Enhancement
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Totem Talk: Halls of Stone and Lightning, CoT Stratholme
Gear! Let us continue our discussion of gear in five man instances, for we are shamans, and we have more interesting things to talk about. Like love. Or DPS. I like talking about DPS more than love, to be honest, I'm not specced for love with anyone but my wife. (She's a very specific boss in this regard.) Healing's good too, we could also talk about that. I found myself healing a Halls of Stone/Lightning run (is anyone else noticing that they end up running more instances back to back in Wrath?) in enhancement spec (resto gear) the other day, and I freely admit I wished I was resto several times on that run. Well, we made it through, anyway. But a HoT would have been very nice on Ionar. Can I just say now how very much I hate Ionar? A lot. Healing that fight without Riptide is pretty agonizing, especially when you don't have Nature's Swiftness or Earth Shield as well. The tank had to heal himself a couple of times. Lesson learned: it's just more fun to heal as resto. Oh, please let dual specs come soon, Santa.As I'm inching up the levels on the shammy and considering if I want to raid on him (I've been considering raiding as resto or enhance, haven't decided yet) I'm looking to the Storm Peaks instances as a source for upgrades. What can we find there? I've also begun making forays to the Culling of Stratholme in prep for when I start running it over and over again on heroic for the fist weapon. I mean, for no reason at all! There's no fist weapon here! Don't even run the instance! (Whew, I think they bought it.)
Totem Talk: Emblem of Heroism gear for Shamans
First off, happy birthday to me. (It was actually this weekend.) As a present to myself, I've switched toons, sort of.Strangely enough, I've taken a break from my horde shaman to start leveling my alliance shaman, in one of those weird caprices of mood I get into from time to time. I don't know why, but the past five levels on the alliance side went faster than one level horde side, which is odd because I leveled exclusively as horde in the beta and enjoyed it immensely. Maybe it's just that I really enjoy Dragonblight from the alliance quest perspective, or maybe it's just being tired of the horde quests since I ran them so many times before. Maybe I'm just freaking insane. At any rate, I'm currently loving my space goat.With Christmas around the corner raiding seems to have dried up pretty heavily (maybe I just don't know enough obsessed people) meaning that I'm having a better time leveling than I would in trying to get a raid together. Right now, my main focus is on what gear I want out of heroics and what I want to spend my Emblems of Heroism on. Since I've been covering heroics in the various instance posts (and we still have three or four instances to cover) I figured today would be a good chance to take a look at Emblem loot, in an attempt to keep going in the same vein as last week's Rep post.
Totem Talk: Wrath faction gear for Shamans
One of the ways to gear up as you level and prepare for endgame in Wrath of the Lich King is by making use of the reputation gained via questing for various factions in Northrend. In addition to the main Alliance or Horde factions the Alliance Vanguard and Horde Expedition, there are a variety of other groups you can meet and ally with as you explore Northrend, often through daily quests, and these factions offer gear, head enchants and other items of interest to you as an up and coming shaman. Today, we'll go over what each group has to offer and which ones you might want to prioritize depending on your spec and interest.One group to mention in particular is the Sons of Hodir: unlike other factions, they don't have a Tabard which you can wear in level 80 dungeons and heroics to gain reputation with them. However, they do have quite a few dailies to unlock as well as a long series of quests which will get you started, and in addition to the usual gearing reasons to unlock and progress in this reputation they also provide shoulder enchants that equal or exceed the best outland ones, so they're a group you'll eventually want to work on.
Totem Talk: Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, and the Troll Instances
Before we get rolling with today's column, I direct you to yesterday's good news for elemental shamans. Soak it in, folks. Buffs for elemental with no huge nerfs attached? It's like a holiday or something. You should go eat Turkey to celebrate. I'll wait.Okay, now we move on to yet more gear. Last time we covered Dragonblight and its related instances, this week we move over to Grizzly Hills and Drak'Tharon Keep, and from there Zul'Drak and Gundrak will be our focus as you level through the zones. By the time you're done in Gundrak you should easily be level 77, have access to Lava Burst, and be ready to go exploring in Sholozar, Icecrown and Storm Peaks.Being about half-way through Grizzly Hills on my shaman and already nearly level 75 (I did both starting zones) you could even skip one of these zones if you wanted to. If that's the case, don't skip Zul'Drak, as the zone has some weapon rewards that are simply extraordinary.
