Project Lore

I'm currently specced enhancement, which is my spec of choice for the time being. It's also the one I tend to recommend to shaman who are leveling up. Of course, both Elemental and Restoration have come a long way in their viability as leveling specs, but an enhancment shaman is able to solo with very, very little downtime, PvP decently, bring utility along with great DPS in groups, take on elites without breaking a sweat, heck I even tanked the ranged horsemen in 10 Man Naxx. Knowing the abilities that are at your disposal will help you make fights go much smoother. One of the key abilities available to enhancement shaman is Feral Spirit, the 51-point enhancement talent introduced in the Echoes of Doom patch. I said I would address my love for this tandem of wolves and you might have wondered what they do besides look cool and make lots of noise. I'll tell you right now - they are a versatile little cooldown that I've used in a myriad of situations. While leveling through Northrend, I used my wolves to solo most of the group quests that I encountered. My basic strategy when approaching an Elite was to start out with totems that would increase my damage output. That means Strength of Earth, Windfury, Flametongue, and Mana Spring. If I knew the enemy was a caster, I'd drop a Grounding Totem and wait for the cooldown to be up before heading in. Once set, I'd run in, let the dogs out, take some damage, heal with a 5 stack of Maelstrom Weapon when I got low on health, use my wolves' Twin Howl when I got too low on health to let them soak up a little damage, grab aggro again, and repeat. Usually by the time my wolves despawned, I was able to kill the enemy. If things got too dire, I'd use Shamanistic Rage or even Heroism, but most of the time I wouldn't need to go to those lengths. Now, while the additional DPS from the twins doesn't hurt, the real key to these guys is one of their abilities: Spirit Hunt. Spirit Hunt heals the wolves along with the Shaman, for 150% of the damage they cause, which ends up being a very nice HoT on both me and the wolves. This means that when I'm ping-ponging aggro on an elite by using their taunt, I generally don't need to heal myself during the time that they are being targeted and they don't need healing unless they're taking a severe beating. It also gives your healers a break during heavy raid damage and can give you a nice buffer in PvP so long as your wolves can stay on an enemy. Another useful ability that the Spirit Wolves have available is Bash, which is a stun. This is the only true stun that shaman have access to. It's amazing for PvE since it can give you an extra breath between damage, and in PvP, well, you can't do that while stunned. If you're a Shaman who's done any real PvPing, you know how much it sucks to be stunned, so start using it against all of those rogues and pallies. Unfortunately, the wolves will cast this as soon as they start attacking something, and although autocast can be turned off manually once the pets are out, it will turn back on the next time they are summoned. I've looked and tried hunter macros that turn off autocast, but they are not effective on the spirit wolves. Blizzard is aware of the issue and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Spirit Walk is the last of the wolves' abilities that I'll cover. It is a Sprint-like ability that increases your run speed and your wolves' run speed by 60%. It also clears any root effects on all three of you. Incoming AoE spell? Stuck in a Frost Nova? Getting kited? Running a flag? Trying to catch a flag carrier? For an enhancement shaman, if you aren't in melee range, you're missing out on a lot of your potential damage. Sure you can Lava Burst for a decent crit on top of a Flame Shock, but that's not how you get your damage done. Movement is critical especially in PvP. Spirit Walk will get you there faster than Ghost Wolf, frees you from roots, and even works indoors! (Insert Plea for Ghost Wolf Indoors, maybe a glyph? Please!). If used early enough in the wolves' 45 second duration, it can be used twice per summon. I often use it while running back in an instance if I know it is going to be a long one. Now, if only they were permanent and not just 45 seconds every 3 minutes...

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...but so is Elemental. I've logged into the beta once or twice in order, of course, to test out Wrath of the Lich King and to provide Blizzard with bug testing and feedback. In my time on the beta server (PvP, natch), I've respec'd a few times to check out all of the new talents and changes to itemization. Enhancement seems like it will play like much more of a hybrid between melee and casting than it currently does. The itemization for Shaman has changed significantly, with Intellect giving Attack Power and Strength's effects reduced. Luckily, with my current gear, I actually gained some AP, though I lost a bunch of crit chance. All in all, I'm happy that Blizzard finally decided to make gear designed for hunters a little bit more viable for us. With the newly changed Maelstrom Weapon along with Lava Burst, spell rotations should be a little more complex than "Stormstrike and shock whenever they're ready." Unfortunately, Lava Burst isn't quite what I had initially expected. Also, the spirit wolves that get summoned with Feral Spirit are not yet implemented (NYI). For now they're just a pair of spirit wolves who do some pretty disappointing DPS. According to the beta forums, these wolves will have some special abilities, like snares and stuns. With Spectral Transformation, they will be even more powerful. It will be fun to check those out once they actually get implemented. Once I had my fill of a full on Enhancement build, I switched to Elemental. Now, while I was testing out Elemental, I used my old Restoration set. I must say, I was pretty happy with the way the team at Blizzard changed healing and damage into spell power. I a little over 1800 bonus healing just from my gear, and my spell power in the WotLK beta was in the mid 900s when I spec'd elemental. As I may have said before, I leveled from mid 60s to 70 as elemental, and stayed that way for a while. So I know how much fun it is to throw Lightning Bolts over and over, watching Lightning Overload proc with devastating results. Thunderstorm is a lot of fun, since it can be used as an extra interrupt, keeps melee at range, and returns mana. Paralysis and Storm, Earth and Fire give even more options for keeping enemies away in order to throw even more Lightning Bolts. In Northrend, I think I'll use an elemental spec to level for a while, because it's just so much fun. As for Restoration, I haven't check it out yet, since its top tier talent also isn't implemented. I also haven't had a chance to group with anyone, which is sort of necessary in order to get the full feel of a healer. We'll have to see if that ends up happening. All in all, I've tried to avoid leveling too much, since I don't want to have to go through it again (and again for Xeno). I will give all of those Alliance out there one tip in case you decide to go out and buy WotLK once it is released. Take the boat to Northrend from Menethil Harbor, not Stormwind.

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