Interview

You can find the whole Interview here, I’ll just mention a few highlights.

• Blizzard is happy with Looking for Raid (LFR) and Transmogfrification
• Raid Finder is the most successful part of 4.3
• Players have enough content to chew on until MoP comes
• We try to bring content faster

Oh well, what can I say? The Patch has been out a good month and the excitement is ebbing down a bit. The Deathwing fight has a shallow taste since we do not actually fight Deathwing, just some tentacles and crap … and in Dragon Soul you simply chop him down from 20% and he does not even fight back.
Of course we haven’t beaten all on heroic, but we have seen it all and while it is still fun I am not sure that will hold “a couple of months more”.
The exact wording is “the three excellent dungeons we have, the new raid, and Raid Finder that should give people something to sink their teeth into for a few months“.

Mists of Pandaria

All expansions so far were at least a 3-4 months on beta. MoP is not even in Alpha stage, yet. This means we still have at least 4 (more likely 5-7 months) before it goes live. Wonder if they can really afford to not bring new content up to then.

Bring new Content faster

If you have read blue posts and dev blogs you have heard that one before. In fact it was one of the goals Blizzard had in mind for Cataclysm. But we had never had in any expansion this little content updates before. WotLK and Catyclysm were roughly released at the same time of the year, but now one year later we have less contentupdates than before.

Wrath of the Lich King

• Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, Naxxramas
• Ulduar
• Trial of the Crusader
• The Brood Mother Returns: Onyxia
• Icecrown Citadel
• Ruby Sanctum

Cataclysm

• Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, Throne of the Four Winds
• Firelands
• Dragonsoul

The locations in Dragonsoul are simply recycled content. Path of the Titans, Wyrmrest Temple, Maw of Go’rath, Maw of Shu’ma, Airship and the Maelstrom with a few Bosses added. Also the Models do not have any new look, just a bit customized, recycled models.
Basically we payed ~72€ on monthly fees to get it.
Recycling old content seems to be the biggest thing in Cataclysm. Shadowfang Keep, Deadmines, Zul’Aman, Zul’Gurub.

Random Heroics

Speaking about these last two instances. The current System for heroics is also a major step back and is part of the daily (weekly) heroic instances System. In Wrath of the Lich King you did get a random heroic daily, but not just from the last 2 published batch. This made the system a lot less boring than the current system. I mean we ran Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman for 7 months, just these 2 instances, 7 times a week … roughly 210 times … and now we will run End Time, Well of Eternity and Hour of Twilight equally often – yay! I think this is what Dave Kosak referred to “something to sink their teeth into”.

what would I do

To improve the current game I would:

• Fix the Looking for raid Loot System
• Exclude non soulbound items from calculating Item Level
• Introduce a separate PvP Item Level
• Merge all 5 man heroic instances into “Random Cataclysmic Heroic”
• Prepare a new Sanctum at Wyrmrest Temple, in case MoP is still more than 4 months out

And please Blizzard bring content faster! It doesn’t always have to be a new raid or new instances, or a ton of features at once. Sometimes little things help to cover time much better than a whole bunch of content.

Related Posts

• Cataclysm: Peparation, 25 Dailies to boost XP
• Cataclysm: ZG Removed, Mounts removed, Pet removed
• Future of Zul’Gurub remains unclear
• Cataclysm: Zul’Gurub removed
• Patch 4.0.1 Feedback

The lack of new content is kind of disturbing. Do you recall any other expansion, or even vanilla that had 6 month into it no new content? Even Wrath of the Lich King, which many players complained as coming too late, released Ulduar sooner.
Now all we get are jsut old, warmed up instances, someof us have been running since 2005. While you can see that they put some effort into Zul’Gurub, Zul’aman seems to be pretty much the same, tuned down for 5 man of course, as during the Burning Crusade.
This seems to be a bit meager to keep us motivated to play, especially with at least 2 months of PTR and summer standing between us and new content.

Firelands

Blizzard started last week to reveal bits of information about the upcoming Firelands raid. The intention seems to not give out too much at once, after all they need to keep us interested for the at least 2 months, the time new raid tiers spent at PTR.

This makes you wonder if they really plan to release Firelands mid july or if they plan to delay it even a bit further to keep you playing WoW while SWTOR, Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting ready for release.

We already payed the cataclysm expansion and a good 78 euro monthly fees since november and haven’t got naything but delayed bug fixes, rewarmed old content and a game in an horrible unbalanced state.

All this greed for our money is slowly getting a bit overhand. Just look at the Blizzcon Tickets – the price was raised from 100$ (2005) to 175$ (2011). Also look at all these new premium services. Mobile Auction House, mobile Guild Chat … Anarchy Online had these for free a good 10 years ago.