Totem Talk: Dragonblight and Azjol-Nerub
Okay, I admit it: my experiment with 2h exnhancement lasted until I got a fist weapon I liked. My threat was too bursty, my DPS too low and I really missed being able to play with Lava Lash. I'm currently running slow/slow with Windfury Weapon on both, but once I have tine to sit down and really look at the numbers I may switch to Flametongue on the offhand for the benefit to Maelstrom Weapon procs like Chain Lightning.Since I myself am finally done with Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, I thought this week would be a good one to look at the gear you can get while questing in Dragonblight or running one of its two instances, Azjol-Nerub or Ahn'katet. As is usually the case for this column, we won't be going over every green item that drops... you'll stumble across those in your leveling push and there's a lot of them... but we'll do our best to cover drops for all three specs both in the instances and through general questing.Dragonblight has some of the best lore-related quests in the game. Since I'm focusing my leveling efforts on my alliance warrior and horde shaman, I may have missed some quests from either faction but I've made my best effort to be comprehensive. Please feel free to mention anything I didn't catch in the comments.
Totem Talk: A lazy Thursday
Shattrath's a ghost town. Emptiest I've seen it ever, with a few low level toons wandering through the empty streets begging for an instance run and the occasional demand for a portal to Dala-someplace or other. I didn't catch it.Sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I'm still a trifle out of it over the launch of Wrath of the Lich King and my own late night excursion to procure copies, made possible by my good friend Ruarri (thank you very much, man) who is himself currently running around Outland on a level 65 shaman with a Spinal Reaper equipped that he got from an MC pug a couple of weeks ago. It's a strange time in WoW, as The Burning Crusade joins all that level 60 raid content on the ash heap of obsolescence. I personally find myself on the horns of a dilemma with my shaman: while I very much enjoy restoration spec and healing instances, the current improvements to enhancement make it hands down my favorite spec for leveling. Until the dual-spec switching comes to pass, I'm probably going to focus my leveling on my orc shaman and take him enhancement in a clown suit of cast-off raiding epics no one wanted (I have bear heads on my shoulders and my best weapon is a two handed axe for a spec designed to dual wield, but I'll gear up fast enough) rather than elemental in his far superior caster set. Why am I doing this?Because Windfury is what got me into this class, Windfury is how I made it to 70, and by all that whispers in the wind and the rock I'm betting on Windfury to take me the rest of the way.
Wrath of the Lich King class changes roundup
Over the last two days, the WoW Insider team has been busy reviewing and gathering all of the still-current class information to bring you up to speed for your first steps into Northrend. You've probably had a chance to get a handle on your class since most of the changes were pushed through in patch 3.0.2, but you have an extra ten levels ahead of you, an extra ten talent points, and a whole bunch of new skills and abilities you're going to need to learn. Don't know what to expect? We're here for you. If you do know what to expect? Well, I guess you can keep reading if you want. We'll let it slide just this once. Death Knight - Being the new class on the block, there's certainly been a lot to talk about in the recent months. Daniel Whitcomb points you toward much of it, including leveling builds, in-depth looks at their core abilities and mechanics, as well as some sage advice from Allison Robert. Druid - Speaking of Allison Robert, she'll be your guide today if you're looking for more on the Druid class. Talent builds, a glimpse at raid healing as Restoration, the rise of the Moonkin and much more can be found within.
