shamans
Latest
Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part III
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. We've come to a fork in our musical journey, where I'm going to start branching into genres and/or artists you might not have heard of (if you have, great, feel free to tell me what a giant douche I am for underestimating you). Today we'll be listening to one of my all-time favorite indie-folk tracks, Cold Cold Water, by Mirah. The Star Wars tribute video is a nice touch, if you're into that kind of thing (I am). Last time, we went over hunters, mages, and paladins. This week, we're going to round out the classes with the exception of rogues and warriors (they're not getting any high-impact PvP changes at all). We'll also talk about some cool glyphs and enchanting changes. Next week, we'll start doing stuff other than patch notes. I'd like us to throw around more opinion and less analysis. Read on to find out what's up in arena for priests, shamans, warlocks, enchanting and inscription in Patch 3.3!
Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax"
Ghostcrawler has put a significant sticky up on the forums about what he calls the "hybrid tax" in terms of PvE play -- there's been some back and forth lately on the forums about hybrid classes and what they should and shouldn't be able to do, and GC wants to put any confusion about what Blizzard intends "hybrids" to be to rest. Very basically, he says that there are three roles in the game (tanking, healing, and DPS), and if a class can respec to perform a different role, it's considered a hybrid class. Otherwise, it's a "pure" class. This means a few things: pure classes, he says, should have slightly higher DPS ("all things being equal," and when does that ever happen?), because they don't have the option to switch out. There's no rule as to how much better that is, but as a tradeoff of rerolling being the only way for "pures" to switch, they get to be a little better. That's the "hybrid tax," and mages, hunters, rogues, and warlocks don't have to pay it. Hybrids, however, do, and that means that paladins, druids, priests, shamans, and to a certain extent, warriors and death knights, will in Blizzard's view never be able to equal "pure" classes in terms of DPS output, with everything else being equal. You may love your ret pally, and he may be in uber gear, but he should never be able to pour out as much damage as an equally specced and geared hunter, because you can switch to healing, and the hunter can't.
Blood Sport: Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part II
In keeping with our musical theme, here's David Bowie's Changes. Most of you have probably heard it, but most of us have not really listened to it. Take some time to enjoy one of Bowie's most renowned pieces with the article today.Last time, I went over a few significant arena modifications that 3.2.2 brought us. Square pillars for line-of-sight, the armor penetration nerf, focus frames, flying in battlegrounds, and the Onyxia loot table can be found here.This article is going to talk about five of the nine classes discussed in the 3.2.2 patch notes (warlocks were left out). The reason we won't be talking about the other four is sheer article size. I'm not getting blamed for breaking anyone's scroll wheel today! We'll go over death knights, hunters, druids, and mages in the second part of this part II (which should be in a day or two).I'm giving analysis on class changes; I hope we will agree on most things, but if you disagree or decide I don't understand a mechanic properly, please let me know in the comments below. I read all your comments and am often stunned with how gracious our readers have been towards me. Thank you for all the kind words, those of you who took the time to write them!Please don't assume that I don't care if I don't write a large amount about the horrors of nerfing or the glories of buffing your main character's class (triple negative hooray). I probably don't know enough about the intricacies of the change to make an educated prediction, and would say little rather than proclaim "this will gimp class X vs. class Y" and have it fail to come to fruition.I'm going to be ignoring all non-pvp related notes. If you think I left something out, please post a comment below and I will (most likely) edit the post accordingly.Also, 3.3 patch notes are out already! Next week, part III will be merged with the 3.3 patch notes that are coming; there's a lot to talk about!So, without further ado, here's what 3.2.2 is cha-cha-cha-cha-changing in the arena world.
Patch 3.3 PTR: New totems for trolls
Now this is neat: brand-new totem artwork has been spotted on the patch 3.3 PTR for troll shamans by extremely excited tipster Zjin. Previously, all Horde shamans shared a totem design, and draenei got their own space-themed totems when they were added. The new troll ones look appropriately voodoo, I think. There are now at least three designs for the four different horde races; I wouldn't be surprised if orcs turned out to have their own as well. The current Horde totems fit tauren best of all the races. Once we here at WoW.com start making our way onto the PTRs, we'll bring you any more information we can find on possible new totems for the various races. In the mean time, I'll be in my bunk, doing designs for dwarf totems in my head. Update: yep, there are new Dwarf and Orc totems too.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shamans
Trust those sneaky folks at Blizzard to hit us with patch 3.3's PTR notes late in the day. So what do shamans have to look forward to? It's one change, essentially, but its a fairly big one. Shamans Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem. Talents Elemental Combat Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds. Basically, what we're looking at here is the long debated, long desired castable AoE shamans (especially caster shamans) have been looking for. With this change, not only will shamans be able to cast a pulsing AoE without sacrificing Flametongue Totem. But there's also some general changes that will have an impact on new shamans in the future.
