Totem Talk, the column for shamans, takes another look at offense this week. Matthew Rossi covers how to burn, freeze, or... whatever earth shock is supposed to be, a big rock in the face? He couldn't tell you. But whatever it is, it really annoys spellcasters. Boom, clod of earth in the face, no spells for you!
Last week, on Totem Talk, we escaped a burning warehouse only to discover that Diego really isn't the father...
Oh, wait. No, sorry, that was something else entirely. Last week, we talked about direct damage totems. This week, we're going to talk about those signature abilities of the shaman class, those lovely shocks and the lightning bolts we can throw. The fury of the elements in the palm of your hand? The ability to chain a bolt of lightning to hit multiple targets? Shamans can do these things. The two DPS specs use them differently (Enhancement shamans rarely use lightning bolt or chain lightning, while Elemental shamans are less likely to use shocks since they don't really need to be all that close to their targets, although of course you'll see an elemental shaman using a shock to kite or interrupt and an enhancement shaman throwing a few bolts of lightning when told not to engage in melee for whatever reason) but together they make up the offensive spellcasting options of the shaman class.
There are at present three classes of shock spells that shamans can use. These are Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock. As you might expect, each has an elemental affiliation (Earth, Fire and Water respectively) and its own special characteristics that recommend using it in specific situations. All shock spells are linked, meaning that if you use one shock you lock out the other two as well for the duration of the shock cooldown (which is six seconds) meaning that you have to be careful when using them to some degree. It's not a terrible burden, just something to keep in mind as you explore what each shock does and what situations each is best for.
Totem Talk's Matthew Rossi has had a small Horde renaissance this week, and decided to take his slightly dusty Resto shaman out for a spin, healing a heroic MgT run and then running about the IoQD doing the dailies. Turns out he learned a few things in the process. He wrote a little song about it, like to hear it? Here it goes.
Okay, I apologize, but there will be no singing. Tell you what, if enough people demand it, I'll belt one out on the next WoW Insider Show I'm on.
I've posted in the past about how to quest, grind and otherwise solo on a Restoration shaman, but I didn't go sufficiently into detail as the post ended up being about the odd things people think about shamans. So this week, we'll go more into detail. There are basically two ways you can go about doing this, thanks to the recent changes Blizzard made to healing gear: you can go out and quest in your regular healing set or you can also have a set of DPS gear. Unlike a priest and more like fellow hybrids like druids, you have a choice of what kind of DPS gear to wear. You could have a set of Enhancement mail and a big 2h weapon (since Resto shammies can't dual wield but can use 2h's now) and run around hitting stuff, or you could go for the spell damage gear and imagine that you're a powerful Elemental shaman.
My own personal preference (due to that fact that my shaman has a lot of Enhancement gear) is to go the whackity whackity route and Windfury up a 2h. But in the interests of experimentation I tried both spell damage gear and my normal healing setup, and I found that my personal preference is in fact the least effective of the three for the gear I happen to have. I'm sure no one is surprised.
At any rate, let's talk turkey. Isn't turkey delicious? Druids can turn into humanoid-turkey hybrids. None of this has anything to do with Shamans of any spec soloing anything, but I've always wondered about the phrase 'let's talk turkey' and how anyone could resist saying "yay, I love stuffing!" after it. I'll get a hold of myself now. Actual details of Shaman soloing behind the jump. Whee!
Obstruce brings up a topic that seems obvious to some people but can drive others crazy: healers wearing less sturdy gear than they can just for the stats. I won't lie -- I've got a few pieces of leather on my restoration Shaman for the stats, but in general, I don't think it's a bad thing that healers and casters sometimes wear cloth for the stats, given of course 1) that they're not taking it from someone else who needs it, and 2) that there's not a better piece of normal gear for them to be wearing (it's an upgrade).
Obstruce's aunt disagrees, especially with Shamans and Druids -- if for some reason they pull aggro, wearing leather or cloth will only make things harder on the group. Which is true -- if I'm wearing leather (or even cloth) on my Shaman, I'm not going to have near as much armor as I would wearing the mail I'm supposed to wear. But in a group where all members are doing what they should be, I should never get hit anyway. If a healer's getting hit, it's a good 80% of the time not their fault -- it's the tank's or DPS' fault for not keeping aggro where it belongs.