Wrath of the Lich King: Shaman roundup
It's time to go drop magical sticks in the ground in whole new dirt. Northrend awaits, with the spirit world in torment, the Scourge everywhere, and one of the greatest shamans who ever lived behind all the chaos. It's up to us to go up there and straighten up this mess: who better? But what awaits you in Northrend?General Want a round up of dungeon and quest loot in the two starting zones? We have you covered. What talents and skills will you be taking to Northrend? Zach spells it out for us. How has the class changed? We covered that in two parts. Talents and Skills Natalie Mootz covered Elemental Shaman talent builds. Enhancement has turned out to be a really fun spec. What's going on with Elemental Combat? Healing as a shaman in Northrend will be a lot more involved thanks to spells like Riptide. Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thunderstorm ho! Other neat stuff Watch a shaman kill an entire raid group! In case you missed it, you don't need to carry four totems to Northrend with you. Yay for extra bag space. Hopefully you'll have as much fun in Northrend as I did my first and second times through the beta.
Totem Talk: Pack your bags
Well, here we are. It's a week until Wrath launches. What are you doing with your time? Had time to play with the most recent bout of changes yet? In a turn of events I find almost astonishing, I've mostly played restoration on both my draenei and orc shamans. I've been running five mans for achievements I don't personally want (ah, achievement mania, you fuel bursts of last minute heroics) and raiding, mostly in 10 mans and PuG 25's. The thrill of being killed by Fatal Attraction! I picked up my Dark Blessing this week in a PuG so I'm doing reasonably well for healing gear now (I can comfortably heal in a 10 or 25 man raid without feeling too much strain on the mana pool, anyway) and am basically trying to decide what I'm going to do with myself once the expansion hits. Will I be leveling enhancement? Or maybe, if dual specs arrive, I'll go with elemental for leveling and restoration for instancing. Since we have about a week, I figured it might be a good idea to talk about the starting zones for Wrath of the Lich King, especially for people who are intending to go to them with a shaman who is level 68 or so or who will otherwise be looking at the gear as upgrades. We'll look at the two starting dungeons (The Nexus and Utgarde Keep) and some of the quests in the starting zones with an eye towards loot that will help undergeared shamans catch up to ones that have been 70 for a while. We will of course try and stay as spoiler light as possible while doing this. We'll also wonder why we keep saying 'we' when it's one guy writing this.
Totem Talk: Echoes of Doom Enhancement review
Hi. Welcome to Echoes of Doom. I'll be your host, gibbering over in the corner that I suddenly have an extra 300 AP. I'll have even more once I re-gem for agility. My crit rate did drop. Hunter mail, let's never fight again.I'm still playing with specs and what my stats are now, so I'm not sure what advice if any to give on that score: despite having been in the beta for a while now, coming up with a level 70 spec that has everything I need is harder than coming up with a level 70 spec that's good enough to get me those extra 10 talent points for some reason. I ended up going with this build for pure PvE, as I don't PvP very much, but I'm seriously considering getting the Enhancing Totems and full Improved Windfury even if it costs me my elemental points. I guess it depends on if I want to buff the raid or my own personal DPS more. So far I've only really played with enhancement: not only is it the tree I like best, it's the one that we happened to need the most when I logged my draenei on. My orc is fullbore resto and will be taking that spec out for a spin soon to see how much no more downranking affects my healing in raids, but that's still in the future. After that, it will be elemental's turn, probably on the same shaman as he has the best caster gear in the new scheme of things.
Maelstrom Weapon, Predatory Instincts tooltips incorrect
I was browsing through Blizzard's updated patch notes for 3.0.2 today, and noticed that apparently two talents that have been patched in don't do what they say. Under "Known Issues," the notes list that the tooltips for the Enhancement Shaman talent Maelstrom Weapon and the Feral Druid talent Predatory Instincts are incorrect. I'll talk about them one at a time. As far as Predatory Instincts goes, the patch notes say "The tooltip for Predatory Instincts is currently incorrect. This no longer works on Bear Form or Dire Bear Form and now reduces damage by 10/20/30%." I'm going to assume that it still just works on AoE, instead of reducing all damage taken by 10/20/30%, because that would be insanely OP, as much as I'd enjoy my cat form having plate-level mitigation. And I'm not actually surprised they took bear form off of it, because I'm told bear tanking was simply too good in the beta. It does mean there's no use taking it for tanking, though. More points for Infected Wounds or something, I suppose. On to Maelstrom Weapon. This is actually something that was changed in the beta a while back, and the tooltip just took some time to get updated: Lava Burst is no longer affected by Maelstrom charges (this won't affect us for now, since the first rank of Lava Burst is at level 75). So it looks like you'll be limited to Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning for your instant-cast damage spells, clearly a PvE nerf. Chase actually sees this as a buff for PvP, though - now you can Flame Shock, crit Lava Burst, and instant Lightning Bolt for some serious burst damage.