Last years survey had a question “Would you pay for an 11th char slot?” and then added arrows/scrollbars to the character selection screen during cataclysm beta.

At least I slowly feel like I am becoming milked a bit too much this way.

Quality Assurance

The QA since cataclysm just seems horrible. So many numbers have been off the expected values by more than just a little bit. For example the fix to Guild Cauldrons, which was tuned down from 25000 Flasks to 3000, which is only 12% of the original value, or 833% off if you prefer to look it at the other way. This kind of bad assumptions and sloppy foresight can be found throughout the game curently.

With a game as complex as WoW you need to get the DEVs some credit, I guess. No QA can foresee total unrelated issues or test everything. When I was game master in 2006 a new patch broke “the battle of darrowshire”, but this was ok, since it wasn’t related in any way to the changes that came (think it was the Ahn’Qiraj Patch).
But how can it be possible in current content major issues are simply slipped by. It took them a while to realize that on soem encounters adds (e.g. Maloriak) had the same hitpoints and that the incoming damage (e.g. Valiona & Theralion) was the same on 10 and 25 man. It was even design goal to perfectly balance 10 and 25 man raids, but turned out to be sloppy implemented.

How can there be so many bugs in Zul’Gurub, Zul’Aman, a freshly developped instance … I mean normal mobs drop epics and get farmed. This was an issue in ICC-heroics aswell, how hard can it be to predict people would actually try to farm them? Also the bug that the Zandalarian BoE items could not be mailed and other Bugs related to Zandalarian instances that required a hotfixed. This kind of bugs should simply not happen.

If you look at the WoL Logs it makes you wonder if they haven’t realized 6 months into the Expansion that bringing a Moonkin or Shadow Priest counts 1.5-1.8 players worth per raid slot and is a bit unfair towards the other classes. But these fixes take forever to adjust.

So many things are out of whack right now – I am not even talking about PvP.

How does it look on your realm currently?

things aren’t running too well for Borked on Ravencrest at the moment. People quitting the game, leaving to greener pastures and other guilds massrecruiting our people. Even top guilds report that they can fill their current roster only by mass recruiting people faster than they can quit
I think that the above mentioned reasons eventually lead to this.

It does not seem to be an issue related only to Borked though, generally I see many people quit left and right. This is quite unusual, since the summer wave of quitters hasn’t even come yet. Of course I do not have the numbers to back these things up, it is just a matter of subjective observation. For example 2 months ago it took 72 hours before a ticket was answered, and now it is down to 1-2 hours. There are manifold reasons for this but not all can be explained by fixed bugs, lack of game mechanic changes (which raise a lot of questions), but not all of it. Also I doubt that mid expansion, especially before summer blizzard employed a ton of staff to battle the queue

Wouldn’t it be nice if WoW got a real rival, that would drag a few million players away? I guess this is the only way that would motivate blizzard and beloved Mr Bobbby Kotic (read this link if you do not know who he is) to actually improve the things that are going wrong. Unless … they just let WoW run as it is and focus on their new project already.

What to do meanwhile

If you like TV-Series you might like to want to take a look at Game of Thrones, which is a new series, launched 3 weeks ago on HBO.

“Game of Thrones” is an HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy novel series “A Song of Ice and Fire”. The show explores a medieval-like world with its plethora of characters all struggling in the only game that matters — the game of thrones

I absolutely love the show so far. First episode introduced the main characters, second episode focussed on the children and third episode focussed on side characters. Since the episodes are all dense packed with information, it helped me to look at The Game of Thrones Wiki to cross relate some information.

If you are interested in joining Borked and help us get back to proper raiding for the next tier you can apply here. Good Luck

Related Posts

• Patch 4.0.1 Feedback
• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Patch 4.3 General and Enhancement Shaman changes
• A look at the first PTR 4.3 Changes
• Patch 4.1 Fire Nova Preview

<3 Enhancement!

At least for now I totally enjoy Enhancement Shaman, can’t really say with certainy if we aren’t a bit overpowered, but looking at dps in normal and especially heroic instances we seem to have arrived in the upper parts of damage meters.

Right now we can play out our abilities as hybrid better than ever, being able to sacrifice some dps to help heal a player or even place an aoe heal in tricky phases seems to be a big plus. We can cc, interrupt, place that winning heal, use our cd in heavy damage phases, give proper heroism (honestly did you meet a mage yet that did not cast heroism at the worst possible occasions?) and do not totally suck on meters!

This patch made me a happy goat so far! The only thing I feel sorry about are the players that abandonded the class a tiny bit too early.

Related Posts

• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Many Shaman improvements in build 12857
• Hidden Build (12857 Codename Ninja) – Thoughts
• Cataclysm: Planned Stat Changes
• Cataclysm: No Worgen Shaman!

