Pages

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

By Our Powers Combined...!



So it's been a while right? Well I'll spare the "this is why" speech and just /shrug and say, "oh well, that's how it is." Anyway I wanted to talk about something very specific today which is the uber awesome ability Storm, Earth, and Fire.
I don't know about y'all, but I was absolutely thrilled when I saw this ability incoming for Windwalkers. Beforehand our only "cleave-like" mechanic was Fists of Fury and that did the same amount of damage no matter how many targets you were hitting. Hitting one target? 100k a tick. Hitting 10 targets? 100k a tick (divided by 10 targets). Obviously if there are that many targets, Spinning Crane Kick is the only way to go. However, what if there were only 2 targets? It was business as usual. Not with the introduction of Storm, Earth, and Fire however!

How it works:
Casting SEF on a target produces a clone of yourself. This clone will leap at the enemy it was cast on and will mimic ALL of your moves onto that mob. That's right, you cast FoF, the clone casts FoF. Every RSK, FoF, TP, BloK, and even Chi Wave! Not only that, but you can cast it a second time and have 2 clones out! There is one stipulation however. If you have one clone, you will both do 60% of your normal damage. 2 clones is a reduction to 40% of your normal damage. You may notice though, that this equates to 120% of your normal damage. It is wonderful!

Image from master of Wowhead - Perculia!


Precautions:
There are a few things to watch out for and I don't think everyone knows about this. If you and a clone are on the same target, your clone will NOT copy your attacks. He will only auto-attack and you will LOSE dps. Absolutely do NOT attack the same target as one of your clones.
In the case that isn't clear, if you use SEF for a single target, you will just lose dps and I will target you and /facepalm and /cry.
The other thing to note when using clones is if you cast SEF on a target you already have a clone on, you will recall that clone instead of casting a second one. If you want 2 clones out they absolutely have to be on separate targets.
I suppose there IS a third thing to realize as well. There is currently no way (by default) to track what targets your clones are attacking other than just remembering which mobs you cast them on. I was looking for any addons that may track this early on but I'll have to go searching again. I don't even know if it's possible. There is both a Weakauras link AND an addon in the comments below thanks to umm, the Anonymous poster.
You can track the number of clones you currently have out by checking your buffs. You will see the same icon as SEF if you have one, and if you have two clones out you will see a 2 on top of it like other stacking buffs.

Applications:
The easiest way to bust out the power of the elements is to use a mouseover macro. To put it very simply you can go to macros and just copy and paste this little script into a new one:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover] Storm, Earth, and Fire
If you need more help with mouseover macros I shall point you to the guide from @Matticus: here.

I use this spell in several places in ToT. Mostly just in the LFR versions (as that's mostly what I do) because in the normal versions it's a more pressing issue to be able to get the target down quickly and not at 60% of your normal dps while your clone is on something less important. As well as on ANY trash you feel like, I like to use SEF on the following bosses:
  • Horridon - I just throw a clone on Horridon while killing adds myself. In this regard, you have to be sure that the adds are going to die and you don't need that extra damage going into them. I've also used it in the end phase on War-God Jalak, doing damage to both him and Horridon.
  • Council of Elders - I haven't used this on Normal, but I do use it in LFR since most of the time the strategy was just to stack them all up and AE hard. The idea here would be to put at least one clone up and SCK your way to glory.
  • Dark Animus - I don't use this til the late portion of the fight when it's just Dark Animus and 1 or 2 Massive Animus Golems up. On the small golems they would just die too fast to be worth it. On the large golems it's better to focus them down as quickly as possible. This is also probably just in LFR as my understanding on Normal+ you don't want to kill the Massives or Dark Animus will gain full power and wipe the raid.
  • Twin Consorts - SEF is only good in the dusk phase when both twins are out and about causing havoc on the raid.
In the end, this is a wonderful, fun ability, that I'm very glad was added to our abilities. The randomness of what color you and your clones become and the very distinctive look makes it a completely unique thing for the monk. Nothing else looks like this ability. So go forth monks, and strike as the elements to those who would oppress us!

3 comments:

  1. I use a weakauras from this thread to track SE&F:

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1272451-Storm-Earth-and-Fire-WeakAura

    There's an addon that does basically the same thing. I use the weakauras because I already use WA for other stuff.

    http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/storm-earth-and-fire/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent, thank you! I asked someone if it was possible and provided him logs but I think he's been too busy. >.>

      I'll certainly check both out sometime today when the realms come back up.

      Delete
    2. Sure thing, enjoy.

      I don't actually care about most of the features of the addon. All I need to know is:

      1) How many clones I have active
      2) If I'm attacking the same target as the clone

      So the addon and weakaura aren't perfectly suited for my needs, because they provide all sorts of other extraneous info, but they work well enough.

      Delete