[Enhancement] T17 Tips & Tricks

[Stoove 345]

This thread is for Ehnancement Shaman tips, tricks, and discussions in how to best handle the various boss fights throughout Tier 17 including Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry. Feel free to contribute or discuss encounter-specific anything you find from exceptional talent choices to ways to take advantage of class mechanics.

Highmaul
-->Kargath Bladefist

-->The Butcher
-->Tectus
-->Brackenspore
-->Ko'ragh
-->Twin Ogron
-->Imperator Mar'gok

Blackrock Foundry
-->Gruul the Subjugated
-->Oregorger
-->Blast Furnace
-->Hans'gar and Franzok
-->Flamebender Ka'graz
-->Kromog
-->Beastlord Darmac
-->Operator Thogar
-->Iron Maidens
-->Blackhand



Highmaul

Kargath Bladefist

• Embermoon kindly provided some very good suggestions for Talents and Glyphs, as well as dealing with the mobs in the stands.
• [MYTHIC] Voskopoula recommends taking only multi-target talents, especially combining Elemental Mastery with Liquid Magma. There are a lot more tips, so check his post out.

The Butcher

• Stormaker found Storm Elemental Totem useful, and gave some tips for Glyphs.

Tectus

• Stormaker has some suggestions for glyphs on this fight.

Brackenspore

• Stormaker suggests an option for talents and rotation.
• [MYTHIC] Voskopoula recommends some talent and glyph choices to help you get the Fungal Flesh Eater add down faster.

Ko'ragh

• Stormaker has tips on use of Fire Nova, as well as utility tips.

Twin Ogron

• Stormaker suggests using Liquid Magma for this fight.
• [MYTHIC] Voskopoula recommends taking burst talents for this fight in order to optimize your DPS. Two-target DPS for Enhancement is known to be difficult, so use that to compensate. There are more tips in his post, so check it out!

Imperator Mar'gok

• Stormaker has utility and survival tips.

 

Blackrock Foundry

Gruul the Subjugated


Oregorger


Blast Furnace


Hans'gar and Franzok


Flamebender Ka'graz


Kromog


Beastlord Darmac


Operator Thogar


Iron Maidens


Blackhand

[Embermoon 2]

Kargath Bladefist: 

 

(Written from a general heroic-mode perspective)

 

Talents:  Ancestral Swiftness (to focus on slight ST dps gain vs. Kargath), Primal Elementalist, Liquid Magma.  (note:  for mythic, I expect to swap AS for Echo of the Elements, in order to maximize AoE dps on adds, in the stands - they seem to die too quickly to matter, in heroic mode)

 

Glyphs:  Chain Lightning, Fire Nova, Frost Shock (note:  CL will likely be more impactful on mythic, than heroic mode, for adds in the stands.  I expect to swap Frost Shock for Lava Spread on mythic, to help with adds). 

 

Tips:

 

- Pre-pot, and start the fight with bloodlust and all other dps cooldowns. 

 

- Positioning/Facing:  In order to avoid getting knocked back into a tiger pit, make sure you're facing to the right or left of a tiger pit in front of you.

 

- Maximizing fire nova AoE on adds in the stands:  These guys die very quickly on heroic mode.  As such, you can still consistently get off a very impactful fire nova, if you target either a bomber, or bileslinger, while you're still spinning on Kargath's chain.  Once you land, you have time to shock, lash, and nova at least once.  If the tank is good at aggroing other bombers/bileslingers, then you can hopefully get a few more novas off, as well, if the iron grunts don't die too quickly (which they probably will).  Also, for your trips up into the stands, magma totem and liquid magma are your friends. 

 

- Jumping down from the stands:  If you wind up taking too much damage from grunts (either because the tank is bad, or because you derped, and went the opposite direction of the tank, then you may have to jump down.  Watch your step, so that you don't jump down into a tiger pit, or into a spinning flame totem.  Also, take a look at your DBM timer.  You also don't want to be the unfortunate random target of berserker rush, immediately upon landing (hey, I'm not admitting anything).  Also, at the end of the fight, if Kargath is at single-digit percent health, then just jump down upon being tossed up, and finish him off. 

