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Totem Talk: Restoration shaman guide to Cataclysm reputation gear
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. 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 consolidated the expansion's changes for restoration shaman in a Cataclysm 101 post -- just the basics there, nothing too fancy quite yet. This week, I fully intended to begin writing restoration guides for the various 5-man dungeons and heroics, but instead, I'd like to take some time and talk about gearing up before you even set foot in dungeons at level 85. Over the last week, I've received a massive influx of email asking about what gear is available through questing and through the various factions. While it is very true that you can receive quite a bit of gear from questing, the reputation rewards are quite stellar. You will gain a sizeable chunk of reputation simply from leveling to 85, so let's see what gear you can pick up along the way. For today, we'll keep Mail Specialization in mind and stick with the mail gear, rings and trinkets available from the various factions.
Totem Talk: The myth of the well-itemized elemental shaman shield
Guest hosting is serious business. Not everyone can live up to the challenge the way Alf did. Still, as part of a mission of mercy, shadow-priest-turned-elemental-shaman Fox Van Allen is rolling the dice and taking the helm of Totem Talk this week. How does mercy fit in, exactly? Well, have you seen what happens when rabid elementals invade the comment sections of Joe's resto version and Rich's enhancement version? Not pretty. To get our children through their early days of life, we tell them little fictions to make things more magical and more fun. Hurry up and get to sleep so Santa will bring you lots of presents! You should take that tooth and put it under your pillow; the Tooth Fairy pays big money for those! There are plenty of well-itemized spellpower shields out there for elemental shaman! As you grow up, you learn the sad truth behind it all. That obese man coming sneaking into your house on Christmas Eve is actually trying to perpetrate a home invasion. Those who collect the teeth of others are most likely in need of serious psychiatric help. And for the longest time, we elemental shaman used to suffer the quiet indignation of carrying around gobs of useless MP5 on our shields, just because Blizzard didn't see it necessary to design shields around our specific needs. Well, my totem-flinging friends, I have some good news -- not regarding Santa or the Tooth Fairy (sorry), but regarding that spellpower shield. You do have options. And there's more good news: With Cataclysm coming right around the corner, we're about to become proverbial kids in a candy store.
Totem Talk: Enhancing your gear in only four dungeons
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 12 now out!)as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. Holy Stormstrikes! I'm going to refrain from using the term casual in a post ever again. Wait, I just used it there. Ah well, rack that promise up with "I'll never drink again" and "I'll never die to cutters again." Lies, all of them, lies. We all have different definitions of the term and judging by the comments in the last post, others' definition of casual is more severe than mine. I'll get into casual vs. hardcore and the ridiculousness of those classifications in another post. For now, I hear you loud and clear, so let's refrain from diving into that now. I digress. As I was writing last week's article I had this sneaking suspicion that I already wrote several articles on gearing your non-end game enhancement shaman. In fact I had written articles many moons ago, and they are all on my neglected blog, Big Hit Box. Time for a revisit.
Behind the Mask: Focusing on characteristics
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I wrote an article about Champions Online's gear mechanics. That article kind of assumes a few things about how much you know about stats. Unfortunately, it doesn't go into great detail about what exactly stats do, or what are the best choices for your character. In other articles, I've made suggestions such as "stick with your passive" and "get END, REC, and CON, because they're good." Admittedly, there will be some of that here too. However, the focus this week will be on the best ways to make use of other stats, particularly STR, DEX, EGO, and PRE. I'll try to keep things simple. You don't need a lecture on exactly how Enrage works to know it makes STR a good stat. If you're having trouble with the stat system and the previous article on loot, this is your lucky day.
Totem Talk: Enhance me
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury, and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 8 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. Two weeks ago a fellow enhancement shaman contacted me on Twitter asking how to improve his damage output. He was kind enough to let me use his email as the topic for the weekly enhancement shaman column here on WoW.com. Because he was brave (crazy?) enough to face the public scrutiny that comes from being in the spotlight here, show him the high level of respect our fellow enhancement brother deserves. Here's his email: I just switched to enhance for raiding a couple of weeks ago and I still feel like my DPS is lower than what it could be. I'm using Shock and Awe and still depending more or less on the priority frame, which I hope to ween off of soon. I'm still not 100% sure if I have the priorities set up correctly at this point. They are set at: SR MT LS MW5 LB SS ES if SS FS LL FN I also use Wolves every time they are up and also Fire Elemental when off CD. With just my buffs at the heroic dummy I seem to be maxing out around 6-6.5k. Again, seems a little low to me. If you would like to look at my armory, the name is Alyssian on Durotan. We use WoL, too, and my guild is Chi Cerca Trova. PS - Any tips for helping me get off of the SAA priority window? I'm mainly concerned with keeping the shock rotation going, I think I can handle the rest.
