Elemental Macros In Depth

As mentioned in my prior post, my main pew-pew buttons are macros which are bound to the 2-3-4 keys, making DPS a muscle memory and cooldown-watching exercise rather than a frantic click-fest.

Bumwaller and D-Form posted some comments/questions after the last post, so I'll attempt to answer here by posting the actual macros and breaking them down line-by-line.

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Lightning Bolt w/Trinket Pops
#showtooltip Lightning Bolt
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Lightning Bolt

The first line (showtooltip) forces the macro to display the spell/ability/item you specify - making it "look right" on your toolbar. Otherwise it just picks the first item in the macro (slot 13 in this case, your first trinket slot). Sound_EnableSFX 0 turns off your sound in anticipation of "that item is not ready yet" audio, which gets annoying after a while.

Use 13 and 14 are your two trinket slots, and if the first one is on cooldown it'll attempt to use the next slot. UIErrorsFrame:Clear() will remove the potential "item is not ready yet" from the display. So after re-enabling sound effects with Sound_EnableSFX 1, we can finally actually cast the spell: Lightning Bolt.

Since the only thing that triggers the global cooldown is the spell itself, the macro becomes "spammable," meaning you can press it over and over again (after waiting on the cast time of LB, of course).

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Flame Shock + Lava Bursts
/castsequence reset=14/target Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lava Burst

In this macro, I'm not using showtooltip specifically because I want to watch Lava Burst's cooldown in my action bar. Instead, I use a castsequence to cast Flame Shock, then Lava Burst, then I'll do some other stuff until the second Lava Burst becomes available. (I use this glyph to extend Flame Shock's duration so it covers two Lava Burst cooldowns.)

The reset number tells the macro to reset the sequence after that amount of idle time has elapsed. (The /target right after it also resets the macro when I switch targets.) Now back to the timer: every time you press the macro, the timer starts over. The reason I'm using 14:

Lets look at the timeline of this macro (assuming zero latency and no haste):

at 0 seconds: Flame Shock instant-cast (18 sec duration w/glyph)
at 1.5 seconds: first Lava Burst
at 9.5 second: Lava Burst

After the 2nd LvB, a 3rd would be available at 17.5, but that's cutting it too close to the end of FS's 18 second duration, which you always want up on the target. Working one global cooldown backwards from 17.5, we're at 15 seconds which is the ideal time to re-apply FS. My macro is listed at 14 because I want to give myself some wiggle room - and if I cast it a smidge too early it's not a big deal since the guaranteed LvB is more important than a tick or two of FS.

You may be asking yourself: "but if 14 is idle-time-since-last-keypress, wouldn't the macro wait too long to reset to Flame Shock after the 2nd LvB?" Luckily, the macro seems to respect the "castsequence" part and will reset back to FS after the last LvB. :)

I chose not to use a trinket here since I generally open with a Lightning Bolt (either for a long-range solo pull or to let the tank get a bit of aggro before unloading). Also didn't use Elemental Mastery since having Flame Shock on the target already causes Lava Burst to crit - and I'd rather save Mastery for the relatively expensive Chain Lightning.

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Chain Lightning + Lightning Bolts
#showtooltip Chain Lightning
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Elemental Mastery
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/castsequence reset=6 Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

In this macro, I'm doing some of the futzing with the sound effects and UI errors around the casting of Elemental Mastery, which takes the mana sting out of Chain Lightning. The two Lightning Bolts after it (when added to the CL) comes to a total casting time of 5.5 seconds for the whole sequence. The reset of 6 matches the cooldown of CL, so if I only use this macro once or twice on a pull, CL will be available again after the cooldown.

I'm not using reset=target here since the reset has everything to do with CL's cooldown, as opposed to the FS+LvBs macro where I always want to apply FS first on new targets.

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Macros Aren't Everything
Due to the dynamic nature of many fights/encounters, sequences can easily get out-of-sync, so be prepared to fire off these abilities manually by using other available action bar slots!

Haste Changes Everything
There's a certain amount of haste that will undoubtedly have an effect on Elemental rotations, but until I actually get a bunch of haste gear I'm not really sure how things will get affected. My priorities as I head to level 80 raiding are some balance of spell damage, crit and hit. For the moment, haste just helps me deal with a small amount of latency/server lag.

What's with the Propeller Hat?
I have no idea. I just think they're funny.

Elemental FTW

Exelus hit 77 tonight, and finally got his wings back!

