wow-shaman-info
Latest
Totem Talk: State of the enhancement shaman address
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! Despising Blizzard Entertainment is easy. When things go wrong in a raid, when filthy boomkins and surly shadow priests pass over you on the DPS charts, or when buff homogenization leaves you feeling like there is no reason for your raid to bring you to progression content anymore, it is exceptionally easy to point to Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) and say, "This is your fault." The complaint I most often hear used to demonize Blizzard goes something like this: "Blizzard doesn't care about enhancement shaman. We're the redheaded stepchildren of WoW." Beyond just being offensive to the fiery-follicled and to stepparents everywhere, Blizzard does have a history of dealing with enhancement shaman issues. So today, we're taking a journey of perspective. The Burning Crusade has long been heralded as the pinnacle of enhancement's glory, at least in terms of PVE. To me, it was enhancement's high school jock years. We may look back with fond remember whens and nostalgic feelings of pride and accomplishment, but the real thing will never measure up to the stories we tell about it.
Totem Talk: Ask a restoration shaman
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. For the last few weeks, we've been covering some of the basics for normal raid healing. Part 1, part 2 and part 3 are already up and running, so feel free to check them out. Next week, we'll start back in with part 4 with some harder and slightly more fun bosses. This week, though, I thought I would take the opportunity to answer some reader emails and questions from Twitter. Not too long ago, we answered some questions about the state of shaman post-patch 4.1, but still more changes are waiting for us in patch 4.2. Whenever there are changes and nerfs looming, there are always questions to be answered!
Totem Talk: Elemental shaman leveling from 1 to 20
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter from The 'mental Shaman and the Obscurecast podcast and founding member of TotemSpot. Last time, I talked about how elemental shaman have gradually begun to evolve from turrets into athletes. All that talking about patch 4.2 and that running around has my dwarf shaman longing to put her feet up and have a beer. So while my grouchy dwarf peers into the depths of her (pewter) tankard and ponders on the delightful looks of tier 12, I've been exploring the world of troll shaman. That's right, I'm leveling a new elemental shaman from scratch in the post-patch 4.1 game. Meet Zuulfi, a young troll shaman on her way to level 85. Right now, she still randomly hits things with her staff and throws out the occasional Earth Shock. Eventually, the plan is to for her to match strides with the gray-haired dwarf I normally put above my columns. Why a troll? I play a dwarf -- time for a taller Horde point of view.
Totem Talk: Cataclysm raiding as a restoration shaman, part 3
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. Last week, we covered a bit of the upcoming changes for restoration in Patch 4.2. There are quite a few changes being brought with the Firelands, some good, some bad, but all of them are working toward giving us a balanced place in the world of Azeroth. But now we are back, and it's time to talk more about raiding! So, with part 1 of Cataclysm raiding, we covered the entry level raiding bosses including Argaloth, to Magmaw and the lost temple reject. In part 2 of cataclysm raiding we covered Halfus Wyrmbreaker and the ambiguously "dragonic" duo. Today, we're going to to turn our sight to the skies -- way, way up to another plane of existence altogether. Our journey will begin with a stop in Skywall.
Totem Talk: Why enhancement AOE doesn't work
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! I love making the best of a terrible situation. When life gives me lemons, I make a cake. When I'm at the gym in the morning and the only thing on the television is Rachael Ray's talk show, I focus hard on committing delicious recipes to memory. And, when Blizzard hands us the worst area of effect ability in the game, I write a post about how to maximize its limited potential. I'm moving away from that line of thinking today. Instead, this post is dedicated to diagnosing why Fire Nova is so bad and what Blizzard can do to change it. To begin, I'd like to say that I actually enjoy our AOE at its most basic level. Fire Nova erupting from Flame Shock to me really fits enhancement, which is a spec defined by its use of shocks and other instant-cast spells. I think the actual feel of the spell works and fits with the overall theme of enhancement, and the problem lies in the actual implementation of the ability.
