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Totem Talk: Understanding your enhancement weapon imbues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and I have no idea about the third. In a recent thread on the shaman forums, I got called out. Not in any terrible "you're the worst enhancement shaman in the world and you hate your mother!" sort of way, but I got told I haven't done a good enough job explaining why we use the weapon imbues that we do. There's some definite truth to that; in the past, I've advocated Flametongue/Flametongue setups over Windfury/Flametongue without ever explaining why they're better, just that they are. With that in mind, I'm changing things up this week. Part of this is because I want to address a concern brought to me by a reader; part of it is because I've been 11/12 in raid content for over a month and don't want to do a raid strategy guide until we actually kill Nefarian (who is a really, really big jerk). The third part of it is because imbues are one of the most integral parts of playing a shaman and one of our real definitive features as a class. Understanding them is crucial to understanding the class as a whole!
WWI '08 Panel: Shaman
Holy moly, Shamans got a ton of stuff they wanted and then some today at the WoW Dev Panel during WWI '08 today. Shaman CC! Hex, previously the domain of NPCs only, was confirmed as a Shaman spell -- it'll have a quick 1.5 second cast, and will turn your enemy into a frog for about 8-10 seconds. The frogged person will still be able to move around, but they won't be able to attack or cast spells. A 1 minute cooldown was mentioned, but that's in opposition to the purpose of the spell, which is supposed to be emergency only, so that may change. The devs mentioned that Shaman were suffering from "Totem spam," so a few totems will be combined -- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will become the same totem, and the physical school news was re-confirmed. Perhaps the biggest Shaman complaint since launch was answered: Shaman totems will now affect the whole raid, not just the local group. That's a big one. Weapon enchants are being revamped for more utility. Rockbiter is out completely, and Earthliving is replacing it -- it will give a +Healing buff. Flametongue will give spell damage, and Frostbrand will "more reliably snare" opponents. A lot of Shaman concerns were answered today for sure, though perhaps not in the way players might have wanted. Will a 10 second CC be enough? It's great that totems affect the raid now, but will their range be extended to reach all of those people?All of this information is still up in the air, of course, but it's awesome to finally see some official news on where classes are headed for Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned for more Wrath information, as well as any other WoW news we hear coming out of WWI.
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Another class issue post gets a blue response
After Druids got a blue's attention last week with a well-written class issues list, the Shaman have done the same. Danemoth of Blade's Edge server has posted a short, concise list of Shaman issues. And already got a blue response. The response was just a tag by a CM, but it shows they are listening.Here is a summary:1) Shaman specs outside of Restoration lack survivability. 2) No pushback resistance for Lightning Spells put a hamper on solo grinding / farming as well as in PvP. 3) Totems immobility and short range need to be buffed. 4) Other classes got new skills/spells in TBC that changed their playstyle, Shamans did not.5) Enhancement shaman lack significant ranged combat abilities as well a way to chase down fleeing opponents.6) Threat management is a bigger issue than ever with the TBC talents boosting shaman dps.7) Shaman have issues handling an assist train. (When someone gets zerged by multiple opponents).8) Lack of a way to deal with other classes' crowd control abilities put shaman at a distinct disadvantage in PvP.9) Off-spec Shaman itemization is poor in Karazhan and beyond.10) Flametongue and Frostbrand Weapon both scale poorly. 11) Windfury and Stormstrike demand the shaman using the slowest weapon for maximum dps gain, but that concept is counter to the weapon normalization introduced in patch 1.8.12) Shamans need more control over their fire-and-forget Totems to direct them at a specific target or to stop them from breaking cc.13) The large global cool down associated with dropping four Totems in combat makes it difficult for the Shaman to be responsive to changes in combat. Read the whole list through the link. If I've misinterpreted something, list it below.