Patch 3.2.2 changes for Shamans
No, technically they didn't just go ahead and let you race change your draenei shaman into a dwarf in patch 3.2.2. I guess Blizzard didn't get my letter. It's a shame, because I used glitter and star stickers and I drew a picture of a pink pony Frost Shocking a Rogue. Perhaps the graphic illustration on page 2 of the Rogue stun locking the pony to death wasn't to their taste. Ah well.Let's assume that the next letter with the pony ankhing and hitting him in the back with a Flame Shock will be well received. For pony! What are the changes to Shamans in patch 3.2.2 to discuss? Let us look, cannot we? (Space Mutiny voice off.) For the changes follow us behind the jump please.
The Queue: Panda-monium edition
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Michael Sacco will be your host today. Here's a Queue question straight from me to me: What do me and panda bears have in common? The answer is rings around our eyes, though I'm pretty sure that pandas have them genetically and not from staying up until seven in the morning watching Veronica Mars.But of course, what does that question have to do with The Queue? I could say "I guess you'll just have to read on! Excelsior!", or I could just tell you that it's because people asked about Pandarens today. Let's start off with some basic questions first, though.iamnotacarebear asked:The question i have is with this increase of running the heroics, is the red heroic drake going to be removed? I would hate to see this happen, but i wouldn't be surprised.Good question, IANACB!
New Shaman totem interface revealed
This was sketched in outline in the massive Shaman Q&A post that went live a while back, but now we have details on how they plan on redoing the Shaman totem interface for patch 3.2. Remember these are just plans, and things may change as the development of the patch progresses, but this is the current state of things. Shamans will get a new bar for their totems, above the main action bar, where other class-specific bars go, like Paladin auras or Druid shapeshift forms. You'll have a button for a totem of each element of your choice, a button for Totemic Call (renamed Call of Earth), and a button for a new ability, Call of Fire, that drops all four selected totems at once, in a single GCD (but for the full mana cost). You'll also be able to set your Call of Fire to summon less than four totems if you like. Call of Fire will be trained at the same level as Totemic Call currently is, 30. At "higher levels" (I'd guess 60 and 70, or so) you get Call of Air and Call of Water, which do exactly the same thing as Call of Fire, but you can load them up with different totems. This gives you three different quick-sets of totems you can drop in one keystroke. Well, shamans, what do you think? Is it everything you hoped for in a totem interface update? Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Totem Talk: Ulduar non-set mail part 2
This week, Totem Talk covers the mail options for 25 man Ulduar, and also presents reader screenshots! Since I'm not raiding Horde-side as much right now (Malfurion, I miss you, especially the fine folks in the Consummate Vees, one heck of a good group of people) I've been using my Draenei shammy for the screens, and after many comments demanding the return of horde shamans, I finally threw down the gauntlet and dared the readers to provide them if they missed them so much.Clearly, I had underestimaged your desire to see orcs, taurens and trolls back alongside this column. Well, far be it from me to stand in your way. Readers Chris Bell and Adam Brien both sent me good pictures of their orc shamans (this week we meet Adam's shaman) as did Claire Jones, whose tauren shaman will be featured after the cut just because I have a soft spot for tauren shamans. (Vishypants, you are remembered.) Now, don't take this to mean you'll never see a draenei screenshot here again, cause even if you don't like them I do. But if readers keep sending in those screenshots I guarantee some of them will make it to this column.Heck, it saves me having to remember to take a screenshot, after all.