Stood in the Fire!

Seems like deathwing has a thing for Wetlands and Plaguelands, the past 4 days he hit wetlands each day on Ravencrest. If you are going to idle anyhow, try to do it there and you might get a shot at the Achievement!

Fix your macros!

Weapon Imbues

Windfury on leftclick; Flametongue on rightclick

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift][btn:2]Flametongue Weapon;[nomod]Windfury Weapon;[mod:alt]Frostbrand Weapon;[mod:ctrl]Earthliving Weapon

Feral Spirit and DBM

If you have Deadly Boss Mods installed you can get a nice timer bar for your wolves with this macro. A rightclick will cast Spirit Hunt.

#showtooltip
/cast Feral Spirit
/cast [button:2] Spirit Walk
/dbm timer 00:29 Feral-Spirit End!
/dbm timer 01:59 Feral-Spirit CD

Shamanistic Rage and DBM

Nice bars for Shamanistic Rage if you have deadly boss mods installed. You can leave out the /use Trinket1 part.

#showtooltip Shamanistic Rage
/cast [nobtn:2] Shamanistic Rage
/dbm timer 00:15 Shamanistic Rage End!
/dbm timer 00:59 Shamanistic Rage CD
/use Trinket1

Ghostwolf and Mounts

• left click: Ghost Wolf
• right click: mount, depending on conditions
• right click + ctrl: Mekgineer’s Chopper (for these special moments!)
• right click + alt: Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth (if you need a repair!)
• right click + shift: force flying mount (for wintergrasp, which is tagged as noflyable)

#show Ghost Wolf
/use [noform,nomounted,nobtn:2]Ghost Wolf
/cancelform [form]
/dismount [mounted]
/userandom [mod:ctrl]Mekgineer's Chopper;[mod:alt]Traveler's Tundra Mammoth;[flyable][mod:shift]Mimiron's Head;Crimson Deathcharger,Invincible,Raven Lord

Flame Shock & Earth Shock

This will cycle Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Earth Shock when I am in spec 1 and Frost Shock in spec 2 (guess which is my pvp spec). In addition it will cast wind shear on the current target.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/castsequence [spec:1] reset=target12 Flame Shock,Earth Shock,Earth Shock;[spec:2] Frost Shock
/cast Wind Shear

Fishing and Stormstrike

For these moments when you get ganked while fishing peacefully If you get into combat and have a fishing pole equipped then this will equip your weapons and cast stormstrike and toggle autoattacks. The itemid can be used aswell as the actual name of a weapon.

#showtooltip
/equipslot [worn:Fishing Poles,combat] 16 Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings
/equipslot [worn:Fishing Poles,combat] 17 item:50737:3789
/cast [worn:Fishing Poles] Fishing
/stopmacro [worn:Fishing Poles]
/startattack
/cast Stormstrike

Discover the entrance to blackrock caverns

Go to blackrock mountain and discover the entrance to BRC, which lies right below Blackrock Spire/Blackwing Lair and you will be able to queue for it right away.

Quests

As posted here you can get 26 quests to cash in right away when cataclysm goes live!

Flasks, Food, Gems, Enchants

Leveling will go much smoother if you use up those consumables you banked away. The Cataclysm consumables will be so much better that the remaining flasks will be useless

Also in Deepholm you will start to replace your items and weapons . Having some replacement gems and enchants will make them even better.

Related Posts

• State of Enhancement!
• Cataclysm: Peparation, 25 Dailies to boost XP
• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Future of Zul’Gurub remains unclear
• Underdev Update and Arena Season Ending

A lot of things changed on the PTR, quests like “Sealed Vial of Poison”, “Damaged Necklace”, “XXX  Must Die!” weekly raid quest no longer yield XP.

These selected quests will bring you roughly 35%-40% into Level 80 with minimal travel time.

Is it possible?

In a Dev Chat Blizzard confirmed that they haven’t restricted quests in the past 2 expansions and will not do so now either. Here is the original text:

Q: Will you allow players to fill their quest log with say, 25 dailies, and then turn them in right after Midnight on December 7th to get a quick boost towards 85? This is how it worked in the beta, but some players are confused on whether it will work on Live. Thanks!
A: Regarding 25 daily quests to turn in when the expansion goes live, this is something players have been able to do for the last 2 expansions and we aren’t talking about changing it now.

There are no restrictions and this leaves us some room to maximize the gain. Ideally we’d select 25 Quests and are close by to be able to turn them in fast. There are quite a few quests hubs that are suitable for this. Some Quests give 16k xp, some 22k xp, and a few 27k xp.

There are a couple of tricks though that we can use to our advantage. If you simply look for 25 daily quests you’d select Sons of Hodir, Skybreaker(or Horde equivalent) and Argent Tournament. This works well, but can still be improved.