Totem Talk: Ruby Sanctum loot for enhancement
Rich Maloy subsists solely on enhancement air. He experiences shortness of breath when offered spellpower gear and is easily confused by spirit and MP5. You can ask him anything about enhance at the Totem Recall roundtable or watch his WoW reality series, Big Crits. In case you missed it in all the news about the Cataclysm beta, Ruby Sanctum was released into the wild on Tuesday. With a new instance out everyone is asking, "What's in it for me?" But my question is, "What's in it for enhancement?" The short answer is ArP. For a stat that's going away in a few months, we're seeing a lot of it in Ruby Sanctum gear from both the 10- and 25-man versions of the raid. Armor penetration (ArP) is not the ideal stat for enhancement. Not ideal, but definitely usable. There are some definite winners among the RS loot -- on both 10 and 25. I've created a new enhance gear spreadsheet on Google Docs including the new loot. It's read-only, so either make a copy to your Google Docs file or save a copy to your desktop as an Excel file. I've also included some sample EP values for different levels of play, including EP values derived from the latest Elitist Jerks BiS gear, setup and rotation.
Spiritual Guidance: A shadowy work in progress
The Spiritual Guidance duo, Fox Van Allen and Dawn Moore, haven't always gotten along so well. While some attribute that to the natural way that the shadow abhors the light, the real reason is the time they were on The Price is Right together in 2003. I mean, two hundred dollars for a grandfather clock, Dawn? What were you thinking? Some days, I wish Spiritual Guidance was a TV show. Not only would the world be better able to appreciate my own physical beauty, but I'd be able to do one of those "Last time, on Spiritual Guidance" opening montages, filled with dramatic clips that tell you exactly what happened last week. "Fox, we need to get to level 10, and fast! Before the orphanage explodes!" "But if you're the Priest trainer ... then who's that?" "You're not casting Smite enough! Faster! Faster! More Smite NOW! Hurry, there's not much time!" KABOOM! "The orphans, they're on fire! Quick, cast Renew!" Things are often a lot more awesome in my head than in real life, I'm afraid. Still, last week, we did address the process of starting a new priest, getting him geared up with heirlooms (or heaven forfend, green items) and the basics of the early spells (Smite, lol). This week, we're digging a bit deeper, getting to 20, rocking some instances and doing some PvP -- that's right, life as a priest is finally ready to begin. Follow me after the cut. And don't mind the random explosions and orphan debris -- they're just there for next week's opening montage.
The Light and How to Swing It: Gearing a new level 80 ret paladin, part 2
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. I want to thank everyone who has sent in screenshots. I've gotten a lot of good shots thus far and am always looking for more. They can be any level between 1 and 80 and in dungeons, raids, questing, or wandering around town. I'll be using these for header graphics like the one above. Please send those as well as any other comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. We're into article two of our three part guide on how to gear your new 80 retadin. Last week we looked at the profession and reputation rewards that could get you started. We're going to be looking into dungeon drops this week and finish up with badge gear next week. Let's get onto the loot.
The Light and How to Swing It: Gearing a new level 80 tankadin
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon an entire flight of black dragons. The quiet before the storm. This is period of time where people are losing interest in their current characters and either start playing less or trying out one of their alts. As such, we've been getting a lot of requests for guides during the end of expansion lull. One of the requests we got last week was a gear guide to your up-and-coming level 80 protection paladin. Whether you're catching up an old character or rolling a new 'toon to try your hand at tanking, we'll show you where to get started.
Lichborne: Gearing for new level 80 DPS death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at death knight news, guides, tips and tricks. So you've just dinged level 80. Now what? If you're lucky, you've saved up a few Emblems of Triumph from random dungeon finder runs -- but for now, you're new, you're only halfway geared and you want to start running the dungeon finder as soon as possible so you can see the Lich King die before Cataclysm hits. How do you do that? Let's give you a few tips and a list of gear to shoot for to get you in top pre-raid shape.