So no, I don't see any problem with a Druid or Shammy (or even a Paladin, though there's a lot of nice healing plate out there anyway) wearing less than they're meant to. Warriors are definitely not in the same situation -- while yes, some of that Hunter mail may have lots of Agility on it, and that will help out your crit percentage, you get so much more bonus from Strength and Armor that it's just not worth it. Casters can steal Mage and Priest gear (as long as they're not actually stealing it from actual Mages and Priests) if it's an upgrade, but Warriors almost never have a reason to slum it up in mail.
Totem Talk is written by Matthew Rossi for shamans, and the people who love them. You'd better be one of those people that love them or are them... is them? Wait, how did this paragraph get away from me so fast? Crap, don't die, don't die, don't....whew, the heal landed! I'd better burn an NS and drop a Healing Wave on it, just to be sure. Man, the paragraph's health just started bombing!
So you've decided to heal.
Maybe you're full resto, or maybe you're an enhancement or elemental shaman but you have good healing gear and you need to heal for some reason. Perhaps your raid needs just a little extra healing. Perhaps you really just want to get that Shadow Labs run out of the way before 2.4 comes in and the only slot open is for a healer. Maybe you just like being yelled at by people if you don't keep them at full health at all times. I'm not going to sit here and psychoanalyze you, oh my no. First off, have you seen my picture? If I were you (and I'm not, I'm me) I wouldn't take any mental health advice from that guy. He looks kind of insane. Secondly, it's not Totem Talk's aim to discourage you, but rather to facilitate you in any way we can. If you want to spec resto and heal, we want to help you. If you want to heal as an enhancement or elemental shaman, we're on board. If you want to rob several banks and then flee to Prince Edward Island, you're on your own. We're terribly lazy.
We've discussed the nuts and bolts of shaman healing before, so today we'll mostly touch on it but not go into detail to that extent.
While the PTRs are still down to apply the latest round of changes, World of Raids has already sniffed out a few changes and additions to the latest patch files.
Possibly the most interesting change is the fact that the Warlock Life Tap nerf seems to be currently completely reversed. The spell is restored to its 2.3 status, with the highest rank swapping 580 health for 580 mana at the base value.
In addition, the Mortal Strike debuff appears to have been removed from the description of the Flametongue weapon and totem for Shamans.
Priests will now also be able to dispel up to 10 friendly and 10 hostile targets using Mass Dispel.
Also added this patch were the musical files for the Sunwell, as well as a handful of new effects with names such as "Quest Complete," "Summon Festival Scorchling," and "Guzzle Beer," which look to most involve the seasonal content for the Midsummer Fire Festival.
Welcome to progressive patching, folks. This is an incredible turn of events for sure. Not only is one of the most controversial nerfs in WoW history completely reversed, but it seems that Shamans can't quite celebrate their re-ascension to PvP power just yet. These could be temporary, of course, and we'll see what happens when the dust settles. If Blizzard has simply decided to revert these changes in the short term, how will they tackle the underlying issues of Warlock mana usage and Shaman PvP viability? Will they put it off for another patch, or take a different angle as testing continues? We'll be eager to find out!
Galstaff of Durotan believes so, and put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, by doing it. (Warning, the movie is 20 minutes long.) While anyone can 'tank' Shade of Aran, I was pretty impressed by his tanking of Malchezzar, especially when he admits in the thread (and his armory backs him up) that while he's achieved immunity to critical hits by a combination of resilience and defense, he's still taking crushing blows. He also says he chugs Ironshield Potions which makes sense, as his armor is low for the instance (in my opinion as a tank, anyway) which is not surprising since he's in mail. He claims 17.7k health for the Prince Malchezzar attempt, which is certainly within the ballpark. (I've done it with about 1k less on my warrior, although nowadays I'd never have less than 18.5 k for any boss.)
His talent selection shows you the limits of Shaman tanking at this time: He has full Shield Spec, Toughness and Anticipation, giving him the most armor and dodge he could possibly have, but by taking Spirit Weapons (necessary for the ability to Parry, which is essential for tanking) he reduces his melee threat by 30%. This is a great talent choice for a melee DPSer who might get a boss turning to hit him before the tank can pick it up. But for a tanking shaman, it means he has to rely on his spell damage (Frost Shock in particular) as well as Lightning Shield to generate threat, with Stormstrike and Windfury doing the rest of the work. Galstaff also mentions that he had to stack the group with a Shadow Priest to regenerate mana since he couldn't use Water Shield: I'd expect he had to use Shamanistic Rage every single time it was up for both the mana regen and the damage reduction.
