I realize there's not many people out there that have been able to get it, but I noticed something interesting on Patchwerk and Grobbulus tonight. I keep Lightning Shield up to get the bonus, but don't take any damage in either of these encounters. I popped LS right before engaging Patchwerk, and by 80% it was gone somehow. Every once in a while (took about a minute to expend 3 charges) I'd lose a charge. I don't know if Patchwerk took the damage, as I was too focused on healing to really explore this. I found myself having to refresh LS (rank 1) 4-5 times during the fight. On Grobbulus, whenever he would do his Spray and spawn a slime, the slime would take a tick from LS (I was not hit by its aura). The rate of decay was slower than Patchwerk's (had to refresh twice...fight was shorter, but it took longer to expire), so it would seem to be something different from Patchwerk.

My first idea was that whatever mechanism Blizzard uses to keep us in combat was triggering LS, but different behavior was observed on Grobbulus. I'll test this out further next week, but I was wondering if anyone else had run into this or had an idea as to why it happens. Another Shaman in my guild with 8 Earthshatter sees the same thing on the same fights.

A guy from Flying Hellfish said standing a further distance from Patchwerk keeps it from happening, but if it's the in-combat pulse that triggers it I'm not sure why distance would change it.

Might be HS primer which has a 30 yard range.

I've noticed the same LS thing you have on Grobbulus and encourage all shamans to be casting it just so it can start damaging the slimes for real mana efficient damage, Grobbulus is a joke. However, I haven't tried casting LS on Patchwerk and/or watching to see if it fades away but even it did do something, it's already risky enough wasting GCDs on retoteming, I'm not going to keep refreshing LS and risk letting my tanks die because I wanted to do 700 extra damage!

(Maybe for reactionary heal, it's fine, but we use a CH-spam strat so if I'm not retoteming, I'm hitting CH1 over and over and over and over and over, and did I say over? Yeah.)

Ninja edit: I feel bad all of sudden. I forgot that you're mainly concerned with the fact that you'd want to be able to keep T3 8/9, which would be really nice especially since you're not taking damage in the first place.

I haven't checked Patchwerk, but I can guarantee that the Bloodlord will eat your LS for no particular reason. He doesn't even need to be in combat. Just cast your shield and watch it tick off. The Bloodlord will take the damage and drop to 99% but not aggro. There's a few other mobs that do this as well. I would assume it's the same on Patch, but it would be nice to know what causes it.

Stand anywhere within 40 yards to Azuregos when he's not even engaged and check your combat log ^^

There's several mechanisms triggering lightningshield, even from a ridiciulous range.

I too have seen Bloodlord Mandokir do this while we're standing under the archway looking up at him on his altar. You can be quite far away and out of combat and the ticks happen. It's bizarre.

Combat pulses tend to proc LS. On Azuregos, his "check to see if you have Mark of Frost and if so, freeze you" pulse procs it.

You can definitely keep the 8/9 ES bonus up throughout a Patchwerk kill without recasting, because I do it weekly. I usually only have one charge consumed at the start, and don't pay attention to it much after that, except to see that it's still up.

As the guy who's dropping Grace of Air for our HS tanks, I'd rather not stand at max range even specced Totemic Mastery. It's not really a problem recasting Rank 1 from time to time during the fight--I'll pause casting for a second to stagger my heals with the other guys anyway--I was mostly curious about what exactly is proccing it. HS primer is a good call for Patchwerk, and I know Azuregos and the Emerald Dragons will pick up ticks, but what about the Grobbulus blobs? I could actually pay attention to silly things like this during Grobb (not so on Patch) and he never took a tick...ONLY the blobs did. When I was put in combat on the pull, no charge was expended. The first charge was expended on the first blob that spawned and that was the only thing that ever did it.

You say that like the damage done to the blob's irrelevant. That's like saying the damage you do to Grobbulus if your LS ticked on him was irrelevant which it wouldn't be. The faster the melee DPS kills Grobb's slimes, the smoother the run can be for your healers.

Edit: Only the first slime ticked LS? When I do Grobb, every single slime that spawns when I have LS up ticks it on me. I actually cast it for the damage, not for an 8/9 ES bonus (only on 5/9 now, WTB Totemic Mastery). Apologies if I sounded condescending at your post, I realized that you were only wondering how it worked instead of brushing it off as irrelevant. Reread your post again afterwards.

Just to agree, anything checking distance can trigger it. Like when rogue distract could trigger shaman lightning shield (and actually be damage by it).

Hadn't thought of that either. It's a funny mechanic and not very well thought through IMO...just like the Shaman class in general. As for damaging blobs with Lightning Shield...well, whatever floats your boat. Rank 1 LS is ticking for 21 damage. Rank 7 ticks for about 220. I keep rank 1 up for the set bonus. But honestly I don't give a crap about contributing to DPS.

Good news is, if Blizzard keeps the current trend going, water shield will give you incredible amounts on many fights that do not have AoE damage events anyway.

Heh, you stole my post Lumi

132 manax3 (w/ the blue level 61 Totem) for a cost of 63 is a gift that just keeps on giving.

It most certainly procs from random effects now...

Tried staying about 35 yards from Patchwerk last night, and never lost a charge of LS. Thanks for the tip :)