Gone feral.

That would be a pun, if only I were a druid. For a week there my guild wasn't raiding, or at least not at times that I could join in. So for one glorious week I set myself up as an Enhancement shaman and fooled around. What did I accomplish?

With patch 2.2 came sweet epic gem designs. They were all reputation rewards with various factions, so I spent a lot of time grinding rep. That task would've been impossible as a resto shaman. Now the Consortium reveres me, and I've got some frikkin' sweet new gems.

I also DPSed some instances. The highlight of this pursuit was killing the adds in Black Morass by myself. I had always believed that you needed a mage or warlock, someone with area of effect attacks, to clear those critters. Turns out that it's not that hard at all, and it was pretty exciting to be able to do that.

Rumor has it that the Season 1 Arena gear will be made available for regular PvP points at some time in the future, so I did as many battlegrounds as I could fit in. Many a mage felt the kiss of my Hammer of the Naaru.

Now, alas, the dream has died. We're raiding again, and we need a healer more than we need another DPSer. Back to Restoration for me, and who knows when I'll get a chance to cut loose like that again? /cry

Patch 2.2 notes, and looking towards 2.3

Patch 2.2 just went live this week, bringing with it not very much indeed that is specific to shamans. Just for posterity, here are the notes:

• Earthbind Totem: This totem will no longer break Rogue stealth.
• Earth Shield: It is no longer possible to Earth Shield two targets at the same time in the outdoor world.
• Earth Shield is now canceled at logout.
• Elemental Focus: The free spell triggered by a Lightning Overload will no longer consume this effect.
• Flametongue Weapon: Damage lowered slightly on rank 6 so that it is never better than rank 7.
• Focused Mind (Restoration) now reduces duration of Silence/Interrupt mechanics by 10/20/30%.
• Lightning Shield: This ability will now work properly even when the Shaman is stunned, fleeing, or incapacitated.
• Nature's Guardian: This ability can now trigger while the Shaman is sitting.
• Totems: Totems that grant only friendly beneficial effects will no longer trigger attacks from neutral city guards.

These changes are all to our benefit, but they're all pretty weak tea. Blue posts indicate that all the neat enhancement changes I was anticipating are due to arrive in 2.3. To quote from WoW Insider:

• Shamanistic rage will also reduces all damage taken by 30% for the duration of the ability (30 seconds), in addition to its current effect
• Spirit Weapons will also reduce melee threat by a total of 30% rather than 15% (source)
• Yes, all shaman will be able to equip 2-handed axes and maces (proper training required of course), without having to spend a talent.
  
• In the place of the two-hander talent will be Elemental Focus. Basically, what it offers is this -- after landing a melee critical strike, you'll enter a "focused state". The focused state will reduce the mana cost of your next shock spell by 60%. (source)

In addition, Eyonix has hinted that there are other buffs to enhancement coming. Oooh, mysterious. The changes that have been laid out all address serious shortcomings of Enhancement raiding, such as our explosive aggro and lack of mana sustainability. Looking over the planned class changes for 2.3, it looks like a lot of classes are also getting buffed for PvP and arenas, while Shamans are not. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I'll take the PvE changes, and gladly.

Mission accomplished.

With the addition of the Choker of Vile Intent my PVE Enhancement set gives me 134 hit rating. All I need now is some slower one-handed weapons and I'll be set.

Shocks and shock cooldown.

Your shocks are one of your most potent weapons in PvP, but only if you use them wisely. You might be able to win by spamming frostshock on your opponent, but don't count on it. Let's look at our available shocks:

Flame Shock - This shock does damage when it first hits and does further damage periodically over 12 seconds. The damage over time component is useful when you're fighting a rogue and don't want him to vanish and escape.

Earth Shock - Best against casters, this shock does damage up front but also acts as an interrupt. Earth Shock will interrupt spellcasting, and prevent any spell of that school being cast for 2 seconds.

Frost Shock - An iconic Shaman spell, Frost Shock does damage and slows the target for 8 seconds. Great for when you want to catch a fleeing opponent, or when you don't want to be caught.


The cooldown of each shock is 6 seconds, unless your talents include Reverberation in the Elemental tree (which at 5/5 points reduces cooldowns by 1 second). The tricky thing is that the cooldown is shared across all three shocks. In other words, if you cast Frost Shock on a mage, they will have a 6 second window where you can't interrupt any of their spells with Earth Shock. It also means that you have to be picky in choosing what spells to interrupt. Yes, you could cancel an Elemental Shaman's Lightning Bolt spell, but he'd still be able to cast a healing spell right afterwards. Knowing what spells each class has available will help you prioritize what to interrupt.

If you can, use your totems instead of shocks to keep the shock cooldown available. In the first example I gave, you could use an Earthbind Totem to slow the mage instead of a Frost Shock. In the second you could use a Grounding Totem to absorb that Lighting Bolt and have the Earth Shock available for the heal. You'll find that taking a more strategic approach to shocking will serve you better than gratuitous spamming.