 

- Healing in the stands:  We all know that our off-healing is pathetic.  That being said, ancestral guidance is still our only viable talent in the level 75 tier.  If you can, use it in conjunction with fire nova, when you have flame shock on your maximum number of adds.  Since the bombers drop their bombs, and other dps tend to stand in the bombs (because enhancers would NEVER do that), you can help your healers mitigate these unfortunate accidents, until people learn to GTFO of the bomb blast. 

 

- Capacitor totem in the stands:  Pretty self-explanatory.  Drop it where you think the tank is going to be. 

Edited December 6, 2014 by Stoove

[Stormaker 1]

From week one, and going 6/7N (low Phase 4 wipes on Imperator) and 5/7H so far, Highmaul feels pretty ok. Embermoon covered everything I could think of on Kargath. 

 

To preface the below, I've used Ancestral Swiftness and Primal Elementalist for everything in Highmaul so far. Unleashed Fury complicates the rotation which can already feel cramped at times, especially during lust/trinket procs, and overall feels like a damage loss, even though they're pretty equal. 

 

Butcher:

-Storm Ele is ideal for his sub-30% enrage, depending on your group's kill speed. As it's a 5 minute hard enrage, you can only use each elemental once, so saving Storm ele for the last minute can potentially help with healing when healers are running dry.

-Spirit walk glyph potentially useful for closing the gap faster after knockbacks when they start to speed up. Lightning Shield glyph or feral spirit healing glyph make happy healers. Frost Shock glyph kinda required for dps, as it is a dps increase on a dps check fight.

 

Brackenspore:

-Liquid Magma is useful because of the multiple targets throughout the fight. 

-A focus Wind Shear macro is good to have handy for interrupts on the Flesh Eater

-Don't forget flame shock fillers when the targets are there. 

 

Tectus:

-Spirit walk glyph, cuz hectic fight. 

-Fire nova range glyph, because the mobs tend to be a bit further apart at times.

 

Twin Ogron:

-Liquid Magma, because two targetsd that are sometimes stacked.

-Be aware of when you can use Fire Nova for a filler when they're stacked.

 

Ko'ragh:

-Glyph of Shamanistic Rage for an early personal dispel to avoid excess DoT damage. 

-Void zone silence prevents Fire Novas, but you'll likely have to step inside to Lava Lash for Flame Shock spread.

-Ancestral Guidance + Fire Nova does a lot of raid healing to help healers save some mana.

-Windwalk totem helps people slowed by the frost orb

 

Imperator Mar'gok:

-Windwalk totem and spirit walk remove the slow debuff, use early to save healer mana on dispels

-During transition phase, be aware of Volatile Anomolies' health. Fire Nova damage is great, but not if we cause simultaneous explosions to overstress healer mana. 

Edited December 8, 2014 by Stormaker

[Voskopoula 1]

For Bladefist Mythic
 
As this is one of the fights that we enhancement shamans are not last in dps spots i want to also add some experience i accumulated in our first mythic kill of Kargath Bladefist
 Don't bother with single dps talents!  We did 5 pulls till kargath died (in mythic), i had some small luxury of testing talents. Echo is inconsistent for the aoe (sometimes it wil lactivate on SS or Lava lash right?, i risked it and used Elemental Mastery!
 You can't imagine the difference of dmg the liquid magma does with EM on. (you can realize that just by pressing EM  and seeing the tooltip of LM going down about 100milliseconds between ticks!)
 So make sure, to use everything on pull, even press the cds 1-2 seconds before the pull, so everything is ready again when you land on the stands. You can use LM twice before you get up to stands (but not 3 times total).
  I used Primal Elementalist as a talent, non glyphed, as it works better with haste cds compared to UF. However i am thinking of UF again considering the 5% multistrike boost while we aoe on stands. I havent really researched if multistrike affects aoe and which, Magma's and/or liquid magma's. 
 At landing on the stands,while still on air, you can see a bomber on the top stands left and right from the NPC ogres that are just watching and are head on on a balcony. Select one of  them (preferably the opposite side that the raid has decided to clear first), flame shock them, run in, lava lash, return to tank, use Earthbind and speed cd if you have many on you (however you dont wanna delay orcs going to aoe area for long) and use your magma totem.
 Use elemental Mastery, use Liquid magma,  fire nova spam with priority on unleash elements ofc, then stormstrike and chain lightning as fillers, however while EM is up you will most likely spam stormstrike and fire nova.
  In mythic it is possible that flameshock might wear off before some mobs die, as tank isn't running naked yelling come touch me, pulls are more careful i mean. Keep it in mind and renew it.
  Make sure bileslingers or bombers are priority target from where you spread flameshock and ofc as the other 2 enhas wrote, capacitor is good, earthbind is optional and only if you know what you are doing.  Windwalk with Call of Elements is also extremely useful utility-wise, you release from slow the whole team 2 times on stands.
 EM will be used on half the stand phases about, i am still indecisive on using it on pull or wait for the first stand (but just for the sake of testing,  EM on pull is a must with BL)
 Another thing to keep note is not to use magma totem and liquid magma too fast because the mobs will definitely attack it 
 
