by Joe Perez
Mogu’shan Vaults starts out with a bang. By bang, however, I mean that the first two fightsare all about execution to get past then successfully. Your raid group will have to work in concert in order to make it to the next set of bosses. The third and fourth boss of Vaults doesn’t shy away from the execution standpoint, and it is safe to say that while there are certainly some DPS and healing thresholds you need to meet, that the entire zone really is about execution.
Gara’jal the Spirit Binder and The Spirit Kings are fun fights, that have a lot going on in them. Whether it is multiple planes of existence or multiple long dead kings, you can be sure that there is enough going on to keep you on your toes and keep you busy.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Joe Perez
Another exciting week has come and gone, with a new set of raid instances, new looking for raid and the promise of even more content to come. I don’t know about you, but it feels like I barely have enough time to look at it all, let alone do it all!
There has been a lot of focus lately on our healing tool-kits, individual spell usage and our stats. We’re definitely not without our problems, but instead of focusing on all the bad, I figured it would be good to focus on some of the diversity that we can bring to groups. Even though I’m disappointed about our totems becoming more like cooldowns and less like constant companions, I can still appreciate the new totems that have been added to our repertoire. Even though we’re healers, it doesn’t mean we can’t have some extra utility, and that’s always been a key feature of our class.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Joe Perez
The first two fights in the Mogu’shan Vaults are in reality quite shaman healer friendly. Despite the damage, and the multiple mechanics, our toolkit makes us go-to healers on these first two fights. There are some tricks and helpful hints I can offer you to help squeeze all the healing juice you can in the fight.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Joe Perez
As you’re leveling up, there is going to be plenty to explore and plenty to do. One of the things you’re going to notice sooner or later is that there are a bunch of new factions to earn reputation points with. This expansion does two things really when when it comes to reps. First is that reputation isn’t quite as hard or tedious as it has been in previous expansions, which is most welcome. Second is that the rewards that each faction has to offer you can be quite awesome for your chosen Warcraft profession.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Josh Myers
After one near-sleepless night, two ten hour leveling binges, and too many caffeinated beverages to count, Elamism‘s ascent to level 90 has successfully ended. You’re going to be seeing a lot of words and phrases like “grueling” or “arduous” or “I had more fun passing a gallstone” going around the internet this week to describe the leveling process. From my experiences, I’d be inclined to agree…but I’d be wrong to.
The only reason this leveling was arduous was because a bunch of half-manic masochists with dreams of server first raid kills (a group I belong to myself) decided to try condensing a two-three week long leveling process into a 24-36 hour period. We skipped quest text, raged at NPC dialogue, wasting and spent entirely too much time ghost-running to our bodies because our sleep-deprived brains didn’t realize the mountain under our feet had ended until it was too late to Parachute Cloak.
The one thing I did not rage at once in my 20.5 hour voyage to level 90 was my class. Shaman are a class that almost seem designed to rock at solo play. We have a strong utility toolbox, self-healing, and reasonable AOE ability. My leveling speed strongly depended on me maximizing smart usage of all of these abilities, as well as good decision making with my talents and glyphs.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Joe Perez
Every time a new expansion comes around, we get to look forward to the ever-evolving sense of fashion that Azeroth has in store for us. Whether it’s the skull motifs of Northrend, of the fire touched gear from the Firelands, it’s always filled with various looks ranging from good to just down right terrible.
The problem has always been hit or miss when gearing up a beginning restoration shaman, that initial tier for every expansion just sits a little bit weird for us. Sometimes it’s due to new itemization, or new talents. Sometimes it’s just because you can’t cram everything in those early dungeons and reputation gear. Mists, though, is fairly surprising in how well you can gear yourself out without actually ever stepping foot into a raid.
Today we’re just going to cover the items you can snag from a small section of content inMists. Truth be told there’s a ton of options for you while you’re gearing up and leveling. Everything from crafting to world drops, there’s quite a large selection and that’s something to be excited about, and we’ll be covering them all up to and through the release of mists.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Josh Myers
My fellow elemental shaman: Our class is no longer complete. And no, I’m not talking about the recent changes to totems that seems to have everyone up in arms despite being a really good change for the class. I’m referring to the fact that we our class is no longer balanced around level 85. The level 85 game is effectively over. Think of this game as election, and the post 5.0.4 period is the period of time between November 5th January 20th: We’re a lame duck class. We’re nerfed. And that’s fine, because Cataclysm content no longer matters, and exists only to help you relearn your spec before Mists of Pandaria drops.
Our beloved spec has been retooled to be balanced at level 90, where we’ll have access to the incredibly powerful Ascendance and the level 90 tier of DPS talents. These will be potent additions to our arsenal, and our current spells have been balanced around the idea that we will have access to them. That doesn’t mean everything at 85 is all bad — we did receive a few nice quality of life changes that you’ll notice when you log-in.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Josh Myers
Summer is winding down, and with its slumber comes a slightly less hectic work schedule for me, which should mean more time playing and writing about WoW. This is convenient, seeing as patch 5.0.4 releases this Tuesday, and I’ve left my league of adoring fans, frenemies, and people bored enough to read my articles without any enhancement or elemental guidance for far too long.
A lot of the changes coming in patch 5.0.4 are the very generic ones that we’ve covered in the past, such as the total overhaul of the talent/glyph systems for every class in the game. For those overarching game changes, you’ll want to check out the most recent patch notes we’ve posted, as well as Anne’s 5.0.4 primer. This post will deal more with the actual nitty-gritty of what’s changing for enhancement specifically. This post is aimed toward maximizing your level 85 shaman during the month in between 5.0.4 and Mist of Pandaria‘s actual release, so that you can spend that month learning how to play before release.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Joe Perez
Today, we’re going to recap the upcoming changes for restoration shaman and make sure you have the tools to handle this massive upheaval. So grab your towel, don’t panic, and let’s make sure you aren’t a sad panda when you log into game today! I’d also like to take a brief moment and thank all the theorycrafters for all the hard work they’ve been doing finalizing, verifying and extracting all the numbers. Special thanks to Binkensein, Keldion, Hamlet, Derevka and Therya. Read the rest of this entry »
by Matthew Rossi
There are a lot of little changes that improve quality of life, but they also take some getting used to.
How shaman have changed
Here’s some “I have been under a rock for a while” facts about shaman in Mists, because I have been under a rock for a while about shaman in Mists and was surprised and sometimes even pleased to find them out.
Read the rest of this entry »
Susbribe via RSS
