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Inactive players give rise to Xsyon zombies
Normally, the worst things that happen to inactive players are that guilds kick them out. But in the world of Xsyon, the consequences are more dire, not just for the player but for everyone around. With the game's latest update, inactive tribal totems will begin to give rise to intelligent and malicious undead revenants. And these creatures are far more intelligent thatn your average monsters, hunting other players and looting them for better equipment as they capture new territory. Fortunately for the players, there's also new armor to be looted off the revenants themselves and plenty of opportunities for players to beat back the invasion. The update also brings along a widespread upgrade to monster AI, making all foes a bit more clever and deadly aside from just the revenants. If you've been out of the game for a while, you might want to jump back in, especially to prevent your former home from turning into an undead nest. [Source: Notorious Games press release]
Xsyon totem abandonment phase for MIA tribes starts June 25th
Deserted structures in neglected lands, abandoned goods sitting unusable in baskets; in Xsyon, as in any game where players can own property, there comes a time when owners move on leaving valuable in-game resources tied up and inaccessible to those who remain. To combat this, Notorious Games is implementing decay for all inactive totems starting June 25th. Abandonment, the culling of inactive tribes from land ownership, is a four-phase process. Any tribe without at least one active member will move into the first stage, neglected. The second is the deserted phase; all bins on the land will become accessible and the area will no longer be a safe zone. Revenants (aggressive creatures who can loot players and equip their gear) will haunt tribes in this stage and increase in number during the next stage -- abandoned. In the removal stage, buildings can be demolished and the land reclaimed by active citizens. All Xsyon players -- past or present -- have the chance to log in and claim their totems from Friday, June 22nd until Monday, June 25th before Abandonment begins. All active accounts prior to June 25th will also receive two weeks of free play time. [Source: Xsyon press release]
Skill Mastery: Totemic Projection
Totemic Projection, obtainable at level 45, gives you the ability to launch your currently placed totems to any location around you within 40 yards. Fairly straightforward, really easy to use. Those of you who like setting up macros may want to start planning a little about creative uses with your totems and Totemic Projection. Capacitor Totem Drop this totem and count to three, then Totemically Project it toward your target. Voilà! Instant stun! Earthbind Totem Perhaps best used in PvP, you can setup Earthbind to root and slow down players as they're busy running away from you, allowing you to close the gap and Chain Lightning their faces. Those are just some of the ideas I had off the top of my head. The other talents add extra functionality to your totems. Call of the Elements lets you finish off any totem cooldowns that are active, allowing you to use them again. The catch is that the cooldown of the totem needs to be shorter than 5 minutes. Sadly, this means you cannot use your Fire Elemental Totem, Earth Elemental Totem, or Stormlash Totem back-to-back. Totem Restoration is a passive ability that lets totems respawn if they keep getting destroyed. I'd say that's useful in PvP, more than anything else. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Pandaren shaman totems revealed
Those of you who were waiting with bated breath to finally find out whether the pandaren shaman totems would be kegs, well, wait no longer. MMO Champion has datamined the totem models for pandaren shaman in the latest Mists of Pandaria beta patch, and they are definitely kegs. Hey, at least one shaman race got the beer totems they deserved, Blizzard. Check out the earth and water totems after the break!
Totem Talk: Restoration shaman buffs and debuffs in Mists of Pandaria
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, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and cohost of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how Every time there is a new update whenever we're waiting for an expansion, it's super hard not to be excited. We'll be getting a flood of information about the expansion soon -- I can feel that in my bones -- but in the meantime, we have had a steady trickle of information, ranging from the talent calculator updates to the recently discovered and discussed list of buffs and debuffs in Mists. Thursday, though, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street made a blog post about consolidating buffs and debuffs in Mists of Pandaria. The first thing any shaman will notice is that buff totems have gone the way of Sentry Totem. This shouldn't be that surprising, really, since at BlizzCon 2011, Blizzard stated that this was going to happen. However, it means that raid buffs will be mobile and travel with you at all times -- a great thing for PvP and for PvE utility, but a bad thing for anyone who cares about the flavor of totems.
