My Kingdom for an Axe

Dovetailing off my last post looking for expertise, I wanted to comment on the availability or lack there of, of One-handed Axes in Wrath.
Here is a link to Wowhead of all the epic level 80 1H axes in the game. Nine axes. Not so bad you might say. Well 8 of them are Arena axes. Deadly costs 3150 arena points and require a 2030 rating. I'm not a PvPer. Unless I switch my focus to that, a 2030 rating is not within my reach. I'm cool with that. However give me a PvE alternative. How about that ninth Axe. Last Laugh 171.6 dps, that's nice. 1.6 speed. Acceptable for an offhand, not for a main hand. 24 hit is nice as well, but High Str, Stam, parry, and defense? That is a tanking weapon my friends. Alas what is an orc Shaman to do? Wield one of the 17 Maces, 25 Daggers, or 14 Fist Weapons I guess, and just forget we even have Axe Specialization That 5 expertise wouldn't come in handy at all. :/

WTB Expertise

So with getting rid of all my Sunwell T6 gear, I've found that I'm woefully short on Expertise. Of course I went to Wowhead and did a search for mail armour with expertise. This list is a bit ugly. 6 items. 4 are the T7 chest and shoulders in both 10 and 25 man versions. the 5th is Cult's Chestguard which I already have. The last is Helmet of the Shrine from heroic Gundrak. If they want Shamans to wear mail maybe they should put one of our best stats on a few more pieces. Sure its no good to hunters, but Enhancements need 214 rating to cap for dodge. I see 117 maximum on my armor.

Well lets look at other spots
Rings. Aha here we have 7 choices. We are saved. But wait. 6 of them have Str on them. Str is now one of our worst stats these days. The only one with out wasted budget is Hemorrhaging Circle which also drops in Heroic Gundrak. There are 3 cloaks, 2 of which are tanking items. 2 necks, 1 is for tanks. 1 Trinket.

So really its not looking good. Looks like I need to grab some leather, or stock up on Precise Scarlet Rubies, eat more Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak, and drink lots of Elixir of Expertise

Obsidion Sanctum

Last official raid before the holiday break last night. We went for Sarth plus 2 drakes. We had some issues. Raid comp wasn't ideal. Now 25 man Sarth is easy peasy. if you clear all 3 drakes. Watch out for the flame waves and that's about it. Even if you ear a wave or two its not that big of a deal. However leaving drakes up make is a lot tougher. There are more adds, there are void portals that one shot you.

Now I'm not claiming that Enhancement DPS is hard. Its not. It does require that attention needs to be paid to your cool downs. It also requires you to stay on target. Sarth with 2 drakes sucks. The hit box on the drakes is tiny. They have flappy wings that block your view. I'm not sure why but the range for Stormstrike and Lava Lash is closer than for autoattack. Watching my cooldowns, watching for lave wave, watching for the void zones amidst Hurricanes, death and decay, and consecrates is a royal pain. My computer is having issues and my fps was dropping into single digits. So I was sucking. We needed to get another tank in so I volunteered to sit if needed. We still had issues and so with an hour left in the raid they decided to just go for 1 drake. That went much easier. T7 gloves dropped. They got sharded. :(

As there was still time left we put together 3 groups for 10 man OS. My group gave 1 drake several tries, but we couldn't manage all the adds, and the dragon. So we just downed him alone. Protector dropped, so I did get the T7.1 Gloves. I also got enough badges for Mirror of Truth. Along with Boots of the Great Construct which I picked up Sunday, I've finally replaced all my prewrath gear save for my Cursed Vision. Malygos did drop the Blue Aspect helm Sunday, but I'd blown my dkp on the boots.

However with all my Sunwell gear gone, I'm really hurting for Expertise. That brings us to my next post....

Ghostcrawler on Shaman changes or lack there of.

Windfury
A player asked at Blizzcon if we would consider removing the internal cooldown on Windfury. We honored that request and did consider it, but we concluded Enhancement dps would shoot throught the roof. So I'm sorry, but we aren't going to make that change at this time. We might consider it in the future as part of a series of changes that would nerf Enhancement dps in other ways to justify the WF change. (Source)

Elemental changes
Shamanism wasn't intended to increase Elemental's damage as much as it was damage scaling. You probably won't notice a big difference unless you are in a lot of Naxx 25 level gear.

Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and the Lightning Bolt glyph were intended to increase Elemental dps however. Don't discount the clearcasting portion of Elemental Oath.

We're looking at Flame Shock. Keep in mind that even if it doesn't compete with Lightning spam against static targets like Patch (and we're not even convinced that is the case), there are very few fights like Patch and anytime you need to shoot and scoot, Flame Shock looks like a pretty nice button. (Source)

Upcoming Elemental changes
Unrelenting Storm and Storm Earth and Fire will both become three point talents, so that should free up a few talent points for you. The new talent will improve damage on lightning bolt and lava burst, so it's one you'll want to take as an elemental shaman. You should be able to grab that talent and still place 14-pnts in enhancement. I'm curious where else in elemental you're spending your talents. (Source)

PTR Data

All from MMO-Champion

Shaman (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Elemental Shaman changes (Source)
Hopefully this won't get buried here. Here is what we are thinking about to try on the PTR for Elemental:


Elemental Oath -- In addition to existing effects, now increases spell damage done by the Shaman by 5/10% while Elemental Focus Clearcasting is active.
Elemental Mastery -- Overhauled. Now increases the Shaman’s critical strike chance by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown remains 3 minutes. We recognize this might be a slight nerf in certain PvP situations where players relied on the shaman to nuke an injured person to death. Still, I'm betting most shamans will prefer the new design.
Glyph of Lightning Bolt -- No longer affects cost. Now increases damage by 4%

Glyph used to fix Lightning Bolt
We didn't make the change for that reason. We looked at what specs were getting out of their glyphs and it turns out that some specs were getting a decent dps increase while Elemental was not. No matter what we did to other talents and spells, this imabalnce would continue to keep Elemental dps lower than what we wanted. (Source)

Reasons behind the changes to Water Shield
This was the issue. It wasn't a healer niche problem at all. Shamans were just abandoning Healing Wave to cast Lesser Healing Wave since it was more efficient for procing Improved Water Shield, which felt weird. (Source)More Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Enhancement

Mental Quickness now increases your spell power by an amount equal to 23/46/70% of your agility. (Old - 10/20/30% of your attack power, this is temporary and it will be reverted to attack power according to this post)

Restoration

Healing Way doesn't stack up to 3 times anymore and now increases the effect of subsequent Healing Wave spells on the target by 18%. (Up from 6%)
Improved Water Shield has been changed to - You have a 33/66/100% chance to instantly consume a Water Shield Orb when you gain a critical effect from your Healing Wave or Riptide spells, and a 19.8/39.6/60% chance when you gain a critical effect from your Lesser Healing Wave spell.

Glyph

Glyph of Windfury Weapon - Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 5%. (Old - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.)
Glyph of Fire Nova Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Nova Totem by 3 seconds. (Old - Increases the radius of Fire Nova Totem's effect by 2 yards.)
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 10 min. (Up from 4 minutes)
Glyph of Astral Recall - Cooldown of your Astral Recall spell reduced by 7.5 min. (Up from 2.5 min)
Glyph of Renewed Life - Your Reincarnation spell no longer requires a reagent. (Old - All stats increased by 5% for 1 min when you Reincarnate.)

