Today on Build Shop, we're going to take a look at a Shaman build that's a little different from the usual since we've already covered the basic cookie-cutter specs of Elemental, Enhancement, and Mike Schramm's personal variant of Restoration. The Enhancement spec that we'll tinker with will try to focus on the built-in synergy between some Elemental and Enhancement talents, as opposed to the more familiar complement of Restoration talents. This Enhancement build is focused on dealing damage, with less focus on the raid or party utility that Restoration talents provide. You can take a quick look at the build here. Shock and awe For optimum DPS, an Enhancement Shaman's spell cycle should be punctuated by shocks, which are instant cast damage-dealing spells that don't interfere with a Shaman's swing timer. The biggest problem with utilizing shocks as part of an offensive spell cycle is the prohibitive mana cost, which can make a dent on an Enhancement Shaman's relatively low mana pool. To alleviate this , we take 5/5 Convection from the first tier of the Elemental tree, which reduces the cost of Lightning and Shock spells by 10%.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors has a big post in mind, but wants some time to work on it. Well, okay, The Care and Feeding of Warriors has nothing in mind. It has no mind. It has no soul. It is just a weekly column written by Matthew Rossi. If it had a mind it might hate him for having told you that it doesn't, but since it doesn't, it can't even respond. Wow, this is getting kind of odd. Anyway, here's a column.
The other day, while grinding some of the new Sunwell Plateau dailies on my PvP warrior (this is him just before getting his season one shoulders) I happened to get into a discussion of specs with a warrior who had chosen a 51 point fury/ 10 point protection spec. It didn't last long enough for me to ask him why he chose that spec, unfortunately. Being that my 'PvP' night elf has a pretty unusual spec himself, although not as unusual (in my case, that spec is the result of wanting soloing viability for skinning mobs and I freely admit it is not maximized for PvP, I just haven't wanted to spend the money to respec a character I don't play all that often, comparatively) I was interested in the why of that spec.
There are cookie cutter specs, of course, and one of the reasons that there are cookie cutter specs is because they work. I'm going to emphasize that. The reason for cookie cutter specs is because they work. There's nothing wrong with choosing one. Tanking with an 8 arms/ 5 fury/ 48 point protection spec is nothing to be ashamed of. But since you're not always tanking, and you're not always going to be running with your Arena team where you've essentially promised them you'll be at your best, there are times when you can sacrifice some efficiency for experimentation. And with the new dailies, coming up with 50 gold for a respec is not hard. I've respecced my human warrior six times since the IoQD quests dropped.
In the interests of full coverage, we'll mention this one, but don't keep your hopes up: the latest build on the PTR has reverted the Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery sharing a cooldown change, so Elemental Shamans will once again be able to crank out an instant Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt crit. Unfortunately, they shouldn't count on it, as lots of changes have gone back and forth on the PTR. It could be that the next time the PTR comes up with a new patch, this change will be right back in.
But it does serve as a reminder that no matter how bad some PTR nerfs may seem, nothing is finalized until it hits the live realms. The Test Realm is for testing, so we shouldn't be surprised when Blizzard does exactly that with it.
Totem Talk is the column for shamans. Matthew Rossi currently has a level 70 resto shaman amidst the Horde and a level 70 enhancement shaman in the Alliance, and is working on leveling up an elemental shaman. This week did not exactly make him feel good about that decision. Seriously, you're nerfing elemental shamans again? Really? You're not kidding about this?
I really didn't see this coming. Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps I simply don't keep track of these things in a sufficient manner. But if you'd told me that shamans were going to be nerfed again in patch 2.4, I honestly would have laughed. No way, I would have said confidently, there's no way they'll nerf shamans again. Clearly, I underestimated the capacity for nerfing inherent in the shaman class. Now, I've already heard all the responses... that it's a PvP nerf to keep elemental shamans from outputting crazy burst damage. Yes, I've heard tell that Kalgan promises buffs as well as nerfs in 2.4 and that's good. But the bare fact of it is, yet again, a specific shaman spec gets a direct DPS nerf. By themselves, these nerfs aren't any major deal. But when you see a series of them popping up like this, it's extremely disheartening and all the nebulous promises of incoming buffs (with no specifics or concrete details) don't counter the disappointment and in some cases outrage of seeing your talents and abilities become less useful.