Elemental has continued to be a lot of fun, especially after a respec (thanks Aaron J) and a slight modification to my soloing DPS rotation. Here are my current key bindings:

2) Lightning Bolt
3) Flame Shock > Lava Burst > Lava Burst
4) Chain Lightning > Lightning Bolt > Lightning Bolt > Lightning Bolt

All are macros which include things like Elemental Mastery and automatic trinket pops. Keys 3 & 4 have resets that match the respective cooldowns of Lava Burst and Chain Lightning. Taking down a mob looks like:

2, 2 - two sequential Lightning Bolts (flight time ftw)
3, 3 - Flame Shock then a Lava Burst crit
4, 4 - Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt
5 - Earth Shock finisher (if needed)

The mob is usually dead by the fourth or fifth key press. :) And of course, Thunderstorm is available if I need to push back multiple mobs and/or get a spell off.

Sidenote: anyone else notice that quest reward armor matches much better than the clown gear we got in TBC? Aesthetics FTW.

Gone (Ele)Mental

I may have gone insane. Exelus went Elemental last night. This (somewhat) calculated move happened for a few reasons:

• Level 75 brings Lava Burst, unfortunately not part of the Enhancement rotation
• Incoming Elemental buffs are making the spec more and more attractive
• My old level 70 Enhancement epics are being slowly replaced by quest gear anyway
• An eventual Elemental/Resto dual spec is likely to have more synergy than Enhancement/Resto, both in playstyle and gear
• If Exelus has ranged DPS and heals covered by dual-spec'ing, then my DK can cover melee DPS and tanking - all bases covered by two toons!
  

So after a quick visit to the trainer in Exodar, I found myself staring at the talent screen, totally clueless. :)

Talent Selection
Here was my initial talent selection at 75, which is very likely to change. Sure insta-cast Ghost Wolf is nice, but maybe not at the expense of other pew-pew talents in Elemental. Also I didn't notice too much in the way of mana issues, so I will likely let go of Shamanistic Focus - and I'm not sure if Elemental Weapons is worth it at this point. TBD. I do like Thundering Strikes still though, since Elemental seems to be such a crit-heavy build.

Probably tonight I will re-do it all so I can get Thunderstorm - seems like a very nice talent for soloing multi-mob encounters (and PvP?) after the loss of my favorite two emergency buttons.

DPS Rotation
After some trolling at Elitist Jerks it seems that the Elemental rotation is more of a priority system:

1. Keep Flame Shock ticking (the glyph is mandatory for Elemental)
2. Lava Burst when it's up
3. Chain Lightning when it's up
4. Lightning Bolt spam to fill time

Here's how I distilled that down to two macros, bound to my "2" and "3" keys:

2) /castsequence reset=6 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lava Burst
3) /castsequence Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

These spells are all bound to other keys as well, but these macros let me mostly alternate between just two keys which reset themselves upon Flame Shock and Chain Lightning cooldowns.

When soloing, I tend to open combat with a regular LB since it has "flight time," then immediately hit 2 twice, then 3 a few times and close with an Earth Shock kill shot ("4" key). In groups, it's similar (usually without Earth Shock), but I keep more of an eye on cooldowns and the overall situation (offhealing, interrupts, etc).

General Impressions
After killing a few hapless mobs in Dragonblight to get my rotation down, I went off to UK and then OK with some guildies and had a great time. It was kinda weird to stand in the back, but there are some advantages - better view of the overall battle, etc.

My gear is pretty lame at the moment, mustering just over 900 spell damage, but I still managed to stay roughly on-par with other DPS while spot-offhealing. Mana didn't seem to be too much of an issue, which was a nice suprise.

I will likely contine this experiment for a while... the 4k Lava Burst crits are sweet, and it's fun to try something new. :)

Progress Report

• Exelus to 75: check.
• Culling of Stratholme: check (kinda, barely hit anything).
• Collecting caster gear for Resto dual-spec: check.
  
• Haelus to 72: check.
• Broke after the Flying Carpet: check.
• Codus to 64: check.
• Mining to 300+ on the DK: check.
• Doing my part to "stimulate the economy" by ordering an early holiday present: check.
  
• Another lame excuse for a post: checkity-check.
  

