shaman
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Shamans being "looked at"
In the wake of Blizzard's assertion that they won't be doing any more class reviews, comes an announcement from European CM Ommra saying that the shaman class is currently being "looked at." There aren't any specifics yet, but says Ommra,The developers are currently looking into Elemental threat and sustainability (mana efficiency). Of course, the thread goes on to list other class complaints, including lack of CC (or ability to escape CC) and Enhancement threat issues -- which just shows that you can never please everyone. But for the shamans in the audience, will Elemental improvements make you happy, or does the class need improvement in another direction entirely?
Leveling build for an Enhancement Shaman
Due to popular demand, I'm going to talk about a Shaman leveling build, specifically the one I chose in getting to 60. After 60, due to itemization, you have a lot more options. The following guide is what worked for me. It assumes no respeccing, so you'll have some talents that contradict each other - shield spec, 2h, and dual-wield. As with any guide, it may not be the best for your particular playstyle. It's just a suggestion for newer players on talents they can use to help level quickly. While leveling up, you really want to maximize damage, as a paladin does with their retribution tree. You could level up as elemental or restoration, but expect a long long grind to 60. Enhancement is truly where it's at. Everything in this tree is geared to either increasing the damage you do, or reducing the damage you take. When leveling up, these are pretty important. You should pick your gear accordingly as well. Strength increases damage and how much you block with a shield. Stamina increases hitpoints, Agility increases crit rate, and Int increases mana and spell crits. I'd place importance on stats in that order, but that's personal opinion. Read on for the entire build.
A Shaman Primer for new players
The following document was created to help Shaman, specifically Draenei Shaman, as they find themselves as the new class in the Alliance. It's also useful for those who are about to group with a Shaman (or two or three), to understand what role a shammy will play in your group or raid. Finally, it's definitely a good read for anyone who's just picking up the Shaman class, to give you a bit of a jump on your fellow players in knowing your place in groups and raids. As with most of my shaman info, the credit here definitely goes to Skew, my leveling buddy who is now on his 3rd level 60 Shaman. He swore that if Shaman were ever given to the Alliance, he'd play one, and he has. His knowledge and support and love of the class have been instrumental in encouraging the same in me. The bulk of the primer is posted after the break, so be sure to read and chime in with your thoughts on the role of a shaman.
Raiding and the new (to your faction) classes
As you may be aware, I've been leveling a Draenei shaman up, to raid with my guild (Vision on Khaz Modan, fyi) in the not-too-distant future. Vision's been great about this, and has been encouraging and helpful in making room for those of us who have abandoned our 60's and elected to take the long and painful path back to raiding status. I've been talking with other guild and raid leaders from the community, and with the change in raid group size, the addition of a new class seems to create a bit of an issue. Now you have 25 slots for 9 different classes, so how do you achieve balance in your raiding organization? As I've heard different answers from virtually everyone I've talked to, I want to see if we can get some sort of consensus here on WoW Insider, so that the community may form a semi-unified approach going into the new endgame. Read on for a couple of approaches, and to add your voice to the discussion.
A second chance at top-Tier gear
I wrote this post about "Dream Gear" way back in October when my Shaman was obsessed with the Pauldrons of Elements, the Tier 0 shoulders that dropped from Rend in UBRS. I just love the way they look, all hooky and Shaman-y. Unfortunately, despite a huge number of UBRS runs, they never dropped for me, and when the Tier 1 shoulders fell into my hands in MC, I abandoned my dream to wear the Pauldrons, I thought, forever.Until now. A fellow Shaman friend was running the Mana Tombs, and announced in guild chat that he'd grabbed the Lightning Rod Pauldrons, a terrific set of mail shoulders that drops from Tavarok in there. I drooled over the stats, and then CTRL-clicked to check out how they'd look on my Shammy, and lo and behold, I'd found my shoulders again! The devs had reused the Tier 0 skin, in new and cooler colors! Now I've got a new goal to run an instance over and over again for.And a lot of people are living the same dream. Cearrdorn over on LJ really likes the Judgement set, but his guild never made it long enough in BWL for him to get the whole thing. Fortunately, it looks like almost the whole set is findable in different colors in Outland, most of it in 5-man (both regular and Heroic mode) instances. I can't wait to find a Bloodfang lookalike for my Rogue, too-- for those of us who were never able to get all the cool-looking high end gear we always wanted (for whatever reason), it looks like the devs, by laziness or design, are giving us a second chance by reusing the old skins.
