Filed under: Shaman

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

A great team of healers need a leader who can help them stay focused and give them the right assignments. Without their direction (or at least, someone to coordinate healing actions), it can get pretty messy fast. Being the boss of healers and acting as an intermediary between them and the raid leader or officers can often times be stressing. They're often the first person people go to after a wipe wondering what happened or who failed and so forth. As a healer though, you can help ease the stress that they experience.

Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Brought to you by Mike Sacco.

Last week I took you through Elemental 101, a crash course in playing your elemental shaman. Now that we've got the basics out of the way and you understand your talents and rotation, it seems as good a time as any to talk about gear.

We addressed the main stats you're looking for on elemental gear last week, but here's a quick rundown again for those who missed it: Hit rating, spell power, haste, and crit. These are the only four stats we'll be looking for on elemental gear, besides the obvious intellect and stamina boosts that'll be on nearly every piece of caster gear anyway.

If the above sounds like a pretty reasonable set of stats to look for, well, you're not wrong. So I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news? There's definitely elemental gear out there. The bad news? Good luck finding it. Elemental gearing has a lot of issues unique to both the shaman and this specific spec. And you're not gonna like them.

Reader UnstØppable writes in with a question I thought would benefit others: "Does the Bladestorm aggro problem ever get better? What I mean is, I've seen it countless times, the arms warrior enters the dungeon, the tank lets out a sigh (sometimes it's me), we pull the first group and everything goes fine, until he hits that Bladestorm button. That's when somehow he manages to pull aggro from every mob and their mom and makes both the healer's and the tank's lives hell or usually ends up dying within seconds."

Part of the problem here is that certain classes/specs have no aggro dump or reduction ability and as a result their big DPS moves generate a lot of threat. Arms warriors, most DPS death knights (at least the blood and unholy specs I've used) and retribution paladins have limited aggro reduction at best (pallies at least have Hand of Salvation but that's a band aid at best) and while tanking threat (especially AoE tanking threat) requires ramp up time, it's very easy to hit the Divine Storm, Death and Decay, Pestilence, Whirlwind or Bladestorm buttons. (Enhancement shamans with Spirit Weapons seem to be okay, I rarely pull aggro even when I go nuts with Fire Nova.)

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's, visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide.

We're taking out the mop and bucket at the WoW Rookie Guide this week, scrubbing down outdated articles and polishing up pieces that cover recently updated features. We think you'll like the new section we're creating within the guide specifically for brand new level 80s. By no stretch of the imagination will WoW Rookie end up expanding to the point of becoming a virtual WoW 101 ... But we will keep a corner devoted to players who've just hit 80 for the first time.

So while we're madly cooking and cleaning behind the scenes this week, we've rounded up a few new and old favorites for you to poke through. Or hop on over to the WoW Rookie Guide itself for even more -- but if you should spy a pink-haired gnome in a maid's outfit or (heaven forbid!) encounter an undead harridan wielding a rolling pin, please keep in mind that housekeeping is still in progress.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• This week's EU forum watch brings you the best of the official forums, European style.
• OutDPS has a cure for the lagging hunter pet, increasing their DPS by a bit.
• Shields Up really likes the two piece tier 10 bonus on the resto shaman set.
• Killing 'em slowly looks at his elemental shaman twink gear.
• The German WoW fansite buffed.de is collecting photos of the players and their avatars for a large gallery. Go check it out and contribute if you want!
• Cynwise's Battelgrounds takes a look at heirloom gear for the lowbie battleground player.

Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Brought to you by Mike Sacco.

If you're here and reading this, you've probably decided that elemental will be one of your shaman's two possible specs and you want to get a good grasp of how it all works before you dive in. The maiden voyage of Totem Talk's Elemental edition is intended to tell you everything you need to know to get started as one of the game's simplest specs, from mechanics to gearing to rotation.

What it isn't intended to be the is be-all-end-all of Elemental theorycrafting. We'll delve into more complex stuff later on.

Let's get started!

