Ailis in Hunterland

I was waiting for the official announcement before making a post and it’s happened, so here we go.

Unless you’ve been without internet or under a rock or in the desert, you’ve undoubtedly heard the bombshells coming from Blizzcon regarding the next expansion, Cataclysm.  New races, new race/class combos, Azeroth being completely remapped, a complete revamp of the stat system, new Path of the Titans, Mastery, Guild Leveling, and bears oh my!

Okay, maybe not bears.  But who knows?

If you have been missing it, head over to WoW.com or MMO-Champion or even the Cataclysm website and get caught up.

Since this blog deals with Shamans, let’s talk about the initial sweeping changes that will influence Shamans – specifically, the stat changes.

Here’s the basic breakdown of the ones that influence us directly:

• Attack Power on gear is gone. Instead, some classes will get 2 AP from each point of Agi (Rogues, Hunters, Shamans, Druids), and other classes (presumably Warriors, Paladins, and Death Knights) will get 2 AP per point of Strength. Side effect: no more plate wearers stealing your gear
• Spell Power is gone. It comes from Int now.
• MP5 is gone. Spirit is the mana regen stat, and all classes that need it will get some form of Meditation.
• Haste now increases your rate of resource regeneration (energy, rage, runes, focus).
• Stamina is going to be more equal across different armor types – no more “plate HP envy.”
• Enhancement Shamans do not use INT anymore and will be given talents to not need it just like Retribution Paladins.

Digest that for a moment.

For the Enhancement Shaman, this makes our stat itemization vastly simpler – once your hit and expertise are capped, gem and enchant to kingdom come for Agility.  That’s it.  Just Agility.  (For now, until we get more information)

This is a really nice change and one I’m seriously in favor of mostly for the fact that Plate wearers will no longer be rolling on my gear (just Hunters) because it will, frankly, be shitte for them.

The other major addition to the game that will help with gear itemization will be the new skill of Reforging.  Little is known about it other than this will enable you to move stats around on your gear and potentially add new ones (presumably with restrictions and at a price).  I see this coming into play during gear transition periods when it’s a PITA to keep your hit and expertise properly capped without sacrificing other stats.

For Elemental and even Resto Shamans, your itemization got not only turned on its head but easier as well.  Welcome back to Spirit!  You will be stacking Spirit and Int now.  Maybe Haste – information keeps getting changed on that one.  This actually makes sense seeing is how our largest base stat is Spirit and yet, currently, we shun it like some transmitted disease.

Add to this the new Path of the Titans and the Mastery system (more on that as it’s revealed) and you have an overall rebalancing change that could make huge strides towards getting rid of “cookie cutter specs” and clones running around Dalaran.  No more “have X spec, Y and Z professions and these glyphs and you’re top DPS” – there is the actual potential of many paths being just as viable as the other and purely dependent on playstyle.

I, for one, as a raider and enormously excited about this change as I’m tired of having to fit Ailis into a mold that she sometimes doesn’t like or having to adopt a particular style of play just for the sake of higher DPS.  The game should be about what you enjoy to play and how you have fun and your DPS/Healing/Tanking output shouldn’t suffer because you have fun doing things slightly different from the norm.

This gets a huge thumbs up from me.

Old World Makeover

On the other end of things, the changes that affect everyone is the actual world event behind the Cataclysm itself.  Azeroth is about to get a major makeover and, I have to say, this was a brilliant move on Blizzard’s part.

The Old World is definitely showing its age when stood next to the sweeping zones of Northrend and is more of a nostalgia area, a place to go to complete achievments, or something to race through as quickly as possible on alts.  Completely redoing the old world zones essentially makes World of Warcraft a new game for new and old players alike.  The old world zones will be vastly different, with different quest chains, different paths to take, the ability to fly, and new NPCs and races to play and meet.

TBC and WotLK were made for the end-game player and rightly so as that’s what everyone loves.  But, in the hurry to reach the end game, we forgot about where we came from.  Powerleveling and heirloom items just made it even more blurry.

When it came time for a new expansion, Blizzard could have just as easily tacked on another ten levels, another continent and more end-game frivolity.  Instead, they returned to level one and decided to actually progress the whole story, the whole world, and push it back to the forefront where it should be.

Brilliant.

I can’t wait to level an alt from level 1 to 85 and experience a brand new World of Warcraft and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this sentiment.  Yes, Ailis will always be my girl and she will be the first to get to 85 and dive into the massive new raids and new heroics.

But then…

Worgen Druid, here I come.

I, like many other WoW players, read Elitist Jerks obsessively.  I’m not the number cruncher that most of them are and some of their formulas and theories go way over my head but I like finding the nuggets of information and using their information (what of it I can actually understand) to help hone my character(s) as they progress to and through the end-game.

One post I’m deliciously addicted to is their Enhancement Shaman BiS thread, in which they talk about The Wishlist (as I like to call it).  Every tier that is released, they put together a list of the absolute Best-In-Slot (BiS) gear/gems/enchants/glyphs and build for your enhancement shaman.  I call it my Wishlist because this list is only available if you have access to every possible option of raiding – including hard modes.

With Tier 9, in case you didn’t know, all the loot is faction-specific.  Stats are identical but names and skins are different depending on your faction affiliation.  EJ wrote up their list from a Horde’s perspective so I thought I’d give some of you guys a hand and rewrite the basic gear list from an Alliance perspective.  I’m also going to write this without any profession buffs so keep in mind you’ll have an extra boost to one of your stats with Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, Enchanting, Inscription or Blacksmithing.