Addon Spotlight: Never miss reputation with Auto Tabard
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week: Shackleford. It's Addon Spotlight time, ladies and gentlemen. As I sit here at death's door from the terrible PAX pox with which I have so unceremoniously been bestowed, I try to eek out words and phrases, maybe a quip or two, before death's cold embrace takes me. I feel as though my short time on this earth and in this existence was worth it, however, because I got to tell you about Auto Tabard.
Choose My Adventure: And so it began... again
Well, this week has certainly been interesting. And by interesting, I mean not really usual. Then again, if any of you know me very well, that really should not come as much of a surprise; normal and MJ usually do not coexist in the same stratosphere. I am also not one to shy away from the untrodden path, and I tend to take off on my own tangents. Who needs easy when you can have interesting? Perhaps this quality alone made me a decent match for tackling the world of Xsyon for this round of Choose My Adventure. That, and a measure of patience. In my first true week of playing Xsyon, I really didn't get to "play" much of anything. Not in any sense of the word that most MMO gamers would be familiar with. That isn't to say that I didn't have any fun; on the contrary, I really enjoyed the time I did get in, and I look forward to really digging my toes into that rich Tahoe soil. Well, my shovel, really. So what were the unusual circumstances surrounding my first adventures? Hike past the cut for a deeper look at the week and some helpful tips for anyone planning to jump into game come launch.
Choose My Adventure: Destination - Apocalypse now
So my bags are packed (what exactly do you pack for an apocalypse? I vote toothbrush, regardless!) and I'm setting out for the Lake Tahoe region. Yup, our itinerary is set -- Xsyon has won the hearts of the readers for this next escapade in the Choose My Adventure series. I find this kind of exciting, as I grew up frequenting this area out here in the real world and look forward to seeing it represented in the game. Now, I have a confession to make: I watched the vote carefully. Too carefully. OK, I was obsessed with it! I don't think I can even tell you how many times I clicked refresh in one day; it was quite addicting to watch the numbers creep up as the readers cast their votes. And since six weeks of my life was on the line, I had a vested interest in the outcome. At least, that's how I tried to rationalize my maniacal refreshing. Xsyon commanded the lead straight off, but Pirates of the Burning Sea had a good showing and maintained a solid second place throughout the contest. Four games kept running neck-and-neck: DC Universe Online, Earthrise, EVE Online, and LEGO Universe. I admit to rooting some for the underdogs as well -- each game has special and unique features I would enjoy delving into. Think about it: Can you imagine life as a LEGO? But in the end, no one could topple the promise of a vast wasteland filled with mutants and an empty canvas for players to fill in. So now that we have the setting, all we need is the character. Unlike many games, Xsyon demands that you pick things such as your crafting skills at character creation, so please forgive the number of polls attached to this week's article. Head on past the cut to learn a bit about Xsyon and vote to make me build the CMA creature of your bidding!
The Tattered Notebook: Never leave home without it
This week, I decided it's time to dump the bag. My characters often accumulate items at such a rapid rate that my bags quickly resemble those of a typical teenager at the mall. Any time I resign myself to plunking down at the bank to sort my inventory, I end up shocked at some of the stuff I bring home. However, there are some items in EverQuest II that are lifesavers, and others that can really be handy in a pinch. Let's take a look at a few items that you should never leave home without.
Totem Talk: Restoration week in review
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 talked about my rekindled love of PvP. Honestly, I love it like it was all new again, and I'm getting a big thrill out of doing organized groups. It's helping fill the hole of raiding until Cataclysm. Prior to that, we talked about surviving in a post-patch, 4.0.1 world. This week, I thought we could talk about some new information gathered from BlizzCon 2010, as well as go over some changes coming with the new beta patch. I'd also like to talk a little bit about what the developers are discussing about healing and mana in Cataclysm.
Totem Talk: Restoration 4.0.1 survival guide
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. It has been a full week since patch 4.0.1 has gone live, and in that week there has been a lot of adjustment on everyone's part. Restoration shaman were quite lucky in that for the most part, the way we do things for now has been left unchanged. That is not to say we don't have things that require adjustment or adapting to. A couple of weeks ago, I answered a series of questions pertaining both to patch 4.0.1 and the upcoming expansion Cataclysm, and back in September, we talked about what to expect when patch 4.0.1 went live. This week, I would like to go over all the changes and compile a list of everything you need to know for survival until the next expansion. I have received a number of reader emails, and I hope this will answer many of the questions I've been receiving. So let's get started!
