But, what I wanted to point the attention at, was the fact that I’ve also been writing a guide on the staff, which initially started out as a “minor article” for Wowhead, but – seeing as I was on the quest – I quickly got interested in adding tons and tons of extra details, lore and what not. In the end, along with the new guide system that Wowhead now provides, I extended it.

So, if you’re up for reading what I wrote about the lovely staff – which, in terms of words should make up for the general lack of posts here – I’d suggest you take a read at the below link:

The Stuff of Legends – An In-depth Guide to “Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest”

Enjoy!

Many moons have passed since the raiders went to war.
Onwards and upwards, bigger weapons than before.
Magmaw took cover, he shivered on patrol.
The arms race crazy, simply way out of control.

Then Nefarian threw them, his latest devices.
Twofoot went and got them, following the advice – ‘What the…?’
Their tails were split, and their energy lost.
How many more will this dreaded war cost?

Then came the enrage, and constructs tumbling down.
If the fire got to someone, you’d probably frown.
But the raiders battled on, through hunger and pain.
Living to fight, just to victor again.

And now it’s the curtain call, the final onslaught,
no better epic could you possibly have bought.
But spare a thought for Magmaw and with it his friends.
So fight with their honour, and fight until the end.

Granted, it’s probably a lot more fun if you have actually tried the encounter. It might also help to add that “Twofoot” was the primary person dealing with the parasites.

For instance… in one of the simulations (lasting 10 minutes each), over 500 Flame Shocks was fired, along with only 50 Lightning Bolts. Everyone should know that something is phenomenally wrong there. On top of that, Flame Shock seemed to add up to over 200.000 DPS. Hardly realistic.

On the flip-side, the other casts seemed to work out pretty well, and had their total values match my earlier alpha-version pretty well. The difference from that was that it didn’t do an actual simulation, but did a single cast of each of the different spells, and weighted them after how many of each I had done in a previous long single-target turret-fight. Problem is that that method made it impossible to correctly figure out how much various parameters meant (like the Tier 10-4 bonus – which might also be the one causing a lot of problems in the current version).

Lastly, it seems 4.0.1 is going to hit live very soon, which will make this version outdated already, as all the new statistic-changes are going live, along with new spell-numbers, talents and all that.

So long story short, I will officially have been postponing Thunderstruck for a whole expansion-pack. Or, well, it was at least that long ago that I started working on it. It’s not going to be impossible either, that’s quite certain.

What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain.. .
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine…
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we’ve shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores?

Now, the point of this is basically just to tell that we’re finally getting a proper use for Earth Shock as Elemental. The latest Cataclysm beta-build (12803) added in a useful combination of things. First, we get to use Lightning Shield instead of Water Shield, and it will provide us with mana regain and a mechanic somehow similar to Enhancement’s Static Shock. It all comes from the two new talents Rolling Thunder and Fulmination.

Rolling Thunder gives us the nice mana regeneration. 1% total mana is quite a bit, especially with a 60% chance of every Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning being fired. The side-effect of adding a shield-charge seems to be a bit odd at first – it’s not really intended for us to get hit to do damage. However, that’s where the second part comes in.

Fulmination (the name is incredibly fitting by the way) gives us a way to deplete excess shield charges from the maximum of 9, down to the normal amount of 3, by firing off – yes, Earth Shock. In short, optimal conditions will let it do the extra damage of 6 charges. Improved Shields suddenly looks very interesting, and one could theorize that [Glyph of Lightning Shield] might be slightly useful. Then again, glyphs haven’t been touched upon yet, so it’s quite meaningless to talk about those just yet.

If we use todays numbers, the extra 6 charges would add the following amount to the damage:

Seeing as 3500 spell power is in no way a unreachable number, that would give us a bonus damage of at least:

… and that’s a pretty stunning number, considering Earth Shock‘s damage itself hasn’t been added yet.

There still is some “drawbacks” though. First of all, it’s not really going to be that often we can use it (around every 20th second or so, if we’re lucky). Understandable, since it lacks such a severe punch. Secondly, there’s the thing that it’s not yet included in Elemental Reach, which reels us into 25 yard range. Most likely going to be fixed though, as it would be incredibly awkward otherwise.

Still, it’s a change I thing is very welcome, adds a bit of spice to the rotation, and breathes some new life into an old friend – although, most of us would probably prefer something with Frost Shock instead. Now, if only I had a beta key so I could test this properly…

Now, first of all, it was “just” (3 days ago) announced that the Mastery and Talents was up for a bit change, by giving us less talent-points, but giving each of these more meaning, while – as we have known for some time – making all the boring stuff passive. The way I’ve built Thunderstruck, is basically by having a long list of what the various talents does, and add those bonuses to the base spell-values, which are then used to simulate a casts, based on the characters current statistics (as these can obviously change, by using trinkets, being under the effects of [Bloodlust] or otherwise). Less numbers flying around should make that a lot easier.

The fun part about masteries was indeed the Elemental Overload (basically just [Lightning Overload], where Lava Burst can now be triggered as well), which I’ve already covered the basics of. The way I’ve done it, is basically that Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Burst, are all simulated with the same function, with the only difference (except different input numbers), is that the later has a variable set that doesn’t let it do Overload, but instead causes it to always crit. Now, this is something I can change, and completely leave out, as all of them will be able to do it.

In regards to statistical additions, there will be three additions/modifications: Spirit, Intellect and Mastery Rating. The first two are easy, however. Spirit will simply (as it stands now) be added as Hit Rating, and continue as that. Intellect will add a conversion-ratio for Spell Power (and that is possibly being changed to “Spell Power on weapon”). Lastly, there’s Mastery Rating – but do we know that works? Actually, it is quite simple – if my assumption is correct: Like any other Rating, Mastery translates directly into a percentage, from the basic rating formula. This percentage boosts your current Third Mastery (in this case: Elemental Overload), by that amount.

So, basically, let’s say the base percentage of Elemental Overload is 25% (as it looks now), and our Mastery rating translates into 38%, we’d end up having a 34,5% chance of Elemental Mastery doing its wonders. I like that – it’s going to give some nice theoretical wonders in determining which stat is the best, and how they’ll end up scale with each other.