Guild Recruiting is Tough

So, I joined a new guild. Its a start up with friends/former members of previous guilds.

In the past I've always been the recruitee not the recruiter. I was the unguilded one in the PuG that would get the invite. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I find it difficult trying to get new members.

We're trying to focus on Kara, but we barely have the numbers for that at the moment. Because of this, its a tough sell to prospective members. The two things go hand in hand. We need new members to get Kara up and running on a consistent basis, but people don't want to join usually unless Kara IS being run on a consistent basis.

Long story short, I don't know what to do.

We are recruiting all levels 15 and up to put us in a good position long term.

We are being careful about getting Tanks and Healers first - simply because if we invite too many DPS first, thats a lot of people that need to sit out if we don't have the classes that are required (i.e. tanks/healers) to run the raid.

We are focusing on starting earlier and ending earlier - trying to appeal less to the hardcore college types and more towards the working folks.


I think I might run some PuGs this weekend and see if I can't find some cool people that might be prospective members.

If any of the 5 of you have thoughts on this, please help me out here. (We're back down to 5, I think I lost a few of you while I was gone.)

Whats a good way to recruit new guild members? Should we just focus on lower level players and put Kara on hold for the most part or is there a way to recruit those who are ready to do Kara immediately? We don't want to steal members from other guilds, but at the same time I know I've been in guilds that weren't progressing towards the things I wanted to do but I stayed simply because I didn't want to be unguilded or have to search for a new guild.


BTW SavageEidolon.guildportal.com - That'd be the guild thar.

We're doing Kara Wednesday. Expect that to be the Friday update.

I've Got Mail!

Ladies and Gents, a momentous day.

My first Question and Answer.

So here goes.

Don't play a Shaman, but I love your blog. I learned a lot about the capabilities of the resto-shaman I was running with at the time from reading your stuff.

Question for you: we're a guild of what I would call social players with some pretty good players who enjoy running together. Trying to get a critical mass of people through kara to be able to run the 25mans a bit more often. We don't have many shaman. And we have a whopping *one* enhancement shaman who we are trying to gear up with some early Kara bosses. I'm a big fan of letting people run with whatever spec they want, as long as they have put some thought into it. This is about having fun, after all. Unfortunately, our enhancement shaman seems a bit, um, ineffective (dps running about half of my slightly better geared BM hunter). And I just don't know enough about the class to make useful suggestions. There are some obvious points - his gear is simply not up to snuff. I also suspect his gameplay could use some major tweaks, and just from a cursory look he has the wrong gems. And more than a few wasted spec points.Not to mention the fact that he's skimping on enchants, inscriptions... (doubtless holding out for better gear). BUT... since there is no benchmark, I really don't have a tangible way to make it clear that his gameplay is subpar, and that at some point he will be holding us back until he improves. Nor do I know how to suggest he improve. We have great class leaders for every other class, but lacking greatly at shaman. (He has been fairly openly critical of some subpar hunter and mage play, where there are some high standards to measure against. Hard for some people to internalize a need to improve without some kind of tangible evidence).

So, after that long winded explanation, I guess the actual question is this: what kind of dps should we expect from a well-played shaman with early or pre-kara gear? And how should I/we suggest that he go about gameplay? I can read EJ until my eyes bleed, but most of it assumes some basic knowledge about where an enhancement shaman's damage really comes from. And I just don't have it.

So... assuming strength, AP, agi, stam... kind of in that order for stat preference? 2H vs dual wield? What kind of totems? Fight positioning... I just don't know where to start.

-Chuck of Unknown Server (Names changed just in case)

There is other relevant info between myself and Chuck that I will paraphrase below.

-Our Struggling Enh Shammy has DPS averaging around 350

- Here is his talent spec: Yowza

- He is using A 2.5 speed MH and a 2.6 OH (This is a good thing)


Now that we know what we're dealing with, here were my thoughts. Now granted I know I'm a Restoration Shaman, but I like to think I have a pretty good grasp on Enhancement as well. By no mean am I an expert. That being said, some (hell, all) of what I wrote may be inaccurate. If one of you guys sees something amiss, please call me out on it.