First 60 Draenei Shaman, Blood Elf Paladins seen ingame
Curse Gaming is reporting that Slops of Disposable Heroes on Aggramar-A has hit 60 with an Alliance Shaman. As far as they know (and I know), that's not only the first 60 Draenei seen in the game, it's also the first 60 Alliance Shammy in the game (see Update). Congrats! Now you'll know, Alliance, just how useful we Shammies are (yep, I play an Orc resto Shammy as my main).Slops did it with an amazing time of 3 days and 9 hours, which is doubly amazing, because as far as I know, the fastest time to 60 for any class I know of was just over 4 days (that was a few patches ago, though, and Shaman do rock). If someone hasn't already hit 60 (or even 70) with a Blood Elf Paladin yet, we'll probably see it here in a few days. In fact, if you know of one, drop us a note in the comments or over at "Contact Us" in the sidebar.Meanwhile, congrats to Slops for being one of the first Shaman to benefit from the crack cocaine that is a Pally's Judgement of Wisdom-- I won't lie, we spend mana like it's going out of style, and we can't wait to get a refill. Sure, I might not like them much, but I can't wait to share spells with the enemy in raids.Update: Well that didn't take long-- commenter Stephen says Yoshie of Relentless on Maelstrom EU hit 60 on Tuesday afternoon. Technically we don't know when Slops hit, but there's also been reports of a 60 Blood Elf Paladin sighting as well. There's no question Slops' time was fast, but unless Blizzard wants to let us know for sure, we might never know exactly who the first endgame Alliance Shaman was.
Problems appearing in 2.0.3
2.0.3 doesn't seem to have as many problems as 2.0.1 did, but there's at least a few going around.The first is more of a problem players are having-- the actual code is "working as intended." More than a few players were distraught to note that crowd control trinkets like the Tidal Charm are now "fizzing out after level 60," according to the tooltips. Drysc says about what you'd expect: that this kind of stuff is part of the CC nerfing going on, and that the trinkets coming in BC will make your eyes pop out of your head anyway. Tough luck, basically.There's a few known bugs going around, however. One a lot of people are dealing with is that the default target frame-- the little portrait of your target next to yours-- is disappearing. One small fix is simply typing /console reloadui: that seems to bring it back up for a bit, but it usually drops away again. It's definitely a repeatable bug, though, so hopefully a word from Blizz is forthcoming.Another known bug leads to issues changing and promoting raid leadership and main looters. Blizz acknowledges they're working on this one. Meanwhile, Kelriia over on LJ supposedly has a fix: either type /promote [name of leader][last letter of leader's name] , or /script PromotetoAssistant [name and last letter again]. Not sure if anyone else has tested those (or why you'd have to include the last letter repeated), but if it works, there you go.A few people are complaining that their addons aren't loading-- here's a quick reminder that after a patch, you have to go to the addon screen and actually check "Load out-of-date Addons." Worked for me.And finally, just a personal disappointment, being a Shaman: Where the heck is my Totemic Recall? Never mind-- commenter mubari says it's waiting for me at the trainer. Sweet!
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Adventures in Beta: Draenei Shaman, 6-10
I logged back into my draenei shaman where I left her -- stuck in Azure Watch, with a handful of new quests and no professions. Having already decided on jewelcrafting for my Blood Elf Paladin, I was stumped on what to give my shaman. I decided to pick up leatherworking and skinning so I could at least make some of my own armor - after all, it's not like I was out to make a ton of money on the test server. But there were no leatherworking trainers in Azure Watch (and no jewelcrafting either, which shocked me.) The local guards advised me to head to a furbolg camp in the north, filled with new allies that would be happy to teach me how to skin and make clothes.
