elemental-shaman-tier-12
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Totem Talk: Elemental shaman in patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.) This is it, guys: This is officially the last Totem Talk for elemental shaman I will write before patch 4.3 hits live servers. It might be this Tuesday, or it might be the sixth of December. Whichever it is, it's pretty definite we'll be seeing Dragon Soul within the next 10 days, barring a natural disaster, an alien invasion, or Mike Morhaime's changing his mind, of course. Elemental is going through a few significant changes in 4.3. Our AoE will be totally revamped; we'll be dropping Fire Nova from our AoE rotation entirely. Instead, we'll be falling back on spamming the now cooldown-less Chain Lightning. Also, we'll possibly drop Earthquake, but only if we can guarantee the mobs don't move for 10 seconds. Ground-based AoEs are still very unreliable AoE damage.
Totem Talk: Elemental tier 12 nerfed on the PTR
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.) As I sit writing this, there's a huge storm raging outside my house. Thunderstorm's customary 45-second cooldown isn't in effect, and there's so much lightning flashing it's sort of like Pikachus are having a Pokemon battle in the sky. Oh, and there's rain, too. Not the nice, healing kind that you like to stand in, either. I'm thinking this storm might be the response of elemental shaman everywhere to today's latest 4.3 changes, when this gem was found on the PTR. (Please note: This isn't reflected in Blizzard's official patch notes yet, but the change is up on test realms.) Your damaging spells have a 30% chance to reduce the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 sec. source Yeah, that happened. We kind of had a feeling it would, since the T12 set bonus is so ridiculously good -- like, it's so good that if it were a cake or any other form of dessert, it would give you diabetes just from looking at it. My earliest estimates of the set bonus said it was something like a 3,000 DPS increase. By BIS heroic gear, it's more like a 6,000 DPS increase from a single set bonus. For gear balance issues, that bonus was too good. Blizzard generally intends set bonuses to be within the ballpark of 5% DPS increases. This was more like 15% to 20%.
Totem Talk: Analyzing DPS shaman tier 13 set bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.) If you haven't been living under a rock for the past week, you're probably aware that tier 13 bonuses have been revealed. You might have read about them here on Wow Insider. You might have heard your friendly neighborhood boomkin bemoaning his bonuses on Twitter. You might even have caught guild members accusing each other of being overpowered months before 4.3 hits live servers. At any rate, regardless of how you heard about them, tier bonuses are here, and tier 13 offers some interesting bonuses for both specs of DPS shaman. Elemental, 2P -- Elemental Mastery also grants you 2000 mastery rating 15 sec. Elemental, 4P -- Each time Elemental Overload triggers, you gain 200 haste rating for 4 sec, stacking up to 3 times. Enhancement, 2P -- While you have any stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and healing spells deal 20% more healing or damage. Enhancement, 4P -- Your Feral Spirits have a 45% chance to grant you a charge of Maelstrom Weapon each time they deal damage. source
Totem Talk: How to level your elemental shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once only tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all shaman DPS specs. (And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back.) With the introduction of Blizzard's new free trial system, the number of low-level characters playing World of Warcraft has drastically risen. Whether it is established players creating alternate characters on new accounts, past players trying to decide if they want to return to the game, or persons who have never played WoW (or any video game!) before, Blizzard has made it both easy and appealing to start a new character. At WoW Insider, we're aware of how scary it can be to start a character in the World of Warcraft. With tons of abilities, four equipment types, 12 races, and 10 classes with three talent trees each, WoW can be a confusing and intimidating game to start out. Fortunately, I'm going to help by alleviating some of the weight on your shoulders and help make your decision for you: roll a tauren elemental shaman. You'll look awesome, and then you can follow this handy elemental shaman leveling guide! It's a win/win situation.
Totem Talk: Fixing the Fire Elemental problem
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Josh Myers once tackled the hard questions about enhancement but has recently expanded his sphere of responsibility to all DPS specs for shaman. And no, two-handed enhancement is still never coming back. Imagine you have a friend. This isn't any normal friend, but a friend that you really, really, really want to get interested in World of Warcraft. To this end, you have the brilliant plan that if you let him raid on your character, he'll be so taken by the experience that he'll be level 85 within a week. Naturally, this goes badly. Recount shows your character below the tanks every attempt, as your friend spends half the fight attacking the wrong target and the other half of the fight attacking nothing at all. Of course, that's only on the fights where he manages to stay alive, which is one in 10 attempts. Now, imagine that in order to do your maximum DPS, you have to let that friend raid with you every single fight. If you choose not to allow that friend to raid, you'll lose about 3,000 potential DPS. However, if you choose to let him raid, you run the risk of his dying, attacking the wrong target, or standing in the center of the room while he mentally alt-tabs. Welcome to playing an elemental shaman.
