Okay, normally I’m not the kind of person to jump on the “ZOMG I’ve been stealth nerfed” bandwagon that often accompanies the introduction of changes to our class. Normally when people on the forums start complaining about stuff it is usually nothing more than a bunch of whiny bitches crying over something imaginary. Currently however, I’m wondering if their tears might be merited this time. It seems a lot of elemental shaman are complaining that their dps has gone way down since the patch. In particular, they claim that their Lava Burst spell does not hit or crit for nearly as much. When I first heard this I blew it off as the usual forum whine, but after doing my first raid since the patch, I’m afraid I have to agree. Something is not the same, and something is not right. You see, when raid buffed, pre patch my Lava Burst crits were between 10k and 12k, depending on trinket procs and so forth. In Ulduar last night, my Lava Bursts were critting for between 9k and 10k. With new and unfamiliar content, there was too much going on to be able to really examine why this might be the case (certain talents not proccing and such) or whether any other spells were effected in a negative way. I don’t yet have access to a WWS parse to go digging, but when I do, I will.

Many people are complaining about the same problems, though a few claim that they have had either an increase in dps, or have remained roughly the same. From the various whines on the forums, it would seem that for the most part, those people who have suffered a dps loss are dual specced, and those who are reporting an increase or no change are not. It seems therefore that there may just be a bug with dual speccing… possibly certain talents or glyphs not kicking in, or working in a weird and wonderful way. At this point it is anyone’s guess. If anybody comes up with some solid numbers from WWS parses that would help identify the problem, I urge you to publish the material on Blizzard’s bug forum. I’ll keep this blog updated with any new info that comes to light

Best in Slot can always be a controversial conversation piece on the interwebz, what, with people theorycrafting this and theorycrafting that and nerd raging when coming into ideas that oppose their own. As such this list should not be seen as unalterable and set in stone. What I have assembled here though is probably the most accepted version of our current “Best in Slot” list. I’m sure, however, that there will be people who disagree with one item or another, especially when it comes to rings and trinkets. To these people I can only say a loud and hearty GFC! When using the below list to gather your gear, dont be slavish about it. This list is BiS when all of the pieces are combined. It is no use wearing Benefactor’s Gauntlets for instance if you are not hit capped and have Valorous Earthshatter Gloves that you can wear instead. You’ve got to look at the big picture and where your gear is currently sitting. Remember the gearing mantra … +Hit (to hit cap) > Spell Power > Haste > Crit.

Head:
Valorous Earthshatter Helm
- The token for this piece drops off of Kel’Thuzad in Heroic Naxxramas

Neck:
Wyrmrest Necklace of Power
- This is a quest reward from Heroic Judgment at the Eye of Eternity. The quest chain starts by killing Sapphiron in Naxxramas and looting the Heroic Key to the Focusing Iris

Shoulder:
Valorous Earthshatter Shoulder Pads
-The Token for this piece drops off of Loatheb in Heroic Naxxramas. You can also buy these shoulders with Emblems of Valor

Chest:
Valorous Earthshatter Hauberk
- The Token for this piece drops off of The Four Horsemen in Heroic Naxxramas. It is worth noting that Fallout Impervious Tunic is almost identical to this Tier 7.5 peice of armor and is in fact an ever so slight upgrade on it. The downside to equipping it though is that you will have to give up your four piece set bonus if you want to wear the best in slot gloves (which are not part of the Earthshatter Garb). So, if you never got the chest token to drop for you, the tunic is a fine second choice. You will however be stuck having to wear the tier 7.5 gloves (as I currently am )

Back:
Pennant Cloak
- This cloak drops from Sartharion in Heroic The Obsidian Sanctum.

Wrist:
Bands of Mutual Respect
- These drop from Instructor Razuvius in Heroic Naxxramas

Hands:
Benefactor’s Gauntlets
- These gloves drop from Thaddius in Heroic Naxxramas. They are BOE so they will often drop from the AH too

Waist:
Girdle of Recuperation
- This item drops off of Instructor Razuvius in Heroic Naxxramas

Leg:
Valorous Earthshatter Kilt
- The Token from this item drops off of Thaddius in Heroic Naxxramas. The kilt can also be bought with Emblems of Valor.

Feet:
Eruption-Scarred Boots
- These drop off of Heigan the Unclean in Heroic Naxxramas

Ring 1:
Signet of the Malevolent
- This ring drops from Gothik the Harvester in Heroic Naxxramas

Ring 2:
Signet of Manifested Pain
- This ring drops from Kel’Thuzad in Heroic Naxxramas

Trinket 1:
Dying Curse
- This trinket drops off of four different bosses in Heroic Naxxramas - Maexxna, Gothik the Harvester, Heigan the Unclean and Grobbulus.

