Thunderhorne, elemental shaman

[Thunderhorne]

Name: Evert
Age: 20
Character name: Thunderhorne
Class: Shaman
Spec: Elemental
Armory Link

Previous guilds ranking from most recent to older
The orphans grim: The guild disbanded today.
The hungering cold: I left this one because I needed a break from hardcore raiding to deal with my studies
The grip of Saul: Left this because I wanted to make raid progress and had friends in the hungering cold
Violent noise: been in here from day 1 of the server untill we disbanded for the 3d time or something...

reason for applying to ubiquity:
I want to experience the whole of icecrown citadel and enjoy endgame raiding once more

How I think I can contribute:
I hope to bring an acceptable amount of damage to your raids, as well as completing the class balance/caster buffs.
When there is need for more healing at a certain point I also think I can contribute as a hybrid with 2 viable pve-specs, of which the second one is restoration (for which I try to keep my gear up to date as best as possible).

Information about how I play:
Lets start this section with my 'rotation'.
Instead of using a fixed rotation I use a priority system which is as follows: Keeping flame shock up is absolute priority, after which, when available, I cast lava burst. To fill the gaps between lava burst I use chain lightning and/or lightning bolt, depending on the amount of enemies that or being damaged aswell as mana available and length of the battle.
When bloodlust is up I avoid using chain lightning mostly since I don't find it efficient enough when haste reaches a certain level.
when small gaps appear in casting timing, I prefer to cast a quick spell, like chain lightning, a shock, thunderstorm or renewing my mana shield/totems), rather than waiting ~0.2 seconds to cast a lava burst or flame shock.
Elemental mastery I try to use as soon as all my spellpower and haste building stuff are charged, since the setbonus makes the cooldown go down faster. (or when there's a part in a fight you need a burst dps part I'll save it for then)
Thunderstorm use depends on the fight, normally I use it when moving around as soon as it's up for mana, but on fights like saurfang it needs to be saved for knockbacking moments obviously.

The next part is glyph choice.
Glyphs of totem of wrath and lightning bolt are definatly the 2 best glyphs available at the moment.
about the third glyph there is an ongoing discussion about what is best. Some claim on long fights the flame elemental totem should give the best dps output. Since the discussion is still ongoing I guess I'll still go for the certain thing and glyph flametongue weapon as 3d, it is slightly better than the lava burst one atm. More testing will show what the best one is between Fire elemental or FtW.

About gear:
Trinket wise I've been playing with the ZAP spreadsheet and although abyssal rune should be better on first sight, the eye of the broodmother should have a better dps output according to this spreadsheet. So more testing will be needed to be sure (or reign of the dead/foreign d. object can finally drop and come to me^^).
Since the setbonusses of T10 are both extremely good I'll keep both at all times normally.
The rest of the gear is pretty straightforward: hitcap obviously, as much SP as I can get and ideally a bit above 1000 haste (think at about 1400 rating lightning bolt becomes less efficient so that's the absolute max if it would ever be reached). After that comes crit, but it's not always possible atm to get the ideal gear...

About raids:
I normally can raid every monday and wednesday. Sundays are unavailable every now and then, since that's the usual moment for our family dinners.
Experience atm are ICC25 first wing, plague wing and bloodcouncil (all normal mode), nothing on heroic.
In ICC10 I've done everything except LK (on normal) and first,blood and plague wing except putricide heroic

Alts:
Got an 80 Druid, mage, hunter, priest and death knight. The only one of them with gear decent enough for some starter icc things is my druid (which is a tank) though.

About me:
I'm an engineering student at the VUB (Free university of Brussels) and also live in Brussels. My current choice/course of engineering is electronics, next year I'll probably go for fotonics or medical engineering though. Besides playing wow I also play guitare and am an active member of a student fraternity. Being a huge music fan (music must always be playing, whatever I'm doing) I listen to all kinds of music except most metal genres. Languages spoken are Dutch, english and french fluently and have a basic knowledge of german and spanish.
Being an RP-fan and reader of many fantasy books I will include 2 RP-stories: one for my main char thunderhorne and one for my mage vasyroth.

RP-stories:
-Story about my mage vasyroth:

There was no sun to be seen in the sunken temple, but would you be able to see it it would be high above. Vasyroth and 4 other forsaken ventured into the temple at morning and were still in there by noon. In fact the temple was a lot bigger than any of them had anticipated, luckily the forsaken do not need food, water or rest. Most of these adventurers were actually bored of killing dragonkin but the dragons were getting bigger and bigger the deeper they ventured into that temple. That implicates that the majordomo of their forces had to be close, and with him came treasure, for dragons allways hoard treasures!
It was in this temple on that certain day that Vasyroth got asked a question he didn't knew the answer for.
"What do you remember about your life before the Dark Lady awokened you?"
Now Vasyroth knew nothing about his history except that he had a small charm on him when the Dark Lady awoke him from his eternal slumber. So he answered
"I have no clue... All I have from my past is this small charm"
"that's strange, there's a lightning engraved in it!"
Suddenly 2 dragons flew down from the ceiling and ambushed them while they were strawling around! There was no more time for chat, time to fight!

