heroism

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  • Give Bloodlust to Rogues

    by 
    Eliah Hecht
    Eliah Hecht
    05.05.2009

    The idea behind "Bring the player, not the class" is that raid stacking shouldn't be as big of a deal as it was during, oh, say, Sunwell. For each buff and debuff, we have a few different classes that can provide it, so raid leaders don't have to go too far out of their way to get good coverage. However, what single buff was the biggest factor causing guilds to stack a particular class in Sunwell? Ten points if you said "Bloodlust/Heroism." And that is, irritatingly enough, one of the few remaining buffs that no other class has; if you want Bloodlust, you need a shaman, period.

  • Loot, rationality, and the Sunwell effect

    by 
    Allison Robert
    Allison Robert
    04.24.2009

    Here at WoW Insider we don't always agree with each other. Whether it's debating the merits of various tanks on different encounters, the damage difference between pure and hybrid DPS classes, the ideal function of a particular healing class in raids, or the superiority of cake over pie, our back-channel discussion tends to be pretty interesting.Eliah Hecht's article "25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear" sparked a lot of great discussion with our readers and, I think, some illuminating poll results as well. The majority of responders believed that giving 10-man and 25-man raids the same loot table would result in a significant drop in popularity for 25-man raiding. Overall, I tend to agree with this, but I also think that Eliah touched on something that speaks to Blizzard's evolving sense of game design, much of which is evident in the transition between late Burning Crusade and Wrath. I would like to call this the Sunwell effect, or "ingame rationality." To wit: don't incentivize players to behave in a manner contrary to your actual design interests. I believe this played a huge role in the differences between BC and Wrath raiding, and that it underlies why the 25-man loot table has to remain superior to its 10-man counterpart.

  • The OverAchiever: Glory of the Hero, Continued

    by 
    Allison Robert
    Allison Robert
    04.23.2009

    No one's kiling any folk here today, on account of we got a really tight schedule. -- Mal, "Trash." Seemed to have some good luck with a previous Firefly quote, so why not? We're all set in Ahn'kahet, so let's pop over to Azjol-Nerub and lay waste to some bosses there.AZJOL-NERUBEvery achievement here is, in one way or another, a DPS race. If you've had difficulty with previous achievements in that vein or your DPS is still gearing up, you'll probably want to steer clear of Azjol for a while.Watch Him DieThis is one of the few achievements in the game most efficiently done from a kamikaze perspective (Sarth-10 3D is the most notable of the other picks). Early attempts at this with two tanks, two DPS, and one healer failed miserably, mostly due to the combination of poisons, a Priest healer, and Watcher Narjil's Blinding Webs ability. I'll admit I tried that before anything good dropped from Naxx, so it may just have been a gear issue at the time, but:a). If you have very good DPS, and:b). If you're willing to suffer a repair bill -- you can probably get this achievement in one or two tries without worrying about keeping all three Watchers tanked, bringing an off-tank, or risking a DPS having to kite all three to the entrance.

  • The OverAchiever: Starting Glory of the Hero

    by 
    Allison Robert
    Allison Robert
    04.19.2009

    Time for some thrilling heroics. -- Jayne, "The Train Job" When I look at the Dalaran landing pad, I see fewer red proto-drakes than I should be. This pains me, dear readers. The 5-man heroic achievements are a lot of fun, if admittedly time consuming, and they force you to think on your feet and wring the most out of your character's abilities. Plus - it's a proto-drake. If you didn't get a 10-man or 25-man drake before 3.1 hit, you're out of luck there. Odds are good that you're still waiting for a green one to hatch out of the worthless egg that snake-oil salesman from the Oracles sells you, some jerk is camping the Time-Lost spawn 24/7, and the worst DPS in your Pinnacle PuG was the guy who won the blue drake off of Skadi, right right?A lot of the WoW population has been at 80 for a while now and has some quality gear under their belts, much of it obtainable without setting foot in a raid. You should be able to pull off all of the 5-man heroic achievements in decent blues with a good group. I highly recommend trying to run with a stable set of players and -- if at all possible -- at least one Shaman. This is more true if your group is still gearing up and needs the damage boost provided by Bloodlust/Heroism.I thought initially about organizing these from the easiest to the hardest, but I think it's ultimately less confusing to list them dungeon by dungeon. We'll address each dungeon alphabetically, so let's get started with Ahn'kahet:

