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Lichborne: 3 quick tips to step up your death knight's game
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. So you know your rotations. You know your gear priorities. You know what to reforge, which buttons to hit, and how to stay out of the fire. These are all good things. Yet still, you feel like you're missing something. Maybe you feel like you could crank out another 1-2k DPS on some fights. Maybe you feel like your health keeps dropping a little low when you tank. Sometimes, the problem with problems like these is that it's not a big glaring thing you're forgetting (nor is it forgetting to drop your favorite lucky vanity item). Sometimes, it's just that you need to tighten up your play just a little bit. This week, we're going to take a look at a few simple tricks that hopefully a lot of you can use just to shore up your play and go the extra mile.
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.
Shaman changes in patch 3.0.3
The elders spoke of a day when great, sweeping changes would come to us Shamans. A day when our command of the elements would become unsurpassed and we would harness power like never seen on Azeroth (kind of like Retadins). Today, my friends, is not that day. In fact, today may well be any other day for Shamans because Patch 3.0.3 is about as underwhelming as it gets with regards to changes to the class.Let's see... we have a Lava Burst damage increase, which means jack to us because we only train for the spell at Level 75. Speaking of which, Storm Reach was renamed to Elemental Reach because it now affects... Lava Burst. Also in the Elemental tree, Improved Fire Nova totem was reworked to increase the damage done by Fire Nova Totem by 20% instead of a quicker detonation and now stuns opponents caught in the blast for 2 seconds instead of ensnaring them.
Totem Talk: Resto questing
Totem Talk's Matthew Rossi has had a small Horde renaissance this week, and decided to take his slightly dusty Resto shaman out for a spin, healing a heroic MgT run and then running about the IoQD doing the dailies. Turns out he learned a few things in the process. He wrote a little song about it, like to hear it? Here it goes. Okay, I apologize, but there will be no singing. Tell you what, if enough people demand it, I'll belt one out on the next WoW Insider Show I'm on.I've posted in the past about how to quest, grind and otherwise solo on a Restoration shaman, but I didn't go sufficiently into detail as the post ended up being about the odd things people think about shamans. So this week, we'll go more into detail. There are basically two ways you can go about doing this, thanks to the recent changes Blizzard made to healing gear: you can go out and quest in your regular healing set or you can also have a set of DPS gear. Unlike a priest and more like fellow hybrids like druids, you have a choice of what kind of DPS gear to wear. You could have a set of Enhancement mail and a big 2h weapon (since Resto shammies can't dual wield but can use 2h's now) and run around hitting stuff, or you could go for the spell damage gear and imagine that you're a powerful Elemental shaman. My own personal preference (due to that fact that my shaman has a lot of Enhancement gear) is to go the whackity whackity route and Windfury up a 2h. But in the interests of experimentation I tried both spell damage gear and my normal healing setup, and I found that my personal preference is in fact the least effective of the three for the gear I happen to have. I'm sure no one is surprised.At any rate, let's talk turkey. Isn't turkey delicious? Druids can turn into humanoid-turkey hybrids. None of this has anything to do with Shamans of any spec soloing anything, but I've always wondered about the phrase 'let's talk turkey' and how anyone could resist saying "yay, I love stuffing!" after it. I'll get a hold of myself now. Actual details of Shaman soloing behind the jump. Whee!
Group buffs as solo buffs and when to use them
Rufus over on WoW LJ brings up Commanding Shout, the Warrior group buff that increases maximum health of party members for two minutes within 20 yards, and comments that it doesn't work so well in solo play. Which isn't necessarily true-- there are cases when you need as much health as you can get. And he got me thinking about other buffs like that -- buffs that are really meant for group play, but that can sometimes help in solo play.The first one that jumped to my Shaman mind is the Mana Spring Totem -- it's really meant for group play, but every once in a while I'll pull too many, need some extra mana, and drop that to pick up a little blue. Also in the Shaman's Resto tree is Earth Shield, which can be helpful in solo play, too. And while Power Word: Shield is really too mana intensive to regularly be used in solo play (it's really meant to be used in groups), there are lots of times when it's helpful with solo priests.Usually, you should only use these things when absolutely necessary (and when you've got the resources to use them -- Commanding Shout, for example, doesn't actually give you any health, so using it in the middle of a fight doesn't help). But Blizzard has made sure we don't just have group buffs and solo buffs -- some group buffs are occasionally really useful in solo play. Can you think of any others?