On the edge of change Pt 2: Shamans in patch 3.0.2
If you're like me, you're writing a guide for shamans explaining how the class will change when patch 3.0.2, the Echoes of Doom patch, goes live tomorrow. Hi, I'm doing that too! Right now, in fact. By the time you read this, I will have finished it and the blistering, searing array of changes will have stopped erupting in my poor, addled brain. One of the interesting effects of Echoes of Doom is what won't be accessible: the long awaited and somewhat controversial shaman CC, Hex, will not be ours until level 80. The new fire-based spell Lava Burst will also not be attainable, which was even listed as a reason for a nerf that didn't happen to our lightning spells. Many of the changes to our class will still be in the future when this Tuesday's patch rolls around. There's still plenty to comment on, though. Spell coefficients, the unified spell power system, and specific talents and spells aimed at changing how you spec and how shamans feel to play. Earthliving Weapon is just one change, but it's one of my favorites... a useful imbue for resto shamans and anyone forced to emergency heal. There are still concerns (well, okay, I still have a few concerns, I can't speak for everyone) about how things will look as we all level up, but none of that will affect you when patch 3.0.2 hits, since 70 will still be max level and you'll still be in the gear you have now.
Breakfast Topic: How hybrid DPS could still get screwed in Wrath
Recently a bunch of the writers here were talking about all the changes we're seeing to various hybrid DPS specs. Retribution in the beta is known to bring some serious pain, cat DPS has been given some pretty sweet buffs, and Shamans...well, Shamans seem to be in a state of flux, but when is that not true? With tank AoE threat buffed, the need for crowd control may also be a thing of the past, thus eliminating one of the more annoying roadblocks to hybrid desirability in 5-man groups. For 5-mans, at least, hybrid DPS should encounter significantly less difficulty (we hope) getting a slot.However, it was my contention that, for the purpose of raiding, it doesn't ultimately matter how much these specs get buffed. They could do amazing DPS, bring incredible buffs, have any number of raid-saving abilities, and fart gold on every crit -- but you're still not going to see a lot of hybrid DPS running around Wrath raids for one very simple reason: someone has to tank and heal, and neither job is sufficiently attractive to allow most hybrid players to come as DPS. When it's a choice between respeccing resto or the raid never getting off the ground, most players will respec resto -- and decisions like that tend to be fairly hard to escape. The next night rolls around and -- um, do you mind coming as resto again?
Totem Talk: A little of this, a little of that
I'm not just a commentator on the shaman class, I'm a rather avid player of said class. And while I respect the work that developers do in balancing the classes, and the tireless efforts of community managers to get this information presented to the player base in as prompt and reasonable a manner as is possible, often in the face of hostility, sometimes a change really makes me angry.This recent change to Lava Burst and Maelstrom Weapon (not yet implemented in the beta) is such a change. Now, we've already seen Maelstrom Weapon changed so that it has a lower chance to stack, but can stack off of any melee hit (in part seemingly to reduce the dependence on crits the older version of the talent encouraged which led to Elemental Devastation and the guaranteed spell crit from a Flame Shock/Lava Burst combination) and while I don't like that change, I can accept it. And I believe Ghostcrawler when she says that the change to Maelstrom Weapon to no longer affect Lava Burst is one made with an eye to game balance. But I don't care. I hate the change and I can't believe there was no other way to balance Lava Burst's scaling to keep Enhancement shamans out of caster gear or away from caster daggers. I certainly don't want to see Enhancement in caster gear, but come on, this was it? This was the only way to balance this? I really don't like it.
Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow melee, part 1
Dear reanimated angst-puppy hero corpses,Love what you've done with the smell, really. The little air freshener attached to the runeblade is a nice touch. Now that I'm in the beta, I've had the opportunity group with -- conservatively -- billions of you. I've healed a lot of Death Knight tanks, and tanked for a lot of Death Knight DPS. Most of you seem like cool people, so I say this with sincere love in my little Druid heart and a touch of worry over what will happen in November:Most of you are awful.I don't wish to be needlessly cruel here, mind you, or to overlook that the class is still new. Blizzard endlessly tinkers with you, so it's not like your rotations haven't changed, or your talents and skills are stable. And I know you're not coming to Northrend with a bank full of awesome gear from Burning Crusade. This isn't about your wearing greens or using the wrong attack or tanking rotation; I'm not even going to bother with the theorycraft surrounding the ideal DPS rotation until Wrath actually ships. But I'm seeing an awful lot of you running around playing as if...almost as if...you haven't played a tank or a melee class before. It's uncanny. But when I switched from playing a balance to a feral druid more than a year ago and knew nothing about playing a melee DPS/tank, I made all the mistakes you're making right now. Help me help you!
Ask a Beta Tester: Shaman, Engineers, and Feral Druids
Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester, where for one glorious day, we don't have any passenger mount questions! But I know, deep down, there are a thousand more on the horizon.Elmo asked...How are Enhancement Shamans shaping up? I heard silly things like Elemental gear is great for them or 2x fast weapons with Flametongue. Are we really gonna make that much of a turn around? In other words, is my hard earned gear all worthless? Not just the epic gems and Strength enchants.Enhancement Shaman did hit a weird point where that was true, but I don't think it was ever intended that the 'final product' would look that way. There were some Windfury bugs and wonky unfinished tuning that caused that, but as another reader mentioned, the devs are working on getting everything fixed and proper. Things will be a little different from Burning Crusade, but not so much so that Enhancement Shaman are wearing Elemental gear to melee.
Phat Loot Phriday: Hand of the Deciever
The Warglaives get all the glory for being all Legendary, but when you want a mainhand melee and you're raiding at the top of the game, this is really what you'll want.Name: Hand of the Deciever (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)Type: Epic Main-hand Fist WeaponDamage/Speed: 238-357/2.60 (114.4 DPS)Abilities: +28 Stamina, and you know by now what Stamina gives you. There's no Agility on it, so the Warglaive set is still likely a better option for Rogues if you were lucky enough to get that. But for anyone who needs a fist weapon in the main hand for melee, this is the Cadillac you want to be driving. Two Yellow sockets, and there is where you can get everything you need that's not in the usual stats (some more crit, some extra Strength for Fury Warriors, or even some hit if you still need it). +6 Attack Power socket bonus, which is pretty weak, so socket with what you want on this one, and only go for yellow if it's all you need. Increase Attack Power by 54, and your attacks ignore 196 of your opponent's armor. We need to mention Enhancement Shamans at this point -- while Rogues and Warriors pretty much get their pick of the litter for weapons, this kind of fist weapon is aimed squarely at Shammies, who aren't able to use the Warglaives or any of the other crazy swords at this level. That doesn't mean that this isn't a good weapon for a Warrior or a Rogue -- in certain situations and specs, it does rival the Warglaives for them. But this is an Enhancement Shaman weapon first and foremost -- because they aren't able to wield swords, this one's for them. Ignoring armor is a tough mechanic to wrap your head around (and since you all know that I'm bad at math, I have a harder time with it). If you do have an item that ignores armor, it's best to stack it as much as possible with other items -- taking just a little armor off of a target that has tons of it won't help you too much. But taking a nice chunk of armor off, say, a clothie, helps your DPS out more. Here's a quick chart (that probably isn't necessarily up to date, but can probably work as a good guide). So as little as 500 armor ignored can help your DPS out by a few percentage points, but as you get further into more heavily armored targets, that DPS number goes down. How to Get It: Drops from one of the last bosses in the game, Kalecgos Kil'jaeden (sorry, I've never been to either, mixed them up). Do we have to say anything besides that? If you're already in Sunwell, you know exactly where he is, and if you're not yet, then get to Sunwell first and then you can figure out. Odds are that if you're not raiding Sunwell by now, you probably won't see him before Wrath anyway. Drop him, have about a 15% chance that this item drops, be an Enhancement Shammy and convince all the Warriors and Rogues that this is really an item you deserve, and the Hand is yours.Getting Rid of It: Fully socketed, you probably won't -- even in Northrend, this is a nice weapon to have in the main hand. Though you probably will be done with it before raiding gets underway at level 80, so then you can sell it back to vendors for 15g 65s 3c, or disenchant it into (probably two) Void Crystals.