  • The Queue: Glory of the Hero

    by 
    Alex Ziebart
    Alex Ziebart
    03.24.2009

    Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hey, everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to remind all of you that Adam and I are not the same entity, even if we both have A names and contribute to the same column. There's been a lot of confusion over the last year, so let me repeat: Adam Holisky and Alex Ziebart are two different people. Adam is not Alex, Alex is not Adam. And when you throw Allison into the mix, Allison is neither Adam nor Alex and they are not she. Are we on the same page here? Great.Herumor asked... "As things are now without the Maelstrom, is there any point to adding the upcoming water mounts without a large water based area? I don't really see a use for them other than showing off, and even that's kind of difficult to do."

  • The Queue: Ziebart vs Sacco

    by 
    Adam Holisky
    Adam Holisky
    03.05.2009

    Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.Sometimes late at night when the sun is down and the moon is up, the writers at WoW Insider sit around the campfire and talk about things. Weird things. Like owning a pet snake and cat at the same time (Sacco), or how putting together a desk can be a pain (Alex). More and more often these days there has been a little friendly feud going on between Alex and Sacco. You can read their little quips at each other over a few posts. So today in the Queue I want to ask you: who would win in a writer cage match? Alex Ziebart or Mike Sacco? %Poll-27017% Also, I'd like to thank all of you who left questions not about the crazy delicious Hawaiian Pizza yesterday. You gave me something to work with!Blinger asked..."Will the emblems of Heroism be really useless now? If there is no more badge gear I need, have plenty of Frozen Orbs I can throw a stick at, is there going to be any point in me ever doing the current Wrath heroics again other than just to help out mates all of which are in the same boat anyway? Or will it be likely that there will be some form of Heroism to Valor exchange?"

  • WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shaman changes

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    02.24.2009

    Well, there's some interesting new stuff happening in the latest patch notes for the 3.1 PTR. Like what, you ask? Well, here's a sample from what's coming for enhancement: New Talent: Frozen Power: Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you. Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks. Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 sec. And that's hardly all, folks. Let's take a look at the complete list of changes and discuss them behind the jump.

  • Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler

    by 
    Daniel Whitcomb
    Daniel Whitcomb
    01.31.2009

    One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring. Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your raid is probably going to want to find a Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin, or Survival Hunter if they haven't already.

  • Raids rebalanced for Patch 3.0.2

    by 
    Alex Ziebart
    Alex Ziebart
    10.01.2008

    As of last night's beta (and PTR) patch, players have been reporting that mob health throughout all of the Burning Crusade raid zones have been reduced by up to 30%. That struck me as really, really odd, so I decided to pop into Sunwell Plateau and Black Temple to take a look. It is, in fact, completely true. Every mob and boss that I could see in both zones (and I could see a lot- Mind Vision hopping through raids for the win) had their HP drastically reduced.My gut instinct was, "Ugh, why are they nerfing everything so badly? That's ridiculous. Just because it's the end of the expansion doesn't mean they need to make it easy mode for us." Then I actually thought (gasp!) about it for a little bit. Looking at the changes coming in Patch 3.0.2, this was a change they needed to make to let us still raid until Wrath. A lot of encounters probably became impossible to beat as they were with those changes, Sunwell Plateau especially. Sunwell was designed with all of the insanely OP stuff players were doing to win in mind. Stacking Shadow Priests for mana regen, stacking Shaman to chain-cast Heroism/Bloodlust, half the raid going Leatherworking for Drums, yadda yadda.