Shamantic Briefs

• Ambassador Exelus to 72: check.
• Haelus to 71: check.
• Utgarde Keep: check x6.
• Azjol Nerub: check.
• Ahn Kahet: check.
• The Nexus: check.
• Healer shortage still in effect: check.
• Too busy in-RL and in-game to write a real post: check.
• Too many checks: check.
  

Weekend of the Lich King

With a cleared schedule, I took a wowcation and played an unhealthy amount a great deal of WoW over the weekend. :) A brief breakdown and first impressions:

Death Knight
Wanting to get the blue rested XP ticking right away, the first thing I did was roll a Death Knight. Of course everyone else had the same idea, but thanks to the new "phased" instance-like starting zone, the mob/quest ganking was kept to a minimum. I managed to plow through all the starting quests until arriving in Stormwind at level 58 (ready for Outland!).

Later in the weekend, I took him into Hellfire and started on quests, and even managed a four-DK run of Ramparts with some guildies. I think I left him around level 60. So far he feels rather overpowered for the content, but I expect that to even-out closer to 80. The jury is still out on whether or not he will become my tank, however. He's currently Unholy spec but that may change (Blood/Frost maybe?) - I don't really like the Ghoul pet. Kinda creepy.

Starting Zones
Figuring I should see what this "Northrend" business was all about, I took Exelus north into the Borean Tundra and encountered all sorts of lag, mob/quest ganking, and a fairly meh first impression of the zone. It wasn't until I took Haelus into Howling Fjord that I had that feeling of, "oooh aahh."

The quest quality seems fairly similar between the two, but the atmosphere is distinctly different. The Fjord is like landing in Scandinavia, whereas the Tundra is more reminiscent of... Siberia?

Ding 71 (twice!)
I got Exelus to 71.5 via questing and a single run though Utgarde Keep, but have already run UK with Haelus five times or so (LF1M healz pls!) and have reached one bubble into 71. So the plan of leveling one via questing and another via instancing seems to be working out fairly well. However, with the promise of dual-spec'ing on the horizon, I'm a bit torn: Ex would be able to DPS or heal as needed... maybe I should just work on him exclusively for the time being?

Ciribrus the druid is, for the moment, semi-retired in Shattrath. He was closest to 70 when the guild needed another healer so it was natural for him to go Resto, but am not sure what role he will fill (if any?) going forward. Maybe tank if the DK doesn't feel right?

Utgarde Keep
The "first" instance in Lich King is awesome, and tons of fun. It seems to be tuned just right: a healthy challenge for new-ish 70s yet still not a complete cakewalk for Kara-geared 70s. The boss encounters are reminiscint of Kara too: the first boss is a caster that likes to freeze people (a la Illhoof's Demon Chains) and the second is a Romeo/Juliet-like encounter where both need to be burned down at the same time. The final boss is a tank/spank with the exception of some nasty tricks: resurrects with a big AoE, a melee smash effect (tank and melee should run 10 yards), and a spell school lockout if you happen to be casting during his roar (instants seem to be fine though?). All in all really fun, look forward to coming back in heroic mode!

Goals for the coming days: get Exelus to 73 or so, take peek into Nexus... sell over-inflated Frostweave and Cobalt ore for profit!

On Achievements

As part of the upcoming Wrath expansion, Blizzard has added an Achievement system to WoW: a method to track one's accomplishments in-game. The way it works is fairly simple and requires no additional interaction from the user: complete an achievement and you get a "ding" of sorts, an announcement in guild chat and a few points earned.

When I first heard about this system I was resoundingly meh'ed. Just another useless carrot-dangling mechanic that fuels the OCD in all of us (as if we don't have enough of that in us as MMOers!). Very few of the achievements actually do anything for us in-game... a few titles here and there, an epic mount after collecting some insane number of mounts, etc. Again, meh. There are goals within the game that I mentally keep track of, but you won't see my dwarf running off to Teldrassil just for some exploration achievement.

However, what I didn't anticipate was the team-building and community aspect, which so far has been an overwhelmingly positive thing. The guild chat announcements encourage conversation ("grats!") and cooperation ("LFM SFK!"), even from our quietest members. Another benefit of the system is that it helps keep track of certain goals you may already have, like playing through every instance in the game.

So in the end, I have to give kudos to Blizz for adding a mechanic that you can either take or leave, with no real impact on your ability to play the game well (e.g.: kill mobs faster). It's an added grind only if you want it to be, but doesn't have to be if you could care less...

Like with Fishing.

Or Cooking.

Meh.

:)