Cross-Realm Raiding Wishlist

As many of you probably know by now, this new fangled "cross-realm raiding" feature is pretty neat. It's been something that I myself have dived head first into, going so far as to even creating what is essentially a whole guild-like webpage dedicated to the feature, aka Twitterland Raiding. Over the course of the past month or two, I've had the pleasure of grouping with people from all sorts of servers, all who have either found their way over to Twitterland Raiding through podcasts, WoW Insider posts, through friends, or from Twitter itself. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would ever have the privilege of chatting, not to mention raiding, with some of the blogosphere's and general WoW community's bigger hitters.

Despite my excitement over how well the Twitterland Raiding events have been going and over how much enthusiasm is expressed over both the site itself and how much fun people seem to be having, I find myself still wanting more from this cross-realm feature.

"But Saz," you say "isn't running instances and raids with your cross-realm mates enough?"

No dear reader, it is not. I have had a taste of what could be, and it is glorious. I for once will play the greedy WoW player and (almost, kind of) demand that I want more. You see, for as fantastic as cross-realm grouping is right now, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Let me list out my would-be demands, if I were the demanding type.

1) As of right now, we are missing out on a lot of personalities since many folks in the general WoW community do not feel comfortable with giving out their Real IDs, which is completely understandable. This should in theory be an issue that will be fixed come Battle Tags, but who knows when that feature will officially go live. I suspect it will come once Diablo III is released, but that could be ages away for all we know. In other words, NOT SOON ENOUGH, EXECUTUS!

I'm impatient sometimes, it can't be helped.

2) Cross-realm raiding doesn't mean cross-faction raiding. One of the biggest factors I forgot about when cross-realm raiding went live was the fact that I still couldn't group with my Horde buddies of either real life or from Twitter/blogging associations. There I was, adding Real IDs to my list left and right, only to realize that several of my new friends were strictly Horde only, which is problematic since I'm strictly Alliance only. From a story stand point in the game, I get why we're not supposed to be friends. Horde thinks the Alliance are a bunch of snobby scumbags, Alliance think that the Horde are a smelly bunch of violent heathens, blah blah. That's besides the point though.

This desire kind of mine tears me in two ways: I get why Blizzard would want to keep the "animosity" alive between the Alliance and the Horde, thus disallowing them to run raids together, but at the same time...did the Alliance and Horde not storm Icecrown Citadel side by side? Did they not reluctantly work together to best Deathwing, work to restore the World Tree, fight against the titan creations stored away in Ulduar to save Azeroth? While on many story point levels, yes, we're a bunch of warring brutes who want to annihilate the other faction, we are capable of putting on our big kid pants and banding together to defend our sandbox from a bigger bully.

While I'm sure there may also be some technological issues at hand stopping the two factions from joining up through this new feature, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibilities for Blizzard to pull off.

My Draenei loves to flirt with giant cow people; let her slay baddies along side her Horde peeps!

3) Another huge disappointment with cross-realm raiding is that it doesn't allow us to raid cross-region. US and EU regions are still separate, likewise these two monster regions are severed from many of the newer foreign realms. This I know is probably a huge technology issue for Blizzard, but even if they decide to officially use that word "never" for cross-faction raiding, I do sincerely hope that they eventually allow us to run cross-region. I know far too many EU bloggers and Tweeters, and I'd jump at the opportunity to run with them in a heartbeat.

You see, a lot of the desire for these added features steams from running Twitterland Raiding. As of right now we have some pretty big faction and region unbalances. If I had to take a guess, I'd have to say our population rates US Alliance > EU Alliance - US Horde > EU Horde, with US Alliance being the most populated and active currently. I hate seeing threads/events pop up where only a small handful of people are able to attend, restricted by faction and region. I hate seeing "Why can't we run more raids for x faction in y region?" and being unable to say anything other than "I'm sorry, I don't have any Horde characters" or "I don't have an EU account, please set something up yourself!"
You see, I have this exceptionally strong desire to include everyone. While I know this is on many levels unrealistic, I like to do my damndest to try and make sure no one is left out. Not being able to scoup three of our EU Horde members into a US Alliance run that they'd love to attend breaks my heart a little.