  • PvE winners and losers in patch 3.0

    by 
    Allison Robert
    Allison Robert
    09.14.2008

    I'm putting together a class-by-class prediction post on how the changes we'll see in patch 3.0 and beyond will wind up affecting PvE gameplay in Wrath, but it's probably a bit premature to make specific guesses while talents and skills are still being overhauled in the beta. Still, I think a few general trends (at least for 3.0) are pretty clear.I'm calling it now; Paladins will fare best, but Shamans will be the hardest hit by the upcoming changes, especially with respect to raiding. I think this change is driven in no small part by Blizzard's realization that Sunwell-level raid guilds are hugely dependent on the party-specific buffs like totems and Heroism/Bloodlust that Shamans bring. The problem is that Shamans are still the least-played class, which has left raiding guilds desperate for a high-end population of Shamans that simply does not exist (especially Alliance-side). Making Shaman totems and Heroism/Bloodlust buff the entire raid (but heavily nerfing how often the raid can benefit from the latter) means the days of stacking Shamans (or trying to) are effectively over.Paladin changes, especially for holy and retribution, are equally driven by Blizzard's experience with Sunwell. With absolutely breathtaking amounts of raid damage occurring, encounters were disproportionately weighted in favor of: a). healers with more raid-healing capacity, like resto Shamans and CoH Priests (something we heard from SK Gaming months ago) and b). DPS who brought raid-wide DPS buffs to kill the boss as fast as possible (e.g. Retribution Paladins on Brutallus and M'uru). Given the new skills I'm seeing on other healing specs, I'll make another prediction; prepare to see that same level of raid damage rear its ugly head in Naxxramas again.I'll be launching a more extensive prediction post once talents and skills are finalized for Wrath, and then I'd like to do a follow-up post at some point after guilds start conquering level 80 raid content to see whether they were any good.

  • Totem Talk: The future, shaman?

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    07.17.2008

    Welcome back to Totem Talk. Last week I said we're talk about pre-Kara cloth and leather gear for shamans. So of course, being my usual distracted, scatterbrained self, I've spent the entire week poondering and fretting about completely unrelated issues like shaman stacking for 25 man raids, the future of the shaman class when totems go raid-wide in Wrath, shamans in PvP and other such issues facing the class.The cloth and leather discussion is still important (the comment thread from last week was very active, which I always take as a sign that you guys want to talk about it) and so I want to give it the detail it deserves. I think at this point it should go beyond Karazhan and into drops in ZA, SSC, TK with an eye towards gearing your shaman for Hyjal Summit and Black Temple. Which means I should also expand on a basic gear guide for what drops you'd want to get BT/Hyjal ready for all shaman specs, and that's going to take a few columns to do properly. I'm aiming to start that next week, unless you guys leave a lot of comments telling me you're totally uninterested.So first let's talk about PvP, or at least my recent experiences with it, and then we'll talk about Shaman Stacking..

  • SK Gaming interview: Kil'jaeden, Sunwell, and why to stack +haste

    by 
    Allison Robert
    Allison Robert
    06.03.2008

    var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_Insider_interviews_top_World_of_Warcraft_raider'; Recently WoW Insider caught up with Neg, a restoration-specced Orc Shaman who raided with Nihilum before leaving recently for SK Gaming. An experienced player who has seen all of Blizzard's raid content, from Molten Core through Sunwell Plateau, Neg's talked to us previously about high-end raiding and what Sunwell was like on the PTR. As he's become one of a small group of raiders worldwide to finish the whole zone, we've asked him some follow-up questions about guild stability during the transition to Wrath, what Sunwell was like going live, why there are so many Shaman nowadays in high-end raiding, and the best and worst raid content on offer in WoW.If you didn't catch our first interview with Neg, you can find that here, but read on for an inside look at the toughest raiding you'll find in the game:

  • 15 Minutes of Fame: Arena team Smites its way to the top

    by 
    Lisa Poisso
    Lisa Poisso
    05.13.2008

    15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous, the remarkable and the player-next-door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about at 15minutesoffame (at) wowinsider (dot) com.Meet 5v5 Arena team M L H of Argent Dawn, ranked 7th in the Ruin battlegroup when we spoke with them recently and holding strong this week at 12th with a team rating of 2340. M L H's claim to fame: they are currently the highest-ranked 5v5 team that includes a Smite Priest. The core of this chilled-but-skilled team is a Boomkin Druid, and their secret to their success is the savvy deployment of four healing-capable DPS classes. In this lengthy interview, 15 Minutes of Fame sat down with the whole team to get their insights on PvP, strategy, team composition and a brand new video of the team in action.M L H of Argent Dawn, Ruin battlegroupEntal, Elemental Shaman Grackel, Disc/Holy Priest Iashu, Holy Paladin Vorgestellt, Frost Mage Molimo, Balance Druid