Totem Talk: Ulduar non-set mail
And we're back to looking at Ulduar's gear drops for shamans. This week, I figured it was long past time to look at the various non-set mail drops from the instance, since we've covered rings, shields, weapons and emblem of conquest purchases already. I'm sure we'll need to take at least a couple of weeks to fit all the mail in the place, so we should get started right away.Again I remind horde shaman enthusiasts that I'm not raiding Ulduar on my orc, and if you want to see screenshots of an horde shaman up here, my email is matthew.rossi@wow.com - I'd be happy to use one or even many of them.I'm just simply not going to be able to raid Ulduar more than I already am.Onward to gear. As always, the usual disclaimers (not all gear has been found yet, things get changed, moved, etc etc) apply. We'll talk about Ulduar - 10 gear first and then Ulduar - 25 either after or in the next post.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Leatherworker
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-fourth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. At the outset of this series on how to roleplay one's professions, Leatherworking struck me as the most difficult profession to write about, even more than skinning, herbalism, or mining. This was in spite of (and in fact maybe because of) the fact that it was the first profession I ever chose in WoW. My very first character, who was a druid, wanted to choose leatherworking in order in order to make her own armor as well as prevent the dead bodies of all those animals she had to kill during her quests from going to waste. At that time I didn't know a whole lot about roleplaying, or how to play the game, and I knew even less about the background lore behind everything I was seeing. I originally roleplayed with my friends that my night elf had been born in Darnassus, only later to find out that would have made her about 3 years old -- a fact none of us had known, because WoW was our first exposure to the lore of Azeroth. This was actually my inspiration for writing these articles, so that our readers wouldn't have to go read pages and pages of books and websites or play old and (to me anyway) less enjoyable games.As I played the game more and more, the leatherworking armor seemed less and less useful and seemed more and more difficult to make. I also started imagining what skinning all those animals and then stitching together parts of their dead bodies would actually feel like, and suddenly I felt more like a kind of Dr. Frankenstein than a peaceful druid. It turns out, however, that I knew as little about leatherworking back then as I did about the game itself.
Totem Talk: Mystery DPS leak?
As I mentioned last week, they're hotfixing Lightning Overload: The chance for the Lightning Overload talent to be triggered is being increased from 7/13/20% to 11/22/33%. The reason this change is going live is a little more confusing. It's going live because elemental shaman DPS is low, but the developers can find no reason for it.I find this interesting because it's illustrative of the complexity of the game itself and also of the elemental shaman and the way the class interacts with others for its damage potential. We can assume that the damage loss moving from Naxxramas to Ulduar is real, because the developers are already hotfixing a change to compensate for it (something they have not done for other classes that have demonstrated DPS loss in Ulduar) and so we're left with something of a mystery. Why is elemental shaman DPS decreasing since patch 3.1?I won't pretend I know better than anyone else. If the people who work to predict and design these systems didn't see this one coming, and it's not due to an obvious nerf (which it's not) then it baffles me. But we can still muse about possible culprits. (By we, I really mean we here. I want to see what you guys think, because I have to admit, I cannot figure this out. I've looked at raid WWS for my guild and our elemental shaman does seem to be lower, but he and I discussed it and he has no more of a clue than I do. Since all my gear is resto, I offspec elemental but am by no means an expert yet.)
Totem Talk: Patch 3.1 Shaman Gear Part 4
One of the interesting things about new content is the transitional period as you clear the new bosses and start gearing up. Pictured alongside today's column is an illustration of that process, as Tier 7 blends into Tier 8 and Calamity's Grasp is paired with Vulmir. Myself, I've mostly been screaming "Why won't you drop" again, as I so often do (I have terrible loot luck) at various healing rings, trinkets, necks, and shields. Having recently healed my first 25 man since I switched from resto to elemental in SSC, I've also found that I hate spirit with a passion. Why there has been no effort to make spirit more useful for shamans as casters or healers, I can't tell you, because it's on every freaking thing. Yes, it helps on mana regeneration out of combat and if you can take five seconds in combat, but otherwise it's totally useless for shamans. Doesn't increase spell power or crit or do anything, really, just sits there like a less effective version of MP5. (And at least at my current gear and comfort level for healing, I don't spend a lot of time standing around not casting healing spells unless I'm forced to by the dreaded OOM.) Every time I see a healing weapon with spirit on it I want to go back in time and stab myself. I don't know what that would accomplish, exactly, but that's how much I hate spirit. I'd really like to see a talent in either mid-level elemental or restoration (resto would be better, and if it was fairly low in the tier elemental could pick it up too) that made spirit actually useful for shamans, but I'm not holding my breath.This is why I almost always wait for a shield instead of picking up a spell offhand.And now, on to our show, looking at the items that as of now we know about in Ulduar.