If you look at the quest “Among the Champions” from Argent Tournament you will see that the “Mark of the Champion” aren’t classified as quest items. Abandoning the quest will leave the items in your inventory and you will be able to cash it in at once.

Wintergrasp Quests

Too bad that we will hit the 25 daily quest limit this way. On the other side if you take Wintergrasp quests instead of Sons of Hodir they will not count towards the daily quest limit, which means you will be able to turn in 26 Quests instead of 25.

As you can see I have also chosen “Putting the Hertz: The Valley of Lost Hope” which is only 15 sec flight time away from the Skybreaker but gives 27500 xp as reward.

Here is my complete list of quests:

There are 26 quests:

• 24 x 22100 xp
• 2 x 27500 xp

for a total of = 585400 xp. If you happen to have a Kraken Tooth (they have been removed) you can turn that one in aswell.

The idea is to start in Wintergrasp for the weekly quests first, then use the Argent Tournament Tabard to cash in the Argent Tournament Quests, continue to the Skybreaker and then turn the last quest in at Aldur’thar. From there on you can continue as you please

This will also have a nice effect towards guild advancement and leveling. The more people in your guild will do this the faster it you may reach the Guild Perk “Fast Track” (for an additional xp Boost).

Btw, if you are on EU-Ravencrest and are an experienced Tank with preorder/digital purchase we are still looking for some help with assembling an instance farming group to 85.

Related Posts

• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Cataclysm: ZG Removed, Mounts removed, Pet removed
• Future of Zul’Gurub remains unclear
• Underdev Update and Arena Season Ending
• Cataclysm: Zul’Gurub removed

Also my connection speed is no option to be able to compete for Realm First Level 85 Shaman, etc with Patches and downlaod being part of the Installation.

This is why I decided to preorder the digital download.

Account Management

This is what the Accout Management Page looked like directly after the purchase:

As you can see it says “Product Level Cataclysm (Upgrade Complete) Standard Edition” and “Upgrade Complete Play the minute servers go live.”

A bit later I got the following mail:

The Account Detail Page lists the follwoing steps:

1. Order and pay
   Order and pay for a digital upgrade to Cataclysm today.
2. Log in once
   Log into the World of Warcraft game client to start the download of Cataclysm data. The data will download while you play or have the Launcher open.
3. Play
   At 00:01 on 07/12 your account will be automatically upgraded so you can begin playing Cataclysm.

I relogged, restarted the Launcher and was able to predownload some of the new data.

I hope this helped people who are still undecided what to do For me it seems like the perfect convenient way to get this expansion and I am so far glad I did it this way We will see at dec 7th how it turns out

The only thing that worries me, is that the mail states:”You will be able to play Cataclysm on December 7 at 12:01 AM Pacific time“. I hope it is just a display error

If you have questions, post a comment below

Related Posts

• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Not much to post these days
• State of Enhancement!
• Some Preparations for the Launch

I recall Blizzard promises when they first announced the changes for 4.0 – “Your DPS will NOT GO DOWN”, but in fact all Melee classes took a big hit the first 1-2 days.
We had our Warriors, who did 18-20k DPS prepatch, doing less 10k dps and then 1 day later after a massive uproar in the Forum were back to their prepatch dps, maybe even a bit higher. This Fix also gave Retribution Paladins and Feral Cats, who are at 22-23k DPS in their BIS gear now btw, some buffs. Leaving us pretty alone at the lower end of the DPS Meter.

Not enough Feedback

Unfortunately they pretty much kiled the European Shaman Forums a while back and there was little to no complaints about the matter. Even on other Forums it is rather quiet and you need to be actively looking for more information on the subject. This makes it highly unlike that we will see any kind of buff soon and Blizzard si probably very content that they finally got the whiny shaman crowd quiet

I have once more cancled my Account, like I always do when I am not content with Shaman Buffs. I am pretty sure the European Team sends a cancled account summary each week. Unfortunately $$$ is the only thing Blizzard understands since Bobby K. took this project into his greedy claws. It is no problem to reactivate your account if you see fit, like I’ll do in 1 month It nevertheless sends out a sign to Blizzard.

Other than that I really like the 4.0 Patch, the class is more fluent to play – don’t forget we will get unleash weapon to fill gaps. Unleash Wind on Beta stacks up MSW pretty fast for us, then adding the damage the ability does it does indeed look better at 85.

Patch 4.0.3, Level 85

We raided Twilight Bastion on Beta last night, the first 2 Bosses. On the first boss I did relatively low damage, mostly due to the massive whirlwind and the “AoE” Phase though. Also offhealing and a healing rain here or there (each heal costs about 15-20k damage, that I can’t cast) paid its tribute. Lets see if I can find a recount Screenshot.