More info on Mental Quickness

Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Mental Quickness
Mental Quickness was a talent designed to let a spec without a lot of spellpower (Enhancement) get a little more. As sometimes happens with talents like this, it looked very attractive to a spec with A LOT of spellpower (Elemental) as a way to get A LOT more. We had a very similar problem with Holy paladins wanting a Ret talent.

This is one of the reasons why you can't directly compare talents across the board. What is a small buff for one character can be a huge, huge buff to another.

While some amount of venturing into other trees is a good thing, in this case it was basically Elemental abandoning their own tree and able to do more damage playing as an Elemental (meaning casting spells) with someone else's tree, all because of one talent. This was not because the Elemental tree has bad talents. It was because Mental Quickness was not intended for characters with a lot of spellpower. Unfortunately in this case, we couldn't push the talent deep enough to prevent caster shamans from reaching it. While we do want to juice Elemental's dps, we don't want to do it this way.

Enhancement dps has been competitive overall. There are a lot of AP buffs in the game, so with this change unbuffed shamans will do a little more damage and buffed shamans might do a little less. It's also possible dps could actually go up in the long term depending on just how good Agility is for Enhancement with this change. It might change e.g. how you want to socket your gear.

EDIT: Deep down in this post I announced that we are reverting this change. Mental Quickness will still use AP to convert to spellpower.

[...] After looking at the numbers some more, we're not convinced we can inflate the Agility bonus to get Enhancement back to where it was before this change without leading to some pretty weird situations where Agility was valued above all else. We also hate losing the synergy with Mental Dexterity's AP boost.

Long story short, after reading your feedback and thinking about it some more, we no longer like this change and are going to revert it.

We will likely swap the positions of Mental Quickness and Static Shock as some of you have suggested.

Bottom line: Mental Quickness will still convert attack power to spell power. (Source)

Earlier Data
Shaman
Skills
Enhancement

Tremor Totem now lasts 5 minutes.
Magma Totem damage has been increased and no longer generate threat. (From 172 to 371 damage for Rank 7)

Talents
Elemental

Elemental Warding now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. (Old - Reduces Fire/Frost/Nature damage by 4/7/10%)
Unrelenting Storm changed from 5 to 3 points. Now Regenerate mana equal to 4/8/12% of your Intellect every 5 sec, even while casting. (Old - 2/4/6/8/10%)
Elemental Shields has been removed.
Storm, Earth and Fire This talent has been moved up in the tree, and it’s talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to 20/40/60.
*NEW TALENT* Shamanism - Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.

Lots of changes. More damage from Magma totem is nice. We still are terrible on trash right now. The glyph changes are going to take some looking at to determine what to take now. LB glyph looks appealing especailly with ES glyph still bugged. I dont use Lava Lash enough to get a lot out of that glyph. Is 5% more WF proc chance better than 40% ap bonus? I'll let the EJ crowd figure that out for me.
5 minute Tremor Totem is ok as well. Most of the other changes are more impactful on Elemental or Resto.

Gems

I made a quick spreadsheet to melee dps gems. Its kinda handy to see what gems are avaialble, so you dont spend 15 minutes searching the AH for a Expertise/Crit gem.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pJoE77BDXZPry8OCmnODgdQ&hl=en


Also got another upgrade last night
Belt of the Tortured. I've been sticking with mostly mail these days, but this was too big of an upgrade to pass on. But I'm now way over the spell hit cap. WTB Expertise! Missed out on the T7 shoulders by 1 DKP. Teaches me to pass to the Tank the first time they dropped :p

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Last night we went to kill Malygos, it was going pretty well, we got him down to the low teens when we had some people DC during wipe recovery. That was bad. Then one person was AFK for about 10 minutes, came back and had to leave because he was ill. Then the only hunter who showed up last night perma dc'ed. We were already melee heavy and we had no ranged to replace him with. In theory we have plenty of people, but we are hurting on ranged DPS at the moment. Our attendence has been pretty shaky by a lot of folks lately. One of out mages has been ill, another is working late, 2 Warlocks rerolled DK, our Elemental Shammy rerolled DK as well. One hunter has family issues and has been absent, Our Shadow Preist is going to grad school and is dropping out of raiding. So we ended up having to cancel the raid which was Ugly.

So I took a break for a bit and watched some MNF which I dont get to see often. I came back and did mu Hodir dailys and then we went and did 25 man Archavon.
Boy we need to farm him everyweek. He's the new loot reaver. Four epics for 10 minutes work. He dropped Valorous Earthshatter War Kilt, which was great beacuse my pants were, well pants, a medicore quest reward. Huge upgrade there. The 2 emblems of valor got me to 25 as well so I bought Ring of Invincibiltyas I was usuing a quest reward there as well. So amidst the Bad and the Ugly, there was some Good.

Naxxramas

< Fire and Blood > Had their first official 25 man Wrath raid last night. We had done a few 10 mans Clearing Naxx and Obsidian Sanctum, but we decided that we had enough 80's to resume our normal 25 man schedule. Went a bit slow being our first time there, but we cleared the Spider and Plague Quarters and the first 2 bosses in the Construct Quarter. The place is a bit of a loot pinata with 3-4 drops per boss.

I upgraded both of my weapons getting a pair of maces in Angry Dread and Split Greathammer Now I just need to level my Enchanting high enough to get Beserking. Of course Abyss Crystals are not all the plentiful yet, so maybe I'll stick with 50 AP or 26 Agi for a bit.

Upcoming Shaman Changes

Elemental Changes via GC

We are making some upcoming changes to the Elemental shaman tree. Our goal was to streamline a few of the utility-based talents while giving shamans a little more damage scaling in later tiers of gear.

1) Unrelenting Storm – reduced from 5 points to 3 points. Bonus is 4/8/12% of your Intellect returned as mana.
2) Elemental Warding – now reduces all damage (not just Nature, Fire and Frost) taken by 2/4/6%
3) Elemental Shields – this talent has been removed, since its effects were combined with Elemental Warding.
4) Storm, Earth and Fire – reduced from 5 points to 3 points, but keeps around the same net benefit. In addition to current effects, also increases Wind Shock range. The damage bonus to Flame Shock has increased to 60% at 3 ranks. Storm, Earth and Fire has been moved up the tree as well.
5) Shamanism – this is a new 5 point talent in the old Storm, Earth and Fire position. Your Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst gain an additional percentage of your bonus damage. We have not finalized the numbers, but it will probably be something like 10% for Lightning Bolt and 20% for Lava Burst at max ranks.

These changes will be available in the next minor content patch, and are in addition to the AE changes mentioned previously.


The Previous changes are

Upcoming AE DPS Changes and totems
I realize buffing totems sounds strange to players who are used to loltotems. One of the designers just made the comment that telling Elemental you are buffing damage totems would be like telling Holy priests we are nerfing CoH and you're expected to area heal with Holy Nova now.

But the change to Magma Totem in particular is substantial. The base points went from 170 to 370 and the coefficient from 0.67 to 1.0. In our tests, the pulses were doing something like 600 damage. You would be hard-pressed to get that kind of increase out of Totem of Wrath, even considering its benefit to the whole raid.

Yes you have to run up, but we don't think that is too much to ask considering you can still Chain Lightning or whatever while the totem does its thing.

Totems are a core piece of the shaman design. We want to make them work, not remove them from the game. (Source)

Ding!

Hit level 80 last night. Sooner than I thought I might prior to release, but still a lot slower than many in my guild who've been running heroics for a week and took 2 groups into Naxx10 this week. Sigh. 10 levels in 12 days shouldn't seem like you are already behind the game but it does. Oh well now time to start with the getting geared up.

