The second wing of Hellfire Citadel and more great fights!
Definitely the toughest fights for the Elemental Shaman really testing the weaknesses in our toolset...
Hellfire High Council...
A standard council fight really.
Really tough for the Ele Shaman to shine on this fight as we can't compete with multi-dotters on all 3 or the best single target specs if we focus on one boss.
If I had the Archi trinket, I would be tempted to go with Elemental Fusion and aim to keep it up on all 3 bosses but I haven't got that trinket so had more joy with Storm Elemental and Primal Elementalist.
You can have an Elemental up for the pull and each time a boss hits 30% to help burst them down which can definitely help on progression.
Do it right and there is very little movement so it's easy to choose Elemental Mastery over Echo.
Overall, the fight feels a little under-tuned. I would have liked a bit more synergy between the different bosses abilities and maybe some penalty for burning them down one at a time.
Kil'rogg Deadeye...
Another tough fight for us, particularly on progress.
If you can get into the eye groups you will rock the charts but we are probably one of the worst choices to send in there.
The constant target switching really kills our dps but is necessary, particularly on progress, so it's risky to stay on the boss.
I've been playing around with Elemental Blast to help with the target switches but it can be a very frustrating fight. Sometimes the adds just melt, sometimes they seem to hang around for ever, and judging whether to unload the full rotation or just a couple of Lightning Bolts and a Fulmination is an art I haven't mastered.
There are a few brief moments when I feel like I am making a difference though... When Death Throes lines up with the Blood add and SWG is up. Everyone else is scrambling to stay alive while I take down the add (Hunters shush)
Gorefiend...
This fight can feel a bit frantic with lots of abilities going off and adds spawning all the time. It's a lot of fun :-)
Similar problems for the Shaman as the last two fights. Spread targets, often with low HP that are the priority kill.
In all fights like this I am tempted to go for Elemental Blast.
When you know your Flame Shock on an add will mostly be wasted, an extra spell that doesn't interact with it can be very useful.
On this fight though, the Feast of Souls is far too tempting with it's 200% damage buff.
So it's back to Elemental Mastery, Primal Elementalist and Storm Elemental.
When they line up so well with the pull and each Feast of Souls phase, it's too much to ignore.
One aspect of the fight we can definitely shine is in the stomach.
This seems to be an area of ultimate weakness for the Shaman, more low-HP adds that have to die in a really short time period.
If we were on our own in there we would probably struggle but there are usually two others in there with us and our real strength is helping those people kill the adds!
Frost Shock, Earthbind and Capacitor totems (with Totemic Projection), and Thunderstorm can be amazing at giving others more uptime on those adds. Particularly powerful with the DoT classes as an extra tick or two can make a big difference.
Decision-Making...
All 3 fights give us the option to sacrifice a little of our own dps to help the raid as a whole which I love. They are fights we shouldn't be topping meters on but give us a chance to use our utility for the greater good.
Just have to be extremely vocal about it so everyone knows that's why my dps is so bad :-)
Council - yeah supposedly it gets better with the class trinket. We might find out one day. When Jubei'thos splits is terrible :(
ReplyDeleteKil'rogg - for the most part once we had learned the fight, I would switch to an add, FS and be lucky to get a LvB off on it before it died. As a result I try to stick on the boss, using ES/fulmination on any adds that need it, and chaining to hulks when possible.
Gorefiend - I have healed this mostly. But when I dps, usually it's not necessary/wasteful for me to switch to constructs. Instead I focus on the spirit, chaining off onto Gorefiend/anything else nearby, and switch to any high health essences that slip through.
Council wasn't hard, but playing ele on progression for the other 2 sucked. Definitely highlights our weaknesses.
Yeah, Council really felt under-tuned. I'm hoping it is (relatively) more challenging on Mythic.
DeleteIt's a lot easier to stick on Kilrogg or cherry-pick the adds on Gorefiend now we have a few kills under our belts.
As far as I was concerned it was too much of a risk during progression though, and that's when it counts.