As you can see, I did lowest dps, but more due to the nature of the fight. Searing Totem did a nice 2600 dps

Bear in mind, the wonderful Blizzard Guy who decided to give Enhancement Shamans Strength Weapons (no joke!!!!) did his part to bork the meter aswell.  It is a typical sign on how much Blizazrd people are even aware of Shaman needs Also I just used standard available enchants (haste instead of ap for weapons e.g.) and other quick and dirty fixes to get the raid going asap.

The second fight is a Single Target fight – only 1 of 2 Dragons is up at the same time and I performed much better there. Ghost Wolf is really nice to escape “Void Zone”-like effects and searing totem stacks up charges when you are kiting so you can lava lash the dragon as you get back to it. Also being able to unleash weapon and shock while running from stuff is definitely a nice advantage.

Don’t have a recount from the encounter, but I did pretty well. Too bad that we killed the dragon while he was flying over the Lava. The doors did not open and we could not go on :-/

Related Posts

• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Myrddin vs Yor’sahj the Unsleeping 25m heroic
• Enhancement Shaman solos Gruul’s Lair
• Myrddin solos Plague Quarter

Mount changes

Here is Blizzards original announcement.

As stated in the Under Dev page (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/), patch 4.0.3 brings about The Shattering, a cataclysmic event that will forever change the face of Azeroth. As we prepare to raise the level cap and introduce two new races with the Cataclysm expansion, it’s important to keep in mind that the game world is going through tremendous changes that will affect the availability of certain rare mounts and items.

Swift Zulian Tiger

Zul’Gurub is changing from a raid to a leveling zone in 4.0.3, and this mount will no longer be obtainable.

Swift Razzashi Raptor

This mount will also no longer be obtainable after the change to Zul’Gurub.

Razzashi Hatchling

With the change to Zul’Gurub this non-combat pet will no longer be obtainable.

Tome of Polymorph: Turtle

This tome will continue to be available through other means.

Crusader’s White/Black Warhorse and Swift Alliance Steed/Swift Horde Wolf

As the attempt-based tribute system is being removed from Heroic Trial of the Crusader, the Argent Crusade Tribute Chest will no longer spawn, and these mounts will no longer be obtainable

Reins of the Blue Drake

This mount will once again be available from defeating 10-player Malygos without needing to use the Dungeon Finder. The Reins of the Azure Drake will only be available on 25-player Malygos.

Mimiron’s Head

This mount will change to be a very low drop chance when defeating 25-player Yogg’Saron with no Keepers assisting you

Invincible

This mount will change to be a very low drop chance when defeating Heroic 25-player Lich King

Although we have no current plans to introduce new ways to obtain the Zul’Gurub mounts, pets, and the tribute mounts, they may return should we find a place where they fit in the future.

Related Posts

• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Cataclysm: Peparation, 25 Dailies to boost XP
• Future of Zul’Gurub remains unclear
• Cataclysm: Zul’Gurub removed
• Patch 4.0.1 Feedback

In a nutshell we get to choose more utility, get some glyph and ui enhancements which make the class more fun to play. Many changes are also coming statwise, many buffs get spread to more classes and we will get many changes to our Totems.

Keep in mind that patch 4.0 is tuned at level 85 characters and not 80. Enhancement Shaman felt a bit awkward to play at the start and Unleash Weapon (Level 81) will strongly effect the class.

4.0 First Steps

When 4.0 comes life you should visit your trainer as soon as possible. We will lose some abilities, for example to cleanse poison and disease, while we also learn some new skills. For example Primal Strike (for leveling up, shares cooldown with Stormstrike), Cleanse Spirit (remove curses), Healing Surge (a new heal), Bind Elemental (cc for elementals), Totem of Tranquil Mind (30% less casting time loss on damage), Mail Specialization (+5% primary stats, while wearing mail), Ghost Wolf can be used indoors and last but not least mastery.

Here is a link with all Shaman Abilities on Wowhead.

Talent Changes

The next best thing to do is to fix your talents. Beginning at level 10 you will be able to choose a talent tree (is there any other choice than enhancement?). You will receive a set of basic abilities right away and the other talent trees will not unlock before you place at least 31 points in your primary tree. Here are the Talents you get right away.

Enhancement

A totemic warrior who strikes foes with weapons imbued with elemental power.

• Lava Lash
• Mental Quickness
• Dual Wield
• Primal Wisdom
• Mastery: Enhanced Elements

We have 35 talent points to spend at Level 80 (actually 79) and these are talents every enhancement should take.