That day ended well, they found the dragon's stash but vasyroth had gained something far more valuable, a piece of his past!
Never had he seen lightning in that charm, but now that someone else mentioned it, it became clear to him: It wasn't magic that was bound to the charm but spirits. That's why he couldn't detect anything.

The next day he went to Orgrimmar to find a friendly shaman who was willing to help him find out what happened to him in the past.
Finding a friendly tauren isn't hard, although they distrust the undead, they are mostly willing to help any other horde member.
Vasyroth found a young shaman called Thunderhorne and told him the story about the charm.
Thunderhorne took the charm and mumbled some weird words to unseen entities.
"We must go to the Mulgore, where I can cummune better with the spirits!"
So they went to the Mulgore were Thunderhorne's training as a shaman begun, where the spirits allways listen and help.

Hours passed in meditation and just when Vasyroth wanted to leave Thunderhorne stood up and bowed.
"Why are you bowing to me?" Vasyroth asked.
"You are one of the great shamans that helped Warchief Thrall escape from his prison!"
"That was a previous life, my dear friend... Rather, if you know about me, tell me how I died and how I became this wretched being!"
"You stayed behind on the shores of the Eastern Kingdoms to fend off any humans that were trying to stop thrall from leaving to Kalimdor... You were quite succesful. Later you heard that there were still orcs captured in other prison camps, so you ran there with your companions to free them. At that moment you sent a runner for help, the runner reached us but you never did. My guess is you didn't meet orcs in the prison camps but the Scourge instead."
"Then the Lich King is to blame for my existence as a wretched undead! I will go to Northrend and have my revenge!"

-Story about my Shaman Thunderhorne:

A long time ago in kalimdor when the Tauren were still nomads, there was one member of the tribe who was born with tiny white horns. Every child Tauren has small horns which grow while aging of course. Brom's horns didn't grow though, which was kind of humiliating since they are a form of measuring age in Tauren community. Although Brom was old enough for the rite of passage, he couldn't perform the rite of passage since the clan rules state that horns must be of proper length. The Tauren are kind and peaceful in nature though and a meeting amongst the elders of the clan took place. They talked for days about the weird young Tauren that couldn't grow horns, until finally the wise and old Shaman of the tribe suggested the following: "I will consult the spirits on this matter and will take the young one as my apprentice, in the hope that one day the spirits will grant him the horns he will deserve for being a good servant of the spirits"
Never before had a young Tauren been taken in as an apprentice shaman before they passed the rite of passage and Brom knew this was a great honor that was bestowed upon him, yet he still longed to be accepted in the tribe as a full member.

A few years later Brom learned how to communicate with the spirits and ask them for help in times of dire need. One night when he was wandering through the fields, that would later be known as mulgore, he felt the presence of one of his ancestors' spirits very nearby. The still young Tauren couldn't resist this opportunity to learn more about his history and hopefully the reason why his horns didn't grow, so he went farther away from the camp than was safe. A particularly vicious centaur clan had been following their tracks for the past few weeks, though no one had seen any centaur. Fact was that the centaur were preparing an ambush in the mulgore for Brom's tribe and were planning to attack this night. Brom still unaware of this, wandered even farther away from the camp only to find nothing. Suddenly his ancestor left the mulgore faster than any living creature could and Brom felt a nagging fear. "Why would this spirit leave so suddenly after pulling my attention to him?" A few minutes later Brom knew why the spirit had left, he was trying to help Brom notice the sudden threat of the centaur. The attack already started though and Brom couldn't warn his tribe before the centaur would strike. Only one option remained: He would sacrifice himself for his tribe to live on, summon all the power he could even though it would destroy his body. Unafraid and sure of his decision he stepped forward to the ranks of centaur and spoke: "you shall turn around and go or face the wrath of the spirits!" Logically the centaur didn't take his warning seriously and decided to kill this lone Tauren before he could warn his tribe. They better had taken his warning seriously because as soon as the first arrow was about to pierce his heart an amazingly violent storm appeared, blowing the arrow out of course. Angry cause they failed to kill the young Tauren a lot of centaur started to run towards Brom, only to find death in a lightning bolt that came from the sky. When finally about 10 centaur surrounded him it was time for his great sacrifice. The biggest lighting storm ever seen started to hit everyone on the scene. Sadly Brom wasn't able to control the forces of nature that well yet and the lightning killed him and all the centaur that day. Many Tauren woke up because of the loudness of the lightning and saw the scene from a distance.
The tribe elders decided to rename the tribe to Thunderhorne in honor of the great small horned Tauren that saved them all!

Many years later a tauren was born in this tribe who looked exactly like Brom. He was given the name Thunderhorne...

To conclude I'll add something funny.
Thanks for reading my application and have a nice day!

[Bussy]

Thanks for your application Thunderhorne. We'll have a look, discuss and give our decision soonish.

- Bussy

[Thunderhorne]

Small update: I was testing how I liked Improved fire nova but I don't really like it since you have to run in melee range all the time to use it and also, it's only really useful on trash.
So I'm going to remove those points and get 3/3 elemental warding again which is, imo, way more useful on raids. (at the cost of one point of convection also).