Totem Talk is the column for shamans. This week, Matthew Rossi talks about Fire Nova, his absolute favorite new ability in quite some time. Boom!

The hastily cobbled together screenshot above really only gives you a small taste of the awesome that is Fire Nova. The old Fire Nova totem was okay... you'd drop it on big AoE packs if you could do so, but for a lot of shamans, sacrificing their active fire totem to so so was a lot to ask. The genius of Fire Nova, the new ability, is of course that it works with any fire totem you have. You're a restoration shaman with a Frost Resist totem down up close to the melee on Sapphiron? Well, our first question could be "Why are you still running Sapphiron?" but we'll assume it's a weekly raid thing. Anyway, even that Frost Resistance totem can now provide some damage! I'm not saying waste your mana on DPS if it's a tight thing, mind you, I'm just saying that if you found yourself healing a fight you way overgeared you can pop a couple of FN's in there to liven things up.

Yeah, okay, this happened to me. It was boring!

Where Fire Nova has really shined for me, though, is running a modified Enhancement set-up. Now, granted, some of the DPS I'm seeing from this has also come from getting a few upgrades to my gear set, but in tight AoE situations I'm seeing Fire Nova as a solid 2nd on the DPS chart, just behind melee attacks.

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

I received a plea for help via email from a discipline priest. Here's the gist of the email:

Hi Matt

Basically I use grid and clique. I target my tank and have no issues with this. However, when it comes to dispelling Jaraxxus for example, I need to tab target to find him, and then use raid frames to get my tank back.

Do you know of a way either by another raid frame or macro where I can consistently target the boss and heal the tank? I use buttons for Prayer of Mending, Power Word: Shield and Penance, and the other spells through clique and grid.

Any help you can give would be appreciated

Thanks!

Bizkit

Well Bizkit, there is something that can help you out. All you need is a little focus!

First off, yes, I'm leaving Totem Talk. It's been a good ride, and no, I'm not quitting the shaman class nor WoW.com. You'll still see me around on Know Your Lore and The Care and Feeding of Warriors for the foreseeable future, and I'll be writing Totem Talks until we have a replacement. The reason I'm leaving Totem Talk is simple: I don't think I'm giving enough coverage to all the different specs and playstyles anymore, and frankly I don't want to have to try and respec every few days to catch up on spec mechanics for roles I don't want to play. For some classes I play, this isn't an issue, but I'm straight up never ever going to like elemental as a spec or a playstyle. I'm not a ranged DPS player, I never was, I never will be. There's a big difference between personal preference and a spec not being good, mind you. I don't dislike elemental, I simply don't like standing in the back and casting as my DPS role.

So I'm out, and we'll have new people come in and cover the class. I'll still be playing my shaman, healing and stormstriking my way through content. I still love the class, and I'm always going to play one as long as I'm playing WoW.

Before I go on to talk about the highlights of my two plus years of covering shamans for WoW.com (and WoW Insider before that), I do want to say that the Tier 10 bug that causes a seven day lockout just floors me. It's the kind of bug you'd almost expect to see on elemental shaman gear, frankly. If I were an egomaniac (well, more of one) I'd almost think this was done for me as a fitting tribute as I depart. Here's hoping it gets fixed soon.

And now, my favorite Totem Talk moments.

The healer is the most important member of a five man group in World of Warcraft, hands down. The healer is the backbone of the group. The healer is the motive force that allows things to proceed. If the tank is mediocre, the DPS good, and the healer good, you might progress or might not. If the tank is good, the DPS is good, and the healer is mediocre, you'll have a much harder time adjusting to any sudden surprises, If the tank and healer are both good, as long as the DPS can put out ANY DPS and there's no enrage timer, things will die.

This isn't meant to denigrate DPS or tanks. Heck, I'm a tank or DPS more than I'm a healer nowadays. But I believe strongly that healing is the silent motive force for a successful run, that a great deal of the pressure is placed on a healer's shoulders without the showy nature of the tanking role or the meter busting fun of the DPS roles. Healers are like the drummer, often ignored, but absolutely vital.

