Project Lore

MMO-Champion has posted a handful of new changes that are coming, and they believe that they are coming this week. That would mean that during tomorrow morning's weekly maintenance period, we'll all have to download Patch 3.0.9. There are a few tweaks, including a bunch of changes to Arcane Mages. They're also nerfing cast time increasing debuffs and increasing rogue damage. Check out all of the changes below. Druid

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

• Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
• Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

• Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
• Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.

Mage

• Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown. However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
• Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
• Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
• Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
• Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
• Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
• Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

Paladin

• The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
• Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
• Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
• Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)

Priest

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Rogue

• Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
• Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
• Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.

Shaman

• Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)

Warlock

• Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.

The Obsidian Sanctum

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

User Interface

• The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
• A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
• When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
• Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
• Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

Click to read more ...

I am a shaman, like William Shatner, so totems are a big part of my in-game identity. Blizzard understands that totems are a class defining feature, but their current implementation is a little... lacking to say the least. Ghostcrawler, class designer and prolific blue poster on the official forums, recently posted a thread soliciting feedback from shamans on how totems should be revamped. To me, there are really two aspects of totems. Firstly, there is PvE, where they have great utility. It takes a minimum of four seconds every five minutes to cast them. Sometimes they can be set it and forget it, but this doesn't take into account fights where being mobile is very important, or where different totems need to be dropped in different phases of the fight. Also, my totems seem to get destroyed in fights quite often, so I have to keep tabs on my totem timer bar even if we aren't moving. In PvP, dropping all four totems is not a common occurance for me, unless I am defending some type of flag or node. While I am on some sort of offensive rush, using four seconds in a fight against a ret pally or death knight just to drop totems that will either be outranged very quickly or disappear when I die seems pointless. Exceptions to this are when I drop tremor, earthbind, grounding, maybe a stoneclaw to get treants off of me, or a magma totem to flush out rogues (which never seems to work). On to the actual totems themselves. Some of them have unique, very useful features. Two of my favorite totems in the game are tremor totem and grounding totem. Dispelling fear and absorbing spells, these totems can save fights singlehandedly. Unfortunately, there are also some totems that are not as useful. Sentry totem is the first one that comes to mind. Even things like Strength of Earth and Windfury, while great buffs for melee classes, are immobile and destructible versions of different Death Knight abilities. The original design of totems, as I understand it, was to provide stronger buffs than other classes due to the ease of removing them. With the consolidation of raid buffs and simplification of raid composition, this aspect was removed. I know it's difficult to balance against too many powerful buffs that come from a single class, so I can understand that some of the buffs need to have other sources. Unfortunately, the downside of totems remained while the benefit was reduced. While I know that totems aren't perfect, I am not a very good class designer. I leave it to those smarter than myself to solve the problems with totems, and it seems like GC and the class designers at Blizzard have come to a point where they need to know how the shaman community views totems. If you are a shaman (or even if you're not), let the developers know your opinions by posting in the thread. Shaman love is always appreciated here on Project Lore.

Click to read more ...

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...

Click to read more ...

I did it. Juggynaut is a Level 80 Shaman. What did I do when I hit 80? I definitely didn't say ding. I spent my last talent point, turned in my quest, then Astral Recalled and trained one of my new favorite toys. Well, I actually trained about three levels worth of skills which cost me hundreds of gold, but the most important one for me was Hex. For those of you who haven't been paying much attention to shaman lately (including the devs), or those of you who haven't been watching our features from the beta, Hex means I can crowd control a mob temporarily. While it only lasts 30 seconds and has a 45 second cooldown. I've found it terribly useful while soloing, grouping, and even raiding. While questing, Hex can either eliminate an add for a short period, or it can decrease the damage output of the enemy for a few vital seconds in a fight. I utilized it in both fashions while attempting (and eventually defeating) a 5-man quest with my favorite Night Elf Priest (I love telling people we duoed Mal'Ganis). In instances, I'll Hex any animals or humanoids I see. It's been great in both heroics and our first steps into Naxx 10, where we managed to down a handful of bosses. In the end, Hex is a crowd control spell that mixes elements of a lot of the other CC spells that are out there. On the surface, it is polymorph effect, but it also counts as a curse. It can only be used once during a typical battle, like Sap, and has a cooldown longer than its duration, reminding me of blind. Similar to Fear, it doesn't break immediately on damage. Instead it takes a certain amount of damage to break it, which according to my anecdotal evidence can vary. I think I've seen frogs drop dead from AoE before anyone in the group targeted them. While not an ideal CC spell, I'm definitely liking it over my past options (none).

Click to read more ...