Totem Talk: Enhancement Cataclysm update
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 9 now out!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. With such a lame title, you'd never guess we have so much to talk about this week! Mastery bonus is all elemental damage, not just nature! Smarter Searing Totems! Four Ghostcrawler replies (11 paragraphs!) about Shamans, with four paragraphs solely about Enhancement! Longer Hex! New crit-increasing talents! Increased totem ranges! Well, okay, maybe that last one isn't as exciting as the first few. But there's so much news out there for us enhancers, I don't even know where to begin. The logical place to start is with the biggest news: Enhancement Mastery bonus "increases all elemental damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating." This is a change from the first Cataclysm build that included mastery; previously our bonus was only increasing our nature damage. The nature-only mastery was great for our core spell, Lightning Bolt (LB), but with Maelstrom Weapon (MW) now including Lava Burst (LvB) we would not benefit from our Mastery bonus with LvB. This was a problem for two reasons: first LvB does more damage than LB, and second, LvB could be used to keep Elemental Devastation up. Lava Burst will automatically crit when Flame Shock (FS) is on a target, making it a smart choice to used to keep Elemental Devastation active. That choice changed. Mastery now affects all elemental damage, which includes Lava Burst. Hence, Lava Burst plus Flame Shock plus mastery equals happy enhancer. This is a great buff for us. Because LvB has an 8 second cooldown and LB has none, we'll still keep LB handy for when LvB is on cooldown.
Ghostcrawler on the future of totems
Earlier this week, Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) responded to some posts regarding totems. There have been some doom-and-gloom comments and, unfortunately, very few positive ones. (Nice to see Strawberry get a mention in one of GC's replies.) Since I'm now the elemental shaman columnist here, I thought I'd weigh in with my own thoughts on the matter. Quote: Why does a DK not have to choose between horn of winter and desecration? Because that is pretty much all the DK gets. The shaman on the other hand gets to choose among Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Wrath of Air Totem, Flametongue Totem, Tremor Totem, Healing Stream Totem, resistance Totems and Earthbind Totem, which doesn't even count Bloodlust / Heroism, and things like Unleashed Rage or Elemental Oath. If your buff was as competitive as theirs and you had so much versatility, we fear we'd see raids with many, many shaman in them. As it is, there's still a good chance for 3 shaman in a 25-player raid, while the DKs might get 2 slots if they're lucky. You should get a slot because you are a good player, not because your buff rules. source From what GC is saying here, we can see that because we have multiple potential choices in buffs via totems, these buffs won't be quite as good as the ones provided from other classes. The problem with that is that even in a min-max raid environment, the shaman selects totems based on what other buffs are provided, rather than being brought along to specifically provide totem buffs. It's also worth noting that most of the differences between the buffs a shaman provides and those from other classes boil down to either range, activation or both. As it stands at the moment, you will make sure you have one shaman for Wrath of Air and an enhancement shaman for talented Strength of Earth. That will cover the only shaman-specific buffs you require for the average raid. In fact, you are more likely to stack paladins in a raid than shaman, to get three blessings on everyone (Sanc, Kings, Might or Wisdom, although enhancement shaman and retribution paladin would like to have all four), compared to having one shaman dropping Wrath of Air, Totem of Wrath/Flametongue and possibly Mana Spring, with a second doing Windfury and Strength of Earth, which will cover all of the "primary" raid buffs.
Reader UI of the Week: Ymïr's UI
Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Welcome friends! I hope your weeks are all off to wonderful starts. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the servers are back up, life is dandy and Dalaran hasn't crashed to pieces on you. Once you log in to your server of choice and choose your character, gaze and marvel upon the user interface before you, for it could one day be here in this very column. Another Reader UI of the Week is upon us! This week, I chose to feature Ymïr's user interface. His UI is tailored to his shaman, and as I have recently had a renewed interest in my own orc shaman I might be a little bit biased in the selection. For this UI, I wanted to focus more on functionality and spatial concerns, especially with respect to where buffs and debuffs are placed, as well as the tooltip.