Totem Talk: Restoration PTR patch 4.2 changes
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. Last week, we talked more about raiding as a restoration shaman through the next set of bosses, and this week, we had been planning to continue the series by talking about some bosses that are full of hot wind. However, recent changes on the latest PTR build are worthy of some review and analysis. Today, we're going to talk about some changes to shaman healers in the upcoming patch (or at least where they stand right now). We're also going to discuss a little bit about the recently posted tier 12 set bonuses for restoration, as they too have changed a bit. Since this is still on the PTR, we have to operate with the understanding that this could change at any given moment as things are balanced out. Lets take a look!
Totem Talk: Enhancing your AoE damage
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! Area of effect damage has long been a thorn in the side of enhancement shaman. Through all of The Burning Crusade, we had no Maelstrom Weapon. Any Chain Lightnings we wanted to use had to be hard cast, which also meant giving up our auto-attacks for 1.5 seconds. Magma Totem was our premiere form of AOE damage, even though it was a stationary totem that ticked for extremely lackluster damage over 20 seconds. To make things worse, until Wrath of the Lich King's patch 3.2, our Fire Nova ability was actually Fire Nova Totem. This was a totem you dropped that waited 5 seconds and then exploded and despawned. The only time this was ever not a DPS loss was if you dropped it 4 seconds before adds reached you and it exploded as they got into range. Magma Totem was higher damage per second during those 5 seconds than Fire Nova Totem, but it still rendered us the lowest area of effect damage-dealer in the game. When patch 3.2 hit, we got Fire Nova. With a talented 6-second cooldown and the ability to be activated off any of our fire totems, it seemed to be the answer to our prayers. Unfortunately, it had pathetic damage. This was mainly due to its being used as a single-target DPS spell and an AOE DPS ability; since we used it anytime everything else was on the global cooldown on single-target fights, Blizzard couldn't buff the damage to be competitive in AOE fights. As a result, enhancement AOE spent the first three expansions of World of Warcraft being as mediocre as Fox Van Allen's writing ability.
Totem Talk: The evolution of elemental shaman in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Get some Fulmination with your Lightning Bolts! Sort the shocks from the flames with Totem Talk: Elemental, brought to you by Sarah Nichol, otherwise known as Pewter from The 'mental Shaman, co-host of the Obscurecast, and founding member of TotemSpot. I'm sure some of you have noticed my lengthy absence from these hallowed pages -- but fear not, for the druid columnists have not succeeded in hunting me down yet! Since my last post, my guild has celebrated its second birthday, I've moved house, moved offices and started studying part-time. Now I am back and ready to ruminate some more. Last time I posted, I covered some of my favorite addons, and I did promise some Power Auras, but with some of the rather out-there changes appearing in patch 4.2, I want to talk about the direction that Cataclysm is taking the elemental spec. Let's start by taking a look at the relevant patch 4.2 notes after the jump.
Totem Talk: Cataclysm raiding as a restoration shaman, part 2
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. I know that right now the hot topic is patch 4.2, the upcoming Firelands raid and the datamined tier 12 set bonuses, but I won't be talking about the shaman set bonuses. Matt Low has already covered all the healer-centric set bonuses, and like him, I feel that the shaman bonuses are either placeholders or still in their infancy and will likely change well before release. This week, we are going to continue talking about raiding as a restoration shaman in Cataclysm. Just as in part 1 of our series, we will be following what is considered the order of easiest to hardest bosses. There will be emphasis on what you need to know as a raiding restoration shaman for these fights.