  • An "insightful and thoughtful" look at Hunter DPS from the forums

    by 
    Daniel Whitcomb
    Daniel Whitcomb
    04.07.2008

    Despite the fact that my level 70 Hunter isn't technically my main, she's probably my favorite character. A lot of people will tell you that a Hunter is an overly easy class: sic your pet, turn on Auto Shot, and you're done. While having a built-in tank that you can even heal a bit gives you a pretty strong advantage when going it alone, I'd have to say they oversimplify things a bit. The largest area where the complexity of the Hunter class shows is in end-game DPS. If you want to be the most effective DPSer possible, it takes quite a bit of work. The way that you must weave shots in between your auto shots is a complicated dance that requires split second timing that can mean vast differences in DPS totals between Hunters. Cheeky of the Khadgar-US server (author of the famous Cheeky's Spreadsheet) posted a very concise and well-stated summary of some of the problems with Hunter DPS on the official US forums here a few months back. The post was originally written by Lactose of the Talnivarr-EU Server, who posted it on the EU forms here, where it got some blue love today a while back.

  • A close look at the new changes to Bloodlust and Heroism

    by 
    Adam Holisky
    Adam Holisky
    03.03.2008

    Tharfor (I can hear him purr, can you?) tells us today of two changes that we'll see on the PTR soon (Drysc announced this earlier): Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins. Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with [the new] Power Infusion, however. He tells us the reasoning behind this is "...two spells increasing haste by a percentage will not stack if both can be cast on a target other than the caster..." So this appears to continue the trend we've seen of modifying haste based abilities, both in their power and stacking abilities.For those that don't know about Shamans, Bloodlust and Heroism are Shaman abilities (Bloodlust is the name of the spell for the Horde, Heroism is the name of the spell for the Alliance) that decrease casting time by 30% for 40 seconds. It is often used in raids to get that extra "umpf" necessary to get a boss down quickly.Icy Veins is a Mage talent based spell that decreases casting time by 20% for 20 seconds (and increase the chance the target will freeze by 20%). The combination of Bloodlust/Heroism and Icy Veins is a very potent combination.Power Infusion is a Priest talent that will have some changes come patch 2.4. It will now decrease casting time by 20% as well as decrease the mana cost by 20%. It's interesting that Blizzard decided to allow the stacking with Mages, but not with priests. The difference in the two spells is that Power Infusion can be cast on other targets, while Icy Veins can only be cast on yourself. Indeed, this follows with what Tharfor said in his post (which Drysc left out).What do you think of these changes? Any major issue with them?

  • Darkmoon Faire Decks: An overview

    by 
    Daniel Whitcomb
    Daniel Whitcomb
    02.10.2008

    As I've mentioned before, The Darkmoon Faire is currently in Terrokar Forest, just outside Shattrath City, so if you have decks to turn in or need to refill your private stock of Darkmoon Special Reserve, now's the time to get on it. But if you're still a little bit taken aback by the prospect of gathering all those cards, or wondering if the trinket at the end will really be worth it, we'd like to help you out. In this post, we'll be looking at both the old and new decks and listing some pros and cons of each deck so you can figure out if you want to spend the next month tracking down cards before the Faire shows up in Elwynn Forest in March, or even if you just want to blow your epic flying mount fund on getting a deck before it leaves for the month. We'll start in on everything after the jump.

