Any other shamans notice how bad the AI is on Searing Totem? I recall a few attempts on Nefarian that I had to replant the totem because it simply
would not attack. I believe it was usually in the beginning on Onyxia.
That reminded me of a conundrum that I've been beset with for a bit... the GCD on Call of the Elements vs a totem's 1s GCD. I could have sworn that I heard CotE had a 1.5s GCD, but I couldn't find
anything to tell me. So I went through and FRAPS'd a video of me dropping the multiple totems and using VirtualDub, I could compare the milliseconds easily between when the GCD started and ended. It's definitely 1.5s :\. That means I've been hampering my DPS slightly by being lazy and hitting ALT+2 instead of 6.
Grats on the Nef kill.
That fight discourages melee to even be in the room which is pathetic. Some of the mechanics are just stupid.
I did see a strat where a guild used one tank, three healers and six dps. We have been going with two tanks, two healers and six dps.
Not sure if you mean Cho'gall or Nefarian, but the only disadvantage that we have on Nefarian is phase 2. We decided to use one crackle during phase 2 to help lower the amount of time we'd spend kiting during phase 3, because it seemed that the more time we spent... the harder it became (less CDs available as you end up using them all, etc). Well, you'll notice on the chart for the kill, that my DPS went incredibly low (~4-5k) at one point and stayed there for awhile. That was actually during phase 2 after the mob on my pillar was dead. I could only use Lightning Bolt and Unleash Elements on Nefarian :\.
With Cho'gall, the problematic part with melee is probably phase 2 with the eye stalks. There's a huge advantage to not having breaks in DPS and melee having to move around is never great. If the ranged is close enough, a simple switch in target is sufficient.