Trinket 2:
Illustration of the Dragon Soul
- This trinket drops off Sartharion in Heroic The Obsidian Sanctum

Weapon:
Torch of Holy Fire
- This drops from Kel’Thuzad in Heroic Naxxramas

Shield:
Voice of Reason
- This drops from Kel’Thuzad in Heroic Naxxramas

Relic:
Totem of Hex
- This drops from Patchwerk in Heroic Naaxramas

Elemental

• 2 Piece Bonus: The periodic damage dealt by your Flame Shock can now be critical strikes.
• 4 Piece Bonus: Your critical Strikes from Lightning Bolt cause the target to take nature damage equal to 8% of the Lightning Bolt’s damage over until canceled sec. (I take it this should read “over X amount of seconds or until canceled”. I report it as I get it though and that is how the info I got read)

Restoration

• 2 Piece Bonus: Reduces the cooldown on Riptide by 1 sec.
• 4 Piece Bonus: Reduces the cast time of Chain Heal by 0.2 sec.

Enhancement

• Enhancement 2 Piece Bonus: Increases the damage done by Lava Lash and Stormstrike by 20%.
• Enhancement 4 Piece Bonus: Increases the frequency of Maelstrom Weapon being triggered by your melee weapon attacks by 20%.

Elemental

• Stoneclaw Totem has been changed to display the amount of damage absorbed. (990 damage for Rank 9)
• Elemental Mastery now gives your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage spells a 15% (down from 20%) increased critical strike chance for 15 sec.

Enhancement

• Shamanistic Rage is now usable while stunned.
• Unleashed Rage range has been increased from 20 to 45 yards.

Restoration

• Restorative Totems has been changed from 5 to 3 ranks and now increases the effect of your Mana Spring Totem by 7/12/20%, and increases the amount healed by your Healing Stream Totem by 15/30/45%

There have been some more changes to our beloved class over on the PTR. Some of these are good, some of ‘em are questionable. The changes to resto affect PVE for the most part and the elemental changes finally give us a glimpse of what Blizzard is trying to do for us pew pewers in PVP. I’m going to have my say on some of these changes in future posts to this blog, but for now, I’ll just go ahead and list the changes.

Restoration

• Healing Stream Totem range increased from 20 to 30 yards.
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 91 mana every 5 seconds at max rank. (Old - 34 mana every 2 seconds)
• Nature’s Swiftness changed to - When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell. Nature’s Swiftness shares a cooldown with Elemental Mastery.
• Restorative Totems now Increases the effect of your Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems by 4/8/12/16/20%. (Down from 5/10/15/20/25%)
• Healing Grace has been moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
• Ancestral Healing has been moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3.

Elemental

• Thunderstorm is now useable while stunned
• Lava Flows now Iincreases the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 6/12/24%, and when your Flame Shock is dispelled your spell casting speed is increased by 10/20/30% for 6 sec.
• Lightning Overload changed from 5 to 3 ranks, now Gives your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells a 7/14/20% (Up from 4/8/12/16/20%) chance to cast a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes half damage and no threat.
• Elemental Mastery has been changed to - When activated, your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst spell becomes an instant cast spell. In addition, your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage spells a 20% increased critical strike chance for 15 sec. Elemental Mastery shares a cooldown with Nature’s Swiftness. Instant, 3 min cooldown
• Storm, Earth, and Fire changed to Reduces the cooldown of your Chain Lightning spell by .75 sec (on all ranks, down from 0.75/1/2.5sec), your Earthbind Totem also has a 33/66/100% chance to root targets for 5 sec when cast and the periodic damage done by your Flame Shock is increased by 20%.
• Elemental Reach now also increases the range of your Flame Shock by 7/15 yards.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Totem of Wrath — When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for 5 min. (Old - until cancelled)

Thanks to the good folks at WoW Insider, we have the details of some of the new glyphs making their way into patch 3.1 Here’s what they have listed thus far:

• Glyph of Thunderstorm (new) - Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 7 sec.
• Glyph of Feral Spirit (new) - Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.
• Glyph of Riptide (new) - Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Earth Shield (new) - Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%.
• Glyph of Totem of Wrath (new) - When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for 5 min.
• Glyph of Hex (new) - Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem (new) - Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

There is nothing earth-shatteringly awesome in this list, but there is nothing very weak either. I don’t see anything that would *really* topple the cookie cutter glyphing for resto or elemental raiding specs, but I DO see some interesting PVP alternatives. The Glyph of Stoneclaw, though not a major buff in anyway, has got to help provide another layer of protection against those nasty stun-locking rogues, and 20% extra healing from Earth is a useful 20% increase in passive protection. The two combined might mean that our sneaky friends may have to work a bit harder for their kills! Glyph of Hex, whilst not solving the spells main problems, certainly adds a nice bonus to it. I mean, who wouldn’t want an extra 20% of free face smashin’ time! Any period when you can wail on an opponent without fear of them wailing back on you is a a period that is made of win! The Glyph of Thunderstorm looks ok, and would certainly be useful, but I really cant see myself using it. As a Minor glyph, sure, but not as a major glyph.