Totem Talk: 3.1 Shaman Gear Part 2
So it's been a heady week for us all. I was wrong about the patch dropping this week, and have since respecced my shaman resto in order to begin tackling Ulduar - 10 as a healer. Things I have learned healing in Ulduar - 10? I am not geared enough to heal in Ulduar yet. Razorscale likes to hit me with fireballs. Perhaps someone told him about my not being geared enough. Ignis likes to put me in his slag pot. See Razorscale. XT - 002 makes me the Gravity Bomb constantly. Overall it's been an interesting couple of days. Since I've been running the instance on two different toons and on two different levels (10 and 25 man) the whole thing seems to blur together in my head, but so far I'm enjoying Ulduar. XT - 002's voice alone was worth the price of admission. Sadly the instance has been very unstable (on Norgannon at least) so the four bosses in the entrance zone (the Colossal Forge, according to the teleporter) are the only ones I've gotten to see personally. I did get to float around for three hours with Chain Heal casting endlessly at one point, that was interesting in an extremely boring way. Last week we talked about 10 and 25 man tier gear in Ulduar. This week, we'll try and cover as much of everything else as we can. There's a lot to cover (and more all the time) so we'll just have to do the best we can, starting with the new Emblem of Conquest gear.
EU Arena Tournament standings posted in anticipation of phase 4
Vaneras has posted the latest EU Arena tournament rankings over on the forums (after the latest phase ended), and it looks like PMR has found their way back on top across the pond: Priest/Mage/Rogue teams have taken over the top three spots. The Death Knight/Paladin/DPS teams, formerly dominating, have fallen down to just two spots out of ten, and two Shamans have made an appearance, one partnered with a Druid and a Mage, and the other with a Lock and Hunter. Very interesting.We should see the US standings posted soon. You can see the rest of the EU teams in the big listing over on the Armory if you want. Phase 4 of the tournament, Vaneras says, will be an invitational, and will start next week on April 14th. Congrats to all of the winners so far, and good luck in the rest of the tourney!
Totem Talk: Patch 3.1 and Shamans - The PvP patch
So far, if you look at every PTR round up for shamans we've done here at WoW insider, you'll note that the changes are primarily aimed at PvP balance. There have been a few tweaks to resto aimed at mana regen (like Mana Spring going exclusive with Blessing of Wisdom) but in general, it's safe to say that 3.1 will be the shaman's PvP patch.The most recent PTR build has a confusing bug fix to Totem of Wrath (Okay, so it's not changing to 30 yards, because it was 30 yards anyway and now it will be the 40 yards the tooltip reads) and a nice buff to Storm, Earth and Fire. Each new tank reduces the cooldown on Chain Lightning, meaning that at max rank the six second cooldown will be reduced by 2.5 seconds. Combined with Lightning Mastery, you will be able to cast a Chain Lightning every 3 seconds. While shorter cast times are always good for PvP, this change will affect PvE just as much by giving shamans more casts of chain lightning during AoE pulls. It doesn't really match true AoE, not even with the glyph on, but it's something to add to dropping Fire Nova or Magma Totem. And unlike those, it won't cost you Totem of Wrath to use. There was also this nice discussion of Totem Stomper macros, which I call a nice discussion because it's blatantly in favor of destroying them and scattering their virtual ashes across the wide and bitter plains. So then, if we're patching shamans to be better in PvP, what then is the current status of the class therein? We know that the arena isn't actually setting many people's hearts afire lately, where do shamans fit into this decline? Well, actually, better than some folks... if you're resto, anyway.