To make this easy to follow we’ll do item slot followed by name of piece, the gems in order of slots available, and proper enchant (similar to EJ’s table but without the table).

• Head - Nobundo’s Faceguard of Triumph – Chaotic Skyflare Diamond/Wicked Ametrine – Arcanum of Torment
• Neck - Charge of the Demon Lord – Precise Cardinal Ruby
• Shoulders - Nobundo’s Shoulderguards of Triumph – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back - Vereesa’s Dexterity – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Speed
• Chest - Breastplate of Cruel Intent – Bright Cardinal Ruby/Nightmare Tear/Wicked Ametrine – Powerful Stats
• Wrist - Bracers of Dark Determination – Precise Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Hands - Nobundo’s Grips of Triumph – Bright Cardinal Ruby – Crusher
• Waist - Belt of Deathly Dominion – Wicked Ametrine/Bright Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs - Nobundo’s War-kilt of Triumph – Balanced Dreadstone/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Icescale Leg Armor
• Feet - Sabatons of Ruthless Judgement – Wicked Ametrine/Wicked Ametrine – Icewalker
• Finger - Ring of Callous Aggression – Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Finger - Planestalker Signet – Wicked Ametrine
• Trinket - Comet’s Trail
• Trinket - Death’s Verdict
• Main Hand & Off Hand - Remorseless – Wicked Ametrine – Berserking
• Relic - Totem of Electrifying Wind
• Glyphs – Windfury/Stormstrike/Feral Spirit (This is also best set up for Tier 8 as well so go ahead and get these glyphs now if you don’t already use them)
• Build – 18/53/0 (This is only for Tier 9 – for Tier 8, current Max DPS build is 16/55/0)

You will notice that the vast majority of these items come from places like the 25-man Tribute Chest, 25-man Algalon and other hard modes.  Like I said, wishlist and only available if you have access to (and succeed at) every possible level of raiding.

It will still be my wishlist because you never know but I will try over the next week to put together a 10-man version of this for those of you in 10-man guilds (as I know there are a lot) for your BiS given what you have available to you.

Happy hunting!

The PTR released a new build last night (10083 for those of you keeping score at home) and there are a couple of interesting Shaman changes on the horizon.

First, however, this is pretty damn cool:

“Tome of Cold Weather Flying: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.”

/approve

Onto the Shaman changes.

• Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
• Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex.

At first, I was moderately upset at the initial appearance of a nerf.  No more interrupt?!

Then I remembered that Wind Shock (er…Shear) is an interrupt and realized this is a pretty nice little change.  I no longer have to jack up my shot priority to get my interrupts in at the right moment in a fight.  I can just keep on DPS’ing and, given how Wind Shock…Shear…is now on a separate cooldown, I can interrupt to my little heart’s content without breaking my rotation.

Still a minor bummer than our interrupts are reduced to one but, hey, we’ll make it work because Shamans are awesome.

The MW change is a “okay, cool” sort of a change.  I use Hex rarely in an instance.  More often than not, we have a Mage, a Lock, and/or a Druid to take care of any required CC.

So some quick little changes for you guys to chew on.  I’ll keep you updated as the builds are released.

So, Patch 3.2 has descended on the PTR and I finally found some time to take Ailis over there to check a few things out.  The new totem interface is pretty cool so I decided to take some pictures and tell you guys all about it.

Call of <insert element here>

First off, when you log in after you’re done patching, go visit your Shaman Trainer.  He/She will teach you the three “calls” that are your totem calls.  These new calls are found in your spellbook in the Elemental section.

Update: When Patch 3.2 was released, the Calls are named Call of the Ancestors, Call of the Elements, and Call of the Spirits.  Bartender’s Alpha build (found on WowAce.com works with this interface).

Using the default Blizzard toolbars, you will see a small toolbar containing four slots for each of the four elements and their related totems (called the Totem Bar), another button for the different Calls (first button) and the recall button at the end.  Each of these are flyout menus (opening upward) which saves a lot of space for those of you who don’t already use Autobar or any other totem management addon.

Forgive my janky PTR UI.

In order to set up your Totem Bar, it’s a simple two-step process.  First, select which Call (Fire, Water or Air) you want to set up.  Then click on the arrow above each totem element and select the totem you wish in that category.

When you are done, one click on Call of Fire/Water/Air will lay all four of your selected totems at once.  Call of Earth will recall all of them at once.

I tried to catch it in time, but if you tell, all four totems are on the same global cooldown (GCD) and, with my unit names turned on, you can see all four totem names appearing at once.

All in all, the new interface is pretty sweet.  As a veteran user of Autobar, I’m already used to the flyout totem menus and the partitioning into the four separate elements.  But the same GCD is definitely better as I can just click once and begin DPS/Healing.  By having 3 options for totem sets, you can set up different combinations depending on raid makeup and your spec at the time.  For instance, I have a dps set for with a Death Knight in the group, without one, and a resto set.

You can set individual totems if you need to do a quick swap or are in a fight where a specific totem is needed.  And, given the relative ease at which you can set up the Totem Bar, you can make an entire set for one specific fight then change it back afterwards.

Enjoy!