To me Twitterland Raiding has essentially become a way to PuG, but at the same time has this very homey, extended guild-like feel. Everyone is there because they're like-minded in the fact that they desire to run old raids, and their current guild/server can't offer them that. They come for the achievements, the transmog gear, and the mounts, but stay because the company is pretty awesome. Twitter Mumble thankfully doesn't divide up the EU and US folks, nor does it discriminate between the Horde or Alliance. We chat, giggle, complain about how our various guilds are struggling against such and such boss in Dragon Soul; we share war stories, read cooking recipes to each other in sassy ways, bare ourselves in ways we didn't think possible. We group up when we can, forming both large and small groups, depending on who is available. However, there always seems to be one or two people in the Mumble channel who is unable to attend whatever throw together event crops up, all because region and/or faction prevents them from doing so. Off the group goes into another Mumble channel, so as to not disturb any conversations in the main channel with their group chatter, leaving those who cannot participate in the fun to their own devices.

Not cool batman.

So it is in my deepest wishes that Blizzard continues to expand on the cross-realm feature. I love what they've done with it so far, I eagerly await the implementation of Battle Tags (please come soon!), and I really do hope that they are considering the option of expanding our grouping capabilities even further. If this is the type community that comes along with restricted features, I cannot even begin to fathom how epically awesome it would be if we were able to include even more in this loosely associated cross-realm "guild" family of ours.

If we could do this, it would be legen -

...

...

...wait for it...

...

...

- dairy.


What? I said that my Draenei wanted to destroy raid bosses with Tauren and friends. Legen-dairy, geddit? Well, I thought it was almost knee slap worthy.

TNB - The Sazzypants Episode

So you know how I said I was going to be on that thing with the thing with the people? You know, be a guest on one of the Twisted Nether podcasts? This past Sunday that situation happened! Fimlys was charming, Hydra was adorable, and I had an absolute blast.

If you haven't already listened to this week's episode from TNB, you should totally do so! I mean, you get to hear my supposedly sexy voice as I stutter my way through promoting Twitterland Raiding, talking about raiding, and of course the interview about my blogging experiences. It was a definite joy to be a part of the show!



Post-show notes: 

Twitterland Raiding is no longer twitterland.enjin.com, it's now twitterlandraiding.com so please update your bookmarks.

This week my guild broke down into two groups, both of which are running heroic modes this week. It's a sad day when a 25 man guild needs to go to such measures, but we're hoping to come back strong into the 25 man scene once again when MoP hits. Until then, progression go!

As hard as I tried to get my love on, and as much as Path helped me, I was still a little under 60 tokens short of obtaining my second Swift Love Bird. Me and my damn procrastination...

Final Class Grades: Cataclysm

We're at that time ladies and gents. Dragon Soul is slowly but surely becoming old hat, the stories have been told, and we're starting to hit the pre-expansion doldrums with full force. Cataclysm is nearing its end and there's no escaping that truth. In spirit of this truth, Tzufit from Tree Heals Go Woosh has set up a post asking, in so little words, how fellow bloggers would grade the changes that their character(s) have experienced in this expansion. Check out the original post here. I may or may not skip a few questions, just because I'm lazy like that!

I'm actually going to talk about my two favorite classes/specs in this post, those being enhancement shaman and feral (dps) druid. Feel free to agree or disagree with any of my points, for these are my opinions as I see them at this point in time.

Do you feel that your class is better (in that it is more fun to play, more effective, etc.) now than it was at the end of Wrath?  Do you feel that your class is better now than it was at the beginning of Cataclysm?