  • Ghost Wolf: The newest, rarest pet

    by 
    David Bowers
    David Bowers
    11.21.2007

    "Ghost wolf" is usually a term you associate with shamans, but now it might just become the keyword for the newest, rarest, most difficult to tame, and most visually unique hunter pet in the game. As the Mistress of Pets Mania's Arcania reports, some of the new Dustwallow Marsh content in Patch 2.3 involves some Grimtotem shamans who summon tamable ghost wolves. For most hunters, however, these ghost wolves will be impossible to tame, because a few seconds after they appear, they just die, regardless of how much damage they take. The only way to tame them involves using various items or abilities which can shorten the casting time of your "Tame Beast" spell down to a fraction of its original 20 seconds. Here's a list of what you might find useful, listed in approximate order of how important they are to your success: [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] -- This metagem can cut the time it takes to cast Tame Beast in half, and you can't tame this beast without it. You have to repeatedly cast various aspects until its special proc goes off. Heroism or Bloodlust -- The same ability with different names for Alliance and Horde shamans; having a friend in your party use this will further reduce your taming time by 30%. If your latency is good, this should make your taming just barely fast enough to succeed. Mind Control -- Bring a priest friend along too, and he or she willl be able to take control of one of the Grimtotem NPCs to summon the ghost wolf whenever you're ready. A handy macro -- To save time in getting your casting going, just type "/target grimtotem spirit guide;" on the first line of a macro, and "/cast tame beast" on the second. Then drag it to your action bar so you can hit it repeatedly just as you ask your priest friend to summon the wolf. [Thanks Grunde!] [Drums of Battle] -- It's also very helpful to either be a Leatherworker, or have one in your party who will use this for you just before you start your taming, in order to shave a few more moments off your taming time. Be a troll -- Trolls get a Berserking ability, which might just be the final little bit you need in order to cut down the taming time enough to snatch this ghostly wolf pet. A lot of non-trolls have succeeded in taming this pet, too, of course; but if you happen to be a troll, feel free to use this ability to make it a bit easier. After all that, you need a macro or something to immediately target the wolf and start taming the very moment it appears. Then, you can pray for a few seconds and hope everything works. It may be very hard, but it has been done before -- though one person on Mania's site said that her new ghost pet died a second after she tamed it, possibly as a residual effect of its otherwise very limited lifespan. So if you want to try it, be patient, and don't get your hopes too high don't worry -- even if your pet dies, once it's tamed, it's yours. Just revive pet, and proceed. Oh, and get ready for an extremely long leveling grind to get it up from 30 to 70 (though it's soon to get a bit faster). Hunter alts passing through Dustwallow as you level up: Don't even dream about it.[Update]: I've edited this post to include some of the other helpful information from commenters and other sources that came out after we originally published it. Be sure to check out our other resources on the Ghost Wolf pet, including a video showing the taming in action, a story about how Matthew Rossi helped his wife get one, and proof that the Grimtotem Sririt Guide will remain tamable in the future. Read about the Ghost Wolf's color changes in combat ==>>

  • A summary of shaman super skills

    by 
    Dan Crislip
    Dan Crislip
    05.05.2007

    A few days ago, I was playing on my shaman and received a strange tell from a GM in-game. "Excuse me, player, but you've been reported for using an exploit in the game." WHAT?!? I've been playing since day 1, and have never used anything but approved mods. What on Earth could I have been reported for doing?? "The person reported you using an exploit to walk on water." "But, I'm a shaman," I said. "I have a spell that allows me to do it...it's called water walking...you guys put it in the game!"Needless to say, the GM and I had a good laugh at the ignorant party's expense, and (s)he only had to contact me because that was their job. I decided therein to write this article to help alleviate said ignorance of the true abilities of our totem-wielding friends, by giving a little update to the lesser known abilities.Now, there is an ongoing debate of the potential and versatility of shamans: how much they lack, how overpowered they are, and the proper plural form of shaman. But, being a class that was lesser-played until the recent addition of their ranks to the alliance, many people were unaware of what they can truly do.

  • Official Dungeon 2 Graphics and Stats

    by 
    Elizabeth Harper
    Elizabeth Harper
    03.27.2006

    Rumor no longer - the official graphics and stats for the Dungeon 2 armor set (sometimes called tier 0.5) have been released by Blizzard, as well as information on modifications to the Dungeon 1 (sometimes called tier 0) armor set.  I don't see anything unexpected here, but if you haven't been following the rumor mill too closely, it's worth checking out.