Now, every class has been and will experience changes like this, it's the nature of attempting game balance between wildly disparate classes with varying abilities. There's no conspiracy here. Rob Pardo's daughter does not hate shamans (to my knowledge). And yes, I still enjoy the class myself and like playing a shaman. I think we bring a lot to raids and instances. But I also worry for the future of the class, especially when I see veteran players getting ever more frustrated, angry and fed up with it.
This week on Ask WoW Insider, we've got an interesting question about how to get along with PuGs in game. As you might already know, in patch 2.3, players will be able to see everyone else's spec simply via the Inspect screen without leaving the game. This information has already been available on the Armory, but in 2.3, it'll be just one click away. And that's got reader Mylittleponykiller worried:
Hello. I play an MS warrior, currently specced for PvP, but I also tank for pugs in non-Heroics and offtank in Karazhan when needed. I do a fine job, and often on the journey from 1-69.99 I was mistaken for Prot when I tanked instances (as Fury). However, in 2.3 I know that I will get kicked out of/not invited to PuGs if I am not Prot. I have spent hundreds of gold and many hours getting geared to tank and to DPS, and now it seems half of that might just go to waste. What can I do to prevent this from happening or at least prove myself as a tank to PuGs (even though I have over and over again)?
Interesting question. First of all, readers, would you kick a warrior out of the group if he was there to tank and not specced Prot? When you have the ability to see someone's spec at a click, will you use that information to determine what other players can and can't do in your groups?
And if so, what can those other players do to "prove" that they can tank, or main heal, or do DPS? If you are going to make judgments based solely on spec, what can "offspecs" (haven't heard that word in a while!) like Mlpk do to "prove" that they can fill their roles?
As of patch 2.3 all items in the gladiator season 1, 2, and 3 sets will be part of the same set, so you can use those items interchangeably and keep the set bonuses (ie: you can wear the season 2 shoulders along with the season 3 helm, chest, legs) and retain the 4 piece set bonus.
The separate sets for separate specs are going to stay the same, but now the set bonuses for each spec will be upgraded to work the same as the new 2 and 4-piece bonuses that are coming out, regardless of season. So for example, your class and spec's dps set bonus will work no matter which season your arena dps gear comes from. If I were an arena gladiator, I would be jumping up and down for joy right now. As it is, I still think that's pretty neat.
[edited for clarity -- the set bonuses will work between seasons, but not between different specs, so healing sets and dps sets won't combine together. Also, the arena season 1 gear will still be moved into the honor system once season 3 comes out]
The Care and Feeding of Warriors narrowly avoided a prophylactic joke in the title this week. Seriously, Matthew Rossi actually went to sleep chuckling about how funny it was going to be. Thankfully, when he woke up he realized he had been tired the night before and the joke was stupid, so he decided not to make it. Of course, by telling you this, he gets you to imagine all sorts of jokes that he may or may not have actually made.
We all know that changes are coming to just about every class in 2.3, and one of those changes is one that is intended to increase the solo play ability of dedicated healers. This is great news, of course, because it shows that the folks at Blizzard are interested in making sure that all specs have at least some viability for the aspects of the game that are necessary to prepare for instancing and raiding, namely farming for mats and questing for the repair money we all need without having to level another toon to 70 just to do our farming for us. That's why we checked the upcoming changes to warriors to see how they addressed solo prot warrior scaling.
Sound of a lot of crickets chirping.
Well, they nerfed mace spec. That'll help prot warriors solo and quest because... it will upset PvP warriors? No, that doesn't seem like it would help.
Devastate combines the effects of sunder armor? Well, I mean... good for tanking, but not really a tremendous boost to soloing unless the DPS of the attack is going up considerably. As it stands, devastate does half weapon damage, basically. It was briefly doing enough damage to be viable when it was changed to let it hit with both weapons if you were dual wielding (many prot warriors dual wield when trying to do damage because of the spec's increase to one handed weapon damage) but then that was changed back and they were left up soloing creek without a boat, as it were.
