the mat can get back up to the roof.

4. Survival

What's the number one rule of DPS?

Don't die.

Granted, most DPSers don't enjoy the ability to heal like Elemental Shaman, but aside from healing thunderstorm is one of our tricks for getting out of a tight spot. The best example of this is the Faction Champions in the coliseum raid instance.

If you find yourself running from a host of mobs and there's no way out, drop a thunderstorm and give yourself some much needed breathing room.

5. Aggro Ping-Pong

I don't generally recommend specifically going out for this as it may irritate your tank if done excessively but you can easily "bat" a mob you've pulled aggro on back to the tank so he can more easily pick it back up.

Once the spell's been cast make sure to wind shock to lower your aggro and make the mob that much easier for the tank to pick back up.

As always, however, you should always pay attention to your threat. Set up an audio warning in your threat meter to alert you that you may be pulling aggro as a preventative measure. This is a great trick, but if you ever have to use it it may mean that you should pay more attention to your threat.