I managed to finally hit an average ilvl of 500+ on all my main toons. In turn, my push to gear will slow down a bit. Of course, I still would like to get better gear for everyone but I feel less pressured to make such a huge push on all my toons since they’re all caught up and ready for patch 5.4 (as the Siege of Orgrimmar LFR is stated to require ilvl 500). It’s a good feeling since this will give me a great deal of flexibility going into patch 5.4 compared with previous patches. Also, if say one toon misses out on gear drops, I won’t feel as much animosity compared with gearing a single toon.
This has been an extremely time consuming task but I feel worth it in the end. One of the positives is that I’ve become decent enough at these fights to do well. It’s all practice for me. For instance, I survive the Durumu maze almost the entire time now compared to when I started and never had a single death on the snails. When I see people struggling with both, it’s a little surprising (or rather disappointing). Also, I started to adopt other roles while playing like acting as an off healer, doing dispels, etc. Once Patch 5.4 is released one major benefit is that I can quickly practice the content and avoid certain pitfalls for trickier aspects.
Beyond that, I decided to start playing an elemental shaman for fun. I had managed to acquire all my gear minus three pieces. Surprisingly, I did pretty decently in many fights, nearing the top of the DPS at times even though I was using enhancement shaman gear. However, last night I managed to acquire the remaining three pieces, so my shaman’s elemental side is complete and I can run him without fear of criticism at least with regards to gear.
So what are my opinions of the elemental shaman? I have to say that it was a bit awkward at first to play elemental compared to enhance. The AoE is something I’m still trying to understand (it’s definitely easier but I don’t see the numbers compared to my friend who plays elemental). Part of the problem with AoE (for me at least) is that it feels that you need to be in close range to be effective since your totem and Thunderstorm require a short distance. I don’t encounter any mana issues, which is something I was a little surprised about. The burst damage from Lava Burst is pretty nice but Flame Shock as a dot feels tougher to employ compared to other dots because of the global cooldown factor. I do think that the basic rotation is pretty smooth overall for single target and AoE is definitely easier by comparison.
One thing I was missing was my AoE free heals though that are frequently proc’d from Maelstrom Weapon. Although in theory my heals should be stronger from the boost of intellect gear, the time factor and mana cost can’t compare to Maelstrom Weapon proc’s (especially with the two set bonus from tier 14). I haven’t had a need thus far to use Spiritwalkers Grace but I’ve used it on occasion. I think it’s more of a situational spell than a major DPS CD depending on your encounter. For some fights like Lei Shen, Lei Shi or Tortos, I can see Spiritwalkers Grace being extremely useful.
Also, I tried soloing a bit as an elemental. Since it’s an awkward spec for me at the moment, I felt that the long cast times made me more vulnerable compared to enhancement. I did use the Glyph which removes the knockback effect from Thunderstorm so I’m not trying to do the same thing as my Balance Druid would in keeping distance to get an extra second in for my spells (your welcome tanks).
Overall with regard to elemental shamans, it doesn’t feel all that special as a spell caster. I think having the AoE heals can be a boon at the right moments but compared to enhancement’s free AoE heals, the elemental shaman has to put just a slight more effort. It’s definitely not a DoT based type of class but seems to do better than other classes in more movement heavy fights with Spiritwalkers Grace. Will I try gearing him further in the future? I don’t know we’ll see how the Siege of Orgrimmar turns out. I heard that some fights will be ranged favored so being able to switch between specs might make certain encounters less painful.
So what’s next? I’ve been reading how the rogue is being buffed up in the next patch but that Sinister Strike will have its energy use increased to 50. Fortunately, I won’t have to deal with that aspect in leveling but I did read that Assassination will be in a better place. As a result, I’m thinking of switching back to Assassination. I would like to try Subtlety just to give it a shot and see how the play style compares.
Another spec I might switch to is Fire. I know that Fire is facing a major nerf but it’s one spec that I have not tried at all with a mage. From what I’ve been told Fire is great for movement heavy fights. However, the real issue with Fire mages is their dependency on RNG (or rather their critical’s RNG). I’ve seen some decently geared Fire mages suffer from bad RNG. With Frost having a bunch of mechanics being changed, it might be good to start learning Fire.
Something else I’ve been looking at is Arms. People have stated that Arms is looking viable in PTR and my warrior at the moment is suffering pretty badly in the DPS meters. At 506 ilvl, I feel that my fury warrior should be pulling in better numbers despite doing my rotation properly for the most part. Also, gearing her wasn’t fun and her current Single Minded Fury focus ended up just by chance as she received all her one handed weapons before her two handed ones. But Arms is a spec that I haven’t chosen and I might give it a try for fun.
The other spec in the back of my mind is unholy for my Death Knight. Although I have two one handed weapons, part of me refraining is that I don’t have all the gear. Frost has treated me well throughout the expansion and despite it being supposedly the lowest on the DPS meters at the moment, I’ve consistently done better on my Death Knight in fights compared to other toons who have better gear and supposedly rank higher on the theoretical charts. Yet, unholy ranks higher and is something I’ve never tried.
Lastly, I’ve been looking at Affliction once again. I heard that they’re receiving several buffs so it might be time to give that spec another shot. The thing is that when I started playing a warlock as Affliction, I had no idea how to handle DoT based classes. Since I improved using my Balance Druid on the concept, I feel that it might be time to re-examine this class. Destruction has been loads of fun and Demonology will remain my solo spec. But I haven’t touched Affliction since Cataclysm and I’m certain that it’s different now.
The only other thing left for me to do is level a monk. It’s not really something I look forward to do but it’s something I’ve been considering for a very long time. People say that the various experience buffs that monks receive make the leveling experience pretty fluent. Since my monk has various BoA gear, it would be just a matter of pushing hard. I am thinking of removing my alliance monk and just going straight Pandaren monk for the experience buff (as well as experiencing the starting zone). But we’ll see.