My crit chance has plummeted from almost 34% unbuffed to barely 20%. My Hit rating is sorely lacking as is my expertise. Well at least AP didn't degrade.

New caps to shoot for

Hit: 368 hit rating. This is the hit cap vs boss level mobs counting a 3% raid hit buff from Misery or Farie Fire.

Expertise : 205 expertise rating. This is 25 expertise which negates 6.25% dodge chance of boss mobs. If I could find axes I'd only need 164 rating but Blizzard hates orcs so there are almost no top end axes for shamans.

Crit : no rating needed as agi adds crit as well. I like a minimum of 30% crit unbuffed. Crit rating provides 1% crit per 45.9 rating, Agi provides 1% crit per 83.3agi

Lots of work to do. Lots of rep to grind for patterns and shoulder and head enchants.
I need to farm up leather as well. No rest for the weary.

Welcome to Northrend

So its Day 5 of Wrath. How do you like it so far?

My impression is that its great. The landscapes are gorgeous. The early instances are fun , quick and easy, but, still interesting. The music is cool. The quests by and large are well organized and some of them are just plain cool as hell. I mean who doesnt want to go kick some scourge ass with High Overlord Saurfang.

I managed to hit 74 last night before logging off. I missed out on playing at all on Saturday, so I'm not too far behind. Hopefully another week or so and I'll hit 80.

Lots of areas to explore yet. I've only quested in the Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord so far. People have been pretty good about grouping for the unique spawn mobs which is really nice. Saves a lot of time. Its fun to be leveling again. I was using Lightheaded which I really liked, but some guildies reccomended Carbonite quest helper. I LOVE it. It so awesome. I haven't fully looked at all the features, but its incredibly nice to figure out where to go next. The carbonite minimap feature is better than sliced bread.

Sunwell Clear

Kil'Jaeden went down for the count Sunday night. It was pretty much on our third night of attempts. So while he has been nerfed its still not a fight you can grab 24 people off of /trade and do. It certainly was a bit less climactic than downing Kael, but all in all its something I'm very proud that < Fire and Blood > accomplished. From rerolling on Quel'Dorei at the end of January, I never dreamed that we'd manage to clear every raid in TBC before Wrath hit. I huge thanks to everyone who is and was a part of it.

RNG was finally nice to us as well as Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury dropped. Grats to Uhohhotdog. It also caused huge drama on the Realm Forums If it didn't involve my guild I'd have been much more ammused by it. Drama can be entertaining, but I don't want FnB to be involved in it.

He also dropped some nice gloves for me
Thalassian Ranger Gauntlets

So we've got another week and a day before Wrath its to farm Sunwell. Lets hope we get lucky on a few more drops for people.

3.0.2 Talent Builds

Builds are something I havent really talked about much, and seeing as I've spent under 2 weeks combined as somthing other then enhancement, I wouldnt come to me for advice on resto or elemental builds.
However, I've put together a nice enough resto kit, that I keep meaning to respec for a fun run of kara or something and the nerfed raids make it the perfect time to do so.

I was thinking of giving this spec a go.

This is my current Enhancement build

With Judgment of wisdom bugged I should probably switch from convection to concussion, but as soon as I do that they are sure to fix it.

Ledge is Hard

Twins Down last night. Get people to walk up on the ledge was harder than the actual fight. Ok not true getting people to run out when they got Conflagged was just as difficult. Aside from those two things the fight is incredibly easy now. Still took us almost the whole night to do. As I said walking up on the ledge is hard. :p We did clear up to Mu'ru and did one quick leroy charge. Got him to 67% He should go down this week.

So... DPS is pretty high right now

Friday we went to Sunwell. Took us a couple tries on Kalecgos, as our dps was such that we got very out of synch the first go. Second go portals bugged and no one got in the shadow realm so Kalec died.

Brutallus on the other hand was a joke. We one shotted him easily. Raid dps was 36.5K I was over 2700 dps which is just silly. It was pretty fun though.


Judgement of Wisdom is also Bugged. Really Bugged.


50K mana back in just over 3 minutes. Thats 1000 mp5. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Nerfed Felmyst Dead.

So Felmyst can still be difficult even after the nerf. People don't like having to run and avoid the mist or avoiding encapsulates. Still we got her down in a couple of hours. 2 conqueror 1 vanquisher and Sword Breaker's Bulwark dropped. So almost 4 months of farming Illidan everyweek, and no Bulwark of Azinoth. First kill of Felmyst finnaly gives our Main Tank and upgrade from Aldori Defender's Legacy.

I did get the Skyshatter Belt off of Brut on Friday.

Brutallus Down

In all the chaos of the new Patch I forgot to post that < Fire and Blood > Got Brut down last Sunday. Before the nerf.

Very big accomplishment for us. I'm very proud of everyone for this kill. Not just those who happened to be inside the instance, but everyone who help learn the fight, and eveyone who stood outside and helped buff the raid, and everyone who helped gather mats for consumables. It was a great way to pull together. He went down on one of my worst efforts. Usually I was in the top 3 dps on almost every go. I was 7th on the kill. Nice job of everyone else stepping their game up to cover my slack. :)

Echos of Doom

Existing content changes
Before any question, please read the Patch 3.0.2 FAQ on official forums

Once this patch is deployed, the following content will be disabled or removed :

The Atiesh quest-chain will not be completable anymore.
The Bear Mount from Zul'aman will no longer drop.
The Onyxia quest-chain has been removed from the game.
Naxxramas is "removed" from the game and moved to Dragonblight. (Unreachable until WotLK, obviously)
The ability to get titles related to Tier 4 or Tier 5 content is being removed. Of course, players who got them before the patch keep them. (Hand of A'dal, Champion of the Naaru)

Also, a few things are being changed or added :

Barbershops are now available in capital cities !
Achievements are being added to the game !
The amount of experience needed to level from 60 to 70 has been lowered.
New graphical effects are being added to the game, including the new shadow engine
The Stormwind Harbor will be available, but you won't be able to travel to Northrend until the release of WotLK. However it does have a working boat travelling between Auberdine and Stormwind.
The Caverns of Time have been slightly modified to add an entrance for CoT: Stratholme. The instance itself won't be available before WotLK, only the entrance is being added.
Mounts and Vanity Pets are now trainable spells and the old items will be used to teach you these spells. Once a mount or pet is learned you can access it through the Character Panel.
Various tokens like Badges of Justice or Honor Points are all merged in the new Token Interface. It will also remove the Badges of Justice and PvP Tokens from your bags to free up even more space !
The in-game Calendar used to schedule raids or events between your friends and guildmate will be available by typing /calendar

Item changes

+Healing and +Spell damage stats are being merged into a single +Spell power stat. Healers' talents and spells have been updated accordingly to compensate this change.
Items with magic school-specific damage like +shadow or +nature have been converted to +spell power as well. This include most of the TBC items except for some enchantments like Sunfire or Soulfrost.
Protection Paladin and Tanking Warrior sets to reflect changes on the new mechanics. A lot of non set items are also being changed. See this post.

Raid changes

Raids buffs, debuffs, and auras stacking have been revamped, please check this post for more information and our raid composition simulation tool to see how it works now.
All TBC raid monsters will have their health reduced by about 30%. (see this post)
The standard melee damage output will be reduced as well.
Boss abilities remain unchanged, except for Illidan who won't use Shear anymore.

