Raider Application - Shaman (DPS) - Raejen

[Applicant]

Hello, Iron Edge!

I am applying for the main raid.

Character: Raejen
Armory: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/eu/Kazzak/Raejen
Class/Spec: Shaman (DPS)
Member Type: Raider

Personal Info:

Hi!

My name is Ben, i'm 24 and I work full time as a software security developer and im from the UK!

I live with my girlfriend and i also have 2 very cute dogs! (Miniature dachshund and Frenchton).

I'd like to note here that i am applying to raid in shadowlands, where i would like to play Elemental Shaman, so i will write my application based on that. My current character is a Guardian Druid but due to lack of spots available for tanks in mythic raids and enjoying DPS more i am switching back to elemental for shadowlands!

My Druids armoury link is here : https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/eu/kazzak/furieon

Class/Spec:

So for elemental shaman, i raided in Legion as elemental and loved it, i am happy to play enhancement as well if elemental turns out as bad as it was at the beginning of BFA, however from playing around on the PTR this doesn't seem likely!

Currently i have not raided or aimed to progress with this shaman in this tier but will be aiming too next expansion!

This is quite a hard one to fill out currently, i will try to break this down into two sections

BFA:

During BFA even though i have not raided the spec functions very similarly to how i played it in Legion (Minus the cool legendaries), i run the Icefury build with master of elements for single target as i really enjoy the added complexity it provides to the spec. This spec works best off of capping versatility crit and haste at 30% and 10% for mastery ( However to be perfectly honest i generally will sim my character after every gear change!)

The general rotation for single target is as follows :

precast stormkeeper
prepot
Keep flame shock on at all times, aim to refresh during pandemic window ( last 30%)
Cast cooldowns (fire elemental, bloodlust if needed)
lighting bolt while empowered with stormkeeper
Cast lava burst to proc master of elements
Cast earth shock between 70 - 100 maelstrom
If casted lava burst ( to proc mater of elements) and maelstrom is too low use icefury

From here we try and interweave using one lavaburst with one nature or frost spell, making sure not to cap out on maelstrom and not letting icefury buffed frost shocks run out.


Shadowlands :

I have spent a lot of time on the PTR trying out new elemental shaman and i am very very stoked, there seems to be 2-3 very interesting talent tree choices that work very well with the change back to fulmination.

Instead of talking about a rotation here i'd like to talk about some of the talents and what they may mean for the rotation.

One of the big changes ( aside from fulmination) seems to be that elemental blas has now moved to the level 25 talent row and is also another fulmination stack spender. This means we are not forced into using earth shock as a spender. Fulmination does the same amount of extra damage per stack regardless if you use earth shock or elemental blast. This means speccing into Elemental blast will allow us to dump fulmination stacks, do higher base damage and increase our secondary stats all in one spell! the only downside of which being that it is not instant cast.

The sad thing about this change is that it is on the same talent tree level as the new Echoing shock talent, which definitely seems to be an interesting one in terms of our fulmination stack growth, as spells cast with echoing shock will essentially generate fulmination twice (And can overload twice!)

there seems to be 2 ways that the spec will go based on the talent tree and some of the legendaries which will be available:

1 - Generating as much fulmination as possible :

This spec will use Echoing shock, storm elemental and surge of power and primarily focus on lighting bolts ( which has similar base damage to lava burst now, although it does not always crit)

Echoing shock - As said above can double fulmination stacks generated
Storm elemental - Increasing lightning bolt cast speed will generate more stacks and allow us to focus on casting lightning bolt
Surge of power - As we will be generating many fulmination stacks, we will be proccing surge of power as much as possible - this is where it will get interesting as to whether is is worth aiming to use lava burst after dumping 6 stacks of fulmination ( to reduce cool down of storm elemental) or if it is worth using lighning bolt as thus can proc up to 3 additional overloads ( All of which generate a stack of fulmination!)

2 - Master of elements lava burst / lighning bolt mash up

This spec would most likely use elemental blast as a dump for fulmination stacks when possible, while aiming to get as many procs of lava burst as possible ( This talent build seems to synergize best with some of the legendaries, which will allow you to proc extra lava burst charges, or possible pop ascendance based on lava burst usages.


There is still a lot in the air and i'm sure a thorough simming would help to sort it out but it looks like the single target rotation for shamans is looking interesting and the use of primal elementalit and storm elemental will allow us to still pull weight in AOE fights / Mythic +!


Alts:

I currently have :

120 Guardian druid - 478 ilvl
120 Frost DK - 472 ilvl
120 elemental shamn - 458 ilvl

I also have at max level.

my aim next expansion is to have elemental shaman as my full on main, and frost / blood DK as my alt.

Paladin
Hunter
Warrior



Professions:

I am going to choose my professions based on what seems to be best for my class at shadowlands, however i am an avid fisherman and cook especially at the beginning of an expansion!

Raiding Experience:

I have raided on an off at different levels since late TBC, I have been in multiple mythic guilds across quite a few realms ( and alliance / horde!) pushing for Cutting edge but i have yet to find the last push to get there in these guilds. The last time i seriously raided was in Antorus where my guild achieved 10/11. I am currently 6/12 in mythic in this expansion after returning in early may to try and set up for Shadowlands.

My primary aim is to push very hard in shadowlands to get cutting edge down!

Previous Guilds:

As mentioned i have only recently come back to the game after quitting from Uldir until early may. I decided to join a guild that was starting to progress Mythic ( Surlar Ici ) even though it was quite late in the expansion, just to get back into raiding and experience a bit of the raid. I have always intended to try and push harder in shadowlands.