Enhancement: In a lot of ways, yes yes and yes. At the end of Wrath we were plagued with poorly itemized gear (Armor Pen), semi-wonky synergy with our spells, and reeeeally low survivability thanks to an oddly smallish health pool. Thankfully Cataclysm helped to level out health pools, improved upon spell synergy (I still hate Searing Totem though), and Blizz gave us that tasty stat called mastery. AoE at the end of Wrath was alright for this spec, not stellar but I managed to hold my own just fine for the raids I was participating in. With the Cataclysm changes though enhancement became rather frustrating, at least with 4.2 (I missed most of patch 4.1). I loathed AoE situations, especially when the mobs had low HP. I also felt that despite my decent gear, it was much easier to put our numbers with my lesser geared feral. With 4.3 we saw a drastic change with enhancement's AoE system though, and while it's far from perfect (four globals, minus a possible totem switch, to let off ONE pulse of AoE? Granted, it's pretty OP) it's a far cry from the juggling crap we had to deal with in 4.2. I'm definitely finding myself enjoying the current play style of enhancement, regardless of minor tweaks I'd still like to see with the spec.

Feral: Wrath cat > Cata cat. In Wrath feral was a pain in the furry butt. In order to perform well, you had to juggle crazy things such as the ArP cap, crit rating (I think I had 60% or so unbuffed at the end of Wrath, and my druid wasn't all that geared), and an INSANE dps rotation. I loved it. If you could juggle your stats and rotation priority, you could dominate nearly every fight. For Cataclysm Blizzard eased up on the rotational difficulty for kitty. Instead of being okay and pulling mediocre numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling ridiculous numbers, you now can choose between being okay and pulling okay numbers or being a perfectionist and pulling okay numbers. Feral does okay on all single target fights save for Ultraxion (thanks Blizzard for tossing an unobtainable positional requirement on that one), semi-almost okay on target switch fights, and really "meh" on AoE fights thanks to swipe nerfs and severe energy starvation. I love feral to bits, I really do, but my cat has seen very little love in Dragon Soul thanks to the frustrations of playing the class currently. I'm definitely looking forward to what changes that may come around in Mists of Pandaria.

Did you switch mains during Cataclysm?  If so, why did you make that choice?

I considered it during Firelands. My druid has always been my next-in-line choice behind my shaman, and honestly I was having a lot more fun as a cat than as enhancement during 4.2. However, I'm glad I stuck to my main of 5+ years, as she's now a blast to play in Dragon Soul.

What were your class’/spec’s strengths throughout Cataclysm?  What were its weaknesses?

Enhancement: Consistent damage and while some of our buff utility has been stripped away thanks to class homogenization, we still do bring flexibility to a raid  where buffs are concerned. I've already touched on how for a good chunk of this expansion one of enhancement's biggest weaknesses was the class's lack of AoE viability. Now? AoE is one of our strengths, provided of course that the mobs live long enough. While we're still missing out on an on-demand single-target dps cooldown (wolves have been nerfed substantially due to PvP OPness issues), we do provide decent and consistent single target damage.

Feral: Strengths include raid flexibility (kitty/bear tanking), decent burst with cooldowns, and amazing mobility.  Weaknesses are sustained (keyword here) AoE, slow ramp up times, and energy starvation. The slow ramp up times cause some fairly serious issues with target switching. Getting to different targets in a quick fashion is not at all an issue, losing refreshes on bleed up time, having to start from square one with ALL of our bleeds (often without cooldowns up since TF is used when available/low energy), and no ability to switched gained combo points during immediate target switches, thus wasting precious energy. Cata cat is a different sort of juggle from Wrath, and unfortunately the Cata raid-target swap juggle yields very little satisfaction for even the best of executions.

Did you enjoy the addition of the mastery stat?  What did you like about it, or, what would you change?

For both of my favorite specs I absolutely LOVED the addition of mastery. Sure, I miss ArP as a feral, but over all I approve greatly of this stat. It's potent without necessarily making damage *too* over powered even if one stacks it pretty heavily, which for both characters I do. Alright, so my shaman's AoE might be disgusting with the addition of mastery, what of it? Let me have my fun!

Is your class easier or harder for a fresh 85 to learn now than it was at the end of Wrath?  Is this a good or a bad thing?

Enhancement: In some respects I think it is quite a bit more difficult for a new level 85 to learn how to play this spec well. Don't get me wrong, you can faceroll with enhancement and still achieve decent numbers, but to properly watch everything this spec has going on (Searing Totem timers, Flame Shock DoT, CD timers, weaving in Earth Shock, survival CDs, pet targets for both wolves and Searing totem ect) can take a few choice tracking addons and a bit of skill. Personally I think it's a good thing. I enjoy a more challenging priority system. If I didn't, I'd go play an arcane mage.