 
 
Twin Ogrons Mythic
 
As we are terrible at this moment for 2 target damage (monks with 20ilvl less will possibly beat us!) this is a fight where going with talents for maximized dps out of CDs is same or worse from talents that help burst dps.
 The most important part of this fight is to minimize your dps downtime due to fire dancing, whirlwinds and general crap on floor. One thing that you MUST do no matter what is to enchant your cloak with +10% speed movement (it does stack with everything else!).   Another glyph you have to consider using is Ghost wolf's (the one that makes you less hindered from slow effects), in case you have an empowered whirlwind and you are just too close to it. Or use spirit walk glyph (but normally it is always ready on those mechanics) 
 I personally play the burst talent set here. Fire Elemental Glyphed, Elemental Mastery, Primal Elementalist and ofc Liquid Magma. 

 A note for flameshock, someone needs to research if it is better to unleashe elements a fire nova for 2 targets or keep 2 flameshocks from unleash elements on two targets. I have the feeling the later could be better.
  About magma totem, be ready to re-drop it on bosses going out of it's range and replace it with searing totem when Phemus goes for WW.
 
(btw, Pol and Phemus , their name is a part from the name of the famous cyclops in Odyssey, Polyphemus!)
 
 
 
For Brackenspore Mythic
 
As we are progressing on this boss right now, my damage on Flesh Eater add was terrible when i was using my favorite burst talent set. After tests on tests at wipes i found the  Ancestral Swiftnes - Unleash Fury - Liquid magma being the best set and making me be top 3 on damage on FleshEater, where dps matters a lot! 
 About glyphs, lightning shield glyph is a must. For the other 2, i use Lava spread over Nova totem (you get to spread your flameshock on more spore shooters and the chances for it are higher than nova totem hitting anything apart boss and Flesh eater) and as last i used flame shock one.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Stoove

[Thaumasurge 0]

Updated for 6.1 and Mythic  - 3/18/2015

 

Universal Glyph: Glyph of Lightning Shield

Talents for all Trash: Unleashed Fury and Liquid Magma
Level 60 Talent: Echo of the Elements - Recommended, especially after 2pc T17

 

Gruul

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury/Primal Elementalist - Similar DPS though the preference is toward PE for damage mitigation after DPS elementals are on cooldown

 

Level 100 Talent: Storm Elemental Totem - Maximum single-target damage and residual healing for the first minute of the fight; helps people move for Petrifying Slam when used with PE.

 

Glyphs: Frost Shock

 

Oregorger

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury/Primal Elementalist - Same reasoning as Gruul, though UF can help with breaking boxes

 

Level 100 Talent: Storm Elemental Totem - Same reasoning as Gruul

 

Glyphs: Frost Shock

 

Beastlord Darmac

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury -  Consistent damage increase throughout the fight no matter which target you are focusing on. Invaluable on Mythic difficulty.

 

Level 100 Talent: Elemental Fusion - Numerous enemies to spread Elemental Fusion boosted Flame Shocks across, but where Liquid Magma's random damage can be a blessing and curse depending on where it lands.

 

Glyphs: Lava Spread and Fire Nova - Always try to Fire Nova back to back if you're lower into your action priority and Pack Beasts are near the boss/beast you are focusing down. Fire Nova should be a DPS increase, but only in those scenarios.

 

Flamebender Ka'graz

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - Same reasoning as Mythic Darmac; more than one high priority single-target focus.

 

Level 100 Talent: Elemental Fusion - Consistent damage against the boss as well as whichever Cinder Wolf you are trying to kill in a timely fashion. Storm Elemental Totem's burst is not necessarily needed as much as one would think.