Only a dream, thank god.

I just woke from a nap, and the weirdest dream I've had in a while. I was defending the thesis that Hunters a better dps class than Warlocks before a doctoral-style committee. Talents, spells and arcane theorycrafting were all on the table. As I was awakened by the telephone my first thought was, "Oh, thank god. I don't know jack about Warlocks."

The great hit rating debate.

Actually, it was a pretty one-sided debate. For quite a while I thought that a dual-wielding shaman could get away with very little +hit rating on his gear. Everyone else in the world was telling me that I was crazy. When everyone in the world is saying that you're nuts, it's often a good idea to take a step back and have a close look at your opinions.

I was basing my opinion off of one forum post I read in the excellent Elitist Jerks enhancement theorycrafting thread. Specifically, the section reproduced below:
"Itemization - Hit Rating
Current theory is holding that we may not need anywhere near the hit cap like we previously thought. A good explanation of why can be found here. Effectively, because we can get a large quantity of +Hit from talents (9%), our special attacks (windfury and stormstrike) are already hit capped. All the extra +Hit rating on your gear is going toward improving white damage only, which typically comprises between 45%-50% of your total damage. When you consider the itemization costs of hit rating compared to crit rating and AP which directly impact 90% of a shaman's total damage, you can see why hit rating is given lower precedence."

Well, that's true as far as it goes. Follow up posts make it clear, however, that there is still a basic amount of hit rating that a dual-wielding shaman needs to reach in order to be useful. What the author really meant was that we don't have to stack +hit items to the degree that a rogue or a fury warrior do. I was guilty of over-optimism and a lack of reading comprehension.

So, what's the big deal about hit rating? This stat reduces your chance to miss with melee attacks. Say you're swinging at an equal level enemy. Assuming they don't have a lot of defense skill and that your weapon skill is at it's maximum, you will have a 5% chance to miss. But if you're dual wielding, as raiding enhance shammies usually are, you've got a 24% chance to miss. That only gets worse as your target's level increases. Every 15.8 points of hit rating decreases your chance to miss by 1%. Shamans can get a 6% bonus to hit from the Enhancement tree, and another 3% from the Restoration tree, but it would still take a lot of hit rating to fill the gap.

In reality, that gap never really gets filled. A very good dual-wielding fury warrior of my acquaintance has a hit rating of 220 and gets an additional 3% to hit from talents. All told that's still a 7% chance to miss an even level target, but his damage output is quite excellent. If I were to hit my goal of at least 130 hit rating and take all 9% worth of my available talents I would be hitting as often, if not as hard. Knowing how successful my furious friend is, I think that's a hit/miss ratio that I can feel comfortable with.

The lesson I learned from this episode is that min/maxing just won't work. All the damage potential in the world will mostly go to waste if I'm missing a quarter of my swings. I'm making a conscious effort now to strike a balance in my stats and to avoid falling into that trap again.

Who knew?

Well, probably lots of people knew this. Turns out that if you use Blogger to save your draft articles they publish for the day you started writing, not the day you finished. Check out last Friday for a new post called "Know your shamans."

Disease Cleansing Totem.

I am sick. In honor of my cold, let's talk about the Disease Cleansing Totem.



Casting Time: Instant.
Range: 20 yard radius.
Cost: 8% of base mana.
Duration: 2 minutes.
Totem type: Water.


Whenever there's more than one charge of disease debuffs spread onto your group, this will be your go-to totem. Using this totem is more mana efficient than using "Cure Disease" repeatedly, and frees you up to be doing other things in the meantime. As it's cast the totem will dispel one debuff from each member of the party, and will do so again every 5 seconds. This is a totem that doesn't get used very often, but in certain situations you'll be very glad you have it.

Know your shamans.

Theres a huge degree of difference between the talent specializations available to a shaman. Depending on what tree they've chosen one shaman's playstyle can be totally different from another. So, suppose you come across a hostile shaman in the wild. How can you know what set of tactics to use?

Is the shaman wielding a two-handed weapon or two one-handed weapons?
If so, they're probably Enhancement. This shaman wants to get close to you in order pummel you with melee weapons. Stay out of reach, crowd control them when they get close and hit them from long range.

Look at the little ball orbiting the shaman. That's their elemental shield.
If it looks like a ball of electricity, the shaman is probably Elemental. They want to stand back and throw lightning bolts at you. Interrupt their spells and silence them as much as possible. If you're a melee class, get in close and keep hitting them to slow their casting.

If the shield looks like a brown ball of dirt and stone, the shaman is Restoration. They will probably try to use lightning bolts on you too, but with much less effect. Try to remove their shield because otherwise it will heal them as you attack. Otherwise treat them just like the elemental shaman, with special emphasis on interrupting their heals.