Feral: So much easier. You can completely flub your rotation, bleed/Savage Roar up times, and still manage to come out okay, provided you aren't purely auto swinging. I suppose in a way this is an okay way to play if you're new to the game, but as an ex-Wrath kitty, I miss having to force myself to play at an insane skill level in order to pull amazing dps. Forcing myself to properly execute everything with my rotation, only to have someone faceroll next to me and only do slightly less dps doesn't compel me to put more time into learning the ins and outs of my character or to spend more time on her. Easier game play only makes me want to faceroll on her once a week and leaves me bored. Again, if I wanted easy game play I'd level up my mage already and play her as arcane.

Overall, do you enjoy the playstyle of your class more now, at the end of Cataclysm, than you did prior to patch 4.0 at the end of Wrath?  Why or why not?

Enhancement: Yes. This is partially due to improved class mechanics and in part due to my heavier involvement with the inner workings of the class itself. I'll freely admit I was still a bit of a noob at the end of Wrath and I wasn't aware of a lot of things. I hit things with axes/maces, and I was happy. Not having to rely on Searing Totem's horrible AI and being able to AoE off of our fire totem was nice, even if it was far from ideal for our elemental brothers and sisters. While not all of our current mechanics are perfect, our current play style isn't terrible either. For now I shall be happy with what we have and continue to blow up bad pixels in a PvE environment!

Feral: No, sadly. The decrease in difficulty (re: all the QQ in this post) has killed a lot of my love for this class's play style. I still love being feral, love the shape shifting aspect of it and the fluid physical movements of the cat model, and the mobility of the spec. The low potential damage out put and fight-based viability is a bit soul-crushing to me though. I'm really hoping for good things in MoP for this spec. I want to see more glory for all of the raiding ferals everywhere!


So there you have it folks, my opinions on the state of enhancement and feral dps at the end of Cataclysm. Disagree? Wish to talk about the class of your choice? You should do so, and when you're finished you should send a link to your article to Tzufit. If you missed the link to the original post and are to lazy to scroll back up through this post, here's another one. Let the blogging world know what your thoughts on this expansion are!

Saz's Sixth

Sixth, the great blogging meme of the week. If there's one thing that I've realized with this meme, it's how badly I really need to spend several days sorting through all of my screenshots. There are plenty that have yet to make their way into a sorted folder. Anyways...the meme!

• Go into your image folder
• Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image.
• Publish the image! (and a few words wouldn’t hurt, though I dare say I couldn’t stop a blogger from adding a few words of their own).
• Challenge six new bloggers.
• Link to them.

Ah, the re-invasion of Gnomergon. That was a pretty fun event, was it not? Know all the little Gnomes have their purification processes so that they may regain some of their members, long thought lost to that leper plague.

This is the part where I'm supposed to challenge six more people. The problem with starting a meme even three days after its initial creation is that pretty much everyone I can think of has already been tagged and participated. If they haven't been, chances are they may not participate anyways.

So! Darling dearest reader of mine, I challenge YOU, if you haven't already completed this meme. If you partake and you haven't been tagged anywhere else, drop a comment below and I shall link your post here. While this method may be seen as cheating, it's the best way I can think of to get some link and meme love out to the community : P


Edit: Self tagged!
Obscurefox from PuG A Day and Other Nonsense

Fortune Friday

They're quirky, they're fun, they're random Azerothian fortunes! Every Friday you will see a different fortune (either from our beloved Darkmoon Faire or the new fortune cards) featured here at World of Saz. Enjoy!

Fortune Card: A shaman's blessing is elementary.

TNB Live!

That's right, yours truly will be a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast this Saturday evening! You should tune in as it should be a good time. If you can't make it though, fret not! TNB will have copies of the show on both iTunes and I believe Zune for listening at a later date. Here are the live show details in case you don't care to click links or something silly like that.

When is it?: This live show is scheduled for Saturday, February 18th at 8pm PT (11pm ET). Not sure what time that is for you? Use this handy-dandy time converter!

