by Joe Perez
The shaman toolkit might not have as many tools as say a holy priest, but the ones we do have are quite effective at their specific task. Each one is useful and colorful and we do have several that are quite unique. Lets take a look at them shall we?
Spells:
- Lesser Healing Wave: This is our version of Flash Heal. The cast time is 1.5 seconds and before spellpower and critical strikes, at the maximum rank it clocks in at just under 2,000 healing. This spell is fantastic for fast top offs and when combined with Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave can become a very effective tank heal. You get the first rank of this spell at level 20 and you will be using it pretty regularly as you level. It is a fast heal that does the job well.
- Healing Wave: This is our version of a Greater Heal. This spell comes in with a 3 second cast time and it is our nuke heal. Useful for fights where one target is taking a large amount of damage, it starts with a cap of about 3,500 healing before modifiers, but I’ve seen this spell hit numbers close to 40,000 healing. You start the game with this spell right off the bat, and you will see your first four ranks of it before Lesser Healing Wave becomes available. For early leveling as a healer this will be your bread and butter. During the end game, if you stack haste up to the soft cap, Healing Wave becomes a replacement for Lesser Healing Wave but we will cover more on that in a later post.
- Chain Heal: This is one of, if not the, most iconic spells a resto shaman has not only in look and ability but also in sound. Each cast is accompanied by the sound of rolling thunder. You get the first rank of this ability at level 40 and as soon as you are able to use it, it will become a healing spell heavily used in your selections. This spell has two modifies to it that increase the healing potential quite a bit. First off there is a talent which we talked about last week, Improved Chain Heal, that gives the spell a 20% increase in healing output. Second there is Glyph of Chain Heal which allows chain heal to affect an additional target. It is one of a shaman’s most mana efficient spells and in addition to being cheap and effective it is also a smart spell. It will always jump to the nearest target within the 12.5 yard jump range of the original target with the largest hit point deficiency. The spell will check for a valid target at each stop, so the third and fourth target (with the glyph) don’t necessarily need to be within range of the first target. Each jump calculates crit individually on the targets and each jump has a chance to proc weapon effects like Earthliving Weapon and certain items like that Althor’s Abacus. On top of all that it has a chance to trigger talents like Improved Water Shield. Once you have this spell you will use it heavily well into the end game.
- Earth Shield: Another iconic staple to the resto arsenal, you get this spell as part of our talent tree. You will have enough talent points to pick it up at level 50, and by 52 you can talent it to give you additional charges and improved healing. Earth Shield is a spell that places 6 charges (8 talented) on a target of your choosing, visible by a ring of floating earth surrounding your target. The spell is instant cast and it is a purely reactionary heal. Each time your target gets hit, a charge is burned and they are instantly healed with a cooldown of roughly 3 seconds between charge uses. The amount healed is modified by your crit, and spellpower at the time of casting the spell. It benefits the most from a high spellpower on the caster, so items that add spellpower like trinkets or temporary buffs that increase your spellpower are highly desirable before casting it. By default it healing is only augmented by 15% of your total spellpower, but with talents such as Improved Earth Shield and Improved Shields, you can push that to 35% of your spellpower. The spell also now correctly benefits from Purification. This can lead to some impressive and very useful shield procs. Normal placement of the spell is on a tank, but there are other ways to use it. It does reduce push back by 30%, so placing it on a healer or another caster when there is a lot of damage pushing their casts back. It can also be used on DPS who has a tendency to steal aggro. It might not be able to keep them solely alive, but it may give enough of a cushion to snap a heal off and keep them alive.
- Cleanse Spirit: This is a cure-all, or as close to one as you will see as a resto shaman. Cleanse Spirit effectively saves you button pushes, removing the reason to ever use Cure Disease or Cure Poison. The spell also allows for the removal of curses, which is incredibly handy in a pinch. While a resto shaman can’t remove magical effects, being able to remove 3/4 of removable debuffs with just one spell is pretty good. Another spell you receive from talent points you can pick this up at roughly level 44. Grab it as soon as you can and put it on your action bar, use often for great success.
- Riptide: This little beauty has become yet another icon of the shaman healing toolkit.You obtain this spell through talents and can snag it as early as level 60. Riptide is an instant cast spell that has a heal over time component. Heals a friendly target for 1604 to 1736 and another 1670 over 15 seconds. This is of course modified by your spell power and can produce fantastic numbers both on the initial attack as well as the ticks of each HoT. This spell also has a component that augments Chain Heal, increasing the amount healed by an additional 25%. This helps to increase healing output and also gives us mobility. Riptide also triggers many of our key talents and has cemented itself as a spell that should be used by each and every resto shaman
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by Zuggy
How do I gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade?
There are several ways you will be able to gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade.
- If you’re a Death Knight you’ll have the option of doing four quests which give you Knights of Ebon Blade reputation. These include: Taking Back Acherus, The Battle For The Ebon Hold, The Ebon Watch, and The Light of Dawn. Note: only Death Knights can complete these quests.
- For everyone else, you can complete the normal mode daily dungeon quests. These quests reward 1 of 4 reputation tokens, one of which is Ebon Blade Commendation Badge. This badge awards +250 Knights of the Ebon Blade reputation when used.
- Finally, you’ll have the option of championing the Knights of the Ebon. To champion this faction you must wear your Tabard of the Ebon Blade while you completing other level 80 5 man dungeons. This will award you reputation with the Knights of the Ebon Blade for any mobs or bosses you kill.
- Non-Elite Mobs Normal – 0
- Non-Elite Mobs Heroic – 1-2
- Elite Trash Normal – 5
- Elite Trash Heroic – 15
- Super Trash Normal – 10
- Super Trash Heroic – 30
- Boss Normal – 50
- Boss Heroic – 250
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by Dawn Moore
For now, I want to touch on some reasons why priests specifically would want to use macros.