Is this what Blizzard meant when they said they were looking at ways to improve Shaman in PVP? If so, here’s hoping it is only part of the picture.

All in all I am not overly excited by these new glyphs, but I’m pretty sure I will experiment with a few of them in a PVP scenario.

Well, it took my guild a couple of nights working on him, but we got him down. One second before the enrage… but down nevertheless! Frawress Victory! We had the first two phases pretty much down pat early on in the piece but it always fell apart for us on the third. Coordination in 2d space is hard enough at times, but coordination in 3d with no real point of reference was a bit of a challenge for us. We had a few runs where we did the third phase not worrying about trying to kill him, but rather just concentrating on keeping alive and keeping our drakes bunched and moving together as a unit when appropriate. We were just training… not trying to get the kill.. just getting used to the phase and trying to stay alive until he enraged.  This payed pretty good dividends because before we knew it we had Malygos down to around 5%.. and this was on a dry practice run with no consumables. He was now on limited time!

It felt really good to down him, and for more than one reason. First of all it was awesome to be part of a  “first kill” again after being absent from the game and raiding for so long. I had been there for almost all of the guild’s first kills from vanilla WoW through to the Burning Crusades, but had missed out on Naxx 25. It was also awesome because we have now cleared ALL current content in the game. The MOST awesome thing about it however is that this is the first time our guild has actually cleared ALL of the current content. In Vannilla WoW we were just getting our feet wet in AQ40 when BC hit so we missed out on Naxx and most of AQ. In BC we got off to a late start and missed Sunwell, just venturing into Black Temple as the raiding season and the burning crusade came to its end. So yeah, it is awesome for me, and it is awesome for the guild..  in fact it is just one big bottle of awesome-sauce!

Hi. I’m Laylah, an elemental shaman on the Proudmoore server. I was created on the very first day that “The Burning Crusade” was released.  I spent a short stint raiding as resto, before switching to my true love … Elemental, the spec in which I would see out the rest of my 25 man BC raiding. I saw most, though not all, of the 25 man content, but I retired from the game when the Sunwell was introduced. The WotLK bug got me however and I returned to play two weeks ago. I am happy to say that I am now level 80 (and still elemental) and have joined my guild in running the 25 man content currently available. Being a new 80, my gear and dps is somewhat lack lustre, but that wont take too long to change. I’ll be keeping this blog up to date with info relating to elemental shamans and my experinces within the game.

Ok, when starting this blog, I had a vision of only playing my resto shammy, Amoun. I was seriously over raiding and therefore had no intentions of going back to my raiding toon (Laylah, an alliance Elemental shaman) during this expansion. After playing Laylah for a little bit, I fell in love with the playstyle again and after watching my guild down Kel’thuzad for the first time in a 25 man raid, I began to hunger for that “1st kill” feeling. In short, though I love Amoun to bits and he will always be my favourite toon, Laylah will probably soak up most of my play time. So…. although this blog was originally only going to chronicle the journey of Amoun and have a resto flavour to it, it will now also chronicle the travels of Laylah, and add a nice touch of elemental lighting and Lava to the mix.

Well it happened a couple of days a go now but but yay! Grats to me. Amoun is level 80 at last! It has been a pretty slow ride, taking into consideration that it was done completely as restoration spec, and that I spent a lot of time doing other stuff like battlegrounds, farming gold/mats, and leveling fishing and leather working. These extra-curricula activities payed off though in that I was able to walk into some pretty cool gear right of the bat. Between some epic crafted items, and some honor rewards, I’ve managed to accumulates stats decent enough to tackle most heroics and enter current 10 man content (1708 +heal, 20.01% crit, 277 MP5, 155 Haste). Whilst the below gear list is far from awesome, I don’t think it is too shabby for having spent 10 minutes at level 80 Here is a list of the gear I had when dinging. It gives some idea of what is fairly easily attainable even before starting to hit dungeons and grind rep.

• Head: [Helm of the Lightning Halls]
• Neck: [Necklace of Calm Skies]
• Shoulder: [Epaulets of Market Row]
• Back: [Wispcloak]
• Chest: [Revenant's Breastplate]
• Wrist: [Hateful Gladiator's Wristguards of Salvation]
• Hands: [Grips of the Warming Heart]
• Waist: [Nightshock Girdle]
• Legs: [Stormhide Legguards]
• Feet: [Revenant's Treads]
• Weapon: [Titansteel Guardian]
• Shield: [Zom's Crackling Bulwark]
• Relic: [Totem of the Plains]
• Ring 1:[Hateful Gladiator's Band of Dominance]
• Ring 2;[Signet of Swift Judgment]
• Trinket 1: [Sailor's Knotted Charm]
• Trinket 2:[Medallion of Heroism]