Basic Enhancement Shaman build (0/31/0)

(Talent Calculator)

• Please note: this build has 2/3 improved Lightning Shields as I have to spend 1 point somewhere
  you can change that point to wherever you like
• also you have 5 more talent points to spend
• but each enhancement shaman should have at least these talents

Single Target Enhancement Shaman build (5/31/0)

(Talent Calculator)

• I have chosen Concussion over Acuity, since we already have absurd high crit rating and because we lost the 50% extra crit bonus damge
• best single target dps

AoE Enhancement Shaman build (4/32/0)

(Talent Calculator)

• if you find yourself doing heroics or for fights like Halion, where AoE Damage matters you might like to check out this build
• I moved 1 point from Acuity and 1 from Improved Shields to improved Fire Nova
• also added the Fire Nova and Chain Lightning Glyph

Utility Enhancement Shaman build (0/36/0)

(Talent Calculator)

• if you prefer utility and are willing to sacrifice some dps
• I see this more as daily life spec for pvp realms, when you do dailies or other stuff and have to deal with occasional ganking

Glyphs

Glyphs leave you with similar choices.

For now the best dps glyphs seem to be:

Prime Glyphs

• Stormstrike
• Lava Lash
• Feral Spirit

Major Glyphs

• Fire Nova
• (Lightning Shield)
• your choice

My personal favorite Major Glyph is the new Lightning Shield one (“Your Lightning Shield can no longer drop below 3 charges from dealing damage to attackers”). Using this Glyph your Lightning Shield can only expire or be dispelled, but it never runs out of charges for dealing damage and will remain at 3 orbs for Enhancement Shamans.

This and the new power aura like spell alert for Maelstrom Weapon make the class much more fluent and fun to play.

What happened to my Mana?

Our Mail Armor has no longer Attack Power, Armor Penetration or Intelligence stats. We do now get 2 Attack Power per Agility and a 5% bonus Agility if all our gear is Mail Armor. the following new abilities will help to manage our mana anyhow.

• Primal Wisdom
  Your melee attacks have a 40% chance to immediately restore 5% of your base mana.
• Maelstrom Weapon
  When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance (higher than rank 2) to reduce the cast time and mana cost of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Hex, or any healing spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.
• Mental Quickness
  Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 50% of your attack power, and reduces the mana cost of your instant spells by 75%.

There is also an undocumented change. On Beta Enhancement Shamans have a lot of passive MP5, think it was around 600 mp5 in combat at level 80.

Gems & Reforging

There is a lot of discussion about proper gemming for 4.0 and reforging. Lets look at the stats.

Haste

• Shamans lost the melee haste bonus they got during Ulduar
• Static Shock no longer procs from auto attacks
• Windfury nerfed, *cough* adjusted to 10% melee/ranged haste.
• Unleash Wind (Level 81) will bring 20% additional melee haste for 6 swings.

Critical Strike

• Stormstrike
  Chance to be critically struck by the Shaman’s Nature spells increased by 25%.
• Elemental Devastation
  When you deal critical damage with a non-periodic spell, increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee attacks by 9% for 10 sec.
• Lightning Shield can now critical hit! This will make it easy to keep up Elemental Devastation.
• Armor Penetration will be converted to Critical Strike Rating and provide us with even more crit on our gear.

Hit Rating

• the new spell hit cap for Enhancement Shaman is 446 hit rating (420 for Draenei)

Expertise

• Unleashed Rage
  Increases your expertise by 8, and increases all party and raid members’ attack power by 10% while within 100 yards of the Shaman.
• 139 expertise rating cap, 116 Orcs (using Axes), 116 Dwarves (using Maces)

Agility

• Each 83.19 agility = 1 % melee crit (324.88 @ Level 85)
• 1 point of agility = 2 attack power
• 1 point of agility = 1,28  spell power (raidbuffed, mail spec, unleashed rage,kings,flame totem)
• Mail Armor Specialization, +5% Agility if you are in full mail gear

Mastery

• Enhanced Elements
  Increases all Fire, Frost, and Nature damage done by 20%.  Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 2.5%

Gem conversion

Attack Power gems will be turned into Agility, Spell Power gems into Intellect, Armor Penetration to Critical Strike Rating. Hit rating will become a blue gem.

Conclusion

Haste will no longer become our most important stat, since less abilities benefit from it. Haste will be in line with critical strike rating which also seems to be less important than pre 4.0. Our new abilities (especially Stormstrike) provide a good base crit and we are already struggling with the crit cap.
However Agility seems to become a very good stat for us, since all our damage abilities increase by it.
It is not really known how effective Elemental Mastery will turn out. Guessing from the tests I have done on Beta it looks quite promising, basically replacing the spell crit damage bonus, that we can no longer get.