Consolidating
Priests have more healing spells available to them than any other healer. Add into that all our offensive abilities and cooldowns, and our bars can get very crowded, very quickly. Macros are a great way to consolidate the number of buttons you need, as well as clean up your UI so things are easier to see. Since not every ability is used frequently, or some abilities are on cooldown, you can bind two or more abilities to one key. Adding a target condition will let you keep offensive abilities on your bars but out of the way; ideal for burn phases. Here’s an example.
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [help, nomodifier:alt, nomodifier:shift]Renew; [modifier:alt, target=player]Renew; [modifier:shift]Guardian Spirit;[harm, nomodifier]Holy Fire
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by Brian Wood
Trinkets fill a very special slot in our gear selection. Rather than just a collection of stats, trinkets are the one gear slot we can pretty much count on doing something special, be it crazy procs or on-use abilities. Of course because they aren’t just piles of stats, trying to compare one trinket to another can sometimes be difficult. Worse yet, they are some of the most difficult slots to fill, and we don’t want to waste our time (or DKP) with a subpar trinket.
Today we’re going to look beyond just ICC and examine all of the top hunter trinket choices, from Greatness to Deathbringer’s WIll. Furthermore, I’m going to go out on a limb and rank all the trinkets from best to worst for each hunter spec. So join me after the cut to see if that limb can hold up against some solid dwarven weight.
Evaluating Trinkets
Before we get into the trinket list, it’s worth taking a moment to explain exactly how we evaluate trinkets. For most gear we use spreadsheets to determine the comparative benefit of each stat. So perhaps we find out that 1 agility is equal to 2.4 attack power. We then add up the total value of all of the stats to get a number that we can compare to the total value of all the stats on a different piece of gear.
The problem with trinkets is they almost always have abilities, either procs or on-use, that are not always active. So what we do here is average the proc portion of the trinket. The key here is to find out what the typical uptime of a special ability is — and generally this is done by spending a crazy amount of time testing it on a target dummy — usually over a couple thousand shots.
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by Zuggy
One of the fastest ways to multiply how much WoW gold you make is to “profession” your items. Basically this means to put items through certain professions to make them worth more gold. It’s always a good idea to set up some profession guide tactics when you decide which professions you’ll keep for end game play. Profession guide tactics are important for anyone setting up a WoW gold strategy.
Profession Guide Tactics: Enchanting
One of the simplest professions to do this with is enchanting. If you disenchant every magical item you pick up and don’t need, you’ll create various enchanting materials. The enchanting materials are always worth more than the junk you get them from, so you’ll make a lot of gold in the process.
Another way to use professions to make WoW gold is to enchant valuable items you pick up. If you’re planning on listing an item on the auction house anyway, enchant it before you list it, and that item will be worth even more.
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by Zuggy
I’m not sure how I let this one slip by me, but a new feature for jewelcrafters is going to be added to the profession in WotLK. It’s called gem perfection. Essentially, here is how it works:
Gem Perfection Step 1: If you are a jewelcrafter you can complete one of the respective gem perfection quests for your faction. You only need to complete one of these quests.
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?by Amanda Miller
Today, I’m going to talk to you about a way to make money skinning in Felwood, although similarly leveled zones work as well. This can be done with higher level characters or those who are at-level (50-60), although it moves more quickly if you have a character capable of chain pulling without having to stop to eat or drink or run back to your corpse all the time.
If you don’t have a skinner that is a high enough level, you really should get one. Leather sells consistently well, and is very easily gathered. In fact, you could get one today! Create a Death Knight, train skinning, and go on a rampage, starting with a low level starter zone and working your way up.
Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get down to the particulars.
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by Daniel Whitcomb
This week, the subject is the loot in the final section of Icecrown Citadel, the Frostwing Halls. There’s only a few bosses here, but you’ll find some great off-spec pieces, a few best in slots items, and some interesting weapon choices.
Valithria Dreamwalker
10-Man
The Oxheart, overall, probably isn’t as great for most 2-hand wielding death knights as Ramaladni’s. It has less expertise, and critical strike rating instead of armor penetration. That said, if the Ramaladni’s just won’t drop for you, this is still a more than decent weapon.
Taiga Bindings are likely to be better than anything a 10-man raiding death knight is otherwise wearing, although the haste is a bit lackluster death knight DPS at the moment. The red gem socket makes up a bit for the less than optimal itemization, at least.
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by Zuggy
Leveling first aid is easy and can be done in under an hour if all the cloths you need are available on the auction house. You’ve just got to know exactly when to move on to the next type of bandage to get your levels quickly.
Here’s a quick 1-450 first aid leveling guide to get you there efficiently.
First Aid Leveling Guide: Levels 1-50
- Go to the first aid trainer and learn Apprentice First Aid.
- Levels 1-50: Linen Bandage (Linen Cloth)
- Go back to the trainer and learn Journeyman First Aid.
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by Chase Christian
If I were choosing one word to describe the Mutilate playstyle, I’d have to go with the easy answer: Assassin. Keeping the tradition of the tree’s namesake, Mutilate rogues are experts of the quick and efficient kill. Not designed for toe-to-toe combat or lengthy encounters, the last dagger-wielding rogue spec prefers a more vicious approach. You give your enemy no quarter, and expect none in return.
Specializing in single-target damage, a Mutilate rogue performs at peak efficiency when there’s only a solo target. The assassination tree grants us a complete mastery over all things poisonous, and in this, gives us strength against highly armored opponents that our siblings of the shadow can only envy. A properly played Mutilate rogue on an advantageous fight can be rivaled by no other DPS class in the game, and why should there be any competition? Killing is what an assassination rogue was born to do.
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