SpiritwalkersGrace
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Totem Talk: Patch 4.0.6 for elemental shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter from The 'mental Shaman and the Obscurecast podcast and founding member of TotemSpot. Ah, the sweet smell of wipes. How I have missed them. My guild stepped back into 25-mans this week, and I am so glad to be back. Every time I take a break from regular raiding, I need a week or so to truly get on top of my game. The muscle memory needs time to return, and I have to learn the steps to the new dances in a way that makes sense to me. Figuring out a good time to use Spiritwalker's Grace, the best time to unleash my fire elemental ... These are the sorts of details I love figuring out for myself, and the satisfaction of returning to 25-man raiding has been great stress relief after a hellish week. The return to raiding has also confronted me with the state of elemental DPS in general. I am aware that the gap between myself and the front-runners is down to personal error (a lot of the time) and someone has to be in the middle of the pack. In fact, the middle of the pack is a mighty fine place to be. Those State of DPS numbers only show results for the top 40 and top 200 parses, and being in the middle of the pack isn't what is alarming. What often raises eyebrows with these sorts of comparisons is the difference between the top few specs and the middle of the pack, not the placing on the scale, so I can understand why some players are upset. It isn't being middle of the pack; it's the magnitude of distance between yourself and the front-runners. Personally, I'm not too worried. I need to sort out my own mistakes first, and it's important not to forget that things change. So, is patch 4.0.6 going to ease the pressure a little? A very small amount. The change that has made me smile most so far is the fix for the graphic bug that hid Elementium Stormshield when it was in the resting position. I'm glad to see Quality Assurance Goblins got it right on that one.
Totem Talk: Healing with Spiritwalker's Grace
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and host of the BDTU: Lore edition podcast . Last week, we talked about the new glyph system and restoration's choice in glyphs. There were quite a few changes, and the addition of an extra level of glyphs added some variety. Again, the state of glyphs is still in a state of change, but things like the new Glyph of Chain Heal seem to be a common trend, one that adds another layer to your healing strategy. Later on in the week, we also got a new build of the beta with various changes to the restoration shaman spells, abilities and talents. Build 12942 didn't exactly shake things up too badly, but it did a few things of note, such as adding a talent effect to buff Healing Rain and the now confirmed removal of Improved Chain Heal. We also got a glimpse at the tier 11 set bonuses. It has been a while since restoration shaman got much of a brush over on the beta, so it was interesting to see what they changed when they did change things in the latest build of the Cataclysm beta. This week, I thought we would talk about Spiritwalker's Grace, its uses in the current build and my impressions of it after using it.