Totem Talk: Tier 12 through an enhancement shaman's eyes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! Enhancement is a spec that has struggled with its tier bonuses in the past. Back in The Burning Crusade, we had such gems as tier 5's Your melee attacks have a chance to reduce the cast time of your next Healing Surge by 1.5 seconds, a bonus that provided absolutely no benefit to DPS beyond allowing us to live through a sticky situation. In Wrath of the Lich King, tier 8 gave us one of our best bonuses of all time: Increases the frequency of Maelstrom Weapon being triggered by your melee attacks by 20%. A patch later, tier 9 saw us unfortunately dropping that bonus for the overly boring and terribly mediocre An additional 3% chance to proc your Static Shock talent. Cataclysm hasn't been significantly better so far. On the one hand, our current two-piece bonus is amazing. It gives us a 10% increase to Lava Lash, our hardest-hitting and highest-priority ability, as well as slightly buffing Stormstrike. At the same time, our four-piece bonus is 10% critical strike chance to just Lightning Bolt. This bonus isn't terrible in and of itself, but it's coupled with terrible itemization on both the legs and the chestpieces and bad itemization on the gloves. Most enhancement shaman will find best in slot is heroic tier 11 helm and shoulders, Heroic Tunic of Failed Experiments, Twilight Scale Leggings, and Heroic Proto-Handler's Gauntlets. Four-piece tier 11 need not apply. Wednesday night, set bonuses for tier 12 were discovered on the 4.2 Public Test Realm. In an awesome twist, Blizzard themed all of the set bonuses around the raid they will drop in, the Firelands. Classes like death knights that don't already have fire spells to work with receive passive bonuses like Your critical strikes with melee abilities deal 15% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 sec. Specs like elemental, which already have fiery moves to work with, get set bonuses like Your offensive spells have a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem, seamlessly weaving the theme of the raid with the class' abilities. Enhancement, which uses a surprising number of fire abilities itself, falls under this second category.
Totem Talk: Post-patch 4.1 restoration question
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. We talked a lot about Patch 4.1 while it was being put through its paces on the PTR and well before it ever reached live servers. Last week on Tuesday, the patch went live, and it brought with it many changes designed to further balance healing throughput, as well as give some more options to some healing classes. This week was going to be part 2 of our Cataclysm raiding series, which we started last week with part 1. While I'm eager to lay out the rest of the tier 11 raid content, this past week does bear some reviewing before we dive back into those boss battles. The changes have generated quite a few questions, and I thought it would be a good time to answer them.
Totem Talk: An enhancement view of Patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! There are two things on everyone's mind this week. First, it's time for the royal wedding (Thrall and Jaina, if I recall correctly?). Second, patch 4.1 hit. With patch 4.1, we've seen some pretty awesome things. For instance, the Zandalari are back and dedicating their purpose to trolling all of Azeroth; queuing as a DPSer for a random heroic now takes one-fifth of the time; and frost mages got a damage buff. Unfortunately, enhancement was barely a footnote in the greater scheme of patch 4.1, receiving a grand total of three changes. These changes range from "complete and utter nerf" to "slight AoE buff." To be honest, I'm actually not bitter about 4.1 for enhancement, as we were already competitive in PvE, where our main concern was our abysmal and complex AoE DPS. For people who play primarily enhancement PvP, this patch was considerably more of a letdown.
Totem Talk: Cataclysm raiding as a restoration shaman, part 1
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. You've done all your prep work, and the time has come to step into a raid. You've got your gear shined up and ready to go. You've got your gems and enchants in place, and you have chosen your raiding spec and glyphs. You're here to chew bubblegum and down raid bosses ... and you're all out of bubblegum. Now, while you may be prepared to step into the ring and take on Ivan Drago, preparing yourself with some boss knowledge is always good. We're going to start by taking a look at all the bosses in this tier's raiding content in order of what is largely considered to be the standard progression path. I'll talk about them them roughly in order of easiest to hardest difficulty, with emphasis on what you should know as a raiding restoration shaman for these fights.