The tactical mastery change? Does nothing at all for or against prot warriors.
Disarm immunity gone? Well, Weapon Mastery is an arms talent. I fail to see how nerfing the top tier of an arms talent in any way helps protection warriors solo content or do daily quests. I guess I'm just blind.
Seriously, I am always for a class getting buffed as long as the buffs don't make them too powerful, and the changes to healing on gear don't strike me as overpowered. I'm not angered by the changes to healing spec soloability. I just want to know why warriors are the only class expected to so thoroughly eviscerate their own soloing capacity in order to tank.
When the Public Test Realm is up, any player who has had an active account since November 2006 can copy their character over to help test the new update. During the Patch 2.1 Public Test phase, I copied my L64 feral druid over and respecced to Balance. Fortunately, I had a decent set of Balance gear with me and was able to give the spec a good test drive. I enjoyed it enough that I eventually went Balance when I hit L70 on the live servers.
With Patch 2.2 currently on the Public Test Realm, Blizzard is allowing players to copy up to 4 premade L70 characters to the Test Realm. This time, I decided to see what it was like to play some other classes I long admired, so I copied a shaman, a priest and a rogue.
Each toon starts out with a full set of raid gear and PvP gear for different specs as well as plenty of trinkets, rings, weapons, drink, bandages and gems. They also get epic mounts, both land and air. They have none of their talent points assigned, so you can spec them immediately, but you will have to find a trainer to get the higher levels of any spells/abilities you pick up in your talent tree.
Read on for my impressions on each class after the jump.
I'm very suprised we haven't posted this video before, but I took a gander through the archives, and while we've touched on the magic of AoE mages before, I don't think I've seen it. If you want to know how to hit up a whole bunch of mobs at a time while playing your mage, this extremely thorough guide will teach you top to bottom.
And for everything else you want to know, you can check out also very in-depth text guide by Bangy posted over on the EU forums, who also references the video above. He covers everything, from spec to process to the best spots to do it at every level. Mage AoE is extremely powerful when set up correctly-- for grinding in the right places, it almost breaks the game. There are a lot of compromises that have to made in terms of how and where you can do it, but in the right place with the right abilities, there's no faster and easier way to crush whole groups of mobs at a time.
It's Arcane Brilliance time again, and we're back with our third installment on the three types of mages.We've already talked about some helpful aspects and defining characteristics of both the Arcane and the Frost mage.Now we turn to the Firestarters among us.
About two weeks ago I actually respecc'd from Arcane/Frost to Arcane/Fire because I decided to get into raiding, returning to my roots as I originally played a fire mage.I'm still playing a blended spec, but my dps automatically went up a hundred points.Why is that?Because the fire tree is where the damage is at.Originally I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to change my frost-loving ways, but after one instance run I can confirm I am hooked on the flame.I really do miss the mana efficiency of my previous spec, but what I noticed as I burned down Bladefist without batting an eye, was that with a good potion supply and a reasonable spell rotation I was sitting pretty.Yes, I am drinking after every fight, but when you're critting like crazy, a girl builds up a thirst.
The last time we spoke, Arcane was the name of the game.Dealing with each of the types of mages is a challenge for me, seeing as how I play a blended spec myself.But more than simply talking about how one might considering speccing your mage (we'll get to that later) this series of posts is a discussion of the nature of the three types of mages themselves.
For a long while I was a Frost Mage, and I capitalize the term because it seemed like such a stiff, formal affair whenever I talked about my talents.All my damage was built into the frost spells on my bar, and I barely touched any of the others.While not the most imaginative when it comes to instance groups, the Frost Mage was definitely strong in the PvE realm of the game.Many of the talents available in the Frost tree include chill effects, those effects designed to slow your enemy.This makes this particular spec excellent for soloing, since you are able to freeze your enemies in place for longer periods of time with Improved Frost Nova, slow vast armies with Improved Blizzard, and Crit your way to victory with Shatter.