This is obviusly the biggest bunch of changes since TBC, and maybe even since implementation. Gameplay is going to be changing for everyone. Many class mechanics have been entirely revamped. Speaking of that lets get to the Shaman changes

Well those havent been updated in weeks on the offical ptr site and the patch notes dont have them

So lets get to inscriptions

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Chain Heal (Req. lvl. 40) - Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target.
Glyph of Chain Lightning (Req. lvl. 32) - Your Chain Lightning strikes 1 additional target.
Glyph of Earth Elemental Totem (Req. lvl. 66) - Reduces the cooldown of your Earth Elemental Totem by 4 min.
Glyph of Earth Shock (Req. lvl. 15) - Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Earth Shock ability by 1 sec.
Glyph of Earthliving Weapon (Req. lvl. 30) - Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem (Req. lvl. 68) - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 min.
Glyph of Fire Nova Totem (Req. lvl. 15) - Increases the radius of Fire Nova Totem's effect by 2 yards.
Glyph of Flame Shock (Req. lvl. 15) - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 3 sec.
Glyph of Flametongue Weapon (Req. lvl. 15) - Increases spell critical strike chance by 2% while Flametongue Weapon is active.
Glyph of Frost Shock (Req. lvl. 20) - Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.
Glyph of Healing Stream Totem (Req. lvl. 20) - Your Healing Stream Totem heals for an additional 20%.
Glyph of Healing Wave (Req. lvl. 15) - Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.
Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave (Req. lvl. 20) - Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.
Glyph of Lightning Bolt (Req. lvl. 15) - Reduces the cost of your Lightning Bolt ability by 10%.
Glyph of Lightning Shield (Req. lvl. 15) - Increases the damage from Lightning Shield by 20%.
Glyph of Mana Tide Totem (Req. lvl. 40) - Your Mana Tide Totem grants an additional Spell Power of each target's maximum mana each time it pulses.
Glyph of Stormstrike (Req. lvl. 40) - Increases the nature damage bonus from your Stormstrike ability by an additional 8%.
Glyph of Strength of Earth Totem (Req. lvl. 15) - Your Strength of Earth Totem also grants 1% melee and ranged critical strike chance.
Glyph of Totem of Wrath (Req. lvl. 50) - Your Totem of Wrath also grants 1% spell haste.
Glyph of Water Mastery (Req. lvl. 20) - Increases the passive mana regeneration of your Water Shield spell by 30%.
Glyph of Windfury Weapon (Req. lvl. 30) - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Astral Recall (Req. lvl. 30) - Cooldown of your Astral Recall spell reduced by 2.5 min.
Glyph of Ghost Wolf (Req. lvl. 20) - Your Ghost Wolf form regenerates an additional 1% of your maximum health every 5 sec.
Glyph of Renewed Life (Req. lvl. 30) - All stats increased by 5% for 1 min when you Reincarnate.
Glyph of Water Breathing (Req. lvl. 22) - Your Water Breathing spell no longer requires a reagent.
Glyph of Water Shield (Req. lvl. 20) - Increases the number of charges on your Water Shield spell by 1.
Glyph of Water Walking (Req. lvl. 28) - Your Water Walking spell no longer requires a reagent.

From What I've seen at 70 out 2 major glyphs should be SOE and SS

Minor I'm leaning towards Renewed Life, Water Shield, and Walter Walking

Hot Lava!

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)Update on Lava Burst.

We ended up buffing the damage by about 10%. You should now have a lot motivation to use it and Flame Shock once you hit level 75. Lightning Bolt isn't going anywhere so you still have your old standby, particularly for 3.0.2 and until you gain a few levels.

An extra 10% is nice. Going to have to figure out where and when to use this.

Latest News

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)Tidal Waves -- Riptide now also procs this effect.
Riptide -- We're going to increase the initial healing component.
Storm Reach -- now called “Elemental Reach” and includes Lava Burst.
Improved Fire Nova Totem - Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20%, and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire Nova Totem for 2 sec.
Thunderstorm -- We will probably boost the mana return to 8% of total mana. That seems more in line with similar effects. We talked a lot about buffing its damage, but decided that may not be a good idea. With its short range, it isn't a great rotational spell for a raiding Elemental shamans, and making you run up to hit a boss and run back is giving up a lot of cast time. Instead we're going to try to keep the damage and knockback more situational (in PvP it will get used a lot) and make the mana return the big PvE raiding focus.
Maelstrom Weapon -- We have a concern that the proc per minute frequency is too often. According to our numbers, it's balanced for a two-handed weapon and a bit generous for a dual-wielder. However, this would be a nerf to Enhancement dps overall that we'd have to make up elsewhere, and it seems to be a fun change shamans are enjoying. So we're going to let this ride for now. It's something to keep an eye on, but we aren't going to change it yet.
Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt -- And now for a few words on Elemental damage. One of the things we were trying to do to make Elemental dps more interesting was to have a Lava Burst + Flameshock variant. We also themed some new deep talents to support this play style. The problem is that lightning still seems to do more damage than fire, which in turn makes the new talents feel lame because they benefit fire and not lightning.

Now we think that Lava Burst is doing appropriate damage for its cost and if anything Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are a little too good. (Remember they benefit from Curse of the Elements and similar spells now.) However, nerfing lightning would make it harder to level as well as making 3.0.2 kind of brutal for Elemental shamans, since Lava Burst is level 75. Hurting lightning would feel like a flat out nerf, and even though you'd partially make up for it at higher level, overall we think this would feel, um, yucky. So no big changes to lightning spells.

We talked a lot about just buffing Lava Burst and a deep fire-based talent or two. This will make Lava Burst too good on paper, but it might work out okay in the game itself. We'll just have to see. We aren't 100% sold on this course of action, so I'll update when we decide for sure.

Once again, these decisions were the consensus of our design team, so please don't give me the credit. In fact, if there are any changes you specifically don't like -- those I had nothing to do with

Mostly Elemental news, but they are warning us that they are going to nerf Maelstrom again.

Well that build isnt going to last long.

I hate to be a doom and gloomer. Really I do. And if our Wrath DPS was out of line then sure bring it back. But they way they went around it was pretty poorly thought out.
So within a day we get this post

Here are our concerns: Lavaburst makes scaling from spell damage so good that Enhancement shamans were debating wearing Elemental gear. Enhancement shamans were also looking at using caster daggers to maximize procs. Both of these trends would cause us severe item headaches down the road and also don't fit the kit of the tree.

We're changing Maestrom Weapon to no longer affect Lavaburst. We are also changing the proc rate to a proc per minute mechanic instead of a chance on hit.

To compensate for lost damage, we are raising Flurry back up to 30% max haste and raising Dual Wield back up to 6% hit.

I don't expect this news to be popular based on previous receptions to my posts here, but I remain an eternal optimist that you'll eventually come to realize that we are trying to get all of the classes balanced. Please try to keep that in mind.

And for all the intelligent, articulate suggestions and feedback, we do thank you

So we do get back 5% flurry and 3% DW hit. But this is the 3rd change to how MW works in 3 days from 100% chance on crit, to 15% chance on hit to a flat ppm. This lot affecting Lavaburst means enhancement will no longer use this. the auto crit from LvB synched incredibly well with Elemental devestation. Now.. not so much. Blizzard really just seems to be tossed crap up against the wall to see what works. 2 months ago was the time to be taking that approach. Less than 2 weeks before this stuff goes live is not.


ETA well at least they are listening. Shamans complained that out 51 pt talent was to scale based on str, which we no longer have.
Ghost crawler replies

From a quick glance, it looks like the wolves are not set up to scale the way the elementals are. This is a bug and we can get it fixed. And yes, it should be AP, not Strength.