Rumor has it that all shamans will be able to wield two handed weapons after patch 2.2, but this guide should still hold true. Even though all specializations will be able to use the two-handers, only enhancement shamans will really have a reason to.

To the future!

I'd like to celebrate the first week of this blog by sharing my writing and WoW related goals. I want Enhancement by Night to be a journey that we undertake together, dear reader. To torture an old saying: "the journey may be more important than the destination, but wandering around aimlessly makes for pretty poor reading." Indeed, can it even be a journey at all if there wasn't some final goal to travel towards? To give you an idea of what to expect on this (hopefully) long and strange trip, here are my resolutions.

In WoW I want to transition from a primary healer to a primary damage-dealer at least part of the time. There are three obstacles to overcome on my way to this goal. The first is a lack of hit rating on my current enhancement gear. Right now I have 100 points of hit rating on my gear, and my target is to have a minimum of 130. The second is to replace my current dual wielding weapons (a pair of fast daggers) with a set of much slower axes or maces. (Look for a more indepth exploration of +hit and weapon speed mechanics next week!) The third obstacle is a lack of real-world enhancement experience. I need to develop that skillset before I would feel comfortable asking to be counted as a damage dealer.

My goal for the blog is to bring regular content to this page. If I don't have regular updates, then I don't deserve regular readers. Simple as that. I'm aiming for 3 substantial posts each week, and at least a short post every weekday. I'm hoping to cover all aspects of the shaman class at least in passing, though the emphasis will likely be on the Enhancement spec.

I'm excited to have finished one week in the WoW blogging business, and I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be many more.

Shaman vs. Shamans

According to Merriam Webster, the plural of shaman is "shamans". Despite that, many people seem to delight in using "shaman" as both the singular and plural form of the word. To be fair, I had no clue what the correct usage was until I looked it up. Now it bugs me every time I see shaman where it should be shamans.

I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.

Talent trees, that is! We shamans are a hybrid class, with the ability to fill many roles. Our choice of talents is what allows us to specialize in a particular area. The three talent trees are Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration. Although I have the most experience in Enhancement and Restoration, I'd like to take this time to discuss all three.

Elemental

The Elemental talents buff a shaman's offensive spellcasting ability. Although shocks also receive some loving in this tree, the Elemental Shaman's biggest tools will be the Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning Bolt. There are 15 buffs to Lightning Bolt between the Elemental and Restoration trees, and when these are all applied the spell becomes a very powerful and mana-efficient damage dealer.

PVE shamans may choose to go all the way to the 41 point Elemental talent: Totem of Wrath. This fire totem grants all party members an additional 3% chance to hit and to critically hit with spells. Elemental shamans who focus on PVP often skip the Totem of Wrath in order to place 21 points into Restoration, which allows them to buy Nature's Swiftness.

Restoration
Restoration is all about healing. This tree reduces the casting time and mana costs of healing spells, and adds several interesting effects to the vanilla healing spells. An example of this is Healing Way, which adds an effect to the target of a Greater Healing spell that enhances following heals. Nature's Swiftness, at 21 points in Restoration is a very popular spell for all shamans. This talent makes the next nature spell, whether healing or damage, into an instant cast. Many PvP oriented shamans will skip the 41 point talent in their main tree to get Natures Swiftness instead.

Restoration is a popular choice for raiding shamans, and is a solid healing choice. My main complaint about the tree is that it lacks mana efficiency, causing me to consume many mana potions. Another drawback is that to get the most out of the tree requires a very large investment of talent points. When I'm wearing my healing hat I have no less than 50 points in Restoration, and I know shamans who spend even more.

Enhancement
Enhancement is the second of the damage trees. Where Elemental is about buffing magic damage, Enhancement focuses on increasing melee damage. In addition to the shaman's own damage, it also helps to buff melee-wielding party members. All shamans have the ability to use melee weapons and the spells that buff them, but Enhancement brings those abilities to their peak. These talents Enhance the weapon buffs such as Flametongue and Windfury, grant the ability to wield two-handed weapons or to dual wield and basically allow you to smash people in the face. Hard.

The downside to Enhancement in PvE is that the damage it deals out tends to be come in bursts, which combined with the class' lack of an aggro dump makes the enhancement shaman notorious for suddenly getting splattered in instances. In PvP the major disadvantage of this build is that it relies on getting close to an opponent and has no way to defeat crowd controlling abilities.

Conclusions
I hope that these brief descriptions give you an idea of the basics behind each of the talent trees. The idea's not to get into the intricacies of each build, but to give a frame of reference for any readers who are unfamiliar with shamans. From now on, if I were to whine about trying to pull off daily quests while specced Resto, you will know that I'm bemoaning my lack of damage potential while using a talent tree meant for healing.