As Elizabeth mentioned last week, leveling builds for a paladin are... shall we say limited? You can spec Holy and struggle with solo-play or farming; you can spec Retribution and get laughed out of instances; or you can spec Protection and spend your time convincing your fellow players that yes, you do wear plate and you can take a few hits. So with such appealing options, which spec do you chose? We know that Elizabeth picked Protection, for all its AOE goodness. But for my part, I picked Holy.
Why, you ask, would anyone choose to level up as a Holy-spec Paladin? Doesn't it gimp you beyond belief for soloing? I've asked myself these questions more than once, but I'll try to explain just why I've stuck with it through the levels.
Every Saturday, Eliah or Elizabeth will bring you their thoughts on the Priest class. Whether it's keeping your fellow players alive or melting their faces, you can read about it here!
Priests always seems to be in demand. Exploring or questing in any area of the game, at any level, whether Horde or Alliance, a Priest player can expect to be pestered with whispers for instance runs. Some polite, some demanding, some who need to be put on our ignore lists, and some who don't make any sense at all, but seem to be asking for something. What's a Priest to do when being asked to go here, there, or elsewhere? And what's a player to do when they need a Priest's help? Well, I'm going to try to explain here, in something of a how-to guide for grouping, for the Priests and non-Priests among us. So whether this is your first time partying with a Priest or your hundredth -- keep reading. There's plenty to know about how to act in a group, and we're only going to scratch the surface.
This question actually came from Guild Chat in <It came from the Blog>. A few evenings ago, there was some question about the best spec to level a Druid with, and while many people returned Feral, just for ease of soloing, it actually brought up another point. You see, our little Insider guild on Zangarmarsh is very much focused on being completely laid back. This means we have no intent of running endgame raids, or anything of that nature. Obviously, this means you can level as hybrid or off-spec as you like -- points in all three, or points in none if you're out to try something completely off the wall!
But this got me to thinking about a guild I had been in. Once upon a time my main was a Mage, who I took to endgame on a combination Arcane/Fire spec that I had an absolute blast playing. Once I got to endgame, I specced her Frost as all Mages at endgame were then expected to spec for raiding. After raiding for a while, I got incredibly bored with her. I wound up switching full-time to my Rogue when the chance came. Now that Burning Crusade is out (and my Rogue is comfortably at 70 with my Druid catching up) I've finally taken my Mage off the mothballs. After speccing her back to Arcane/Fire, I'm having a lot of fun tearing around and burninating the countryside with her again.
For those of you who have ever switched a spec for a guild/group/battleground, how did you feel about it later on down the road? Did you miss being able to tinker with your build? Did you resent having to do it? Did you get bored with it? And for those of you who say that you would never spec for a guild's progression, would anything ever induce you to reconsider? Have you ever switched back, progression be damned -- or even left a guild over being required to keep a certain spec?
Late again, dear readers, and without a good explanation this time. To compensate, I'll look at a build from the class everyone's been clamoring for: Shaman. Now Shaman is, without question, the class I know the least about in the game. I did some research before writing this, but it's still going to be a bit shaky, so you'll just have to excuse that. It'll also probably be shorter than your average Build Shop, simply because I won't be able to segue into extended discussions of individual talents or skills as often.
I didn't get very many Shaman builds, despite the class's vociferousness in the comments. To be specific, I got three: two elemental, one enhancement. I know enhancement is undergoing some shakeups right now, what with the dual-Windfury nerf and all, so I'm going to avoid that and just do an elemental build. Without further ado, I give you: 40/0/21. Shaggyg on Destromath thinks this build, taking points in both Ele and Resto, should "increase crits and improve casting performance" once his up-and-coming shaman hits endgame. (Aside: props on the <My Little Pwnies> guild name; I've seen it on a few realms now and it always makes me chuckle.)
In the interests of full coverage, we'll mention this one, but don't keep your hopes up: the 
This week on Ask WoW Insider, we've got an interesting question about how to get along with PuGs in game. As you might already know, in 
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![[Yes, that's really old gear. She's been shelved for a really long time.]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2007/06/fireball_mage.jpg)
This question actually came from Guild Chat in 
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