 

Glyphs: Frost Shock and Lava Spread

 

Hans'gar and Fraznok

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury/Primal Elementalist - Switching doesn't happen often, but enough that maximum single-target should be the focus. PE is more helpful with Mythic and in general for damage reduction to avoid death by stamp.

 

Level 100 Talent: Storm Elemental Totem - Liquid Magma is not always going to works well against the two of them, since they're not relatively stacked together. Not as much of an issue on Mythic.

 

Mythic Talent: Liquid Magma - The bosses spend much more time close to one another, maximizing the damage in favor of LM over SET. Twin Orgron logic.

 

Glyphs: Lava Spread and Frost Shock

 

Operator Thogar

 

Level 45 Talent: Totemic Projection - Recommended for Liquid Magma

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - Same as Flamebender, multiple single-target focuses.

 

Level 100 Talent: Liquid Magma/Elemental Fusion - Lots of adds, lots of AoE needed. Elemental Fusion is also a valid option, since you will often be focusing single-target damage on the boss or the Man-at-Arms/Flamebender while doing AoE damage.

 

Glyphs: Lava Spread and Fire Nova

 

The Blast Furnace

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - Same as Thogar

Level 100 Talent: Elemental Fusion - Same as Thogar, where you will be focusing down one particular target but have many available to chain Fire Novas and multidot. Liquid Magma's random damage can be wasted toward irrelevant or immune adds.

 

Glyphs: Lava Spread and Fire Nova

 

Kromog

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - The multistrike increase will help for killing Rune of Grasping Earth phases over the raw damage of PE.

 

Level 100 Talent: Elemental Fusion - Storm Elemental Totem's healing, despite a large boss hitbox, is very minimal and Liquid Magma is not consistently up for Rune of Grasping Earth. Elemental Fusion provides stronger Flame Shock spreading to help assist with DPS against the hands while still providing solid damage against the boss.

 

Glyph: Lava Spread and Fire Nova

 

The Iron Maidens

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - Another fight with multiple single-target focuses. Avoid using Chain Lightning since focused damage is better, especially after sub-20%.

 

Level 100 Talent: Elemental Fusion - Similar to Beastlord Darmac, where you have multiple enemies but damage should be focused on one in particular. Liquid Magma's random damage is not so beneficial after sub-20%, when it is time to shut down each Maiden individually.

 

Glyphs: Lava Spread and Frost Shock

 

Blackhand

 

Level 90 Talent: Unleashed Fury - Since PE no longer buffs Storm Elemental Totem and you are often called up to the stands to DPS adds, UF works better than PE.

 

Level 100 Talent: Storm Elemental Totem - The healing provided in Phase 1 and Phase 3 is greatly helpful. Liquid Magma shots can be wasted on the Siegemaker with Blackrock Armor intact and cannot reach adds while you are on the ground. The overall benefit of Storm Elemental Totem in the most crucial periods of the fight would prove to be more helpful than Elemental Fusion's more directed damage to adds.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Thaumasurge

[Lisarah 0]

If you take Unleashed Fury as a level 90 talent it should be worth it to move 4 maelstrom stack lightbolt over lava lash in times you have the buff because it hits around 33k crit and lava lash does the same with SS debuff you are more likely to crit increasing dps. and providing you can more or less garntee you are not losing stacks of maelstrom when your 5 stacks of it because you would be less likely to hit 5 stacks.

[Thaumasurge 0]

I'd like to point out that this is a tips and tricks thread, not a theorycrafting thread on rotation.

[Thaumasurge 0]

Updated the Kromog suggestions. I'm going to see if I can get some attention to what I've posted for Foundry.

[Thaumasurge 0]

Updated the section on Blast Furnace, after finding that Liquid Magma's random damage can be directed toward the Heart of the Mountain while it's immune, rendering much of the talent's damage useless.

[Faeloyn 0]

in therm of 6.1 changes Echo becomes more valueable for the high movement, even if you are not on the stands (in p3 you are able to get two fast stormstrikes and one lava lash on the boss everytime after he kicked you and recharge while running back to the boss), may result in a small dps boost compared to the other two talents

[Thaumasurge 0]

Updated my post for 6.1 and better theorycrafting on each of the talents

[cerberos 1]

Any update for 6.2, will be nice to have :)

[Pandacho 279]

Any update for 6.2, will be nice to have

There is a new pinned thread for HFC. 

 

If you are talking about general play style changes, you are welcome to start a new discussion.