There certainly is a lot of activity on WoW after the latest patch. Everyone has new talents, abilities, and mechanics. After a bit of a rough start, especially for the Executus server with intermittent problems over a day after the patch, I managed to log on long enough to pick up my newest mount, the Big Blizzard Bear. Other than doing that, I was completely lost. No addons, no talents, missing spells, what was I to do? As enhancement, before 3.0, I pretty much knew what to do. I had all of my addons perfectly setup to make me the most efficient ass kicking machine ever. All of that is now in the past. One of the first things I needed to do after patching to do was set up Dominos, a replacement for my previous favorite action bar addon, Bongos. Then I went through to figure out where to put talents. My spec could probably use a little work after playing for a little bit. Next, I had to figure out what to actually do in order to kick ass post 3.0.2. I have a few new spells and talents that I needed to prioritize. Stormstrike for me is still the best instant available, since it does a bunch of damage and can proc a bunch of other things, including Windfury, Maelstrom Weapon, Flurry, among the other crazy trinkets and procs that I have. Lava Lash seems to make Flametongue a viable offhand imbue, but according to my uncontrolled test environment (I really should spend some more time at the training dummies in Ironforge, near the Military Ward), I still prefer dual WF. Now that hit and spell hit are a single stat, I am extremely close to the spell hit cap, and I can pretty much use Earth Shock without fear of a resist and it gets crit chance from some of my gear. In order of priority, Stormstrike, Earth Shock, and Lava Lash are my bread and butter instant casts. If Maelstrom Weapon is stacked to 5, I'll use it for Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or a Healing Wave (I can't wait to setup Clique to optimize off-healing). So, I pretty much set up a macro to optimize my DPS. Improved Stormstrike has an 8 second cooldown. Earth Shock untalented has a 6 second cooldown, Lava Lash also has a 6 second cooldown, and the max global cooldown is 1.5 seconds. So, the macro goes like this: /castsequence reset=8 Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash Hammering this macro between other spells will make me miss an Earth Shock cooldown every once in a while, but makes things super simple while I am still trying to figure out Maelstrom Weapon along with my new favorite friends, Feral Spirit. I'll talk about them later, because they are so much fun.

Click to read more ...

Sometimes, you log in and nobody is around to group with you for heroics. Sometimes, your arena team is busy. Sometimes, your guild is busy wiping on a new boss for two hours. Sometimes, you just want some mindless fun. Recently, when I find myself in those situations, I've been leveling up some new alts. I've been playing a druid, and I've been playing a priest. At the same time. Kind of. I signed up for the Recruit a Friend program to test out that juicy triple XP. I entered my own name as the name of my friend, which I suppose is true enough. I tend to consider me a friend. So, I made a second account and, on it, created a dwarf priest. I'm not dual-boxing to pwn in arena or to solo Kara. I just have the priest auto follow the druid while I rip stuff up in cat form. If I need some help, I'll just have the priest bubble, renew, or heal the druid. It's fun, it's a new type of challenge, and it's a good way to get a lot of levels. And I mean a LOT of levels. The rate at which these two characters are leveling is pretty unbelievable. A guildy ran us through stocks a few times, where I got two levels from the mobs and one from completing the quests. Each character got almost 10,000 xp for each of the Stockade quests. That is pretty ridiculous in the mid 20s. Now, they both have their mounts and are level 31 and 32. Soon we will be roaming Outland, killing Overlord. Maybe. Now, I'm not really into the exclusive mount thing, so I probably won't keep the account for the full time needed to unlock that Zhevra. I just figured that it's a good way to get a couple of alts up to at least 60 before the expansion hits. Once the priest hits 59, I'll have him give 29 levels to my level 28 warrior or my 29 mage. That will be three characters to 60 in less time than it normally takes one. And then perhaps my dual-boxing days will be behind me. Although, maybe I will start the whole process over again with a combination of a hunter, a rogue, or a pally. I'm thinking rogue/pally would be easiest. Hunters are OP while soloing anyway. Once that's done, I might have a chance to finally get that second shaman I've always dreamed of. If you couldn't tell, I love shaman. And I love alts. After WotLK comes out, I can take advantage of the over-abundance of death knights that will be roaming Outland looking for groups and have nine 70s (or 80s?) Although, I have heard of 5 DKs completing appropriate level instances in the beta. NERF DKs.

Click to read more ...

Every time I read something new about Wrath of the Lich King, I can't help but get a little more excited for it. I recently came across a list of Shaman glyphs from the current beta build. What are glyphs? They are customizations for your character that will alter the way certain abilities work in some way. The example I like to give is that druids will be able to make their bear form look like a polar bear. Fun, right? Well, looking good is one thing, but check out what glyphs have been uncovered for the best class (shaman for those of you who don't know).