Where do I go? To participate on the live show, you will need to go to the TNB Live Show page to connect with the stream. See, totally easy. If you are having issues then go to the Ustream page. Don’t forget to register/login to UStream so you can chat with us!


Some general ground rules:

1. Be nice. If you say very inappropriate things be aware you will be kicked from the room. We are doing this to have a great time, come with a beer, come during a raid, come how you wish, just don’t come to cause trouble.
2. You may ask questions to the participants during the show, but we reserve the right to use them if and when we can. We will be monitoring the chat room and if we can we will use the comments during the show. We love that you are with us, but we will have to weave them in. Even if it isn’t asked, we all appreciate your questions!

Outside of that, we will love to have you join us and partake in an enlightening discussion that is sure to follow! Hope to see you there!

Fortune Friday

They're quirky, they're fun, they're random Azerothian fortunes! Every Friday you will see a different fortune (either from our beloved Darkmoon Faire or the new fortune cards) featured here at World of Saz. Enjoy!

Fortune Card: The future looks Cataclysmic.

OMG Projects

I am tired. So very, very tired. Why am I tired? Because I've been rather busy. Busy I have been with some of the most fun and worth it things to have been busy with.

For those of you unaware, I have recently started up another little project. This project is called Twitterland Raiding, you may have heard of it recently thanks to word of mouth (aka retweets) on Twitter and a certain post on WoW Insider. If you're not familiar with the TLR forums yet, it's a place where you can get like-minded folks together to raid non-current content. So far we've had a blast and I highly suggest you join up with us.

I have to admit that I was under some assumption that TLR wouldn't grow quite so fast, though why I didn't think it would explode like it has is beyond me. After all, this is the Twitter/Blogging/general WoW population that we're talking about here. Needless to say, the raids and streams of new site applicants has kept me extremely busy over the past week or so. My head is spinning, my eyes are droopy, and I couldn't be more excited to see so many people come together. I really must thank everyone who has helped to spread the word about Twitterland Raiding. It is my deepest hope that everyone who joins us manages to find a raid and have some fun because really, I've personally have had a blast so far.

Another thing you should check out is Sleepy Hams public Mumble. This isn't a project of mine, but Vitaemachina has been hard at work with providing the Twitter community with an open Mumble service. It's pretty awesome. Good people, crazy conversations, definitely recommend it!

This past Sunday I was also a guest on the podcast Group Quest. You should check it out. It was apparently deemed their best episode ever, or something of that nature. It was good fun, we discussed some rather serious topics, and I hope that it's as enjoyable for you to listen to as it was for me to participate.

On top of all this craziness, in game there are three holidays going on. I still have yet to find time to farm up a second lantern pet to make my money back, let alone farm up two flamingo mounts (one for Saz, one for selling). I doubt I'll be able to get my Darkmoon bear mount this faire, but I'm still getting those dailies done on Saz for future purchases + reputation.

Did I also mention that I've been doing the recruitment thing for my guild? I'm not responsible for actual /g invites or spamming Trade/General with guild ads thankfully, but I've taken over the task of forum hound. Good times, eh?

Tired Sazzy is tired. However, I couldn't be more please with how things are progressing. Another week or two of insanity and I think everything will slow down, smooth out, and be completely worth all of this effort. I may slow down again on *some* of the blog posting, but knowing me you will still get more than regular posts from me.

While I have you here and I'm plugging links like it's my job, you should check out my Facebook page. It's nothing too fancy, but I'm trying to keep it updated with any posts and projects that I do. If I don't mention it on here or on Twitter, or if you miss it (I know I miss a lot of things because of how fast Twitter moves but catch it somehow on Facebook), it will more than likely be posted on that page as well.

With that all said, I'm going to go take a breather. By that I mean I'm going to go sit down and do some class/spec research that I've been meaning to do on resto shamaning, retadinning, and roguing. Yes, I'm making up words now but you probably understood me anyways : P

Until next time, be good. *pinches cheek*

Enhanced Leveling: Levels 10 - 25 (Cataclysm)

A dark skinned draenei woman was shifting papers around her battered mahogany desk in her upstairs apartment in Booty Bay. The balmy air caused her shoulder length hair to cling to the back of her neck, but it didn't seem to bother the shaman in the least. She went about her tasks quietly humming to herself, completely oblivious to the salty heat that was so often complained about by the town's visitors.