The Burning Crusade -- you vs. your guild
New races, new (to your chosen faction) classes, 10 more levels. That's the short-form of what The Burning Crusade is going to deliver to us, come January 16th. Many guilds are focusing on the push to 70 and refining strategies for 25-man raiding. Many players are understandably eager to try out the new races and classes available to their chosen faction. Can these two goals mesh, or are we going to see a shift in the player-guild dynamic? My earliest guild wasn't started to beat endgame content. It was there for a group of people who enjoyed playing in each other's company and so that these people would have an easily accessible pool of resources for leveling and grinding up to 60. When we hit 60, the usual drama set in, as not everyone hit the level cap at the same time. Some people got bored or frustrated with the lack of progression at 60 and went off to look for raiding guilds. Others were happy just hanging out with friends, and still others were a bit upset that they were left behind and were feeling pressured to level to 60 so the guild could progress together. Now that the expansion is going to be upon us, I see the potential for the same type of splits amongst guild memberships. Some are going to want to power level to 70 to get back on the raiding wagon, while others will start fresh new characters that they hope to one day get to level 70. Then there are those people who want to savor the new content and while do a bit of leveling and a bit of playing around with the new low-level content.
Adventures in Beta: Draenei Shaman, Level 1-5
A couple weeks ago, I won a beta key. Pleased at getting to test out the expansion content, I happily waited for my key. And waited. And waited. Finally, on Wednesday, I received my World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Beta Key and installed the expansion. Then uninstalled the expansion. Then uninstalled my regular WoW, reinstalled it without patching, installed the Burning Crusade and patched that. I saved re-patching the live WoW for later, in case I began crying. Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I logged on and created my first character (my 60 main had yet to copy over.) Because I am lazy and want to see how the Horde and Alliance integrate their new classes, I chose to roll a draenei shaman. Also, I've never really tried to play a shaman or paladin, so it would be an experiment for me as well. I picked the "cute" draenei face, the Princess Leia buns that show off the the weird ear-tentacles draenei have, and some curly horns that looked slightly like racing stripes. And I was off!
New beta notes (and Shaman spell)
Curse Gaming has posted the unofficial notes of the newest patch (2.0.3) on the beta BC servers, and in among the newness (Ore stacks to 20, Elite quests renamed to "Group" quests) is a nice little tidbit for Shammies like myself: a new spell called "Totemic Recall."That's right, we can finally, finally remove our totems from the ground. Shaman have been asking for this for a long time-- totems grab aggro and have a short lifespan, so anytime a patrol happens to run by a totem you've left in your wake, your group gains an add, and it heads straight for you. Not so bad if you're Enhancement, not so great if you're the main healer in an instance. There are ways around it right now; whenever I see a totem in the way of an oncoming mob currently, I can just drop a totem of the same element in an out-of-the-way place, and it removes the first one (because you can't have more than one totem at a time down from a certain element).But the problem with that is it takes mana to put another totem down, and considering mana is at such a premium with us already, it's a pain. That's why Totemic Recall is so neat: every time you hit it (no cooldown in the notes-- if you're in the beta, please let me know what it is in the comments below), it'll clear all your totems, and refund you 25% of the mana you spent putting them down. Gets rid of the totems and returns a small part of the mana to you-- now that's productive.Of course, insert standard disclaimer about how these are beta notes and we may never see this spell in the game. But as a Shaman who needs to clean up his totems every once in a while, I sure hope we do.
Everybody loves healing
It's true! Comments to an earlier post suggest that a large number of you really get a kick out of keeping your fellow gamers alive. Blizzard's well-equipped you for this, with priests, druids, paladins, and shamans standing ready as class options. Personally, I've been the main healer for a group with all four of those classes, and can understand the satisfaction one gets from keeping a group going and not letting anyone die when a pull goes wrong.So if everyone loves healing so much, and with almost half the classes able to heal a 5-man or 10-man group as main healer, why is it that we still see the LFG channel inundated with "LF1M Healer for [instance here]. Will pay 5g! Will walk your dog! Will buy you flowers!" ?