Pets always showing up in autocast is annoying especially with so many pets now. We're trying to decide whether to fix it or overhaul the whole autocast system.

Along came the nerf bat

Skills
Enhancement

Fire Resistance Totem now increases fire resistance by 130 (Up from 70) and lasts 5 minutes. (Up from 2 minutes)

Talents
Elemental

Totem of Wrath now lasts 5 minutes. (Up from 2 minutes)

Enhancement

Maelstrom Weapon proc chance changed from 20/40/60/80/100% on critical hit to 3/6/9/12/15% when you deal damage with a melee weapon. Now affects Chain Heal as well.
Dual Wield Specialization now Increases your chance to hit while dual wielding by an additional 1/2/3%. (Down from 2/4/6%)
Stormstrike doesn't affect Fire or Frost damage anymore.
Unleashed Rage now increases both melee and ranged attack power and works within 45 yards. (Old - Affected only melee AP, 20 yards)
Flurry now increases your attack speed by 5/10/15/20/25% (Down from 10/15/20/25/30%) for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
Restoration

Ancestral Awakening now affects Riptide as well
Improved Water Shield now affects Riptide as well

Raid Buffed I'm running 40% crit so Malestrom is going to proc 15% vs 40% That is a Giant nerf.
Dual Weild Spec is cut in half. In addition to the removal of Nautures guidance this cuts our hit % from 9% to 3% Fricking ridiculous!

Removing Frost and Fire from Stormstike means we arent going to be using the debuffs. Another huge nerf.

A 5% loss in Flurry speed as well also a large dps loss.

Wow. Thanks a lot. You remove our utlity by giving many of our buffs to other classes. Now you nerf our DPS the hell as well. This really hurts.

Just say no to Caster Weapons.

Enhancement Shamans in WotLK
We view Enhancement as a melee class that should be wearing melee gear. However, one of the interesting things about the shaman is throwing out some spells with that melee too.

Our view of things is that some smart theorycrafters started wondering if using two fast caster weapons with two flametongue enchants would end up being the right way to go. The way the discussion sort of ended up was "maybe, but it might be close" but a lot of the community took that as a mandate. Or maybe they were just shocked by the supposition because it felt wrong for a melee class. We agree it feels wrong, so we're doing some tweaks to make it even less likely to be the most optimal set up. If you are saving up badges or arena points or whatever for your enhancement shammy, I would definitely NOT go out and get two fast caster weapons. (Source)

Moar Changes

Skills
Elemental Combat

Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc ...)
Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old - 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn't increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Stoneclaw is a buff. sort of. The totems you want to protect most are earthtotems however. So it also mostly pointless. In PvE you will use SoE so you arent dropping Stoneclaw. In PvP you want Tremor or perhaps Earthbind. I don't see this being used much.

Riptide. Making a crappy 51pt talent a bit less crappy. Good I guess, but it doesnt reduce the bitterness resto feels over removing spirit link.

Nerf to Mana spring a loss of 15 mp5.. pretty substantial imo.

Huge nerf to Storm earth and fire. CL is a mana hog, reducing the cd at the expense of spellpower boost on your main nuke hurts a lot. So we get 2 small semi usless buffs at the cost of two large nerfs. Yay Blizz!

Undocumented changes

Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8970))
Skills

All totems have been changed to last 5 minutes instead of 2. (This only affects totems that previously had a 2 minute timer, obviously, totems with a shorter duration didn't get any increase)
Restoration

Earthliving Weapon Rank 1/2/3/4 now increases healing done by 26/32/42/70.

Talents
Elemental

Lava Flows doesnt increase the amount of bonus spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon anymore and increases the range of your flame Shock spell by 5/10/15 yards instead.
Enhancement

Static Shock now increases the number of charges of your Lightning Shield by 2/4/6 (up from 1/2/3)
Elemental Weapons moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3. Now Increases the damage caused by your Windfury Weapon effect by 13/27/40% increases the spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by 10/20/30% and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 10/20/30%.
Mental Dexterity moved from Tier 3 to Tier 5.
Restoration

Spirit Link has been removed.
Blessing of the Eternals has been changed to Increases the critical effect chance of your spells by 2/4%, and increases the chance to apply the Earthliving heal over time effect on the target by 40/80% when they are at or under 35% total health.
New Talent/Skill - Riptide (Tier 11) - Heals a friendly target for 481 to 519 and another 500 over 15 sec sec. Your next Chain Heal cast on that primary target within 15 sec sec will consume the healing over time effect and increase the amount of the Chain Heal by 25%. (21% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown)

Glyphs

Glyph of Flame Shock - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 3 sec. (Old - Increases the range on your Flame Shock ability by 10 yards.)



Hallelujah on the Totem duration. Best change I've seen in a long time. Managing our cooldowns just became a hell of a lot easier. Static Shock change will help as well. I might have to think about trying that one out now.


The spirit link changes sucks hard for Resto. A 51 point talent is a mediocre HoT?

Newest Talent Changes

Enhancement
Talents

Maelstrom Weapon (Tier 10) changed to - When you critically hit with a melee weapon, you have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Lesser Healing Wave or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 15 sec.
Spectral Transformation removed.
*New Talent* Earthen Power (Tier 9) - Your Earthbind Totem has a 50/100% chance to also remove all snare effects from you and nearby friendly targets when it pulses.
*New Talent* Lava Lash (Tier 8 ) - You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 100% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. Instant Cast. 6 sec cooldown.
Unleashed Rage moved from Tier 8 to Tier 6.
Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects Frost and Fire damage as well. Will now only affect your own spells.
Mental Quickness moved from Tier 6 to Tier 8.
Weapon Mastery (Tier 6) is now 3 ranks and increases damage you deal with all weapons by 4/7/10%. (Previously 2/4/6/8/10%)
Toughness (Tier 4) now reduces the duration of movement slowing effects on you by 6/12/18/24/30%. (Previously 10/20/30/40/50%)
Thundering Strikes (Tier 2) now affects spells as well as melee attacks.


These Elemental Changes will effect A\Enhancement Builds as well

Elemental Fury moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3. It is now 5 ranks and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Searing, Magma, and Fire Nova Totems and your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 20/40/60/80/100%. (Previously did 100% with 1 talent point)
Call of Thunder moved from Tier 3 to Tier 5. It now only costs 1 talent point and increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Thunderstorm spells by an additional 5%.


Finally they made a change to Lava Burst

Lava Burst mana cost reduced, damage increased, and it will now only consume your own Flame Shock.

PTR 3.0.2 patch notes

Shaman
All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
Anticipation (Enhancement): Now is a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent and now reduces the duration of disarm effects on you by 16/25/50%.
Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Call of Flame (Elemental): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
Concussion (Elemental) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
Convection (Elemental) is now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Now lowers the mana cost of Thunder and Lava Burst.
Earth's Grasp (Elemental) is now a tier-1 talent, up from tier-2.
Elemental Devastation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
Elemental Focus (Elemental): Now also can proc off Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave, and can be used on all healing spells.
Elemental Fury (Elemental) now requires Elemental Focus as a pre-requisite
Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified.
Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
Frostbrand's snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 13% base.
Grace of Air Totem has been removed. (Agility has been rolled over into Strength of Earth Totem)
Healing Grace (Restoration): Healing Way and Ancestral Fortitude are now affected by the dispel resistance portion of this talent.
Improved Fire Totems (Elemental) is now (again) Improved Fire Nova Totem. It now has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets for 2 sec.
Improved Lightning Shield (Enhancement) is now Improved Shields, and is in Tier-2.
Nature’s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
New Spell: Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by x and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additionaly over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Restoration) - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect.
New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
New Talent: Tidal Force(Restoration): Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
Rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. Windfury Weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30.
Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman’s total health.
Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
Strength of Earth Totem now also increases agility.
The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
Tidal Focus (Restoration): Now works with Earth Shield.
Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.
Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or "baked" into tanking abilities.)
Unleashed Rage is now raid wide.
Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
Windwall Totem has been removed.
Wrath of Air is now a flat 10% spell haste totem.