Basically, as he himself admits, shamans are the worst 'off tank' with no ability to get enough avoidance to push crushing blows off of the table, so to do this you'd need a ton of resilience on mail (since you're not going to find mail with the stats you need and defense) and some very, very good healers. And as long as shaman tanks require a shadow priest to regain enough mana to tank, it's not going to be a common sight. But as a warrior and shaman player, I liked seeing it. Maybe we could get shamans some actual tanking talents, and they could move into the ranks of the other hybrid classes as being able to DPS, heal and tank? If it's good enough for paladins and druids, why not shamans?
As Matt Rossi is analyzing in more detail, the attunement requirement for Karazhan has been removed, although at least one person in the raid does need to have the key to get in the door. How do we know? New patch notes.
Here, in full, is everything that's changed in the latest iteration of Blizzard's official test realm patch notes, brought to you, as always, by the power of diff. Much of this has been covered on WoW Insider already, because Blizzard is slow to update the patch notes; the stuff that looks new to me is in bold (which in this particular case is only that the new Mortal Strike-esque effect on Flametongue Weapon applies to Flametongue Totem as well).
Removed: "The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed. It will now take five seconds before the full benefit of the mana regeneration will come into effect." (now restricted to arenas only)
[Druid] Lifebloom will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of a Mind Control.
Mage
Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink. Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by 25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
Icy Veins no longer stacks with Power Infusion (as well as Bloodlust/Heroism from the last patch notes)
Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage's bonus to spell damage as an additional effect.
Totem Talk is the column for Shamans. Matthew Rossi not only plays a shaman, he's come to appreciate their presence even when he's playing one of his other characters. That's his ridiculously mustached human warrior (who is still wearing a green belt to tank in SSC) next to one of the raid-saving shamans.
It can at times be easy to forget why we rolled a shaman in the first place. Sometimes it seems shamans are overlooked and underplayed, and its fair to say that the last year hasn't been the kindest to the class. With all this negativity and upset, it's fair to say that sometimes shamans must feel like there's no point to playing their class at all. So here I am to tell you that, while shamans may indeed have suffered (especially in PvP) over the past year, they're still incredibly viable in PvE, and if anything I wish we had more of them.
We've talked before about the shaman as a pinch hitter or panic button class, and these are both functions that they do excel at. But in running the 10 and 25 man instances, another aspect of shaman versatility is their broad array of totems and abilities - there's almost always a situation where a totem, a shock or a special ability like Heroism can help immensely with an encounter. I know having the ability to cycle in shamans to our DPS groups for heroism made a huge difference in our Tidewalker and Lurker kills, as well as finding the particular strength of Chain Heal very, very useful when a group of us are trying desperately to keep those murlocs tanked. Furthermore, I personally love having an elemental shaman in my group taking care of the priest add on Fathom-Lord Karathress, not only due to the damage they can inflict (and having seen it, I have had to re-evaluate my understanding of elemental shaman DPS - it's much, much better than I'd believed when geared properly) but due to their ability to buff not only their own DPS but the healer's healing at the same time with Totem of Wrath and Wrath of Air as well as being able to interrupt the heals after a tidal surge.
Late last night when the 2.4 Patch Notes were circling around, Drysc responded to a lot of QQing on the class forums about lack of buffs and nerfs. In particular, many shamans were upset (most of the threads have been deleted due to offensive language). The gist of what Drysc told everyone: The patch notes are not complete. More class changes to come. Nethaera also later confirmed.
He gave us a little history lesson too. There are two types of patch notes: test realm patch notes, and live patch notes. Live patch notes reflect the changes to the live servers. Test realm patch notes reflect the changes that are on the test realm servers. Test realm patch notes are the basis for the live patch notes, but many change are made to them. As players are active on the test realm and balance issues are discovered, they tweak the patch notes. In the end, the final patch notes that went to the live servers were sometimes nothing like the test realm patch notes; a few things were added, a few things were removed. I wanted to check this out for myself so I found the old test realm patch notes for 2.2, and the live patch notes for 2.2. The following changes were made between the two different versions of the patch notes:
Following the trend of releasing information about class changes today, Eyonix has chimed in again to give hints of what's in store for Shaman shields in the next patch. Lightning and Earth Shield will both have their mana cost reduced. Water Shield will receive a change in its function to keep the poor shammies from having to refresh it all the time. Apparently it will still return the same amount of mana, but in a less annoying fashion. Eyonix suggests that it will essentially give a sizeable chunk of MP5.
