Patch 3.3 is going to see changes in the totem art so that each race will have a different one. MMO Champion has a video which I posted below which shows the totem art for Orcs, Trolls and Dwarves. Of course Dwarves aren’t allowed to be shamans until the Cataclysm expansion. I guess Taurens still get the art that they currently are using while Trolls and Orcs have their changed to fit their theme a bit more. We already know what the Draenei totems look like so no need to show that. The only one missing then is Goblin who can also play the shaman class in the expansion. But since they are also a new race, maybe they don’t want to give anything away about the goblin totem art just yet. Maybe it will have a mechanical or bomb-like theme to it? Hehe.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

shaman totems

The reality of it is that I might not be able to get that Holy Priest but I do intend to get that Resto shaman up and running and in fact I was working on getting the character up until something came up. I had a nice level 22 female troll shaman going when Blizzcon came and the announcement of the Cataclysm expansion got everyone excited. I remember reading the announcement that day and seeing that Shaman was one of the classes for the new Goblin race and I got hooked. I made plans to shelve my current shaman, who is just now taking up space in my character screen to reserve the name I want for my future Goblin shaman. Boy have I been itching to level up that shaman the past few weeks but I know that holding off will eventually pay off.

Theoretically I can go on and then pay for a race change to Goblin when possible but I won’t because I’m cheap and I also want to see the starting Goblin zones and the changed Azeroth at the apportionment level and not as high level toon breezing through content. I get to play a new class (relatively new to me anyway since my current shaman is still in the 20’s), a new race and see the new Azeroth all in one toon. It’s the perfect scenario for the leveling up experience.

Are there more of you people out there like me who stopped playing or held off creating a character just to play a new Goblin or a Worgen in the expansion? If so then share your story behind the decision here!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

dwarf hunter

This switch to Focus come the expansion has me wondering about something though. With Hunters turning their back on the world of mana, what becomes of the mail attack power gear (at least the non-tier ones)? As you know hunters share their gear with enhancement shamans right now and while Hunters are losing their mana dependence, enhancement shamans aren’t. This is the reason why a lot of the mail attack power gear you see around have intellect on it. After all while enhancements shamans go all stabby with their daggers, they still need their mana to cast their totems, shocks and such stuff.

Right now it’s easy to see how the mail attack power gear can easily be interchangeable between hunters and enhancement shammies but this will no longer be the case come expansion. Unless Blizzard figures out a way to make Intellect useful for Focus using hunters then mail attack power itemization is going to be a lot harder because of the rift this change is going to cause.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

Past Me

In those days I really couldn’t see myself playing a healer. I did try to level a dwarf priest in the hope of probably getting to try it out but in those days my real intention of leveling that priest was the melt some face as a shadow priest. Well it didn’t work out and I eventually deleted that character. Things are different now. I played a Holy Paladin as a main for the latter half of the Burning Crusade expansion and I currently play a Restoration Druid, with my paladin still holy and somewhere between shelved and “played very sparingly”. I still plan to level that pally to 80 sometime though.

I now consider healing something I’m pretty comfortable with and it’s also a nice change of pace especially if you don’t want to worry about rotations, kill targets, dealing with adds or doing enough dps. In trash encounters, healing is actually quite relaxing. The thought I had last week was this. When I was being convinced to level a priest, I was actually choosing between a priest that I still had to make or a level 21 troll shaman that I had made and played to that level sometime before and shelved. I realized that no matter what I choose it would eventually be a healer if and when it got to level 80. In fact somehow deep inside I feel like leveling both and by doing that I would have all four healing classes that already are or should be healers.

This reminds of that quest Chromie gives to go to the Bronze Dragonshrine. If I could go back in time to the Vanilla WoW days and tell myself of my current situation favoring healers, I wonder if if Past Me would believe Current Me.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

shaman totems

The new Totem bar is a shaman specific interface that allows the shaman easier access to his totems. It will located in the left hand side of the screen just like the warrior stances and the druid forms. The Totem bar consists of four slots where the shaman can put one totem of each kind and two other special buttons to the left and right of these four slots. The button to the right is called Call of the Earth, which is bascially the renamed version of Totemic Call, the ability that calls the dropped totems back and refunds a percent of the mana cost. To the left is a button called Call of Fire, which will be available at level 30 (same as Call of Earth) which is the feature mentioned in the Q&A where the shaman can drop all four totems at the same time in one global cooldown where the mana cost would still be as if you dropped all of them. This could be customized so that you can drop less than four if you wanted to. At later levels you get the abilities Call of Water and Call of Air, which is the same thing as Call of Fire. This gives the shaman three sets of totems that can be customized and dropped at the same time, one for a different scenario.

