(Enh) Blood Fury

[NPSlow]

Use it as often as possible in the fight, but use it smart. I know personally my trinket will come off cooldown on the Deathwing face fight when a arm tentacle is at about 2-3% health. It's not a good idea to pop a CD when you know you're that close to swapping targets. You want to use it as much uptime as you can get through the fight, not just keeping it on cooldown the longest.

[Deleted]

But not using it in a certain part of the fight means it wont be available in a part of the fight where you want it to be off cooldown. So yes, macro it in except for a fight like Spine.

[waat]

As a budding enhancement shaman my advice to you is to not do this.

The reason you should have your "BOOM" button on a separate bind taking up a space on your action bar to be hit during combat instead of macro'd to an ability you use as part of your rotation is because it promotes hitting one of the only cds you have as an enhancement shaman smartly. Bind and forget is easy but then you aren't going to be doing as much dps as you probably want, it's as simple as that. I have my orc racial bound to my Ancient Petrified Seed trinket, which I use (almost) every cooldown, as well as use before popping wolves so they get that enhanced AP.

Hypothetical situation: You are beating on the boss with your racial macro'd into an ability. Your racial comes of cooldown 2 seconds before a boss mechanic that stops you from being able to dps the boss (you go into shadow realm, you are flying through the air, you are doing some other roleplay mechanic, and you stormstrike one last time before said mechanic (as you should).. you just wasted one of your only AP enhancing cooldowns.

You should have it on your bar or macro'd with an on-use trinket that you use smartly during the fight. At first it might seem tedious, but you'll learn when to be popping it in each fight and figure out when you'll have time to pop it way early so it'll be up again for a phase that the boss takes increased damage.

To answer your question about when in the fight is a good time? Right away, then every 2 minutes. Unless you know a mechanic is coming up that will stop you from DPSing the whole time it's up, then wait. Unless that mechanic is 'boss is dead', then pop it anyway.

I pop it before wolves, but I'm not sure if that is a hold-over from an earlier time of wolves taking a "snapshot" of your AP when they spawn, it might be different now. Enhancement dps doesn't have barely any ramp up time, so right away and on CD for a pure tank and spank fight will give you the best dps. Just please get in the habit now of consciously hitting your cooldowns and don't macro them to SS or LL -_-

Edit - to clarify what flaak said, because waat missed his point. He didn't say line it up with other cooldowns (enhancement really has none) he suggested lining it up with the burn phase of a boss, or when the boss is taking extra damage from players. I agree with this statement, and the real trick to mastering your CDs as enhance is knowing when you can pop them early so they'll be up just in time for these burn phases. And to be honest, I think you'd be surprised how often that happens. I could list plenty of the current tier fights that have burn phases that will coincide with our CD use almost perfectly (especially ancient petrified seed, but you won't have access to that without firelands rep) but that's besides the point. Bind it smartly and learn to use your tools at the right time if you plan on doing dps.

TLDR: read the quotes and first sentence.

As weak as spirit wolves are, I think delaying cooldowns to sync with them is a bad idea. If you can guarantee that your cumulative 'waiting' for wolves will not cause you to get 1 less use of the cooldowns in a given fight, then sure delay it. If you're going to miss 1 use of APS/racial by waiting to sync up with wolves, I think you're doing more harm than could. It'd need to be mathcrafted out to be sure though.

As for wasting it during a break in dps like hagara or jumping platforms on madness: I can hold alt to prevent trinket from being popped with my SS for special circumstances, but that's semi-rare

[Dave131]

So yeah, like I said, just bind it to LL or SS. Much easier that way and it'll never get wasted

[woopytywoop]

Reading through this thread makes me miss that 2pcT10bonus.

Tinker bound to sham rage was awesome

[wordup]

From personal experience this expansion, I timed it early in the expansion with wolves during t11, during t12 & 13 I've been timing it with seed/with restabilizer procs when possible, otherwise just keeping it on CD.
It's rare that you need to time it since it's good but not overwhelmingly amazing for burst phases; just make sure you don't forget about it else that is just pure DPS wasted.

[NPSlow]

As weak as spirit wolves are, I think delaying cooldowns to sync with them is a bad idea. If you can guarantee that your cumulative 'waiting' for wolves will not cause you to get 1 less use of the cooldowns in a given fight, then sure delay it. If you're going to miss 1 use of APS/racial by waiting to sync up with wolves, I think you're doing more harm than could. It'd need to be mathcrafted out to be sure though.

As for wasting it during a break in dps like hagara or jumping platforms on madness: I can hold alt to prevent trinket from being popped with my SS for special circumstances, but that's semi-rare

I didn't say delay using trinket/ blood fury to sync with wolves. Wolves are a horribly weak cooldown. All I meant was if my trinket/racial are off cooldown the same time as wolves, I'll pop them before rather than at the same time because back in the day wolves took a 'snapshot' of your ap, or whatever. Also if you are going through the trouble to watch the cooldown to make sure you can hold alt to delay procing the trinket until when you will be able to take full advantage of the proc, why not just activate it manually? Why macro it to storm strike or LL to 'make it easy' or whatever your intention and then still do the same thing that is required to do it the right way - watch the cooldown, hit it as soon as the cooldown is up if you have the uptime on a target to make it 100%? To me holding down alt until you're ready for a stormstrike or LL to proc your trinket seems like more effort, and in a circumstance where you are trying to max uptime, what about waiting for SS/LL to come off cd, that's wasting trinket opportunity. I just don't understand?

