Enhancement-Shaman
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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.
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?
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!
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.
Outland reputation set- Shaman (Enhancement): Seer's Linked Battlegear
This is the PvP set for Enhancement Shaman. The Battlegear sets are of a superior quality and are equal to the Level 70 High Warlord gear that can be purchased with honor points. The pieces can be purchased by becoming honored with Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold/Thrallmar, Keepers of Time, Lower City, and the Sha'tar. Complete sets require honored with all five factions as listed below: Seer's Linked Battlegear Slot Rep Seer's Linked Gauntlets Hands Lower City Seer's Linked Helm Head Thrallmar/Honor Hold Seer's Linked Leggings Legs Keepers of Time Seer's Linked Armor Chest The Sha'tar Seer's Linked Spaulders Shoulders Cenarion Expedition Seer's Linked Battlegear Armor Str Sta Int Seer's Linked Gauntlets 407 21 33 Seer's Linked Helm 530 20 30 Seer's Linked Leggings 570 22 42 22 Seer's Linked Armor 652 12 42 Seer's Linked Spaulders 489 13 42 Total 2648 88 180 22 Seer's Linked Battlegear Resil Dur Mp5 Gems Seer's Linked Gauntlets 29 28 40 Seer's Linked Helm 24 24 70 M, R Seer's Linked Leggings 28 22 90 Seer's Linked Armor 14 22 120 R, R, Y Seer's Linked Spaulders 17 13 70 R, Y Total 112 109 390 Set Bonus 2: 35 Resilience Set Bonus 4: Reduces the cooldown of your Stormstrike ability by 1 second. Return to the complete Outland Battlegear list
How soon is now?
Restless for the 2.2 patch to go live, players have been flooding the official forums for updates on long requested features: surnames, player housing, engineering revamp, to name a few. The response to all these requests was the same: we'd like to implement these ideas, but don't know when.The only glimmer of hope the Community Managers could give was about class reviews. Word is Ret Paladins and Enhancement Shamans are receiving "changes" sooner rather than later and for Priests, the Holy tree and Discipline tree will receive some dev lovin'. For those classes not listed and feeling the need for review, there's always the next expansion. TBC did wonders for the druid Balance and Feral trees. Now we must wait for the Voice Chat patch to go live and then Blizzard can be more specific about what game changes are coming next and which stay on the back burner.