This feature should make things more interesting and convenient for all shamans out there!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

shaman totems

The first Q&A is all about the Shaman class and based on what Blizzard implies, they intend to do the same thing for all the other classes. It’s a great read especially if you play a Shaman as your main character. basically it shares what Ghostcrawler and the rest of the development team have in store for the shaman class for the future and even ideas they’re working to implement, a lot of them are still just ideas they’re playing around with. Below I want to highlight some of those ideas that they’re thinking of adding to the game somehow. Even if it doesn’t make the cut, at least it gives you a look into their heads to understand the direction of the class.

1. Being able to drop all 4 totems at once in one global cooldown

The dev team is looking to implement on a feature that will allow the shaman to drop the four totems one by one like shamans do right now can cost some valuable time in groups or even PvP and can be a major bummer while leveling. Dropping them at the same time could make using totems more attractive.

2. Totem turn in at low level

The totem that Shamans get at higher levels and place in their ranged slot acts as all four totems so the shaman no longer needs to carry around his totems in his bags. The dev team is looking to allow low level shamans to turn in their 4 totems for 1 generic totem like the ones they get at higher levels. This will allow the shamn to free up some bag space.

3. Consolidate totems

Back in the days of Vanilla WoW I thought that shamans had too many totem spells, some of which aren’t used too often. Looks like it’s something some other players and even the devs feel going into today’s game. Ghostcrawler mentioned that they’re going to evaluate the totems and cut out what they don’t need and merge others that need merging. This is similar to when Warlocks did away with Curse of Shadows and made Curse of Elements work for all spell schools.

4. Long term plan to redesign Totems

The long term plan of the dev team is to change all buff totems into spells and make all totems more active (like the healing and damage totems). I’m not sure what this means exactly but if I were to make a guess, maybe the the buff totems would become actual buff spells like the paladin Blessing of Wisdom or the Death Knight Horn of Winter. If this is what they have in mind then at least people won’t need to stay within the range of a totem to get their buffs since the buffs are stuck to the person. But wouldn’t this make them a lot like paladins in that sense?

5. Do something about “Shamans are like turrets”

One of main problems of shamans especially in PvP is their lack of mobility. Ghostcrawler mentioned something about casting shamans being like turrets where they remain stationary around their totems and just keep casting, turning to follow their target or to heal . They’re already looking into some ideas to fix this problem. The idea drop all totems at once would help solve this problem since the shaman can just move and drop the totems again.

6. Try to remove one weapon restriction in Patch 3.2

There’s a feeling that shamans are way to restricted in their weapon choices, making it hard to find upgrades. This is especially true for Enhancement shamans who are pretty much stuck with just daggers since using a two-handed weapon isn’t that viable given the way the talents are setup. Ghostcrawler gave a hint though that it probably won’t be swords. My feeling is swords would have been perfect but probably not very shaman-ish so I’m thinking fist weapons would do the trick!

Go ahead and read the whole piece though since there are a lot more things that Ghostcrawler and the dev team that I left out of this piece on purpose. You can see it here.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

lightning overload tooltip

One of the latest complains I’ve been seeing was about the damage output of Elemental Shamans especially in Ulduar. Well it looks like Blizzard listened and according to Ghostcrawler, they agree that shaman dps is indeed a bit low. A buff to the Elemental talent Lightning Overload is going to be buffed and the cool thing si that they don’t need to wait for the next patch to get it since it will be hotfixed within the next few days.

This upcoming buff involves increasing the proc rate of Lightning Overload from 7 / 13 / 20% to 11 / 22 / 33%. This means that the half damage, no threat Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning Elemental shammies get for free from this talent will happen with more regularity and according to Ghostcrawler this should result in roughly a 5% increase in total dps for a raid buffed level 80 shaman. Ghostcrawler also mentions that when the hotfix does come out the tooltip of Lightning Overload will still display the old numbers and will only be updated in a future patch.

This is a pretty spiffy buff they are getting and I sure hope it does the job of making Elemental shaman dps more acceptable.

Post from: WOW Obsessed