So here goes...

It is good for Enhancement Shaman to have a main hand weapon that is equal to or faster than your offhand. This helps it so that when Windfury proc's it doesn't do it from the offhand and suffer the dual wielding damage penalty.

(Edit: After re-looking at Elitist Jerks, the reason why a slower offhand is preferred is due to scaling and cooldown timing. Windfury is not "normalized". So slower weaps = higher damage. Also, Windfury is on a 3 second cooldown. So having a slower weapon prevents "missed" procs. Procs that couldn't go off because the cooldown on the attack wasn't ready due to a fast weapon.)

When gearing up, he shouldn't focus on the socket bonus that gear can provide. Often times the bonus does not equal the usefulness of using other more powerful gems (Str, Agil, Crit, Hit) and forgetting about the bonus altogether.

Make sure that eventhough he may be wearing "Shaman" gear that it is Enhancement Shaman gear. To that end, Tidefury sucks the big one for Enhancement Shaman. Just because its meant for a shaman, doesn't mean its meant for his spec. Specifically the Shoulders, some random green "of the bandit" with the Aldor/Scryer enchant would help more with his melee damage.

Getting revered with Cenarion for the DPS glyph (helm) you can buy from the quartermaster is a step in the right direction.

Weaps should have +15 / +20 agility or +15 str enchants on them. Until you have epic items, thats about as much as you need to think about it. I mention Str because Shaman AP is derived from the same formula as that of a warrior[ (Strength x 2) + (Character Level x 2) - 20]
No agility in that formula to be found...

However I still value the agility on the weaps more than Str for this simple reason. At level 70, 25 points of agility = 1% crit chance for a Shaman. This as opposed to a Rogue or Hunter that Require 40 points of agility =1% crit. Enhancment Shaman are crit animals, this is actually their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

Many abilities like flurry (as well as a new one on the PTR) are triggered when a shaman crits, not to mention the unpredictable devastation that is windfury. These abilities can dish some serious damage but can also draw some serious aggro. Currently this unpredictability means that a Shaman either has to play it very conservative, especially at the beginning of the fight (i.e. not do anything) or throw caution to the wind and hope he or she doesn't go crit happy and get himself/herself obliterated.

The innate threat reduction that the spirit weapons provide is being beefed up in 2.3 to combat this problem.

Per Eyonix:
"It never applied to only white damage. I personally had this tested extensively. It's going to be 30% damage reduction from white damage, plus stormstrike, plus windfury procs. 15% was simply too low, so the additional 15% should help quite a bit."

Link



His spec, its OK but it has a few glaring holes.

Re-link of spec


1 - Improved lighting shield? He shouldn't be getting hit anyway, and it adds a huge amount of threat if a mob hits him. Making it damn near impossible to get the mob off. In short, wasted points.

2 - Which brings us to...toughness 5/5 ?! This is widely regarded as one of the worst talents in all of the shaman trees. Even with 10% more armor a raid mob is still going to beat the bag out of him in no time flat. I mean maybe if it was 10% more stamina that would be one thing, but as is he shouldn't be getting hit anyway and 10% more AC isn't going to do a whole heck of a lot.

3. Anticipation 5/5 ...Increases dodge by 5%. I haven't played melee aside from PTR in a while. But I'm pretty sure that if you stand behind a mob, you can negate cleave type of effects and going back to point numero 2, he shouldn't be getting hit anyway aside from spell damage so its kind of a wasted use of talent points. At least for PVE.

So now that we have 13 points wasted. Where should they be going? Well for one, they should be going in to 2/2 improved weapon totems.





This increases the damage done by windfury proc's for the rest of the raid. Thereby increasing threat generation by the tank and allowing everyone including him to let loose sooner.

That leaves us with 11 more points.

We'll move to the resto tree, this is where the glaring error in his build lies. First he should put 3 points in to either ancestral healing or totemic focus. I have it in ancestral healing because I have 2 sets of gear and if I need to be a 3rd healer, having a crit heal on a tank that increases his armor by 25% is nothing to sneeze at, but its up to him. Its mainly to get to the next tier of talents.