Totem Talk: Restoration addons, part 3
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 the For The Lore podcast In April we talked about addons and macros that were focused on restoration shaman. We highlighted some staple addons and some useful macros for a variety of situations. In May, I tipped my hat to Power Auras Classic and pointed out the interaction between Totem Radius and AVR/AVRE. Shortly after that second addon post, news arose that AVR was going to be killed in the next major patch to hit servers. While I've never been one to rely solely on mods, it did make totem placement a lot easier and was pretty useful. In the end, though, it empowered players too much and so must be dealt with. Since that news dropped, I have been going through reader email about addons and mods as well as combing through all the various choices available. So today, I would like to bring you part 3 of our restoration addon discussion.
Totem Talk: Enhancement 101
Axes, maces, lightning, fire, frost, and wolves, and best of all, Windfury. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy (aka Stoneybaby) loves it and lives it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. And he will be penning the enhance side of Totem Talk. It seems 101 guides are all the rage these days, which makes enhancement shaman 101 a convenient place to start with my inaugural WoW.com post. Playing an enhancement shaman, and playing it well, means dealing with the most extensive spell rotation in the game, having two caps to hit in gearing, and a dozen cooldowns to track. Not to mention the need to run out of fires, avoid whirlwinds, and generally dodge all that hate on melee. It's safe to say enhance is one of the most complex specs to play. It's also one of the most fun. My favorite part is that we're right up front making a mess of things with both physical and magical damage–to deadly effect. You want to play enhancement? Let's dive right in to get you started!
Patch 3.3 PTR: Dwarf, orc, and troll shaman totem gallery
While we have covered the fact that new totems are coming out for orcs and trolls in patch 3.3 so that the taurens don't have to keep sharing with everyone. We've also mentioned the fact that dwarf totems have been added into the PTR files for when Cataclysm hits. At the time, we only had the front view images from MMO-Champion. This caused a bit of an issue with the Dwarf totems as it's hard to distinguish what exactly they're supposed to look like without a side view. So, after some datamining and image editing of our own, we've put together a little gallery of the new totems for you all to enjoy.%Gallery-75215% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Patch 3.3 PTR: New totems for trolls
Now this is neat: brand-new totem artwork has been spotted on the patch 3.3 PTR for troll shamans by extremely excited tipster Zjin. Previously, all Horde shamans shared a totem design, and draenei got their own space-themed totems when they were added. The new troll ones look appropriately voodoo, I think. There are now at least three designs for the four different horde races; I wouldn't be surprised if orcs turned out to have their own as well. The current Horde totems fit tauren best of all the races. Once we here at WoW.com start making our way onto the PTRs, we'll bring you any more information we can find on possible new totems for the various races. In the mean time, I'll be in my bunk, doing designs for dwarf totems in my head. Update: yep, there are new Dwarf and Orc totems too.
New Shaman totems in the expansion
Good news from Kisirani for those who like a little variety in their Shaman classes -- she confirms that Dwarf Shaman will indeed get brand new totems to throw down rather than the Draenei or Tauren models in Cataclysm, and hints that all of the Shaman races, past and future, will get a little differentiation in the sticks they stab into the ground. Unfortunately, she also confirms that Dwarven totems aren't kegs (that right there would have gotten me to reroll as a Dwarven Shammy first thing), but whatever they end up being -- my guess is something rock and/or hammer-esque -- I'm sure Blizzard's artists will make them look cool.For Trolls, you have to think they're going to go voodoo (they'll probably use the Troll totems already in the game). Orcs, it would have to be something primitive -- maybe leather strung across a bone stand or something like that. And of course Draenei already have their own custom totems, and we don't really have enough of a hold on what the Goblins are like yet (trust me, we don't -- the race I played at BlizzCon was very different from the neutral race we know right now) to think what they'll have. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Patch 3.2 T9 set bonuses and relics
Continuing on the data-mining train, we have now learned the set bonuses from the tier 9 gear that is coming in patch 3.2 (confirming, by the way, that there will be a real tier of gear in the Crusader's Coliseum raid). There is also information available on some new relics for the relic-bearing classes (Paladin, Druid, Shaman, and Death Knight). Information after the break. Keep in mind some of these are certainly placeholders. The priest healing 4-piece, for instance, is strictly worse than the priest healing 2-piece Tier 8 bonus; there's no way it would go live like this. Some of the bonuses don't even make any sense, like the Warlock 4-piece. Datamined info is always suspect.