[Bussy]

Fire nova is launched from any fire totem and has 30yrd range right? totem uptime is 5mins? Usually boss is always tanked at same position or at same area or you already know where boss is about to be tanked before hand. If boss position changes, like marrowgar, u are on the move aswell and when boss is still u are at melee range anyways.

Dps job is to go max dps. Even if u don't like some skill but learning to use it and making best of it is basically your job. =) Since most of fights require movement its really usefull to have a instant spell to cast to not waste dps time.

[Melchior]

To clarify.
I would stay with improved fire nova (dont have it in my offspec, since i dont play ele atm) and elemental warding and would ditch convection.

Anyway. DPS fire totems dont last for 5 minutes, searing lasts for 1 minute and i think the other lasts for less.

On another note i think on fights like anub this talent is worth it, though you have to look at each boss fight, if you can use fire nova properly.

Fire Nova can be cast out of range but you rather cast LB on single target fights.

[Bussy]

Not sure which totems ele shamans use in general. If they use searing totem (1min duration) and that is generally dps increase then u need to replace it more often to keep it range and makes even more use for fire nova. You can also use Fire Nova from every same elemental totem (not only dps totem)? And yes casting LB is ofc higher priority but since Fire Nova is instant u can cast that while moving and from time to time you need to move more than few steps and u have time to cast more than 1 instant spell and for most classes instant spells they cast are dots (flame shock) and/or have cooldown, so having more than one instant spell to use can reduce dps penalty while moving. I might be wrong ofc though =).

[Bussy]

Not saying making use of fire nova effectively on every boss is easy but it shouldn't tbh and things like that are what makes differences between good and avg players.

The difference between a great Elemental shaman and a mediocre one is the ability to mitigate the DPS loss caused by movement. There are a few things you can do while moving:
- Redrop totems. If the fight is guaranteed to last more than 5 minutes, a GCD used on redropping your totems while moving gives you that GCD later for a damaging spell. Also useful if a boss is moved and you need to move with it.
- Cast or recast a shock spell. Until you get 4pc t10 this is usually going to be Flame Shock. Get in the habit of casting a shock while moving, as it's one of the only things you can do. If you have 4pc t10, cast Frost Shock instead, as clipping Flame Shock too early kills the benefit of the set bonus and is a DPS loss.
- Thunderstorm or refresh Water Shield. As long as it's safe to use Thunderstorm (or you've glyphed it), you can gain some mana back and potentially do a little DPS. Most bosses are immune to the knockback portion of Thunderstorm.
- Fire Nova. This is conditional based on whether you are able to place your fire totem correctly relative to the boss (due to Fire Nova's short range), but this is a good form of DPS while moving if you are able to do it.

http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t82625-shaman_elemental/

[Bussy]

Just saying that "i don't wanna use that spell because it requires me to plan my movement and totems ahead" does really sound bad to me atleast.

edit: even if u can't use it effectively all the time it is still dps increase when you can use it and considering other option for those talent points, imo you should really go for imp fire nova.

[Thunderhorne]

I would first like to state that I wouldn't ditch a talent, simply because I don't like how it works. I would ditch it because I think it isn't optimal

As for fire totem usage:
Fire elemental totem > Searing totem > totem of wrath (I need to cast the totem of wrath once every 5min to get the 84spellpower glyph of totem of wrath gives me)
Maybe if there is a boost in AE-damage needed at a certain point it would be possible to put a magma totem up. Although keeping that up costs about 1200 mana every 20 sec and would render you OOM quite fast.
(this also means that for fights that take about 7min the fire elemental glyph would be better since you can have your fire ele up for 4minutes then).
In case there is no demonic pact present, totem of wrath is a must of course.

To the fire nova subject now.
Like Melchior said, casting fire nova on a single target would be a waste of time. A lightning bolt or a chain lightning even, would both be more useful to cast.
When the situation calls for AE that doesn't need to move too much, the talent would be better indeed (like anub'arak).

You do have a point that when moving, having an extra instant to cast, is indeed a good thing. Although you have shocks, refreshing water shield, thunderstorm, refreshing totems (like mentioned earlier I need to cast totem of wrath once every 5min and immediatly replace it by a more useful totem after) or elemental mastery (in case you don't have to move that far in order to not lose the haste buff that it gives) to give instant casts.
Also fire nova is still available without the talent, just with 20% less dmg.
So after these arguments I must say it is indeed better than convection, even if you only use it 4 times in a fight.
IF you have some mana issues though, convection is worth taking over fire nova. I do have the feeling that on the raids I've been, mana is getting more and more of an issue with the more haste I get. This might be due to non-ideal setups that lack replenishment and wisdom buffs though.

TL/DR: The ideal talent spec indeed is no points in convection and 3/3 elemental warding and 2/2 improved fire nova.

Just to give the information:
-Although the spell has a 36yds range (to the totem I think) the fire nova itself only has 16yds range
-Searing totem currently doesn't do damage if you cast it before you are engaged in a fight.

[Bussy]

We decided to give you a chance and see what you can do. Poke officers online for an inv. Also do your study on all icc25 hard modes and be prepared. =)

- Bussy