Spiritual Guidance: Gear guide for fresh 80 healing priests
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance and Dawn Moore lead priests into the light by studying the fine art of healing. Priests who walk into the light have a longer life expectancy* than those who follow the teachings of Fox Van Allen. Recent studies show that the 51-point talent Dispersion is actually an unexpected side effect of drinking spiked Honeymint Tea, partying with warlocks and cannibalizing gnomes. Well, the day has come: I finally decided to put together a gear guide for fresh level 80 healing priests. Many readers have been requesting this, and I figured I ought to stop teasing everyone with promises of it. I hope that this list, combined with the 101 guides we published in the past few months, will be enough to help my fellow fledgling priests find themselves somewhere in Azeroth. I can't have you all getting lost before you have a chance to dive into that new, shiny Cataclysm water. Before I get started, let it be known that this is not a list of any and all healing upgrades you can get after you hit 80. Instead it is a list of gear I would recommend to a healing priest who is trying to get the best gear he or she can without raiding or is trying to get enough gear to start healing in the current raiding content (Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel.) Since this is not a complete list, feel free to deviate from it when you find upgrades that work for you. A lot of items you find in heroics will be be better than the gear you are wearing from questing. Now, let's get started.
Behind the Mask: The best kind of loot
Loot feels like a controversial thing in Champions Online. It's an odd feeling to have your character's super strength be powered by Qularr Mutagens or an ARGENT Dimensional Shunt. It's not strange to see a fantasy character loaded down with epic gear, but when a mutant superhero gains a majority of his attributes from magic headbands, tech wristbands, and radiation-emitting devices rather than his own superpowers, it sort of makes him feel a little less super. From my experience with the roleplaying community, most players ignore gear from an IC perspective because it just doesn't make sense. Personally, I have mixed feelings on gear. I like having things to do in the late game, and while grinding Nemesis merits for top level gear is a chore, at least it gives some sort of incentive to do things in the end game besides roll alts. Without the promise of character advancement of some kind or another, it's hard to convince players to keep playing their favorite characters. On the other hand, gear creates imbalance between players. As a PvP type of player, I like it when everyone has a fair shot. The one thing that most people can agree on about CO is that the gear system is downright confusing. Most people just pick the items that give them the most points in their superstats and move happily along. Even though I have a fairly in-depth understanding on how the gear system works, distilling it into an easily digestible form is no easy task. Hit the jump and you'll see what I mean.
Pimp My Profile: Dyskograf, Mutilate rogue
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! I am using the only viable (at the moment) Mutilate-Envenom spamming build. I throw HfB every time it goes off, pooling my energy a little, just to make sure I'll get two Mutilates in one Envenom buff. And yes, SnD is there all fight long. The problem is, the highest one i've ever got from it was 4k DPS only. As I find these numbers very poor - I make a place for your tweakin advices! - Dyskograf Dyskograf, it's your lucky day, because WoW.com is going to Pimp Your Profile! While I won't be able to put a mount on your mount so you can ride while you ride, I will be able to give you some character planning tips that will have you moving towards the top of the DPS charts in no time flat!
Lichborne: Icecrown 5-man gear for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's weekly look into the world of the death knight. This week, we're mostly waiting for the cold front to come in, but we got some other stuff we can talk about for sure. While we've all been waiting for Patch 3.3.3 to drop so we can decide if we're respeccing frost or not, It's become a pretty slow time in the death knight world. Debates continue on the best frost specs, whether Will of the Necropolis is worth getting now or even makes Blood the best tank spec, and so on and so forth, of course, so it's not completely quiet, but I've said my two cents on most of that before. It occurs to me, though, that I haven't really taken a good look at the Icecrown 5-mans for loot and opportunities for death knights. So for all my more casual and upcoming death knight friends, this one's for you.
Pimp My Profile: Elasmind, balance druid
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! Please pimp my druid. I can put out decent DPS in 5 mans if the conditions are right but I want to do more. I'm unsure about some of my talent choices and hope you can put me on the right track to ICC. - Elasmind Like a genie in a bottle, your wish is my command. With minimal tweaks, we can certainly get your toon ready to raid in style. When I say style, I mean style, you'll be the talk of Fountain Square. Get your whisper blocking add-on ready, because after we turn you from a moonkin to a doomkin, every balance druid in Dalaran is going to want to know your secret.