Items I consider a positive for enhancement are bolded. Items I consider a negative are italiced. More positives than negatives I guess, but There isnt a lot of zing.

I don't see anything about the change to Str/Agi AP or about the nerf to Agi's crit contribution. That is the biggest change right there. The elimintation of natures guidence means we need additional Hit as well. Mental Dexterity makes Int usefull as well, and makes the change to Ancentral Knowledge a good one. Plus the talent now makes sense in the Enhancement tree.




Also here are the latest comments from Blues on Beta Forums

Enhancement

- Mental Quickness and Unleashed Rage have swapped places.
- Spectral Transformation renamed "Earthen Power". It causes your Earthbind Totem totem to have a 50/100% dispel all snare effects when it pulses.
- Weapon Mastery: Now a 3-point talent (4/7/10%)
- Stormstrike - New animation, also now increases all Fire, Frost and Nature damage done by the Shaman instead of just Nature.
- New Talent (Tier-8) - Lava Lash: You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 75% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. 3 second cooldown. 4% base mana cost. (Also note: Lava Lash does Fire damage, also procs Maelstrom Weapon)
- Maelstrom Weapon: Can now be used for Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave.
- Feral Spirit - Many bugs with Spirit Wolves fixed, also increased the damage done by the Spirit Wolves

I'll admit it.

I'm dreading 3.0
I'm very sure in knowing what gear is good for me. What stats I want, How to enchant, how to gem, I've got it down pat. Once 3.0 hits though... I've no idea. Do I want to gem for AP? Crit? Agi?

They are making huge changes to the core mechanics of my class, and they arent done tinkering. In Beta atm, you actually want a fast off hand with Flame Tongue for max dps. How am I to plan for this? They claim that using a caster weapon gives you better dps. They are taking out any reason to subspec resto. They are taking out Nature's Guidence and its 3% hit. Totems are going to 30' untalented. Improved Ahnk isnt gonna get me into resto, as handy as it is. None of my gear has Str on it, so in theory It should still be good. My gems though are almost all Bold Crimson Spinels. Its going to hurt replacing about 15 of those.

sigh.

Latest Beta changes

Spectral Transformation replaced
We're going to be dumping Spectral Transformation. We decided we weren't cool with the Shaman's Ghost Wolf being too close to a core Druid iconic ability. What will replace it is a deep Enhancement Talent that will cause your Earthbind totem to clear all snares each time it pulses on you and all nearby friendly targets.

Terrible change. Totems get killed, outranged etc. If they buff the totem then maybe its ok, but I don't see that happening

Shaman DPS a lot lower than expected
A lot of tuning still has to be done, but it's safe to say your DPS is a lot lower than what should be expected. All DPS classes/specs after we are done tuning should yield a pretty similar DPS with similar gear 'min/max' speccing. It's going to take a bit of time until we reach that goal, though.

I hope they get this figured out before the patch. I'm already upset that not only will I need to replace 5K worth of gems, and enchants, but that re itemization on the shaman tier gear makes them 10% weaker in a raid setting, by converting str to ap.

Maelstrom Weapons changes
We will have it proc from Windfury soon. Also we're going to allow it to also allow you to cast heals with Maelstrom procs
Reportedly they are changing this to not reset the swing timer. Could be fun.


ETA Spirit Wolves update

Feral Spirit (Tier 11) is now implemented. Pet skills include :

Bash - Your Spirit Wolves stun the target for 2 sec. (45 sec cooldown)
Twin Howl - Your Spirit Wolves howl, forcing all enemies to attack them for 6 sec. (15 sec cooldown)
Spirit Walk - Removes all movement impairing effects and increases the movement speed of you and your Spirit Wolves by 60% for 15 sec. (25 yd range, 32 sec cooldown)
Spirit Hunt - Your Spirit Wolves' attacks heal them and you for 5 sec. (10 sec cooldown)

A Real Live Sunwell Kill!

Well We finally got a new progression Kill. seems like it took a long time, but with our quick progression through T6 we are still lacking a lot of gear on some of our raiders. Our Warrior Tanks were still using the Aldori Defender's Legacy for their sheilds. Our drop luck seems to be changing though, as we went to Hyjal after Kalecgos, and got a Hardened Heart off of Kaz'rogal. Our first T6 tank sheild! Hopefulling Illidan will finally Drop a Bulwark. Death Group, the only other Horde Guild to down Illidan on Quel'Dorei is giving them out to Shamans!

Sunwell

< Fire and Blood > Made their first real attempt at the Sunwell last night. It took us a couple of hours to make it to Kalecgos, and we managed to get 6 attempts in on him before respawns caught up to us. Our best go was about 60% We had some healing issues mainly keeping people up in the Shadow realm. Another night or two of practice should make things go a lot better. So in light of the fact that T6 content only has one upgrade left for me I thought I'd post all the replacement gear. :)

My Sunwell gear wishlist

Head : Coif of Alleria - Kil'Jaeden

Neck : Clutch of Demise - Brutallus

Shoulders : Demontooth Shoulderguards - Twin Eredars

Back : Cloak of Unforgivable Sin - Kil'Jaeden

Chest : Bladed Chaos Tunic - M'uru or Carapace of Sun and Shadow - Crafted

Wrist : Shyshatter Wristguards - Kalecgos

Hands : Thalassian Ranger Gauntlets - Kil'Jaeden or Gloves of Immortal Dusk - Crafted

Waist : Skyshatter Girdle - Brutallus

Legs : Leggings of Immortal Night - Felmyst

Feet : Skyshatter Greaves - Felmyst

Finger : Band of Ruinous Delight - Twin Eredars

Trinket : Blackened Naaru Sliver - M'uru

Main Hand : Hand of the Deceiver - Kil'Jaeden

Off Hand : Mounting Vengeance -Trash HAVE

More Beta Changes

Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
Nature’s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
New Talent: Tidal Force- Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman’s total health.
The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.

The totem range change is awesome.

The rest.. meh

Trinkets

Well the last weak spot in my dps set was my trinkets. Ashtongue Talisman and Tsunami weren't bad, but I really did need to get the Shard of Contempt I hadn't seen it drop before, and everyone is sick of Heroic Mr.T, so I had mostly ignored the fact that I needed it. Finally I cajoled enough people into running it with me Saturday night, and got it to drop. So one down and one to go.

< Fire and Blood > has been running Gruul's every week march and I've only seen the Dragonspine trophy drop once. I passed on it so our best rogue could get it. DST dropped one other time, when I wasn't in the raid too. So anyways that's the second best trinket, but who knows if I'll ever see it. Out hunters all want it too. So that brings me to last night and Madness of the Betrayer drops. I'll take the 3rd best trinket. :)

That just leaves me the Belt from Vashj and the Ring from Illidan as upgrades. Outside of Sunwell that is. Lots of goodies there. We took a peek in last week, and decided we needed to farm BT a bit more.