She turned in her chair, rubbing her lower back as she attempted to knead out the stiffness that sitting many hours on a hard wooden chair caused. Looking out the apartment's little window, the shaman took note of how low the sun was in the sky and how the dark clouds that promised that evening's summer thunderstorm was nearly upon the sleepy town. She lost herself in a hazy day dream as she stared out of her window, not bothering to come out of her reverie until there came a faint rap on her door.

"Come in."

A young draenei girl walked into the one room apartment. Her light blue skin glistened where the first fat rain drops of the impending storm had come into splashed onto her. Much like the other woman whose room she was entering, her shoulder length hair clung to her neck from both heat and rain.

The girl bowed her head in greeting. "Miss Saz."

"Greetings little one, have you decided to stay on the path of becoming a warrior of the elements?"

"Yes, Elder."

"Good." The shaman smiled at the young draenei girl before her, a scar on her lip creasing as she did so. "It appears that we have a stormy evening ahead of us, so I shall not be sending you on any quests. Let's work on your spells tonight."

Putting a hand on one of her axe hilts, the younger shaman smiled. An eagerness to learn burning brightly in her eyes.

I have been ever so slowly leveling up young Sazza. She's currently sitting at level 25, waiting patiently in Stormwind for me to return to her. Leveling an enhancement shaman for the second time around with actually knowing what I'm doing so far has been a rather fun and insightful project.


Talent Points
Tier 1
Talent points can often be a tricky thing to decide on. Luckily for leveling they don't matter a whole lot, just so long as you put them into your intended leveling tree. In my previous post I stated how I was putting points into Focused Strikes first. At the time with two extremely poor weapons that was actually a decent choice. For quite a while my Primal Strike attack and Lava Lash ability were doing roughly the same amount of damage. In hindsight I wish I had gone 2/2 Elemental Weapons and then 3/3 Focused Strikes since Lava Lash at low levels with the Flametongue imbue on it hits fairly hard with those two points in Elemental Weapons. In the end though it doesn't matter a whole lot, since you usually fill in all of the talent points rather quickly anyways. Just fill in the blanks as soon as you're able.

Sazza So Far
2/2 Elemental Weapons
3/3 Focused Strikes
0/3 Improved Shields (We'll return to this talent later)

Tier 2
I had a hard time deciding which talents to dip into first in the second tier. In the end you will have talent points in three of the four available talents for this tier, but which is best to do with first? Personally, I think that if you're going through dungeons go with 3/3 Flurry first, then start filling in Elemental Devastation. If you're soloing, 2/2 Ancestral Swiftness is very handy, so I'd dip into that and Flurry before Elemental Devastation.

Sazza So Far
0/3 Elemental Devastation
2/3 Flurry
2/2 Ancestral Swiftness
0/2 Totemic Reach


Abilities
Shaman actually gain a lot of new abilities rather quickly. For someone who is new to the ways of the shaman, it can be slightly overwhelming. Let's go through the list and break down what everything is used for.

Level 12
Purge - Can remove certain buffs from mobs/bosses/other players. Probably won't use this much while leveling solo, or even in instances.
Flametongue Totem - Our spell power buff totem. Pretty much never used by enhancement shaman.
Ancestral Spirit - Allows you to raise people from the dead, so long as you aren't dead as well.

Level 14
Flame Shock - One of our two main shocks. Get used to this one, it's vital for DPS.

Level 15
Ghost Wolf - Our travel form. Increases our "walk" speed slightly. Has a two second cast timer until we spec into Ancestral Swiftness.
Dungeon Finder - While this isn't a spell, it's worth noting here. Allows you to queue up for random dungeons suitable for your current level. Hit "I" - choose role - Enter Queue.

Level 16
Wind Shear - Our spell interrupter. This is awesome for getting casters to come to you, reducing incoming spell damage from interrupt-able spells, and can even help get rid of a *tiny* bit of threat if you happen to be running with a tank who struggles to hold mobs off of you.