So here's your chance to agree or disagree, as well as to go even further. Are DPS the guitar? Is the tank the bass player? Have I gone completely insane? Do we even need that last question?

Not only are we taking applications for a resto/moonkin druid columnist, a holy paladin columnist, a lore columnist and an addon columinst, but now we'd like to throw the shaman column into the mix. After over two years of throwing down shaman advice like totems at an Onyxia raid, Matt Rossi is moving on to other writing duties on the site (and continuing with the warrior column.) And, as with the other hybrid class columns, we are going to take this opportunity to split the column into two weekly installments to focus on specific talent trees.

Our very own Michael Sacco, who has recently been promoted to Editor here as well as taking over the reins of the WoW Insider Show podcast, will be writing a weekly elemental shaman installment of Totem Talk. That leaves us with the need for an restoration/enhancement shaman columnist, with a particularly strong background in the healing aspect. If that's you and you want to get paid to write about your favorite class, follow the directions listed on our application page. You have until end of day Friday, January 15th to apply.

We are no longer accepting applications. We are currently reviewing the hundreds that have poured in. I will update this post when we have selected our new columnists. Thanks!

If you're a shaman you're familiar with the "grar grar grar grar" sound of Bloodlust or the "ktang!" of Heroism, its Alliance counterpart. For a long time one of the complaints has been that you absolutely had to have a shaman along in order to gain access to this buff. Even when leatherworking drums and inscription scrolls were created for lesser versions of buffs like Blessing of Kings and Prayer of Fortitude, Bloodlust/Heroism were still a unique buff to the shaman class.

Is that going to change? A discussion on the forums leads to Ghostcrawler revealing that yes, they are considering allowing Bloodlust/Heroism be a buff one can gain through an item. Now, I'm torn. On the one hand, NO! Keep your filthy crafter fingers off of my precious! My precious! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you! But on the other hand, it really isn't fair at this point that Bloodlust/Heroism is pretty much the only buff we can't get a lesser version of through crafted items. A 25% speed increase for 30 seconds (or even 35) would be weak enough in comparison to real Bloodlust that you wouldn't have to worry terribly about being replaced by a drum kit. I suppose. Man, I don't want you to have my Heroism. Like I said, I'm torn.

So what do you think oh why am I even asking we all know you want my precious. My precious!

Welcome to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's weekly column about the story behind the game we play.

Last week we discussed the formation of the Alliance in response to the Horde invasion of and destruction of the Kingdom of Azeroth via the Black Portal, and the Alliance's eventual triumph over the Horde, expedition to Draenor, and the events of Warcraft III that saw the destruction of Lordaeron and creation of a new order. This week, we talk about the events that caused those events.

Yes, this week we're discussing the origins of the Horde, that organization that began as the manipulated, deceived and then ultimately demonic blood addicted orcs of Draenor. It's not a simple tale: we've already told parts if it before when we discussed Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, Teron Gorefiend, Grom Hellscream and many others. It all really began untold thousands of years ago on the planet Argus, home world of the Eredar and their Draenei, or exiled, cousins. Thus, ironically, while the existence of the Horde caused the creation of the Alliance, it was an Alliance race that helped start the events that led to the creation of the Horde. Symmetry in origin.

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

With the impending release of the Plagueworks wing in Icecrown Citadel, how about some healer tips for the two abominations? Between the two of them, I think Festergut is easy to understand conceptually but harder to execute. Be prepared to bring on the healing as it will stress the healing team.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Miles Davis and John Coltrane's beautiful "So What." We featured the Smashing Pumpkins last week. This week, we'll be shifting gears to some brilliant jazz. You have to love the diversity Blood Sport offers in pwning music.

Last Week: Part IV of our Arena Guide for Beginners. We talked about the marks of a skilled healer inside an arena battle.

This Week: Not surprisingly, today's article will be structured in a very similar fashion to our last for our bloodthirsty DPS readers. More after the break!