Latest WotLK beta changes

Elemental: Convection (Tier 1) is now a 3 points talent, reducing the mana cost of Shock, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Thunder and Lava Burst spells by 4%/8%/12% (Old version : 5 points and 2/4/6/8/10%).

Elemental Precision increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 2/4/6% and reduces the threat caused by these spells by 4/7/10% (Old version : 1/2/3% hit and 10/20/30% threat).

Astral Shift now has a 33/66/100% chance to shift into the Astral Plane reducing all damage taken by 30% (Old version : 100% chance to reduce all damage taken by 10%/20%/30%).

Thunderstorm range increased from 10 to 12 yards, damage increased from 595-679 to 640-729, knockback stays 20 yards.


Enhancement: Improved shields now increases the amount of Mana Shield orbs by 10% instead of 5%, improvements to Lightning Shield and Earth Shield stay the same.

Shamanistic Rage now gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 15% of your attack power. (Old version : mana regeneration equal to 30% of your attack power)

Maelstrom Weapon now reduces the casting time of any spell by 4/8/12/16/20% when you critically hit with a melee weapon. (Old version : was only affecting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst)

Feral Spirit now lasts 45 seconds instead of 30 seconds.

Restoration: Nature's Guardian cooldown has been changed from 8 to 5 seconds. Spirit Link now also breaks if a shared damage would reduce a target's health below 20%.

The Maelstrom change could be nice. An instant CH or HW certainly can't hurt. Longer wolves is nice.
Half the amount on SR is bad. Hopefully the go back to the old 30s duration, but I don't forsee that.

I'm a Loot Sponge!

Well it was a pretty nice weekend of raiding. Friday went fairly well, We cleared the first 5 bosses in BT. I sat out the first 3, which went pretty smooth. We had a couple of new people we were trying out, and they performed well.

I came in after Akama, and we wiped on Gorefiend a few times. Some people are still having issues with constructs... to be fair myself included. I got ghosted, was just ready to go to the safe spot, when I got pounded and died in the raid. Anyways we got he down and lo and behold Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape. None of the hunters bid on it,and I had more dkp than the rogues, so it was mine! Woot! Its a pretty nice upgrade from Dory's Embrace. I was very happy. Especially after Wednesday's raid where we just had the worst luck on Archimonde, and had to leave him up.

So last night we set out to finish up BT. Well at least clear to Illidan. And we wiped on RoS. Not a stellar start. But we got it together and downed him. Then we one shotted Mother. Council has been a bear for us. The pull gets us a lot, with our mage tank getting pwned. So it was a pleasant surprise when we one shotted them. Left us over 2 hours to try and get Illidan down!

We wiped twice to eye beams in phase 2 due to miscommunication between the shard tanks and the raid leader. One wipe in phase 4 when the warlock tank took 2 huge hits right away, then we just pwned him the forth go. Picture perfect. I wouldn't say he's on farm status, but I definitely think we should have no problem downing him every week. And he drops... Skull of Guldan and another Cursed Vision of Sargeras! Curse you gorefiend for making me spend my dkp on your cloak. But our rogue leader had his T6 helm and decided to pass, and the hunter who bid had just spent his dkp on both T6 legs and Forest Prowler's Helm, so my 3 DKP wins! Cursed Vision for me! So long Cataclysm Helm You have served me faithfully. So two best in slot upgrades for me for the weekend. I was stoked.

Illidan went down so fast we still had almost an hour of raid time left, so we decided to go and finish off Archie. Wiped a couple of times, once at 13% when the tank got feared. But we got him down, and what should drop? WhyMidnight Chestguard of course. Remarkably no one else wanted this wonderful loot. A third best in Slot item!

At this point All I have left before sunwell is trinkets and Illidan's Signet ring.

Nice. :)

WOTLK stuff

All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Call of Flame (Elemental): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
Concussion (Elemental) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
Convection (Elemental) is now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Now lowers the mana cost of Thunder and Lava Burst.
Earth's Grasp (Elemental) is now a tier-1 talent, up from tier-2.
Elemental Detestation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
Elemental Focus (Restoration): Now also can proc off Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave, and can be used on all healing spells.
Elemental Fury (Elemental) now requires Elemental Focus as a pre-requisite
Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified.
Frostbrand's snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 13% base.
Grace of Air Totem has been removed. (Agility has been rolled over into Strength of Earth Totem)
Improved Fire Totems (Elemental) is now (again) Improved Fire Nova Totem. It now has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets for 2 sec.
Improved Lightning Shield (Enhancement) is now Elemental Shields, and is in Tier-1.
New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
New Spell: Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by x and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additionaly over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Restoration) - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect.
New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
Rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. Windfury Weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30.
Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
Shield Specialization (Enhancement) - Now a 2-point talent, and increases the chance to block with attacks by 10/20%, and increases the amount blocked by 5/10%.
Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
Strength of Earth Totem now also increases agility.
Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or "baked" into tanking abilities.)
Unleashed Rage is now raid wide.
Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
Windwall Totem has been removed.
Wrath of Air is now a flat 10% spell haste totem.

Thoughts on the news so far:
WF totem seems to be a bit of a nerf. 20% chance to proc an extra attack should be about the same as 20% haste as far as I can see, and you lose out on the bonus AP on the extra attack.

Adding agi to SoE is nice... hopefully they don't lower the bonuses, but I definitely can see that happening

Windwall removed who cares

WoA depends on your spell power I guess At lower gear levels its a nerf, at higher levels its a buff. Although FT now give spell power now... hmm.

Tranquil Air removed. Well lets see the new threat mechanics I guess. Seems like a nerf.

I also found this reported on Wow insider.

Weapon Specialization (which gives special abilities based on which weapon type the Shaman uses) will likely be removed
Improved Shamanistic Rage (which made Shamans using SR immune to all movement impairing effects and stuns at 2 points) will also probably be removed.
Wryxian mentioned a possible replacement for Weapon Specialization: Each melee critical hit would give a stacking buff that reduces cast time by 20% and lasts for 15 seconds. That would mean that at 5 stacks, you'd get a free instant cast spell.
Feral Spirit, the 51 point enhancement ability that summons ghost wolves to aid the Shaman, may be getting a second look as well.

F*CK!
Weapon spec was going to be awesome.
and there goes our anti-CC
The stacking cast time reduction is only any good if you get to 5 stacks, because otherwise we only cast instants anyway. I can see how maybe if you get to 5 you'd get a free LB which might be nice.

Anyways, I'm pretty bummed about these latest notes. I have a nasty feeling that they will be messing with WK weapon imbue as well.

Illidan Stormrage : DEAD!

Been a bit behind on updates. We took down Council on 7/3 and spent the next 2 raid nights working on Illidan. This reset it took us a bit longer than normal to clear, so we only got 1.5 hours on him on Sunday. So with one full night left this reset, we set ourselves to kill Illidan. Well, by we I mean my guild. I put myself on backup, because the fight is just so melee unfriendly and our other enhancement Shaman is now working nights most of the time, and hadn't gotten in for him yet. So I took one for the team at sat it out. It killed be listening in on Vent. 3% wipe, 3%wipe, 2%, 4%, they were getting so close, and I so wanted to be there. Finally at 15 minutes after raid time they decided to give it one more go, and Down he went.

Woot!

Supremus dropped Choker of Endless Nigtmaresfor me. Biggest EP upgrade I could get aside from the Cursed Vison of Sargeras short of Sunwell.