Level 18
Cleanse Spirit - Removes certain harmful debuffs (curses) from yourself and nearby friendly players.
Earthbind Totem - If you need to get away with a quickness and something is hot on your tail, drop this bad boy. It will slow anything that gives chase to you.

Level 20
Healing Stream Totem - Provides you with a small amount of passive healing. Drop this in instances or just before you pull a particularly difficult mob when soloing.
Healing Surge - A quick and somewhat efficient heal. Has a higher mana cost, but works very well in those situations where you're hurting and need a really quick heal.
Water Shield - Applying this shield allows you to passively regen mana at a faster pace. This isn't something you will use often as an enhancement shaman.

Level 22
Frost Shock - Will temporarily slow down an enemy. Most often used in PvP, but can be used to slow a mobs advance on you as well.

Level 24
Water Walking - Does just as it suggests: allows you to walk on water. Without a glyph this ability requires you to carry around Fish Oil though, which can usually be found on any nasty murloc near you.


Glyphs
Once you reach level 25 you gain the usage of your first set of glyphs. You are able to use one Prime, one Major, and one Minor glyph. Here's what I personally went with.

Prime: Lava Lash - With proper weapons and the Flametongue imbue, Lava Lash hits fairly hard. Since you do not have Windfury Weapon or Stormstrike at this level, Lava Lash is a no brainer. Enjoy the tasty Laval Lash numbers.
Major: Healing Stream Totem - I chose to go with this glyph to help reduce certain damage done to me, as well as to help out my healers in instances. Glyph of Ghost Wolf is another viable choice if you find yourself running around in the world often as a ghostly pup.
Minor: Water Walking - There's not a much for choices at this level, so I will be going with Glyph of Water Walking once I can find one at a reasonable price. Comes in handy in some situations if you're traveling out in the world.


Totems
By the time your little shaman arrives at level 25, you should have three of the four totems we typically use in any situation. While we do not have Totemic Recall yet, we can (and really should) have the ability to dismiss our totems. Somewhere on your UI, often by your portrait, there will be a representation of everyone of your totems, often accompanied by a timer of sorts. If you right click on this representation of your totem, you effectively dismiss/despawn your own totem. Do this when you wish to not accidentally pull any pesky and unwanted mobs that might come across it before you leave the area. Picking up after yourself can often save your life, especially if you're not terribly aware of your surroundings all of the time.

Earth Totem: Strength of Earth
Fire Totem: Searing
Water Totem: Healing Stream Totem
Air Totem: None yet.


Rotation
Drop your totems before you pull, if possible. Flame Shock the target, Lava Lash, Primal Strike. If Flame Shock has a good duration time on it, use Earth Shock when your shocks are ready again. Use Lava Lash and Primal Strike as they come off of cool down. Refresh your Lightning Shield and Searing Totem when needed (keep both of these up at all times).

If you're soloing you may still used the Lightning Bolt ranged pull method to help reduce some physical damage taken. For the most part though you will more less ignore Lightning Bolt until much later when we get the Maelstrom Weapon talent.


Gear
Gearing remains the same while you level. Agility leather gear with hit (if you can find it). At first finding proper weapons for enhancement can be slightly difficult, but by the time you reach level 25 you should have been able to find one, if not two, weapons that have a speed of roughly 2.60 (the ideal weapon speeds are between 2.50 and 2.80, anything faster than 2.50 messes with our damage outputs and you'd be hard pressed to find something slower than a 2.80 in the one-handed department).

Currently Sazza has Battleaxe of the Farseer and Stinging Viper equipped. The battleaxe you can get from the quest Blessing of the Elements, which can be picked up in Stormwind from Farseer Umbrua (I'm assuming that there's a similar quest for you horde types; check with your shaman trainer in Orgrimmar). Stinging Viper is a drop from Lord Pythas in Wailing Caverns.

Fortune Friday

They're quirky, they're fun, they're random Azerothian fortunes! Every Friday you will see a different fortune (either from our beloved Darkmoon Faire or the new fortune cards) featured here at World of Saz. Enjoy!

Fortune Card: You will someday be able to afford that mount.