Totem Talk: PTR Roundup
Well, my PTR transfers haven't gone through yet. I debated putting this column off until tomorrow in the hopes that they would have happened by then but the fear that they might not and I'd be late and still in the same boat caused me to decide to write about it today.We've talked about the most recent changes on the PTR here and here. As of right now these are the changes we're working from in terms of speculating about what the class will look like in 3.1. It's fairly clear that most of the changes are aimed either at shaman viability in PvP. I'm disappointed to see that Frozen Power, the talent aimed at giving shamans a snare/root in PvP is 25 points down the enhancement tree, but not surprised, as it seems to be aimed more at giving enhancement shamans an anti-kite than in giving other shamans a kiting ability.To be honest, none of these changes really makes me want to take an elemental or enhancement shaman into PvP. They're incremental improvements, changes that could in the future form the basis for something exciting for shamans (the new Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem has real potential, even though yes, it does use up your earth totem so that you can't be fear immune when you use it... this is and has always been a drawback of shamans in PvP and I don't think Blizzard is ever going to entirely remove it, although with Frozen Power you at least have a replacement for Earthbind) but at present it still feels somewhat unexciting. The way the changes affect PvE seems more positive, which is odd in a patch aimed at PvP tweaks for the class.
Totem Talk: And you will go forth with dual specs to conquer
First up, bad news: the Glyph of Windfury Weapon now does not add the additional attack power. You can panic now. This is bad enough that I'll be devoting all of next week's column to it.Dual specs are coming at long last! What will this mean for shamans? Shamans come in slightly behind other hybrids but are still capable of fulfilling two different DPS roles (melee or caster) as well as healing. What spec combinations can we expect to see? Which will be the most popular or the most in-demand? It's fairly easy to expect that shamans who raid at either the 10 or 25 man level (especially the 25) will be expected to have restoration as their dedicated off spec, especially now that unified spellpower means that they may well be able to heal reasonably well in elemental gear with a few changes.While enhancement gear isn't even close to as good for either elemental or restoration play, it's still likely that enhancement shamans who raid will be expected to choose restoration as their offspec, since in either case (elemental or enhancement main specs) shamans 'switching to benefit the raid' would most likely be asked to backup heal. However, it is possible to imagine an enhancement/elemental offspec for specific boss fights that are more suited to melee or ranged DPS: the shaman simply switches over to whichever spec allows him or her to contribute the most damage. Gear will of course be an issue.Let's look at some possibilities.
Totem Talk: Meantime
First off, Glyph of Windfury Weapon was reduced to 2% in patch 3.0.9. Now, I don't agree with the logic that this makes Windfury useless and we should all get caster mainhands, so don't even bother trotting that one out. But it is a nerf, and a fairly sizeable one. (Edited to add: yes, I do agree it's a big nerf. But please, let's take a deep breath, run some parses over the next couple of weeks, see if the AP that seems to be there is going to be hotfixed out, and then we can all freak out. I'd just say this in the comments but I'm having some bugs with that. I agree that it's a big nerf.)With last week's announcement of some incoming changes to shamans in patch 3.1 following hard upon 3.0.8 and the substantial changes to elemental shamans therein, I started to get philosophical about the shaman class. Why is it so hard to balance? Why does designing the shaman class seem to lurch about from patch to patch like a stop motion creature from a 1950's monster movie? (Ah, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, you'd be the shaman of Daikaiju, if you were a daikaiju which you only can be said to be in the most tangential of senses.) Other hybrids rolled into Wrath of the Lich King looking sharp. Paladins effectively rolled up in a pumpkin coach wearing glass slippers thanks to some fairy godmother or another at Blizzard who shined them up nicely. (Okay, maybe holy got stuck as one of the mice pulling the thing.) Druids have been more uneven, but for a class with such variety of roles (if you view Hybrids in WoW by what roles they can fill, Druids are clearly the most hybrid, being capable of filling tanking, healing, and both ranges and melee DPS roles) they didn't come off too badly.
Tips from the manual
Guynumber from Area 52 brings up a good point: why did Blizzard even bother putting game information in their original manual? Surely, they must have known that they'd be changing the game quickly, and while of course they'd have had no more idea than we had that some things so big would change (no ammunition, anyone?), they could have at least kept in mind that patches were coming.Curious, I pulled out my old original manual. Here's some tips straight from the original release of World of Warcraft, when Magister's Terrace was a twinkle in a dev's eye, and Icecrown was just a level in Warcraft III, that aren't applicable any more: Pallies are only available to Alliance races and Shamans are Horde only. As Guymember points out, the manual says you will lose significant experience on death (but not so much as to lose a level). Only the Priests, Shamans and Paladins have resurrection spells. Attack Rating increases your chance of hitting a target with a weapon. As a first level priest, your maximum skill level in holy magic is five. As you cast holy spells, your holy skill will max out until you level up and the cap increases.