I don't play a Shaman much, but I've been chatting with the ones in my guild about these changes. So far they seem most excited about the new Water Shield. What do the rest of you think?
Earlier today, the up-close-and-personal Enhancement shammies got some boosts, and Elemental improvements were promised for patch 2.3 as well. And here they are! Eyonix delivers:
Being a level 70 elemental shaman myself, I'm particularly excited as currently I feel the class is in good shape, but in need of a few minor tweaks. I'd say the one I'm most pleased with (especially after seeing the results of change on an internal build) concerns lightning overload. When 2.3 launches it will have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to occur, though the additional spell will cause half damage, still ending up being a noticeable increase to overall dps
Also, the additional spell will cause no threat whatsoever.
[Regarding] the mana spring totem. Previously it restored 12 mana every two seconds at maximum rank, for your entire party. As of patch 2.3 it will restore your groups mana by 20 every 2 seconds. This equates to 50mana/5 for each member of your party without the talent points in restorative totems.
The second change impacts water shield. This spell will no longer cost any mana to cast (which also means the five-[second] rule will not be affected) and the mana granted per globe has been substantially increased. Additionally, the spells duration has been shortened to one minute and at the end of its duration it now grants mana for any remaining globes.
Elemental Focus will now reduce the mana cost of the next two damage spells by 40%. Now before theorycrafting begins, this is actually a buff except in cases where your chance to land a critical strike with spells was extremely high.
Frostshock will no longer be subject to diminishing returns which I'm sure players will find useful, especially in pvp.
Lastly, we are making a change that will cause a reduction in dps, however, the elemental shamans overall dps will still be improving with the change that we're making to lightning overload. We're reducing the casting time of Lightning Bolt to 2.5 seconds (from 3 seconds), and chain lightning to 2.0 (from 2.5 seconds), causing benefit from spell damage to be reduced appropriately. The mana cost for these two spells are being lowered as well. The lightning mastery talent's cast time will now be reduced by .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds. So, casting time for the spells ends up being the same as before. (All of the above from this Eyonix post)
We're increasing the additional mana granted by water shield for both the Tidefury Raiment and the Totem of the Thunderhead. (Eyonix)
Now that is what I call a lot of changes. Well, my LB-loving friends, are you happy with this stuff? Not all of these changes are Elemental-specific, of course; the mana spring totem change, for instance, helps everyone, Shaman or not. How do you think these changes will interact to help or hurt Elemental shamans?
In other Shaman news, Eyonix has said basically "no cc 4 u", at least until Wrath:
If we give shaman a cc abillity it won't be until Wrath of the Lich King.
Shamans are a fun and engaging class that combine a strong, complex array of totems with various spells used to inflict damage or to heal. As if that wasn't enough, they also are able to wear shields and mail, making them a very durable combat caster and earning them the ire of the other casting classes. If properly specced, they can even venture into melee range and smash faces. By all accounts, they are a powerful class.
But there are some downsides. Shamans have complained for a long time about the vulnerability of their totems in PvP encounters, they've become extremely vocal about their lack of CC, and some would like more options when it comes to casting shocks. They are weaknesses, to be sure. But do they cripple the class? More of a hindrance, in my opinion.
These are some of the most common complaints I've seen lately:
Totems need a buff, because they are an easy target in a PvP encounter; suggestions for fixing this range from increasing the health of totems to removing the health entirely and just requiring 2 or 3 direct hits from an enemy.
Every class has a CC ability but us, and we have only 2 snares, one of which is a totem and is easily destroyed.
Buff our shocks! Take earth shock off global cooldown, increase the duration of frost shock, etc.
It seems unfair that totems should get a buff in PvP -- especially when many classes have to deal with having their own buffs purged or dispelled off. And while it's true that every other class has some form of CC, they're not always useful or usable at all times. Regarding shocks... well, Earth Shock is one of the best interrupts in the game, and definitely the one on the shortest cooldown.
I have other concerns about the class that I think should receive more focus, such as mana regeneration and getting some kind of anti-kite ability. But what do you other shamans out there think?
As we've discussed before, Shamans need a lot of development love in order to no longer be the least played class. We did receive some good news at BlizzCon, but what is the first tangible thing that happens? A "hotfix". Nerfing Windfury to no longer work on "yellow" attacks except next swing attacks was so pressing, it couldn't wait for a patch. It seems this change had been in the works for a while, but a hotfixed buff would have been nice to balance it out.