Here is where he has a big problem. He should have 3/3 in natures guidance. Maxed, it is a 3% to hit with spells and with melee weaps. Combine that with the dual wield specialization in the talent tree (6% to hit while dual wielding) and his Hit rating from gear ( 5.26) and his hit rating is roughly 14%. Yowza! but here's the thing. Shaman do OK white damage, but our main sources of DPS come from windfury, stormstrike, and spells. (AKA yellow damage) the hit rating for these attacks cap out at around 9%. Basically he could swap out his gear that has hit rating for other stats if he wanted to. (agility, AP, stamina, Str)

So we now have 5 points left. I would place 2 in to guardian totems (enhancement). The talent sucks for the most part, but it lessens the cooldown of grounding totem. Key for fights like maiden, and handy in PVP.




Next I would slap a point in totemic mastery (restoration) It increases the range of his totems and therefore increases his utility.



The final 2 points are his call. He can put them anywhere besides improved lightning shield. Toughness is marginally less bad, but at least that talent doesn't create aggro havoc.

So there you have it. That's my assessment.

My suggested build

With regards to weapon types. I prefer dual wield for the +6% to hit. You get bigger / more frequent windfury hits with a 2H, but the trade off isn't worth it IMO.

- Totems -

Windfury, unless in an all caster group. Then Wrath of air.

Mana spring - Its a crappy amount of mana per 5 right now (getting fixed on test) but its better than nothing and his healing stream won't do a whole lot.

Strength of Earth - + str is good for him and all melee.

The flame tongue totem ( puts a fire attack on group melee hits) screws up windfury and shouldn't be used. And the totem that shoots fire is only going to boost his damage marginally

(Edit: Apparently - raid buffed Searing totem can add between 50 - 70dps. This is more significant than I had thought. If CC or mana isn't an issue and your Shammy can remember to keep it up in addition to his other duties this is a viable DPS booster.)

and might not be worth the effort trying to remember to drop it. Besides if it shoots a CC'd mob that isn't going to be pretty.

So for the most part, no need for a fire totem.

Make sure he has the totem timers mod.

It shows time left on all totems being used and gives warnings when they are almost up.

Why his overally DPS is so low could be attributed to the following:

He might be saving his shocks instead of using them to DPS.

We have earthshock which is the equivalent of the rogue's kick. However if you use any shock (Frost / Fire/ etc) it triggers the cooldown on all shocks, Earthshock included. Check out WWS when you get it up an running, it is a possibility that he's not using his shocks because he doesn't want to risk not being able to throw an interrupt in.

If that turns out to be the case, tell him not to worry about that and to focus on DPS until something arises where he should be on interrupt duty, and when that happens you'll let him know.

For Enh Shaman its pretty simple. Windfury on both weaps, use stormstrike when you can, and Make sure to always have the Fireshock effect up. Its a DoT that lasts through the Shock cooldown, so you can alternate Fire shock / Ice shock or Fire / Earthshock.

I went on the PTR last night and in my crap Enh gear I killed some Ogre's in the barrier hills (lvl70 - 72mobs) and my average DPS was over 500. Granted thats with the new Enh Shaman changes, but just the same, those changes aren't going to jump your DPS over 150 points so something is amiss.

The only thing I could come up with is that he's saving his shocks to 1: Manage his aggro in case of windfury crits or 2: Is saving his shocks in case something bad happens and needs to interrupt a caster.

One last thing when it comes to gear. Unless he's a loyalist he should feel free to look at leather gear in addition to mail. Not for every piece, but if there is a specific slot that just doesn't have what he needs that is mail, leather is a good option. Its not like the difference of 200 AC or so is going to be the deciding factor on whether or not he croaks.

A good way to find gear (not proven - just what I use) is to look at the Black temple armor set for enhancement shaman. This is the most uber gear in the game. Find the stats that are important in those sets, and check out the overall numbers for each stat. Which is highest, which is lowest. Then try to find less uber gear that fills those needs. Its not the most statistical or proven method, but I'm not elitist jerks and I would never try.



