Random Post-Patch Screenshots

Here are a few random screenshots that I took after the 5.0.4 patch.

Druids got some cool new forms.

And some cool new glyphs.

Death Knights have some neat glyphs now too.

Still bitter about my Dragon Kite. :-(

Ele Shaman Glyphs

We bailed out of work early on a promise of Ulduar hard modes raiding. But of course that did not materialize. So as I waited to see what happened, I decided to avail myself of the opportunity to reexamine Kuanchichi's glyphs.

Now Kuan has been doing some relatively craptacular dps in the ICC raids Darkfall has been running. I had been running with Flametongue Weapon, Flame Shock (note the tooltip here doesn't match what it was, which is that Flame Shock ticks could crit) and Totem of Wrath ever since Kuan lost his Tier 8 2-piece bonus. After comparing some raid log analyses of Kuan's damage with Hellshot's, whose was much higher, I decided I would swap out the Flametongue Weapon for Lightning Bolt, which scaled better, and had a bigger effect as Kuan's haste goes up.

Then, this week, Patch 3.3.3 dropped. In the Patch Notes (note for later: this is not a permalink), it calls out:

Flame Shock: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste.

Since there was nothing in the notes about Shaman glyphs, I figured: well gee, that sure renders the Flame Shock glyph useless; I'd better swap that out. I was thinking, Lava.

But look at that tooltip again! Imagine my surprise when I logged in to see: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Flame Shock damage by 60%. Whoa! Lava Burst is stuck on that 8 second cooldown, and I am thinking that 10% of spell power once every 8 seconds probably wasn't a good trade for at least 6 ticks (depending on haste and whether I ever pick up piece #4 of the Tier 10 gear) that will crit 1-3 times. Well, gee. Maybe it is. I wasn't sure. But considering it, I am thinking both of these are better than the Totem of Wrath which is, basically, an extra 84 spell power.

I looked at the Spell Coefficients page on Wowwiki and decided whoever designed this at Blizzard oughta be fired. How can they possibly maintain that code, what good is spellpower...

I went to the Thunder Bluff target dummy to try it out. 5300 with Totem of Wrath Glyph. 5800 with Glyph of Lava. I think I'll stick with Glyph of Lava this week and see what a difference it makes with raid buffs.

the Onyxia patch...

...means Kuan is going to have to re-glyph. It also makes the 2-bonus for Tier 8 meaningless.


Shamans

* Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.
* Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.
* Talents

o Elemental Combat

+ Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.

...

* Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.


Minor Glyphs

The topic of Minor Glyphs came up last night. Specifically the OP Ghost Wolf Glyph for Shamans. "Hey look at me! I'm stealthed and regenerating health! Oh yeah, and I'm running away from whatever hurt me faster too!"

Meanwhile Mages get AI cost lessened, No feather needed for Slow Fall, or turn your sheeps into a penguin. Lame!

glyphs

I'm dumb. Those glyphs aren't out til the expansion. OK, I'm going to try the Flame Shock one for now 'cuz it's cheap. We'll see if it works.

all about Kuanchichi

I tried out this spec for Kuan last night in SSC and was beside myself with the waste; he never really dropped below 80% mana. On the other hand, his DPS suffered a lot. And, he did drop at times to like 15% health on Nature damage. (Well, there were a few 0% health too, but at that point I blame the group-assigned healers.) It's quite disturbing to see the green bar far far below the blue bar in a raid, and the number 14 in front of my toon's name on the damage meters. Especially when the main tank was at #13, and the secondary tank at #7:


Here's what I will try tonight in Hyjal. I don't do this lightly. I am usually pretty careful about Kuan and I don't respec him often, I expect it to cost maybe 15G.

I've only loaded the Flamtongue Weapon Glyph for him so far. I will probably take the Earth Shock and Chain Lightning glyphs as well. I haven't decided what is more important for now vs lvl 80. Chain Lightning would be pretty handy on Hyjal trash. Earth Shock with a shorter CD is just pretty handy all around (just not 5 talent points' worth of handy). So really it's a question of meters vs usefulness I guess. sigh I s'pose that answers that question.

Anyhow, about that SSC run. They really did nerf the hell out of it. We cleared 5 bosses and Kuan got to see something he never has before:



...And just in case this post sounds like I'm exaggerating for melodramatic effect, yes both those images are cropped from the exact same screenshot, taken before we tried Vashj.