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The Wrath of the Shaman Part 4: New Talent Build and Inscription, too

Matthew Rossi
Updated ·6 min read


The fine folks at MMO Champion have found a heaping helping of, among other things, shaman glyphs for the new inscription profession in the latest beta build. As juicy as that is, there's far more of interest: deep elemental got heavily worked over, with enhancement and restoration seeing some changes too.

A whole lot of Wrath of the Lich King content after the jump.



First off, the new talent changes.

  • Eye of the Storm (Tier 4) changed to give you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and Hex spells.

  • Totem of Wrath (Tier 9) increases the damage done by spells and effects by 6% and increases the chance strike chance of spells and effects by by 3%. (Previously increased hit chance by 3%)

  • Paralysis (Tier 9) Removed. It has been replaced with Lava Flows (Tier 9) which increases the amount of bonus spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by an additional 20/40/60%, and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 6/12/24%.

  • Storm, Earth, and Fire's (Tier 11) Frost Shock element has been removed. It's been changed to increase the damage of your Lightning Bolt spell by an amount equal to 5/10/15/20/25% of your spell power. (Frost Shock Removed from this talent)


Okay, this a very good change to Eye of the Storm. Rather than 100% chance to avoid spell pushback if you're the victim of a critical hit and no other benefit if you're not, say, being critically hit, it now just gives you a flat 77% chance to reduce spell pushback at all times. I can't say I can think of a single reason why I wouldn't prefer the new version.

Totem of Wrath now increases spell damage as well as crit chance. That's good, but I'm concerned about the loss of hit, especially since shamans have also lost hit from restoration in beta. You'll now clearly want to drop your Totem of Wrath and let someone else drop Flametongue.

Say goodbye to Paralysis and hello to Lava Flows. You'll lose the bonus spell damage effect on your LB and Chain Lightning, but get more overall spell damage from applying Flametongue Weapon to your caster weapon, and you'll get more critical damage out of each Lava Burst spell, making elemental shamans more rounded casters. I'm not entirely sold on it yet, but I'm hopeful. Must grind levels in beta! Patch, why won't you download faster!?

Finally, Storm, Earth and Fire loses the snare bonus. But the bonus damage increase for lightning bolt is good for any of us fretting about how our damage will be now that they've reduced the coefficient on those spells for WotLK. I think this is a very good change.

Now we'll take a look at glyphs. Reposting all of them here for your browsing convenience:

  • Glyph - Water Shield 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Water Shield has 3 additional charges.

  • Glyph - Chain Heal 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target.

  • Glyph - Lesser Healing Wave 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.

  • Glyph - Earthliving Weapon 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.

  • Glyph - Healing Wave 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.

  • Glyph - Mana Tide 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Mana Tide Totem grants an additional 1% of each target's maximum mana each time it pulses.

  • Glyph - Earth Shock 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Earth Shock ability by 1 sec.

  • Glyph - Frost Shock 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.

  • Glyph - Strength of Earth 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Strength of Earth Totem also grants 1% melee and ranged critical strike chance.

  • Glyph - Windfury Weapon 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.

  • Glyph - Stormstrike 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the nature damage bonus from your Stormstrike ability by an additional 8%.

  • Glyph - Flame Shock 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the range on your Flame Shock ability by 10 yards.

  • Glyph - Lighnting Shield 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the damage from Lightning Shield by 20%.

  • Glyph - Chain Lightning 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Chain Lightning strikes 1 additional target.

  • Glyph - Fire Nova Totem 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the radius of Fire Nova Totem's effect by 2 yards.

  • Glyph - Flametongue Weapon 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases spell critical strike chance by 2% while Flametongue Weapon is active.

  • Glyph - Totem of Wrath 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Totem of Wrath also grants 1% spell haste.

  • Glyph - Lightning Bolt 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Reduces the cost of your Lightning Bolt ability by -10%.

  • Glyph - Earth Elemental Totem 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Reduces the cooldown of your Earth Elemental Totem by 3 min.

  • Glyph - Fire Elemental Totem 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 3 min.

  • Glyph - Healing Stream Totem 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Healing Stream Totem heals for an additional 20%.


Okay, all I have to say is holy cats. Well, no, I have more to say, but still. Holy flying cats.

That Frost Shock glyph, the Windfury Weapon one, the Flametongue Weapon one... reducing cooldown on the elemental totems by three minutes is nice, but man, it pales in comparison to things like SoE giving 1% additional critical strike chance, or the global cooldown (yes, global, not ability) trigged by ES by a whole second! A second off of GCD! Six changes on Water Shield! Four people healed per Chain Heal! Totem of Wrath also granting 1% spell haste (which will, presumably, stack with Wrath of Air's Spell Haste).

I'm just floored by the power and utility of some of these inscriptions. As we yet don't know how available these inscriptions will be, who will be able to do them, or how many you can have, all I can say for now is that the potential is absolutely mindblowing. This could be a level of customization previously unheard of in any class.

So there you have it: more shaman news than you can shake a stick at. If you're that kind of person. Personally, I just drive four sticks into the ground.