Totem Talk: The Beta Yo-Yo Effect
The great and terrifying thing about the beta is watching everything about your character change from week to week. For instance, this week the level 70 PvP blues changed from looking like Sunwell gear to looking like the picture above.Now stop laughing at me and let's discuss the changes aside from me looking ridiculous. Man, the difficulty in finding a good hat for a tauren.We're seeing lots of small tweaks this time. Lava Burst is cheaper, does more damage, and only consumes your own flame shock, meaning that Elemental Shamans will not be able to use Enhancement Shamans shocks to trigger their own crits with the spell. Similarly, enhancement will now find that the Stormstrike debuff is enhanced (so to speak) and only affects your own spells, meaning that the days of shamans seeing rogue poisons eat those charges are also gone. Thunderstorm gets its range back, Ancestral Awakening chooses a target based on health percentage, and Spirit Link doesn't work on polymorphed targets anymore. All these changes and more, after the jump.And yes, I know the hat looks dumb, thank you.
Totem Talk: Curses, foiled again
Okay, you're going to hear a lot of anger and hostility over the latest beta pass for shamans. You won't hear it from me, mind you, because I try not to get angry or hostile in this columns, it's just not my style. But I will say this: if you're playing a shaman in live, you'd probably prefer that these recent changes not go live.They're not all bad... Maelstrom Weapon now will also reduce the casting time on healing spells as well as DPS spells, allowing you to throw an instant cast heal on yourself or even someone else... but when abilities like Shamanistic Focus get nerfed (45% mana cost reduction instead of the current 60% on live) then I have to ask myself if these changes seem at all rasonable, and in most cases I'm not coming up with a yes. It's possible I'm biased... actually, scratch that. I am biased. If I wasn't biased I wouldn't be playing a shaman in the first place. I play the class because I love the class and I want to see its talents and abilities give it the means to be competitive in its chosen role, be it DPS or healing. While I've never been a large proponent of things like dot shocks or reroll protests (you guys remember those) I do understand being frustrated, and I would even say that if this beta pass went live I'd be frustrated too.
Shamans in Beta build 8885
Well, since I think we're all pretty aware at this point what a spoiler is, and how reading this post is going to create some for you, I'm not going to try and obfuscate too much in this header paragraph. There are good things, bad things, and still quite a few buggy things held over from the previous build in build 8885. For instance, weapon imbues like Windfury Weapon can be applied to weapons from Northrend again! That's good. Ancestral Spirit, the shaman's res spell, can no longer be cast on dead targets. That's bad. (And it's a bug, based on the comments I did not make this clear. My apologies if I scared anyone.) Purification works (good) but Healing Way doesn't (bad). And none of this even covers the changes, just the bugs that have and haven't been addressed. Also, I'm pretty sure we didn't get any Frogurt but that's just as well, as it might well have been cursed. Well, let's go on to the choice of toppings... er, I mean talents and skill changes. You can scroll down here for some patch note goodness, and I'll be discussing the changes after the jump. The jump does not contain monosodium glutamate.