Shamans disappointed yet again in 2.4 notes
Yes indeed, odds are that if you talked to a Shaman this weekend about patch 2.4, you got pretty much the same feeling that the video above conveys: Shamans, especially enhancement Shamans, aren't really thrilled about what we got out of the patch. We've been hoping for (finally) buffs, including an update on how Blizzard is going to deal with our totem and mana problems. We were hoping for shields to get reinvigorated and redesigned. We were hoping to see big changes to the class, and instead we got... a new Stormstrike icon, and a totem timer?The biggest Shaman change is the one to Earth Shield (which only affects Resto, since they're the only ones that can use it-- it costs less mana, and lasts for six charges instead of 10 (not great for raiders, but not bad for PvPers), and there was a small buff to Healing Grace (now gives a chance to avoid dispells). There is one Elemental change-- Call of Thunder now gives 5% crit rather than crit only to Lightning spells. But those changes do nothing to alleviate Shaman concerns (and you might have heard that there were many), and the rest of the changes are bugfixes and UI updates almost no one was asking for.Yes, yes, QQ more and all that, but the story here is that Shamans have been basically ignored yet again, even while Blizzard admits that there are problems with the class. So when are the fixes coming? Blizzard has already said they're not making sweeping changes to any classes in these content patches-- maybe our chance as Shamans will finally come with the expansion.
Shaman and item changes in 2.3.2
MMO Champion has a bit of information about some of the latest changes coming in patch 2.3.2. First is something of a non-change for Shamans in particular: Blizzard had in mind to add a 30-second cooldown to Earth Shield, as well as a 50% mana-cost reduction, but now they're putting this change on hold until they can figure out exactly how they'll resolve the thorny issue of whether this spell should be dispellable or not -- it'll probably be in patch-2.4, in one form or another. Secondly, there are some item changes in the works: one epic throwing weapon, the [Spinesever], is going to be nerfed a little bit for some reason, and a number of model certain Zul'Aman gear are going to be updated. The [Ancient Sin'dorei Longbow] from Zul'Jin himself struck me as a particularly sad reuse of an existing (and ugly) bow model. Fortunately, as you can see on the right, that bow is getting an invigorated look (on the top). A number of other items, are getting update too. Check out their post for all the details.
Shaman changes in 2.3.2
Following the trend of releasing information about class changes today, Eyonix has chimed in again to give hints of what's in store for Shaman shields in the next patch. Lightning and Earth Shield will both have their mana cost reduced. Water Shield will receive a change in its function to keep the poor shammies from having to refresh it all the time. Apparently it will still return the same amount of mana, but in a less annoying fashion. Eyonix suggests that it will essentially give a sizeable chunk of MP5.I don't play a Shaman much, but I've been chatting with the ones in my guild about these changes. So far they seem most excited about the new Water Shield. What do the rest of you think?
Eyonix shaking things up for Shamans
Eyonix is still running around causing havok on the forums (should we expect this regularly now?), and he's making a lot of noise in the Shaman forums specifically, always a welcome sign for Shamans like myself.Where should we start? Mana tide trainable for all Shamans? Fat chance. The Spirit Weapons buff (from 15% to 30% threat reduction) will be a big help on uncontrollable burst damage like Windfury procs. And not only does he share some of his character stats (sounds like his right below where I'm at), but he's got a list of concerns that are being passed on to the devs.And my own pet issue, the various "Shields" that we've got, are due to get some love as well. Along with the 2.3 Mana whoops, Water Shield buff* (it'll be free to cast), both Earth Shield and Lightning Shield could use a buff as well. A HoT on the Earth Shield? A Lightning Shield proc that passes off damage like Chain Lightning? We can only hope.Shamans aren't a broken class-- I don't believe any class in the game is truly broken. I love my Shaman. But there are a lot of exciting days ahead for Shaman, I promise you.* As Baluki points out in the comments below, Water Shield has other good stuff happening in 2.3, too-- not only does it give more mana, but at the end of a minute, it cashes out everything for you. Very nice.
To shield or not to shield? Rage is the question.
The forums are abuzz with the debate on when to use the ability "Power Word: Shield" on the tank in your group. The original poster on the forum asked why pre-shielding the tank was looked down upon, and the response was abundant! Warriors and feral Druid tanks need to generate rage to use their abilities to generate the rage required to hold a mob's agro so that it doesn't run rampant in the group, slaughtering the squishies. They generate rage by being hit by a mob and also by hitting the mob as well. In order to be a raid/heroic tank, you have to have your mitigation and avoidance up to a point that you're almost always dodging, parrying, or blocking, in order to not die from a single hit, but in turn that will decrease the amount of rage you can generate. "Power Word: Shield" only decreases the rage generated, while not protecting the tank from that much damage. On boss mobs, it gets even more tricky. In order to successfully hold (most) bosses, you have to front-load your agro and maintain that agro lead throughout the fight. This means that they need an abundance of rage up-front in order to establish that agro, and they also need time to build up that buffer to keep them ahead. Most tanks only need a few seconds to accomplish that, but the shield just prolongs that time. This also hinders the raid on fights where time is a factor. For example, the old Kazzak enraged after 3 minutes of fighting (he probably still does), and every second of dps counted.
A summary of shaman super skills
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.