This is how I will reforge, gem

• Agility is a primary stat, also our best and you cannot reforge to. This means, it is probably best to reforge gear for expertise cap first, so we can use red sockets for Agility.
• Reforge the rest of the gear for Mastery (there are no Mastery gems at level 80), remember the (+hit cap).
• Use the 21 Agility Meta, (Relentless Earthsiege Diamond) and one Blue Gem Socket for +Hit Rating.
• For good Socket Boni, you can use Agi/Haste (Yellow Socket) or even Agi/Hit (Blue Socket).

Priority System

The loss of 100% spellcrit bonus damage reduced the importance of our spells until we reach high level of mastery rating. I am not sure if Lava Lash or Stormstrike win the priority queue. They both proc Lightning Shield while Stormstrike also places the +25% spell crit debuff on our target.
This debuff will help to get spell crits and thus Elemental Devastation, which again keeps our melee crit up. Fortunately due to the long cooldown on both abilities it doesn’t really make a big difference.
Delaying Lava Lash 1-2 seconds can also help making sure that we will have enough Searing Totem stacks on our target to make it our biggest nuke.

The Stormstrike debuff reads: “granting you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, and Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.”

Lightning Shield will keep itself up so we only have Shocks and Lightning Bolt to assign a priority to. The outcome should be quite obvious

Prio Queue

• Feral Spirit
• Lava Lash
• Storm Strike
• MSW 5
• Flame Shock x1, Earth Shock x2 Rotation

This will make the class much less tedious to play than it feels at time on live.

Totems

• Earth
  • Strength of Earth Totem
  • Stone Skin Totem
• Wind
  • Windfury
• Water
  • Healing Stream (will also provide resistance to fire, nature and frost spells glyphed)
  • Totem of Tranquil Mind
• Fire
  • Searing Totem (single target), Fire Nova can not be used
  • Magma Totem (multi target)

Spell Alert

The changes to the UI in 4.0 include a Power Aura like Icon that pops up for a few seconds once you got 5 Stacks of Maelstrom Weapon and looks like this. Pew Pew Lazerbeams!!

Other things to note

Totem/Relic Slot

Bizuri’s Totem of Shattered Ice, like all other totems, has been changed to provide primary stat/stamina/haste/crit and should be replaced with Totem of the Avalanche.

Totem of the Avalanche
Binds when picked up
Relic    Relic
+51 Agility
+77 Stamina
Red Socket
Classes: Shaman
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 34 (0.74% @ L80).
Equip: Improves haste rating by 34 (1.04% @ L80).

Feral Spirit

Feral Spirit’s cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, instead of 3 and its duration has been reduced to 30 seconds. While this hampers our solo abilities quite a bit, it might even improve our raid dps on short fights.

Feral Spirit
12% of base mana    30 yd range
Instant cast    2 min cooldown
Summons two Spirit Wolves under the command of the Shaman, lasting 30 sec.

Sample Video

I have put sample video together, showing some of the talent ui, glyph ui, new spells (up to 85), and power aura in action. If you are curious take a look at it. The video is in 1080p, so you can choose fullscreen and higher quality and read the tooltips.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In case I forgot something, you have questions or want to express your gratitude, leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.

On a sidenote, something that keeps me baffled on Beta is that one one side we can unleash wind and fire, even get a fire damage debuff on the target, but have no ability that will actually consume it. It would be awesome if Lava Lash would make use of this, which it doesn’t at the moment.

Related Posts

• Patch 4.3 General and Enhancement Shaman changes
• A look at the first PTR 4.3 Changes
• Patch 4.0.6: Enhancement Shaman Windfury Changes
• Many Shaman improvements in build 12857
• Hidden Build (12857 Codename Ninja) – Thoughts

After seeing the DK flying mount which looks more like a gnawed off “Wiesnhendl” from the October Fest than some scary flying beast, I am glad that this looks much better.

They look better than they appear on the Screenshots.

From Archaeology

Both Fossilized Raptors are rare items in Fossil Archaeology and require 100 & 85 Fossil Archaeology Fragments.

Here is what wowhead says.

Fossilized Hatchling
3 sec cast
When you finished assembling this tiny skeleton through some eldritch magic, the little critter sprang back to life. He’s a pretty good pet. Since he’s a skeleton, he doesn’t eat much.

Fossilized Hatchling
Binds when picked up
Item Level 30
Use: Teaches you how to summon this companion.

The guy got away befor eI could make better screenshots of the pet. But anyway here take a look at it (click to enlarge).

Fossilized Raptor
3 sec cast
When you finished assembling this skeleton through some eldritch magic, the creature sprang back to life.

Fossilized Raptor
Binds when picked up
Mount
Requires Level 40
Requires Riding (150)
Item Level 40
Use: Teaches you how to summon this mount.  This is a very fast mount.