Lichborne: Frostwing and Lich King loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly death knight discussion center. This week, your host is playing it cool in more ways than one, what with the test server shakeups to frost DPS. Before we start into this week's column, I do want to assure any prospective frost DPSers that I fully plan to write a frost DPS 101 guide. In fact, up until a few days ago, I had every intention of writing that as today's column. Then I sat down at the computer on Friday, and we had a nice shiny new PTR with a whole mess of frost DPS buffs. It's probably going to take a bit for us to sort through those buffs, see how they affect speccing and gearing, and whether or not they'll make it live, so for now, we're going to focus on some other topics. This week, the subject is the loot in the final section of Icecrown Citadel, the Frostwing Halls. There's only a few bosses here, but you'll find some great off-spec pieces, a few best in slots items, and some interesting weapon choices. I'll offer my usual disclaimer here and recommend that you go back and review the opening paragraphs of our Lower Spire loot guide, since it lists some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. You may also want to review the stat weights discussed in blood DPS 101 and unholy DPS 101 as you pick out your DPS gear from these pages.
Pimp My Profile: Marksmanship hunter Fizzlebow
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! I would like to submit my character for the re-release of Pimp My Profile. I have a hunter named Fizzlebow, he's profiled for both Marksman and Beast Mastery, though I mostly play Marksman because I have more shots to choose from. I play 3-5 times a week, usually after work. I try to get in Heroic dungeon on the nights I do play, hopefully I can get two done a night. I usually group with my wife, another married couple, and one of their friends. I would be interested in any advice that I can receive towards my character to improve DPS. Depending on the heroic, I usually get somewhere between 1800 - 2300 DPS, and it feels like I should be getting more than that. Thanks for any info you and WoW.com can give, keep up the good work! - Fizzlebow Thank you for writing to Pimp My Profile Fizzlebow! You appear to be both deeply insightful as well as uncommonly good looking -- which is especially remarkable in your case since you don't have the rugged dwarven good looks to boost you. Marksman is indeed an excellent build to use in heroics, and I do believe if we roll up our sleeves we can jump your heroic DPS up considerably. We'd like to see you consistently doing over 3,000 DPS in any given heroic. Best of all with higher DPS your runs will be faster than ever and I daresay your wife will be looking at you with new eyes and suggesting ways to spend that extra time!
Lichborne: Crimson Hall loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, wow.com's weekly death knight column. This week, we continue our breakneck tour of the fabulous Ice Crown Citadel, premiere vacation getaway of the dead, rich, and infamous. Our look at ICC death knight loot continues this week with the Crimson Hall. Prepare for corny twilight jokes to go with your raiding (trust me, I know they're coming, and I will be making many of them). There's only 2 boss battles in this wing, but there's still plenty of loot to discuss. As before, I'd suggest you check out the introduction to the Lower Spire loot guide, as it does include some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. There's also a few wrenches in the gears (but good wrenches, since they involve buffs) for your loot selections as of Patch 3.3.2, which I'd expect will be live by the time you read this. We'll be getting an Ashen Verdict strength ring and a slight stat adjustment on tier 10 tank armor, so keep those in mind as you read. In short, you'll probably be keeping the Ashen Verdict strength ring as one of your main rings, and tier 10 tank gear looks a lot sexier now, at least for physical-based fights.
Spiritual Guidance: ICC-25 gear guide for holy and discipline priests
Every Sunday (and the occasional weekday) Spiritual Guidance offers holy and discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music. As promised, today I will be discussing 25-man Icecrown Citadel loot in a special edition of Spiritual Guidance. Additionally, I will be giving my assessments on tier 10 set bonuses for those of you who are still deciding how to spend your badges. Finally, I'll be offering up the counter arguments that readers left for the 'who to gear first' debate from Sunday's column. We have a lot of things to discuss, so let's jump right into it!
Pimp My Profile: Derongar, protection warrior
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! I WANT TO RAID GOOD. Please, teach me to raid gooder than I already raid. -Derongar While I believe that your gear is pretty solid (at first I was confused by the lower stamina but then I realized you'd logged out in arms spec but tanking gear) there are a few places that can be adjusted.