Lesser Known Quests: Tooga
I'm classifying this quest as lesser-known, as I have just finally come across it after 2 1/2 years and 5 level 60's. Yes, you may call me ignorant and tell me I'm not paying attention in the comments.Tooga is a giant tortoise who's lost and roaming somewhere in southern Tanaris. I found him just south of the Thistleshrub Valley, wandering aimlessly in search of dinner for his wife.As far as escort quests go, Tooga's Quest is remarkably simple and rewarding. Instead of chasing across the desert like some other quest I know, Tooga is actually quite happy to follow you, giving you a 30-minute timer to take him to the coast just south of Steamwheedle Port.Given that Tooga will actually help you in combat, it's a bit like you get a level 50 turtle pet for 30 minutes who then hands over the experience and loot.I won't give away the entire dialog here, but let's just say that even though you get 5900xp and your choice of great shaman bracers or a druid ring, you almost feel bad for Tooga as his wife Torta treats the poor fella like a baby treats a diaper.If you're out and about in Tanaris, take some time to lead Tooga to the shore, killing mobs along the way. You could run straight to the shore in 10 minutes, but take the time with this pet - he makes for a good tank.If you've done this quest, let us know of your experience with it, and if you used Tooga as a combat pet or just ran him straight home.
WoW Rookie: Soulstone and you
As a priest, pally or possibly a lower level shaman, you are often bestowed with the responsibility of a soulstone, giving you the ability to self-rez. And as we all learned from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. If you have never had the chance to be on the receiving end of a soulstone, it is easy to make a rookie mistake. While it is by no means complex, there are certain do's and don'ts that aren't always obvious. With that in mind, here are some things to remember if you are given a soulstone... If you are new to the soulstone business, odds are your warlock is too. If you have never played a warlock, you might assume that when a soulstone expires some kind of elaborate fireworks display appears in the warlock's UI, informing them that the group is screwed if they wipe if he doesn't conjure another stone. Without a proper mod, this is not the case. Odds are your new level 21 warlock friend doesn't have the fancy mod. So pay attention to your soulstone, and when you see it expire, or a minute or two before it expires, let your warlock know in party chat or in a /whisper. Your lock will usually appreciate it.
Server-first Shaman ring drops to a Pally
Lots of people have already tagged Blizzard's move to start dropping Pally items to Horde and Shaman items to Alliance in raids (even though neither side can actually roll those classes for another month, much less have 60s that can use the BOP stuff) as a bad one, but here's more proof. A-Team, a guild over on Stonemaul-A dropped Kel'Thuzad, and got a server-first loot item: the Ring of the Earthshatterer, the ninth piece of Shaman Tier 3 armor. That's right, they got a historic, server-first, BOP drop-- and none of them could use it.The drop went to a pally (screenshot) in the hopes that a GM could come along and make it the Pally ring, but as you might expect by now, no dice. As a guy who plays a Shaman main, that especially tugs at the heartstrings.Unfortunately, don't expect a change on this one-- the CMs have said any non-faction drops should be considered free Nexus shards. But considering that a guild running Naxx could farm Nexus shards in their sleep, that these drops mean there's even less chance that the right stuff will drop for a guild that actually needs it, and that these useless items will continue to be useless until someone finally gets a BE pally or Draenei Shaman to 60 (at absolute best, you're talking days after the expansion releases, if the servers are even up by then), it's too bad that Blizzard has resolved not to fix this one. Grats to A-Team for the nice drop, but shame on Blizzard for not letting them use it.
WoW Moviewatch: Take 40 paladins and 40 shamans...
And who do you think wins? In the case of this raid on the Scarlet Crusade server, neither side emerged victorious. The onslaught of 40 paladins and 40 shamans coming together to fight crippled and crashed the server. (Perhaps this means that Blizzard won?)
2.0.1 patch notes are here
The realms should be coming back online soon, if not already, and the everything is changing throughout the world.... of Warcraft. 2.0.1 is upon us! Duel wielding Shamans! Talking trees! Water elementals! Normalized rage! Arena PVP! LFG summoning! It's almost too much to take.The official site is down at the moment-- no telling what it dropped. Complete patch notes are after the jump. Have fun.Update: Maintenance extended until 5pm PST. Can't... wait....