Availability:

I work from Monday to Friday in the day generally 0700-1500 UK time, so i can raid any times in the week in the evening, i generally would not aim to raid more than 2-3 times a week as a i need to spend some time with my other half and the dogs !
I am generally available on saturdays
I am never available on sundays

I have nothing planned in terms of shifts, exams or holiday other than christmas ( i will generally go to my parents for a week over christmas!)
The only holiday i have booked off work will be for shadowlands release !!

Communication:

English is my native tongue, i have a headset and i am happy to talk on discord or teamspeak or any other VOIP application.

Computer / Connection:

My specs are :

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
16gb DDR4 3200 Mhz Ram
AMD Radeon R9 200 GPU.
MSI gaming edge x570 motherboard
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB M.2 SSD

I have Fibre internet with the ethernet cable plugged directly into the router, my internet is stable and fast.

Addons/UI:

Details - For damage / healing meters and general raid details!
Bartender - i like to play around with my bars a lot and as i play on an ultra widescreen monitor it helps me to increase the size of some things!
GTFO - Shouts at me if im standing in something dumb!
MSBT - i use this for scrolling battle text to work out what damage i am doing / taking
Weak auras - I use a variety of weak auras to help me with raiding, and using weak auras for specific bosses can be very helpful!
Quartz - Nice and easier to see cast bar
Plater - Nicer unit plates which track debuffs and buffs correctly.
Shadowed Unit frames - Complete customization of my unit frames is extremely helpful!

Keybinds :

I use Shift button 5 ( mouse button ) for a interrupt macro :
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [@mouseover, harm] [] Wind Shear

This allows me to interupt without changing targets if required

i use Shift left click for an earthquake macro :

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Earthquake

This lets me ask earthquake where my cursor is and saves me a click

I use TAB for storm keeper and ` for chain lightning  i have bound 1-4 to general spells and q and e to icefury and frost shock.

UI link is below :
https://imgur.com/a/EjeKTGy

Other Games:

I mainly play DOTA 2 and World of warcraft ( though i generally only focus on one or the other! ) but i play other games such as skyrim Devil may cry and PUBG some other times !

Why Iron Edge?

I feel like you have a great attitude towards raiding from what i can see, you have proven you are good raiders and from the meetup posts it seems everyone gets along! I am looking for nice guild where everyone gets along, but where people can also be serious and buckle down to get some great progression done!

I am looking for a guild to call my home and to make friends in, and would love to integrate in the guild and maybe come to the next meetup!

Also my friend Veiny has recently joined as a trial for next expansion and i would love to raid with him again!

What can I offer Iron Edge?

I am a commited raider, i will turn up on time with food, flasks and prepots. I will put the time into my character so that i can help the guild push as far as possible. I am happy to put alot of effort into making my character the best it can be and spend as much time playing with friends and the guild as possible !

More importantly, i am a patient and chilled out guy who doesn't mind wiping on hard bosses, i rarely get stressed out and i put my best into trying to down the boss as a guild, i aim to focus less on logs and more on doing the tactics right for the best chance of getting a kill!

Where did I hear about Iron Edge?

Friends / Wow Progress !

Last Words?

Nothing much, just thank you for reading my application and i hope to hear from you soon!

[Xormn]

Hey Ben!
Pretty nice app.

Who's your friend? Maybe he can come and vouch for you on the forum.

Since you like DMC, what do you think about this mog:
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/eu/kazzak/Xorm

[Sylphreyne]

Hi Xorm !

Thanks I’m glad you liked it ! - My friends name is Veiny

I really love that mog ! It’s awesome, makes me want to wear leather !

[Veiny]

Can deffo vouch for Ben. We have raided together and been friends since early legion.
He is a great player and super social.

[Munjica]

Hi Ben,

This is a very informative application. I like it. I also play an elemental shaman in the main raid and I see that your BfA rotation is more or less correct.

When it comes to shadowlands I think it is too early to guess what builds will be viable as ability tuning is still to be done. For example currently on single target best way to dump fulmination stacks is trough earthquake and not elemental blast or earth shock. We will see what will happen after balancing changes as one spell buff or nerf can turn the spec upside down.

My bigger concern is what I see on your UI. You don't have key binds for some major spells (Chain Lightning, Astral shift, Fire Elemental, Berserking, Bloodlust). Are you clicking those spells? This is very odd since you have key binds for hex and thunderstorm, that are not part of something you use that often in raiding. Also, I have a personal aversion towards GTFO because I think it is making players less aware of what is happening in the encounter as they relly on addon to tell them if there is something bad happening.

I see that you like to try to experiment with the spec and that is really good because that is how you will understand how the spec works. That is a big plus in my book.

I hope to see you in the raid and to push this spec to the maximum together. I would like to have as many elemental shamans in the raid especially at the beginning of the expansion so we can learn from each other.

[Sylphreyne]

Hi Munjica,

Thanks for the response ! You’re definitely right about shadowlands, I’m just very excited! Also I definitely do not know everything, I haven’t been able to test damage so I didn’t know about using earthquake for example !

Regarding the UI - I haven’t played my shaman recently and had to reinstall windows and all of my addons recently, so I forgot I hadn’t bound them correctly again !

Chain lightning is normally bound to ‘ ( next to 1)
My cooldowns I usually have defensives under my character and offensives over on the target side. It may sound weird but I prefer to pop my cooldowns with clicks so I don’t just default to popping everything when I don’t need to ! ( this may not be optimal I am aware, old habits die hard and I’m always happy to try and improve !


Gtfo I use again because it’s just a second reminder if I do something stupid, also it can help to tell me if I need to move immediately on certain mechanics or I can take y time though I understand your aversion !  !

I would love to push as hard as we can to get as much out of the spec as possible !

[Mooneclipse]

Hiyo Raejen,

Sorry for the late response. You've written a decent application and I would like to see how you perform with our raiding team come Shadowlands. You can poke me or any other officer in-game for an invite