Kombinat -

Your gear isn't that bad for starting Karazhan. Though you could really use to socket some +hit gems. Get your hit rating up alittle over 100, and then start focusing on crit. Otherwise your likely to be missing a good share of those possible critical hits.

Don't be afriad to wear leather! Prior to Karazhan, there is some great feral leather out there that will give you really nice additions beyond the mail armor you have (particularly a good lucky drop from the rare spawn dragon in Blade's Edge, near Ogri'la, Hematiphus or something like that).

Bet on your tank not being geared up either, if that's the case get KTM Threat Meter (if you don't already) and be very very careful of your threat. Until the tank get's some really nice gear your going to be a strong contender for pulling aggro.

Other than that, just enjoy. Karazhan is really much more about technical aspects of raid performance than gear. Keep your totems up, and your DPS really won't matter as much as you think (even with the WF totem nerf).

I would suggest using the Lootzor link from the first post and setting the instances to "normal" which will show you a lot of Reputation, quest, and normal mode instance loot that you could work toward. Unfortunately for you, you picked the mail helm instead of the leather one from the quest, which would have been a lot better.

While ignoring the hit gems statement, do you understand how the attack table works? Do you truly think that adding hit = adding crit?

Thanks very much for the feedback, It's most appreciated. (I've updated my profile here as well, so should the question come up again it won't waste more of other's time.)

This guild had cleared kara before, it's on farm for the most part. Last night they gave the decapitator to a pally tank, just so he could use the on use effect while pulling when solo.

Given the non-homogeneity of 10-man raiding I'd honestly prefer to be better geared, given that there's more than likely to be group members who gain little to no effect from my buffs. That said, I'd like to think that the buffs I do give would be more beneficial than the lack of synergy with one to two party members. I've got the DPS warriors and rogues fighting over who gets to group with me in gruul attempts already, I'm just a little concerned about the actual viability of my own DPS in a 10 man situation.

I picked the helm before I knew about lootzor or stat weighting. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but thanks for pointing me towards something that would have taken up less of all your time. I often feel terrified while posting on here, lest I be hit with an infraction for being a tool, had I followed the links this mightn't have been necessary.

(I run Omen right now, and I'm very careful not to pull aggro. Thanks for the heads up though.)

Besides using omen, I'd recommend that the number one thing you do is stay alive.

You don't have the get out of jail free card that many other classes do (ice block, evasion, cloak of shadows, shield wall, bubble, etc). Resultantly, you need to pay attention to your environment so you don't die. Besides the gentle (or not so gentle) ribbing you'll get for dying a lot, there's a feeling of nastiness you can get if you're dead and the melee suddenly lose a couple hundred AP, extra hit procs, etc..

Concentrate on staying alive until you're comfortable with all the encounters. If they're clearing Kara already, you're not going to be dps-competitive. That doesn't mean not to try your best to dps, it just means that your contribution is going to be even more skewed than normal by your buffs as opposed to personal dps.

Sorry to quote myself, but any thoughts on the above?

Strange, on the 6 I checked all were above 5%

I had a 3% dodge rate on Leotheras. I attribute that to blind men can't dodge.

I'm really torn between what pants to shoot for, I really like the -ac on azgalor's, bow stitch seems the best stat wise, but skyshatt has the set bonuses and such =\. I also don't like lootz0r, sue me. (since -ac is still pretty iffy)

Stupid question, but can mobs dodge while casting spells?

Just wondering if the following thread has been proven wrong. I know it's very old but was just curious as I still see it mentioned from time to time.

That thread seems so misleading.
As far as i know, by adding a 30% crit (imp backstab) it converts 30% of your hit% to crit%. and leaving your miss chance untouch.
So if you are left with 25% hit buffer, the extra 5% crit is not going to convert your miss to hit nor crit but just wasted.

They can dodge yes, and can even parry if you attack them from the front or if they do the "rotate to face the guy I'm casting at" animation.

That's part of the reason I'm so interested in seeing how the coming changes affect things. On the one hand, 18 elemental may be sustainable. On the other you still have all of those intangibles. For me I just don't see myself going elemental as my secondary although it should be stated that having to go 45 into Enhancement makes the Resto tree a little less appealing with only 16 to spend in it.

Firm numbers will tell of course. I just think about that Maulgar run where an errant Blast Wave caught a couple healers and my healing literally was the difference between success and failure, light as a no +healing geared guy's healing is.

I'm 99% positive that they can't. If a mob flips to instant cast they can parry, but if it's an actual cast bar they can't; otherwise Reliquary would be ridiculous.

I searched EJ before my first response, and just now searched again to verify and have found at least 10 seperate posts by members of the community that say that mobs can dodge and parry while casting.

I know a lot of people are intrigued by the possibilities of Elemental Devastation with the coming changes. Are we able to project out what sort of damage boost we're looking at if you went 18/43 or are we going to have to wait for some ingame parses?

Viator, check this post

Whoopsy!

That'll teach me to actually work when I'm in the office.

Even still, losing the 3% to hit from Resto seems too big to lose to me in comparison. I'm also a horrible twister.

Take a look at the reliquary thread.

http://elitistjerks.com/432404-post186.html for example. There are many others stating the same thing.

Remember that Ele Devastation only proc when you have a spell crits. For an enh shaman you will probably have around 5-6% spell crit (unless you trying to get spell crits from gem or gear other than int).

Here we assume:
- Taking 6% spell crit for theorycraft
- 9% of melee crit, last 10sec of Ele Devastation
- With 5sec shock non stop spamming

In an IDEAL case:
Ele Devast up time = 6% x 2 shock = 12% (Assuming the shock crit & land nicely)
12% x 9% = 1.08% avg melee crit

Compare to Nature guidance which is 3% melee& spell hit, is truely a big difference. I might be wrong in the ideal calculation. But i think it gives you an idea on how Ele Devastation is currently bad for enhancement shaman.

The incoming changes is not going to do anything to your spell crits but only spell damage. Unless they change it such that FT, FB crit proc for elemental devastation, else it is still not a good talent afterall.

That's referring specifically to interrupt abilities though. Another post by Quigon also states that mobs such as Vaelstraz would turn to cast and would proc strings of parries on rogues.

Here's the Quigon post - http://elitistjerks.com/438652-post681.html
I could be wrong on the doge bit, but the parry seems to hold true, even if its a bug in the mechanic.