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Warlords of Draenor Alpha: Feral Spirit and Ghost Wolf changes
I was reading the various Blizzard press sites (as you do) when I came across this article from Alexandra Meurling about shaman ghost wolf form. I decided I needed to check that bad boy out, and soon discovered that yes, it's absolutely true, and it's not just limited to ghost wolf either. Also affected is the shaman ability Feral Spirit. You can see the upgraded wolves above. I'm not entirely sure why my shaman felt the need to sniff the dirt in every single screenshot I got of him, but yes, both the Ghost Wolf and Feral Spirit wolves are definitely a big upgrade. I'm definitely interested in running around on my shaman for Warlords, I can tell you that.
Totem Talk: A feast of enhancement macros
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Rich Maloy lives and breathes enhancement; his main spec is enhance, and his off spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance and leads the guild Big Crits (Season 2 Ep 05 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. This week, I was hoping to provide a thorough analysis of the new and questionably improved (though most definitely changed) enhancement shaman DPS in patch 4.0.1. Unfortunately, I ended up missing raid on Tuesday and so missed our 11/12 ICC hard mode power clear and have very limited data to analyze. I know you're right there with me when I say it is quite disconcerting to have gaps in our normal frenzied button mashing activities. The long, lonely periods of two or three global cooldowns where we have nothing to do but hope for that fifth Maelstrom Weapon proc, while idly staring at our keys with the strange feeling that we're doing something wrong. Fret not, young shammy. It is the way of the enhancement right now; we will have periods of non-mashing where we can take a deep breath and enjoy the forthcoming five-stack of searing enabled Lava Lash crit. In last week's article I alluded to a macro that combines Magma Totem and Fire Nova into one button, and there were some comments about it. I'm a big macro user; in fact, I have all my macro slots filled up on Stoney and my druid, Finn. I think it's about time I divulged the treasure trove of macros I've accumulated over the years.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR: Shaman glyph and undocumented changes
So in the cold light of day we have yet more changes than the PTR notes indicated for our beloved shamans. Both glyphs and general changes need to be discussed, and so I drag my exhausted hinder forth to dig through the vast and sprawling PTR hoopla to determine what is up for the totem dropping set. What's good, what's bad, what's head scratchingly confusing? We talked about shaman class changes in the PTR notes early this morning, so we'll start there, because it's short. Fire Nova Totem's mana cost has been reduced. Everything else was covered in the original patch notes, so... yeah. Fire Noval Totem costs less. It's still a fire totem, so elemental shamans will have to decide between it and Totem of Wrath. But at least the decision to drop one and lose the benefits of Totem of Wrath will cost you less mana.Luckily, we have quite a few glyphs to discuss as well. Let's talk about those.
Totem Talk: Back to Enhancement
Before last week, I had assumed that folks were tired of hearing me talk about enhancement as a spec. I've been focusing more on elemental because in the past I've seen a lot of comments complaining that elemental was getting short shrift from me, and also because I found the way it had been released with Wrath to be worth discussing. Frankly, elemental now is a lot more fun and pushes more DPS than it had pre-3.0.8 and I was enjoying playing with the spec.Well, in the comments to last weeks post you informed me that, in fact, I haven't been talking about enhancement enough. At this point I put my head down and I began silently to weep. Then great, wracking sobs, followed by a scream to the heavens. Enhancement, enhancement, why have you forsaken me!?I didn't, dumbass, I'm still right over here, you even have all the gear in your bags, just respec and we can go stormstrike things to death.So yeah, I've respecced enhancement on my draenei. Never fear, orc boosters, I've started leveling my orc again and I'm aiming him at resto/elemental when dual specs come out. Since that bloody fist weapon in CoT won't drop for me, I had my warrior make up a Titansteel Bonecrusher for the MH and we're off to the races. Well, okay, these particular races involve hitting things in the back and setting them on fire a lot.
More leaks from the Alpha forums on Shamans, Warriors, and Death Knights
Deathknight.info has just posted another batch of info from the Alpha forums, this time with Wryxian and Slorkuz talking about Shamans, Warriors, and Death Knights. Primarily, they focus on the tanking abilities of Death Knights and Warriors and delve into some possible improvements to the Shaman Enhancement tree in WoTLK, including possible new talents: Shamans Enhancement Shamans, says Wryxian, will probably see further review. It looks like a lot of the new Enhancement talents will see some changes as well: Weapon Specialization (which gives special abilities based on which weapon type the Shaman uses) will likely be removed Improved Shamanistic Rage (which made Shamans using SR immune to all movement impairing effects and stuns at 2 points) will also probably be removed. Wryxian mentioned a possible replacement for Weapon Specialization: Each melee critical hit would give a stacking buff that reduces cast time by 20% and lasts for 15 seconds. That would mean that at 5 stacks, you'd get a free instant cast spell. Feral Spirit, the 51 point enhancement ability that summons ghost wolves to aid the Shaman, may be getting a second look as well. For Enhancement DPS, they hope that totems and shocks make up for the lack of melee abilities to keep it interesting, though they may consider a new melee move for Shamans as well. In addition, he promises new totem changes soon. Read on for some juicy information on Warriors, Death Knights, and Blizzard's vision for tanking in WoTLK.