Totem Talk: Glyphing your leveling enhancement shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! For any person who is new to World of Warcraft or starting a new character on another server, glyphs are one of the worst part of the leveling experience. Why? Because they're expensive. With the redesign of inscription that came with Cataclysm, glyphs take more money make and cost way more to buy. This leaves low-level alts and new players boggled as to how they're going to afford that Glyph of Totemic Recall that just went up for 200 gold. To that end, I'm avoiding making a list of glyphs that you should have by specific levels. Me telling you that your first prime glyph at level 25 should be Glyph of Stormstrike isn't helpful if you don't have the gold to buy it at level 25, and it doesn't take into account the fact that more utility-focused major glyphs might be more useful at that level. To that end, I've come with a list of glyphs based on usefulness, separated them into two categories: top priority and low priority. Any glyphs not in this list aren't really worth getting while leveling. That doesn't make them bad glyphs -- glyphs like Glyph of Water Walking can be very useful, just not mandatory for leveling on a budget.
Totem Talk: Restoration raiding glyphs and patch 4.1 changes
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. Last week, we talked a little bit about picking a raiding spec for entry-level raiding as a restoration shaman. There was some great comments and some great emails, which I am still going through and replying to. As always, if you haven't gotten a reply quite yet, don't worry -- it's on its way. We have already covered some pre-raid gear choices, as well as gems and enchants with a little discussion on stats and stat pirority. This week, I figured we would round out or pre-raid preparations with a quick list of raiding glyphs as well as taking the opportunity to talk about some upcoming changes in the forthcoming patch 4.1 that will have a potential impact on our raid healing.
Totem Talk: Understanding your low-level enhancement abilities
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! I am an unrepentant altaholic. In Wrath of the Lich King, I had seven level-capped characters. When Cataclysm came, I had some strange idea that I would work on those level 80 characters and get them to level 85. Instead of going that practical route, I'm currently in the middle of leveling both a warrior and a hunter ... both of which I already have at level 80. Cataclysm leveling is just that cool. One of my favorite parts about the revamped old world is that the bosses of instances have been retuned for post-4.0 DPS levels. In previous expansions, boss fights would last mere seconds. This made it a horrible gauge for DPS, as burst specs would always win out and didn't help you learn your rotation. Now that the dungeons have been retuned and fights can last up to a minute, it is worth taking the time to take a look at your priority system for leveling.
Totem Talk: Restoration's raiding talent specs
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. Last week, we talked about our choices for restoration shaman in terms of pre-raid gems and enchants and a little bit more about stats. Making sure you know what options you have for your sockets and what enchantments to put on your gear is just as important as gathering the gear itself. This week, we're going to be talking about choosing a starting a raiding talent spec. Your talent choices not only define what type of role your character will play, but they give you a set of bonuses to make you better at your chosen job. Picking that talent spec when you are first getting set to raid can be a bit tricky, but that is exactly what we are going to focus on today.
Totem Talk: Gearing your low-level enhancement shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third! Over the past four months that I've been at WoW Insider, I've spent a lot of time talking about enhancement shaman in World of Warcraft's endgame. From articles on gearing up through heroics, making the most efficient reputation choices, or killing Nefarian, almost all of my articles have dealt with playing at level 85. However, whether it's someone starting the game for the first time or someone who is just starting leveling a tenth alt, there are people out there without enhancement shaman at 85 yet -- shocking and unfortunate, I know!
Totem Talk: Restoration shaman pre-raid gems, enchants and stats
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 co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how. So last week, we discussed some of the gearing options available for restoration shaman as you are getting raid-ready. With the exceptions of a few pieces of gear -- bracers, for example -- there are a lot of choices to help get you ready for your first raid nights. Last week we also talked about your first few goals for stats, namely spirit and haste, as well as your stat priority. Today we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about stats as well as enchanting and gemming your gear.
Totem Talk: Enhancement shaman Q&A grab bag
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and I have no idea about the third. Last week, I asked readers to send in whatever questions they had about enhancement to my email. The two readers I have who are still using email (the archaic form of communication that it is) gave me some pretty awesome questions. For the rest my readers who have decided that email is so two-thousand-and-late, I also asked my Twitter followers to chip in with some questions on what they're struggling to figure out about enhancement. Of the questions asked, I picked four to answer. As always, if your question wasn't answered (or hasn't been asked yet!), shoot me an email at josh@wowinsider.com or tweet me at twitter.com/elamqt (I prefer Twitter!).