• Glyph - Water Shield - Your Water Shield has 3 additional charges.
• Glyph - Chain Heal - Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target.
• Glyph - Lesser Healing Wave - Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.
• Glyph - Earthliving Weapon - Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.
• Glyph - Healing Wave - Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.
• Glyph - Mana Tide - Your Mana Tide Totem grants an additional 1% of each target's maximum mana each time it pulses.
• Glyph - Earth Shock - Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Earth Shock ability by 1 sec.
• Glyph - Frost Shock - Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.
• Glyph - Strength of Earth - Your Strength of Earth Totem also grants 1% melee and ranged critical strike chance.
• Glyph - Windfury Weapon - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.
• Glyph - Stormstrike - Increases the nature damage bonus from your Stormstrike ability by an additional 8%.
• Glyph - Flame Shock - Increases the range on your Flame Shock ability by 10 yards.
• Glyph - Lightning Shield - Increases the damage from Lightning Shield by 20%.
• Glyph - Chain Lightning - Your Chain Lightning strikes 1 additional target.
• Glyph - Fire Nova Totem - Increases the radius of Fire Nova Totem's effect by 2 yards.
• Glyph - Flametongue Weapon - Increases spell critical strike chance by 2% while Flametongue Weapon is active.
• Glyph - Totem of Wrath - Your Totem of Wrath also grants 1% spell haste.
• Glyph - Lightning Bolt - Reduces the cost of your Lightning Bolt ability by -10%.
• Glyph - Earth Elemental Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Earth Elemental Totem by 3 min.
• Glyph - Fire Elemental Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 3 min.
• Glyph - Healing Stream Totem - Your Healing Stream Totem heals for an additional 20%.

Now, all of those are pretty awesome, and it will be hard to choose which six to have inscribed (you can have two of each type: minor, lesser and major). I'll leave the theorycrafting to those smarter than myself and just look at the ones that jump out at me. Resto shaman always get love, but adding a fourth target to chain heal would be awesome. Healing wave healing myself while I heal others? Another win. My current love, enhancement, should see huge boosts from an additional 40% AP bonus on Windfury, and strength of earth totem becomes even more buffed by adding an additional 1% physical crit chance. That's on top of the agility it's already getting in WotLK! And of course my rekindled love in Wrath, elemental, is not forgotten. An additional target for chain lighting is situational, but will be fun! A 2% spell crit bonus with flametongue, the new elemental imbue of choice, is much appreciated, as is the extra 1% spell haste for Totem of Wrath. Stacked with the Wrath of Air totem haste, casters will love shaman. It will be difficult to pick glyphs for Juggynaut, but I can't wait!

Click to read more ...

...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.

Click to read more ...

Obviously, I am a badass shaman. Some would say the most badass shaman ever. At level 80, though, I will become even more badass. How is that possible you ask? I will summon not one, but two spirit wolves. Imagine a shaman coming at you. I can already see you trembling in your boots. Now, imagine that shaman in ghost wolf form, two spirit wolves, and a fire elemental coming at you. By now you've probably just given up. Now add in whatever Lava Burst is going to do (I can only imagine it will cause the insides of nearby enemies to burst, instantly killing them). And then, if you aren’t already dead, I’ll just use Hex to turn you into a frog. And then I’ll use my friend Mojo to turn myself into a frog. Then we can be froggy friends and you will forget all about attacking me. And then… FROST SHOCK. So forget being a death knight. You should probably just reroll as a shaman.

Click to read more ...

As I said earlier, I recently got my warlock his last ding until WotLK comes out. I have had a chance to bring him into a few instances, and I really enjoy it as a change of pace compared to my shaman. I'm definitely on the bottom of the DPS charts, but I can bring a few different things to a group as a warlock instead of a shaman. Don't get me wrong, I love my totems, heroism, and general ass kicking ability, but sometimes it's just fun to throw dots. I've still got a lot to learn in order to become more effective, but that's all part of the game. I'll get there eventually, but for now I'm ok with the fact that I am the weak link whenever I'm on my warlock. I must have run into a horde version of Xeno the other night while farming some Primal Life for a healing enchant. Of course, we all know that the horde consists of jerks and that warlocks are arrogant, so he decided to attack me. I, being a badass enhancement shaman, tore through his cloth wearing, emaciated blood elf face in a couple seconds. I then /apologized to him as I saw that he hadn't released, and then I engaged another level 62 bog lord nearby. As expected, the warlock used his soulstone and began attacking me again. Having been killed once again, I figured he had learned his lesson. However, just a few minutes later, I was forced to kill him once again. I can't help but wonder what made him keep trying. If it was me, I would have given up and run away with my freshly rezzed tail between my legs, as I have so many times (remember, I'm an enhancement shaman). Of course, with the mishmash of greens and blues on my warlock, I probably would have avoided screwing with a melee class that has beautiful badge weapons both enchanted with mongoose. Don't ever tell me horde are smart.

Click to read more ...