Skyshatter Harness

Notice on the Skyshatter Harness agility is omitted completely. I believe this is done with the notion that that agility is made up through other gear and/or at that level the need for agility is compensated through other stats (i.e. hit and crit). Regardless, I view agility as an important stat in the early stages of raiding.

So thats my take on it. I would get WWS up and running and crunch some hard numbers to see whats going on. Talk to him and let him know his DPS needs to improve. Open a dialogue with him that lets him know you want him to succeed as much as he does and that you are all in it together. Hopefully he is receptive to what you have to say.

My Update Schedule

Quick note -

My schedule for updates/posts will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

These probably won't show up until after 4:30 Eastern.

I'll have shorter posts sprinkled throughout but you can count on MWF.

And no, this does not count as my Friday post. That should be up by 5:30 Eastern.

-Ash

Disco Is Dead, But I'm Not....

So Its been a brief *cough* (month and a half) *cough* hiatus.

Strangely when you are unguilded and not doing much your desire to play tends to go in the toilet.



Well, just like that nasty scene from Trainspotting I have re-emerged.





My old guildies and I have formed a new guild and are building for Kara.

We've already picked up some people that were simply burned out in their former guilds on 25 man content. The fun of the 25 man content just didn't compete with that of Kara at the end of the day. With Zul Aman on the horizon I don't think our timing could be better.

So, when not playing Bio Shock and NHL2K8, what have I been doing ?

Well, I've been playing on the PTR.

I'm not going to delve too deeply in to it here, but I'm working on a post detailing my Shammy observations for 2.3.

I don't know how others feel about it, but having played as my current spec (resto) and being able to heal and dish heaps of spell damage, and respeccing Enhancement and brutalizing things I'm pretty excited.

More on that later though.

Anywho,

To the 7 of you who may or may not see this. Sorry I was gone, I'm back and plan to be around a lot more. (I love how I sound like a deadbeat dad.)





Also, I expect the welcome back party to have plenty of beer and all the snacks I like.

Fishing Sucks...

=

That pretty much covers it, but I feel I should elaborate.

So, needless to say, being guildless the past few day I haven't been doing very many instances. I've spent most of my time talking to people and browsing the AH. It occured to me that someone had mentioned fishing at later levels can be quite the cash cow. So, off to the fishing trainer I went.

I found a good spot in the dwarf noobie area and started casting. After about 15 minutes I had a skill of 25. It was at this time that I felt like gouging my eyes out and smashing my head against my keyboard.

Cast, splash, click. Thats all there is. Cast, splash, click over and over and over again. I can't even fathom maxxing this skill out. Having to cast multiple times just to get 1 skill point. Seriously, acid enimas sound like more fun.

I want to say "hats of to those who maxxed this skill out before they made changes to it", but I can't. In my head I'm thinking: "Why do you people hate yourselves so much that you would put yourself through such tedium?"

I guess some people enjoy it, but not me.

I had seen on the WoW forums someone suggesting a mini-game revolving around non combat pets, Pokimon style. Where your pet and someone elses pet could face off. That at least sounds like an interesting and enjoyable activity for lvl 70s that don't feel like instancing or raiding but don't want to start another alt.

This of course will never come to pass, but hey its still an interesting idea.

I'll have to do some research on how viable fishing really is as a money maker, certainly before I even consider leveling this skill up again.

If any of the 5 people (yes folks, we've expanded to 5) that read this blog know about high level fishing, please feel free to post your thoughts.

Play how you want, screw em if they say different.

At the end of the day, WoW is a game. A game that should be played for fun and enjoyment. If for whatever reason you get in a position that takes away the fun of the game it's up to you to correct the situation.

So, I stated before that I was going through some guild fluctuation and should be in Kara soon.

I joined a new guild with every intention of going to Kara. I was set to go on my first run with the new guild, half hour from start when the following happend.

Some guild members were bagging on a Holy Paly wearing a piece of mail (not in our guild). To which I replied. I wear both leather AND cloth.

The GL - being a resto shaman himself. Stated that I would not be wearing anything except mail if I planned to go to Kara.