Related Posts

• Underdev Update and Arena Season Ending
• Cataclysm: Archaeology Preview
• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Cataclysm: Peparation, 25 Dailies to boost XP
• Cataclysm: ZG Removed, Mounts removed, Pet removed

Blue Post

The subject “Raid Mounts” was touched in a Blue Post.

Q: How about questions pertaining to what will be included in the 4.0.1 patch? And if so, my question is: will Invincible’s drop rate be changed in that patch?
A: No changes are being made to raid mounts in patch 4.0.1.

I am aware that the Question wasn’t about Zul’Gurub, hence I decided to try my luck with a GM Ticket

General Question

Q: Can I still turn in these items once 4.0.1 hits live Realms?

• [Head of Onyxia] – Level 60
• [Head of Ossirian the Unscarred]
• [Heart of Hakkar]

A: Quest items that are dependant on current NCPs in Azeroth I would strongly recommending turning in before the 4.0.1 patch to ensure that those NPCs are still in game afterwards. We’re not able to provide specific information about which NPCs will remain after the patch.

Q: What happens to Baron Mount? Will it still be available?

A: Deathcharger’s Reins which drop from Baron rivendare will remain ingame, however there will be a different NPC that takes his place here.

Q: There is a blue post indicating that no changes will be made to raid mounts, does that include ZG or only Mimirons Head/Invincible?

A:Zul Gurub will no longer be a raid in Cataclysm, please keep an eye on our Community Posts at forums.wow-europe.com for further information about our plans for Zul Gurub.

Followup

My questions about ZG weren’t really answered so I decided to try my luck with a followup ticket.

<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: Hello there. During the lead up to the expansion there will be World Events most likely starting with patch 4.0.1. It will be then that the instance will no longer be available as the world changes.
To [Ketruxa]: “most likely” meaning you don’t know for sure? I am aware that ZG will be removed, or well “gone as raid instance” whatever that means. My Question is about how long it is possible to get the mounts still, not to tickle some information out of you that
To [Ketruxa]: is supposed to come by a blue post on the forums
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: Means, I’m guessing   We do not have exact information as to which phase parts of the world will change.
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: At least not regarding everything.
To [Ketruxa]: Thanks for the honest reply! Could you ask your senior then? I tried to get an answer on official forums, but well with so many posts it probably has been overlooked.
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: The changes will start when the World events start which should take around 5 weeks in total. All the changes will be in the game when 4.0.1 goes live, but not all will be activated.
To [Ketruxa]: yep, I am aware of the different stages, the only thing I am unsure about atm is when the raid instance will be removed.
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: Unfortunately, I cannot give you a definite answer other than it will be after 4.0.1
To [Ketruxa]: after or with?
To [Ketruxa]: Ok thanks for your reply
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: The changes will be with the patch, but they may not go live until the appropriate phase.
To [Ketruxa]: Thanks for the reply. Guess I’ll have to see in 4.0.1
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: Alright then. Is there anything else I can help you with?
To [Ketruxa]: Not really, thanks.
<GM>[Ketruxa] whispers: Farewell then, Daisan. Have an awesome evening and good luck.
To [Ketruxa]: Have a nice end of your shift

Important

This is a followup to this post including more details on the actual removal of Zul’Gurub.

Related Posts

• Cataclysm: Zul’Gurub removed
• Paladin versus Molten Core!
• Interview with Dave Kosak about WoW in 2012
• Myrddin solos Plague Quarter
• Enhancement Shaman solos Sapphiron

Apparenty other Ammo Pouches have been converted aswell, but I am kind of surprised to see that they upgraded the Level 60 Quiver to a 24 Slot Bag. Considering Haris Pilton sells the Portable Hole, also a 24 Slot Bag, at 3000 Gold this is indeed a nice change.

How to get it

(Taken from Wowhead)

• Go to Molten Core and get the Ancient Petrified Leaf from Cache of the Firelord.
• Right click the leaf to start The Ancient Leaf quest.
• Turn the quest in at Vartrus the Ancient in Felwood.
• Now speak with Hastat the Ancient (he’s right next to Vartrus the Ancient) and get the Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina quest.
• Go to Azshara and kill Azuregos.
• Loot Mature Blue Dragon Sinew from Azuregos.
• Return to Hastat the Ancient with the Mature Blue Dragon Sinew to finish the quest.
• Upon completion you will recieve the Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina quiver.

Maybe it is time to raise the price a bit (selling them quite frequent atm for 99.50 a piece). I happen to have like 15+ Sinews left on Ravencrest Nice to see that they update such old items.

Related Posts

• Underdev Update and Arena Season Ending
• The Enhancement Shaman 4.0 Guide
• Many Shaman improvements in build 12857
• Hidden Build (12857 Codename Ninja) – Thoughts
• Patch 4.3 General and Enhancement Shaman changes