But let's dwell on the positive. There are some changes for Shamans coming up in patches and the expansion: Wrath of the Lich King. Here is a compilation of what development is in the works or at least being discussed for Shamans.
Crowd Control?: I was disappointed that no one asked about the ability to clear aggro, but at both of the BlizzCon classpanels, someone asked about Crowd Control. It seems that while this is definitely not something that will show up before WotLK, it is being looked at for levels 71 to 80. They have yet to decide if crowd control is something that they want to add to the Shaman class, but at least it is in discussion.
Every other week, Robin Torres investigates Shaman issues, interviews experienced Shamans and reports her findings in Totem Talk.
This week on Totem Talk, I ask Onnix the Shaman what's RIGHT with the Shaman class since that is the question he actually wanted to answer in our first interview. There's a lot of belly-aching going on about the Shaman being the least balanced class in the game and Warcraft Realms is still showing them as the least played class -- though honestly, I don't know how often their census is updated. But Onnix maintains that the Shaman class is a blast to play, even with all the limitations.
So, what is right about about the Shaman class?
Onnix: We are a Jack-Of-All-Trades class -- I think the most fun one. The versatility of our class allows us to be instantly flexible in a variety of situations as opposed to the druid class, who have to shift forms to access limited skill sets.
Why should a shaman be invited to a heroic instance run?
From a resto perspective, contrary to popular belief, the shaman can main heal or even solo heal just fine in Heroics, but they require a competent group -- tanks that can hold aggro, DPS that don't pull aggro. A competent group is always the ideal, but with a priest healing, there is a larger margin of error within the group. I believe priest heals generate less threat (not positive) but if they pull healing aggro, they can fade, they can also Power Word: Shield targets to give them a chance to catch up on heals. Also, their heals are so much more efficient that they don't run out of mana as much.
Every other week, Robin Torres investigates Shaman issues, interviews experienced Shamans and reports her findings in Totem Talk.
First of all, let me get this out of the way. I don't like the sound of Shamans as a plural for Shaman. I much prefer Shaman, but I'm going with WoWWiki, at least for now.
Secondly, I am not a Shaman. I am reporting on Shamans. I am interviewing Shaman veterans. I am provoking Shaman discussions. I am in ur forumz reading ur threadz. You will notice when reading the newspaper or Fark or whatever that these people you are reading are not presidents and soldiers and socialites. They are writing about presidents and soldiers and socialites. And I am writing about Shamans. Regardless, I've been through this before, so my fire resistant gear is equipped.
I am, however, constantly bombarded with all things Shaman because my husband is a rabid, raiding, Level 70 Tauren Shaman. As I write this, he is in Serpentshrine Cavern with his Barbie DreamShield and his cape taken from a little girl and I'm trying to get him to take some screenshots. You may already know him from this story, but right now he is Onnix, the Shammy Healbot from the guild Grim on Daggerspine.
According to Warcraft Realms, the Shaman is the least played class currently among characters played in the last 30 days above level 10. And the Alliance have not raced to make as many Blueberry Shamans as the Horde have madeBelfadins. Clearly, the general WoW population considers Shamans the least fun/useful class to play at this time. So I asked Onnix why he thought that was the case. Onnix would rather have answered the question "What is fun about playing an endgame Shaman?", but I was able to put that off to a future column. Instead, he told me the top 5 things that should be changed to make the Shaman a more successful class.
Obstruce 
Totem Talk is written by Matthew Rossi for shamans, and the people who love them. You'd better be one of those people that love them or are them... is them? Wait, how did this paragraph get away from me so fast? Crap, don't die, don't die, don't....whew, the heal landed! I'd better burn an NS and drop a Healing Wave on it, just to be sure. Man, the paragraph's health just started bombing!
Galstaff of Durotan
As Matt Rossi is 
Late last night when the 
Following the trend of releasing information about class changes today, 
Shamans are a fun and engaging class that combine a strong, complex array of totems with various spells used to inflict damage or to heal. As if that wasn't enough, they also are able to wear shields and mail, making them a very durable combat caster and earning them the ire of the other casting classes. If properly specced, they can even venture into melee range and smash faces. By all accounts, they are a powerful class. 
First of all, let me get this out of the way. I don't like the sound of Shamans as a plural for Shaman. I much prefer Shaman, but I'm going with 
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