I reply that I still have more AC than a priest. There is very limited healing gear before T5 for Resto Shaman and that I shouldn't be getting hit as a healer anyway and that my current mix and match helped to make me a very effective healer.

His response?

"I don't care, I told you, you'd be wearing mail blah blah blah."

To be honest, I don't recall much after the "I don't care, do what I say because I'm the GM"

My retort?

"lol" /gquit.


See, the thing is he is also an effective healer. His problem? He thinks his way is the best way and is the only way. In a game like WoW this is of course not the case. Yet, the issue pops up for every class, every spec, and every piece of gear all the time. BRK on his blog always gets comments from MM hunters bagging on BM hunters. Prot paly vs. Ret Paly, the list goes on and on. This idea that the path you have chosen has to be the best and only path for the simple reason that you have chosen it is to say, as politely as possible, idiotic at best.

Apparently after I had hit the dusty trail, he made several legitimate points which I will paraphrase and counter below.

1. I had indicated to him that I would switch to mail.

Response: I never imagined I would switch to mail from what I was wearing to make him feel better. Why the hell would I want to downgrade? I assumed he meant that I would switch to mail when the items were upgrades. Who wouldn't think that? I am not tied to the idea of wearing cloth and leather forever and I do want to switch to mail, but not at the sacrifice of being the best healer I can be.


2. Me going with leather and cloth means I would want to roll on cloth and leather items at the expense of other classes.

Response: I am not a douche bag and would of course defer to those that are restricted to that armor type before even considering trying to roll on a given item. Also, in looking at the entire loot list for Kara on wowhead.com, I would want a total of 5 items. 1 trinket, 1 shield, and 3 pieces of MAIL GEAR. Hello my name is non-issue, have we met? And it becomes less of an issue after Kara, as that is where actual mail healing upgrades become available. Gruuls, SSC, etc.

3. He has something like 12k AC and claims that it directly contributes to having him live longer if he gets jumped on.

Response: Theoretically this is true. However talking to a co-worker that has a resto shaman guildmate in full T5, he still gets smacked down by mobs in Kara if things go wrong. Particularly after Maiden. His opinion that he is still alive whereas I would be dead is conjecture at best. AC is not the only stat that contributes to damage mitigation, everyone knows this. Yet he sacrifices other more important healing stats for AC when he shouldn't be getting hit anyway. And as I said before, what the hell are priests supposed to do?

His retort: Priest have other abilites to mitigate....blah blah blah.


Yeah they have fade, an ability that when its effect wears off restores the threat lost. I have reincarnation and am working on getting the Keepers of Time trinket that reduces threat permanently.

You see where I'm going with this?

He would actually prefer I wear:


Tidefury Shoulderguards
Shoulder
Mail489 Armor

+18 Stamina
+23 Intellect
Red SocketBlue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Spell Damage
Durability 70 / 70
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 19.Equip: Restores 6 mana per 5 sec.


Over:


Primal Mooncloth Shoulders
Shoulder
Cloth133 Armor
+16 Intellect
+15 Spirit
Durability 60 / 60
Requires Level 70Requires Mooncloth Tailoring
Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 92.
Equip: Restores 7 mana per 5 sec.

Simply because he says so, and Shaman are "supposed to wear mail".

This opinion in my view is ridiculous, but it was his guild so /gquit for me.

Long story short, there are a lot of opinionated people out there, most have very little to back those opinions up.

Why have stats and numbers when "because its my guild and I said so" is a much easier card to pull?

So, for everyone out there feeling pushed in to a corner because of someone else. Feel free to get the hell out of Dodge and don't look back.

Now, there will be times when you'll be the one with the wrong idea, be open to what people have to say and consider the validity of what they are trying to tell you. You may very well need to change your tactics/gear/spec if it can help you be a better player. At the end of the day though, thats for you decide, not them.

Gone But Not Forgotten

I apologize, I haven't posted in a long time.

Guild upheaval + Busy IRL = Lack of posting.

I will be posting more in the next week. Specifically my next part in my resto shammy guide. I just haven't had the time to devote to a well thought out legitimate post. To the three people that check this blog. Please bear with me.

Thanks,

Ashuna