Yes Please

Shaman news from WWI

* Shaman CC! Hex, previously the domain of NPCs only, was confirmed as a Shaman spell -- it'll have a quick 1.5 second cast, and will turn your enemy into a frog for about 8-10 seconds. The frogged person will still be able to move around, but they won't be able to attack or cast spells. A 1 minute cooldown was mentioned, but that's in opposition to the purpose of the spell, which is supposed to be emergency only, so that may change.
* The devs mentioned that Shaman were suffering from "Totem spam," so a few totems will be combined -- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will become the same totem, and the physical school news was re-confirmed.
* Perhaps the biggest Shaman complaint since launch was answered: Shaman totems will now affect the whole raid, not just the local group. That's a big one.
* Weapon enchants are being revamped for more utility. Rockbiter is out completely, and Earthliving is replacing it -- it will give a +Healing buff. Flametongue will give spell damage, and Frostbrand will "more reliably snare" opponents.

I expect some of these will be nerfed and nerfed hard. Call me a cynic, :)

Turn this Mutha OUT!

We went into Mother as soon as we had 24 people with SR gear. One little hiccup on our first go, before downing her easy on our second attempt. Dropped one of each token and the off hand sword.

We didn't think it would go that fast so we were a bit unprepared for the Illidari Council. We wiped on them for the rest of the raid, but it was good practice.

We are rapidly approaching the big blindfolded guy himself.... I'm pretty excited.

Picked up Bloodsea Brigand's Vest this weekend. Funny how perspectives change. On Bannonn, I would have killed for this. Heck 2 months ago on Baleor I'd have killed for this. But with Archi on farm, I can't help but view this as just a placeholder. I'm such an elitist. :p

Upgrades

Tsunami Talisman
Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots
Deadly Cuffs
Choker of Serrated Blades
So, I've gotten some nice upgrades in the last week and a half. Replaced my Hourglass of The Unraveller which was my last blue. My Edgewalker Longboots which was my last piece of Kara gear. Vindicator's Pentant of Triumph,and Vambraces of Ending went bye bye too.
Now I need to hope Archie drops Midnight Chestgard again one of these weeks.

Patch 2.4.3 PTR notes

General
Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World's End Tavern!
Mounts at 30?! Yes, it's true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha'tari Skyguard.
Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.

Druids
Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters
Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet's Growl.
Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Paladins
Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests
Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues
Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue's health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman
Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks
Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Warrior
Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

PvP
The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped.

Professions
Alchemy
Philosopher's Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.
Cooking
Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.
Jewelcrafting
Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.
Mining
Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.
Tailoring
Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
Herb bags can now hold Un'goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests
Bhag'thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids
Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons.
Magister's Terrace
The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
Vexallus and Kael'thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
Vexallus' damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
Kael'thas' Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.
Sunwell Plateau
Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil'jaeden's Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil'jaeden.

Items
Bow of the Verdant Keeper's Aim: This item's triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
Brutal Gladiator's Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again...without attacking people in the arena. Well... they'll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.
Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.
Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
Thori'dal, the Star's Fury is now Unique as intended.
Vengeful Gladiator's Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list

Reliquary of Souls

This fight took us as much time as Kael I think. One night last reset giving it a few tries after downing Bloodboil. More than half of Sunday night after Bloodboil again, and about 3 hours last night before finally downing him. We found a better strategy for Phase one last night so for the most part it went very smooth. Took us a few goes to get the interrupting down in Phase 2. Thats just so critical. One missed interrupt dazes the tank, which results in one or two melee getting killed, which is trouble as they are the interrupters, just making the whole fight spiral out of control. Got him to phase 3 probably half a dozen times, getting better every time. 405 wipe, then %20%, then 6%, 2%, 1% til we finally took him down.
Really fun fight, very challenging, and people really need to be on the ball.

Now we are up against the Shadow Resist roadblock. We only have 14 people with enough gear atm. So its farm , farm, farm for us.

Picked up Fists of Mukoa this week, and bought Anelista's Revenge a week or so ago. Still need upgrades for boots and bracers. Midnight Chestguard off of Archie would be pretty nice as well. The Bracers will drop from Rage or Teron sooner or later. Actually the ones did drop off of Gorefiend, last week, but I'd just spent my DKP on the gloves. For boots I'd like the Shadowmster's Boots off of Mother Shahraz, but that's probably a month before we get to that fight, so I'll likely either get the badge boots or hope for Gorefiend to drop his boots.

Another one bites the dust

Last night was back to the Black Temple. It took us a few tries, but we managed to down Gurtogg Bloodboil. Thats a pretty fun fight. I got Fel Raged twice in one attempt. First time I was at half health and died. The second time after Ahnking I was at full health and lived. I even equipped my shiny new tanking shield Dawnforged Defender

So from there we moved on to Reliquary of Soul. We had issues with this fight. The big one was on phase 2 interrupting the spirit shock. We weren't getting the first one, so the tank got disoriented and 2-3 of the melee group would get one shotted. So we still have some work ahead of us there. Just as well though, as we can't get any farther than RoS, for awhile. We don't have anywhere near enough Hearts of Darkness for our Shadow Resist gear yet. There aren't a lot of them to be had on Quel'dorei either. Only 2 guilds have even downed Ilidan. One on each faction, and the Horde guild only did it a month or so ago. We are 2nd in progression Horde side, so I think its up to us to farm the hearts ourselves.

Archimonde...DEAD!

So Friday night we took up where we left off in Hyjal. We one shotted. Anetheron, Kar'rogal, and Azgalor, which left us plenty of time to work on Archie. We were having issues with people dying for a bit, but finally on try 7 everything clicked. At about 40% I got the feeling that he was going down. People were avoiding the doomfires. Our dispellers were on the spot , no one was cratering, it was smooth as silk. Got him to 10% and it was beautiful. Everyone just unloaded and down he went.

That's Kael in one reset, Archie in the next for < Fire and Blood >. I was so proud of everyone.

So with Hyjal cleared we went back into Black Temple. One shots of Naj'entus, Supremus, and Shade of Akama followed. So it was on to a new progression boss. Teron Gorefiend. Its and extremely easy fight aside from one thing. The Shadowy Constructs. Being that is was almost everyone first time there, we had some issues with them. We were pretty close, getting him to 30% first try, but we kept getting to many constructs. Try five was a 2% wipe....argggg! Finally we got him down on try #7. So that's 2 new bosses this reset with us scheduled to go after Bloodboil tonight.

World Bosses

Bit of a weird raid night last night. We were planning on going into hyjal and we did. WEe pwned rage, and then the DC's started. Our Bear Tank Dc'd and couldn't get back on. I SC'd like 4 times in a row, and finally asked to be replaced. The raid ended up replacing several people before trying Anetheron. Lots of bad luck. Pally Tank DC'ing during trash, It was just a mess. So after 3 attempts, we decided to call Hyjal and take down some world bosses, as < Fire and Blood > had not attempted before. We invited all the back ups and headed to SMV and downed Doomwalker easy as pie. We then flew to Hellfire and took out Doom Lord Kazzak. So a couple of missing notches from our belt have been filled in. Then we headed to Gruul, for our weekly attempt at a DST for our melee. No luck again.


I also need to update that < Fire and Blood > downed Kaz'rogal and Azgalor last Friday. I'm kinda bummed that I missed the run, but had other plans. Sunday was BT. Supremus dropped a Syphon of the Nathrezim which I picked up. Nice slow 2.8 speed. Would have rather had the Axe from Naj'entus though