Respeccing for 2.0
Tomorrow's the big day -- WoW is getting patched and rolling over to 2.0. Bye-bye honor rankings, bye-bye DHKs, hello new LFG system, and new spells and talents for all. Oh, and every character in the game will log in after the patch is applied with a completely free respec.So things will likely look very different in terms of specs on Wednesday (my guild has an MC run planned, and I can't wait to see what happens). Personally, I like my rogue's combat daggers spec, so I'll probably keep it (he's only 50 now, so I'm not real worried about it). My warrior is currently specced protection, but hasn't been getting much play (or DPS) as a tank, so I may flip him fury or half prot-half fury. My priest is staying shadow, but my shaman -- for the expansion, I'm planning to switch him to elemental instead of restoration, so by Wednesday he may be much more deadly with lightning bolts than healing waves (not sure how that will go over in my guild raids, however).If you're thinking about respeccing, Mystic Worlds has posted a nice little commentary on how specs work -- while you should really spec for the talents and abilities you play with, for each class there's usually three or four different ways to set things up, either for soloing (or leveling), PVP, or PVE play. Of course, you don't have to respec on Wednesday -- you could just choose the same talents you have in place now. But since everything is changing so much (even your regular spec will have a few new shines to it), this might be your chance to be something a little bit different than you're used to.
A Shaman before Shaman was cool
Considering my main at the moment is an Orc Shaman, I'm listening in on the news about Draenei shammys with (you might say) scornful interest. One the one hand, they are my favorite class, and I can't wait to see the new totems in action (even as I Earth Shock them out of existence). But on the other, more important hand, they're Alliance, and that means, of course, that they're the scum of the earth. (Don't worry, I'm also having issues with the fact that Paladins will soon be coming on raids with us-- what is the world coming to?)But I am very interested to see what the differences in the two factions are within the class. For a racial, they've got that nice Blessing of the Naaru, a small (but useful, I'm sure) heal over time. As an Orc, I've got Blood Fury, but to tell the truth, I've never once used it effectively (I only just realized the other day that I didn't even have it on my actionbars at all). And then there's the "look and feel" of the class itself-- the totems are going to look completely different, groovy little space age things that will make my winged sticks look, well, primitive. But some things won't change: Blizzard has said on the forums a few times now that Draenei Shaman will have a ghost wolf form that looks like, well, a ghost wolf.And strangely enough, of all the differences I expected between the two Shaman factions, that's the one I most expected to be... different. The OP of that thread says (and I agree) that the wolf is definitely a symbol of the Horde. And another poster points out, rightfully so, that as alien as creatures are looking in Outland, why would the Draenei even know what a wolf is, anyway? Shouldn't they have something a little more alien as their travel form? Tseric says the devs don't care, but I can assure you that us traditional Shaman do.Which leaves out one of the most important questions-- right now, in the Raid listing, Shaman character names show up as pink-colored text, and I'm told that on Alliance, Paladins do. So who gets to keep the pink text? A while ago, I heard it was us Shammies, but now a few players are saying Pallys will keep pink. So which is it, Blizz? I was a Shammy before the Draenei made it popular, and I'd appreciate it if us Horde Shammies got the respect we deserve-- if that means pink text for our names, so be it.
Burning Crusade Talent Updates
They just keep coming. Today's changes focus on the shaman, with several tweaks for their elemental and enhancement trees. I don't find these changes awe-inspiring, but they aren't bad news, either. Parry - Renamed Spirit Weapons. Now "Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks and reduces the threat generated by your melee attacks by 15%." Mental Quickness - Moved to Unleashed Rage position. Unleashed Rage - Moved to Dual Wield Specialization position. Dual Wield Specialization - Moved to Mental Quickness position, reduced to 3 ranks for 2/4/6% hit chance. Still requires Dual Wield. Totem of Wrath - Now "...increases the chance to hit and critically hit with spells by 3% to all..." Elemental Precision - Now "Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 1/2/3% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 4/7/10%."