But not using it in a certain part of the fight means it wont be available in a part of the fight where you want it to be off cooldown. So yes, macro it in except for a fight like Spine.

Macro it in is such a weak answer, I bet I can get just as much uptime throughout a fight without macroing it to an ability, if not more uptime because I can use it smartly, not have trinket or racial proc'd while not being in melee range of the boss because that is a horrible way to handle the situation.

So yeah, like I said, just bind it to LL or SS. Much easier that way and it'll never get wasted

You guys are missing the point - You don't hit the trinket/racial manually to time it for a certain part of a fight, or to line it up with cooldowns, you hit it so you know with 100% certainty that you are going to be within melee range of SOMETHING for the entire duration. If you just macro it to an ability you run the risk of having a trinket/racial go off CD, you get one last SS or LL or whatever you macro it to on the monster and it dies. Then you are wasting your only cooldowns you really have because you went the 'easy' route.

The real deal is this: if you want to do it right hit it consciously, if you aren't interested in doing as much dps as you can macro it in. Hitting it consciously will help you learn the timing of the fights, and you'll be able to maximize your uptime. How I do it is basically pop it immediately, then every time off cooldown unless I won't have enough time on target to last the duration, then I wait til I'm on a new target before hitting it. Macro and forget, you will be handicapping yourself and there isn't any denying that.

Edit - then again I'm seeing this argument from the side of having an on-use trinket as well. Blood fury just by itself? I'm sure you can do whatever you want mates.

[waat]

I didn't say delay using trinket/ blood fury to sync with wolves. Wolves are a horribly weak cooldown. All I meant was if my trinket/racial are off cooldown the same time as wolves, I'll pop them before rather than at the same time because back in the day wolves took a 'snapshot' of your ap, or whatever. Also if you are going through the trouble to watch the cooldown to make sure you can hold alt to delay procing the trinket until when you will be able to take full advantage of the proc, why not just activate it manually? Why macro it to storm strike or LL to 'make it easy' or whatever your intention and then still do the same thing that is required to do it the right way - watch the cooldown, hit it as soon as the cooldown is up if you have the uptime on a target to make it 100%? To me holding down alt until you're ready for a stormstrike or LL to proc your trinket seems like more effort, and in a circumstance where you are trying to max uptime, what about waiting for SS/LL to come off cd, that's wasting trinket opportunity. I just don't understand?

Because I don't have to watch the cooldown for the vast majority of the time. I can just let it fire off when needed. When an arm tentacle is getting low HP, or when Hagara is approaching a frost/lightning phase, I take a look at the cooldown and if it's about to come up, I hold alt. It's MUCH less effort than using it manually all the time.

Macro it in is such a weak answer, I bet I can get just as much uptime throughout a fight without macroing it to an ability, if not more uptime because I can use it smartly, not have trinket or racial proc'd while not being in melee range of the boss because that is a horrible way to handle the situation.

No. See above.

You guys are missing the point - You don't hit the trinket/racial manually to time it for a certain part of a fight, or to line it up with cooldowns, you hit it so you know with 100% certainty that you are going to be within melee range of SOMETHING for the entire duration. If you just macro it to an ability you run the risk of having a trinket/racial go off CD, you get one last SS or LL or whatever you macro it to on the monster and it dies. Then you are wasting your only cooldowns you really have because you went the 'easy' route.

The real deal is this: if you want to do it right hit it consciously, if you aren't interested in doing as much dps as you can macro it in. Hitting it consciously will help you learn the timing of the fights, and you'll be able to maximize your uptime. How I do it is basically pop it immediately, then every time off cooldown unless I won't have enough time on target to last the duration, then I wait til I'm on a new target before hitting it. Macro and forget, you will be handicapping yourself and there isn't any denying that.

So you do it the exact same way I do, you just have to push more buttons to accomplish it.

Edit - then again I'm seeing this argument from the side of having an on-use trinket as well. Blood fury just by itself? I'm sure you can do whatever you want mates.

edit: Well I'm a draeni so I don't use bloodfury at all, but it's basically the same for my APS. I'm also an engineer so I'd have to use APS and tinker manually, which would be a monumental PITA.

[Deleted]

Macro it in is such a weak answer, I bet I can get just as much uptime throughout a fight without macroing it to an ability, if not more uptime because I can use it smartly, not have trinket or racial proc'd while not being in melee range of the boss because that is a horrible way to handle the situation.

I'm sorry, your the pro and you know best.

No honestly, the easiest answer is to macro it in and forget about it. Only to unmacro it on spine-like fights.

The day I let someone tell me I play my class wrong is the day the world ends

[Clogaline]

I don't have it bound to anything, but I always use it in conjunction with LL. Due to its 10s cooldown, and Blood Fury only have a 15s duration, you can fit 2 LL's in if you time it properly, but if you bind it to something else and it happens to come up at an odd time, you'll only get off one LL. My thoughts, anyway.

[NPSlow]

I'm also an engineer so I'd have to use APS and tinker manually, which would be a monumental PITA.

I'm starting to understand now.

Also, "playing your class wrong" is a little different from "using your cooldowns unwisely" but, if that's how you take it that's how you take it good sir. The real easy answer is this is the internet, and nobody is forcing you to take advice.