shaman-elemental-totem-talk
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Totem Talk: Back to basics
Welcome to another article by elemental shaman specialist Matt Sampson, otherwise known as Binkenstein. By day, he's a geek; by night, he's also a geek, but with spreadsheets. He'd also like to point out that Time Warp is just another excuse to bring mages vending machines to raids. Since I'm still the new guy here, I figure that it's best to start at the beginning, for it's a very good place to start (and I'm not intentionally putting song lyrics into my posts, it just happens). Given that Cataclysm is still in beta testing, I'm not going to talk about talents, rotations or even the new spells here. "But Binks," you say, "how can you have an article about basics if you don't include any of those topics?" You can, I say, if you talk about the essential basic you have to get right in your playstyle. This is the thing that turns an average-geared player into a fairly competitive one, makes the top-end raiders great, and without which the guy languishing at the bottom of the DPS table will never get to the top no matter how many best-in-slot items he has. What I'm talking about is skill. This doesn't just mean the ability to mash buttons faster or harder, or the bonus of having really low latency (trust me, a good ping for me is in the 300ms range), but rather being situationally aware, knowing when to move, how far to move and what to do while moving. It means thinking a few steps ahead so that when the next event occurs, you're already in position and ready for it. Some players will never master the basics. Others don't even have to try because they're naturals. For the rest of us (and yes, I mean myself as well), it requires a bit of experimentation, some trial and error and most important of all, guides!
Totem Talk: Elemental shaman notes from the Twitter developer chat
Welcome to another article by elemental shaman specialist Matt Sampson, otherwise known as Binkenstein. By day, he's a geek; by night, he's also a geek, but with spreadsheets. He'd also like you to go and vote in a poll he is running. Go on, you know you want to. As you may be aware, last Saturday there was another developer chat on Twitter. If you're anything like me, you would have searched through it for the elemental-specific questions and ignored the rest. (OK, so I did look at the druid ones as well, just to keep up with what's happening for my alt.) Q: What class are you currently most happy with how the talents are currently set up? Is there one you feel needs more work? A. They all need more work! source Obviously, this means that nothing is finished or finalized yet, so any serious analysis would be premature (not that some of us won't be doing it anyway). It also means that this is a good opportunity for a bit of feedback.
Cataclysm Beta: Elementary, my dear shaman
Welcome to another article by elemental shaman specialist Matt Sampson, otherwise known as Binkenstein. By day, he's a geek; by night, he's also a geek, but with spreadsheets. This post is in part a tribute to Murphy, because as soon as you write a "this is what they might do" post for the end of the week, the talent revamp drops on your doorstep. Before I get started, I'd like to point out a few things. First off, I have this little blog on the side where I'll be writing small mathy bits, other ramblings and talking about Operation TotemSpot, the concept site that has sprung up as a result of the shaman roundtable podcast that was recorded recently. Speaking of that, Raidwarning now has the podcast up, so you can listen to Joe, Rich and myself talking about our chosen specs. So, how about those apples talent trees, eh? I'm sure you've seen them by now (and if not, go click the link!). Obviously there are a bunch of changes, and I completely missed half of them. I also wrote that last week in preparation for my first WoW.com article, but for once, the Blizzard "Soon"(TM) is sooner rather than later.
Totem Talk: The elemental talent tree revamp
Welcome to the first-ever article on WoW.com by elemental shaman specialist Matt Sampson, otherwise known as Binkenstein. By day, he's a geek; by night, he's also a geek, but with spreadsheets. So unless you live under a rock somewhere or are completely obsessed by all the Real ID drama recently (huzzah for the final outcome!), you've heard that the talent trees and mastery system are being completely revamped. (Would you like to know more?) What will the changes for our beloved elemental spec be? (Or in a topic-based-on-a-song version, Should I Stay or Should I Go?) Looking at the current Cataclysm preview/beta information, there are 26 talents and over 11 tiers, comprising 76 talent points. If we assume that there will be two or three talents per level, we're looking at 13 to 19 talents overall, with at least 31 points. Exactly how the secondary tree stuff will work is a guess at this stage.
Totem Talk: Elemental scaling and how Cataclysm can fix it
Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Bought to you this week by Tyler Caraway; for being far more fabulous than Mike Sacco. Greetings and salutations my elemental brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, your normal guide to taming the raging storms is feeling a bit under the weather himself at current, so instead you'll have to listen to my yammering. I promise to make it as painful and mind numbing as possible. Wait, scratch that and reverse it. This is totally going to rock! For those of you whom are not familiar with me, and I doubt that many of you are, allow me to very quickly introduce myself. I am Tyler, but most folks around these parts simply call me Murmurs. No, not that annoying Thunderaan wanna-be in Shadow Labyrinth. The equally annoying balance druid that haunts the World of Warcraft Damage Dealing forums with tediously long posts no one bothers to read. I know that we had some issues during the Naxxramas portion of Wrath of the Lich King, but I promise to make it up to you. Just please don't hurl massive boulders of molten lava at me this time.
Totem Talk: Elemental gearing for the new 80
Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Brought to you by Mike Sacco. Last week I took you through Elemental 101, a crash course in playing your elemental shaman. Now that we've got the basics out of the way and you understand your talents and rotation, it seems as good a time as any to talk about gear. We addressed the main stats you're looking for on elemental gear last week, but here's a quick rundown again for those who missed it: Hit rating, spell power, haste, and crit. These are the only four stats we'll be looking for on elemental gear, besides the obvious intellect and stamina boosts that'll be on nearly every piece of caster gear anyway. If the above sounds like a pretty reasonable set of stats to look for, well, you're not wrong. So I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news? There's definitely elemental gear out there. The bad news? Good luck finding it. Elemental gearing has a lot of issues unique to both the shaman and this specific spec. And you're not gonna like them.
Totem Talk: Elemental 101
Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Brought to you by Mike Sacco. If you're here and reading this, you've probably decided that elemental will be one of your shaman's two possible specs and you want to get a good grasp of how it all works before you dive in. The maiden voyage of Totem Talk's Elemental edition is intended to tell you everything you need to know to get started as one of the game's simplest specs, from mechanics to gearing to rotation. What it isn't intended to be the is be-all-end-all of Elemental theorycrafting. We'll delve into more complex stuff later on. Let's get started!
