Seven Commandments for the Everyday Shaman

Dost thou wish to ascend into the mighty ranks of shaman? Dost thou wish to be the sultan of swinging wind, a mighty wielder of lightning, and/or a commander of the tides?  To acquire this wisdom, thou must first learn and abide the following commandments:


If thou dost not know when to Lust, thy shalt never be a Hero.
- Translation: If you're not sure when to hit your Bloodlust or Heroism button, ask. If you're someone who is prone to hitting said button at awkward times by accident, move the button elsewhere. Nothing is more sad, or aggravating when certain mechanics are involved, than to experience a raid-wide cooldown being used incorrectly.

This also goes for you mages with your wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff, you hunters and your hysterical dogs, and those of you who decide that playing your bongo drums on trash is a good idea, so you all best be paying attention.

Thou shalt use Stormlash Totem as oft as possible, except for when thy shaman brother or sister hast used it first.
- Translation: Stormlash Totem is a rather potent raid cooldown that is often ignored by unpracticed shaman, or is commonly overlapped, causing waste. (Don't worry, Stormlash will be a thing of the past come patch 6.0!) Watch your buffs!

Thou shalt not override a thy brethren's Earth Shield.
- Translation: This is one thing that drives me absolutely nuts in LFRs - some other restoration shaman comes toddling along, overriding the Earth Shield on whichever tank you have it on. Don't be that guy! If you see a tank with an Earth Shield on already, put it on the other tank. More than two resto shaman in the raid and Earth Shields are already covered? Toss it on that noob taking damage over there! (Thankfully, another thing of the past come patch 6.0)

Thou shalt not use Thunderstorm inappropriately.
- Translation: Dude, seriously. You probably know who you are, but really. Don't be that guy/gal who runs up into the middle of a pack of mobs that a tank is dealing with and Thunderstorm them all over Diablo's creation. Nothing will tick off your tank and melee dps faster. I get it, it's an AoE ability. If you want to use it as such, glyph it.

It's completely acceptable to Thunderstorm people off of the side of cliffs in PvP though. Fair game, boomchickens! Or any druid really, now that Typhoon is accessible by all four specs.

If it spinnith, thou shalt not winnith.
- Translation: This mostly applies to my enhancement brothers and sisters, but can also apply to the unaware restoration/elemental shaman as well: If something, be it a weapon or mob, is spinning...run the hell away. Just, run.

All circles on the ground are not created equal.
- Translation: If it's blue and wet (or green and leafy/gold and sparkly), stand in it! Almost anything else, apply the logic of the previous commandment.

If thou uses thine healing abilities while thine raid is healthy, ye shall perish.
- Translation: This applies to both the healing and damage dealing shaman of the world. One of the larger rookie moves I see made by many a shaman is a) to use Healing Tide Totem on cooldown, regardless of raid health b) macro Ancestral Guidance into Ascendance (there are rare times when this can be useful, but as a general rule it often ends up being a complete waste of AG)  or c) completely forget that any of these abilities exist.

Repeat after me:
+ Healing Tide Totem is not a rotational ability.
+ Healing Tide Totem is for raid-wide healing. Drop it a second before raid-wide damage goes out if the raid isn't completely stabilized, or drop it immediately after raid wide damage goes out to stabilize/heal the raid.
+ Ancestral Guidance is not a rotational ability.
+ Ancestral Guidance is for raid-wide healing. Pop it a second before raid-wide damage goes out if the raid isn't completely stabilized, or pop it immediately after raid wide damage goes out to stabilize/heal the raid. Best when used when you're able to use AoE abilities or paired with Ascendance, if raid strategy allows (highest burst healing yield), however should not be used exclusively when those situations arise, as the raid may not need that healing at that moment.
+ Healing Stream Totem is friend. He's just a little guy, but he likes to help heal people often. Call on him often, especially when there are people he can help heal. This goes especially for restoration shaman, but he should not be forgotten by enhancement or elemental shaman.
+ Mana Tide Totem is healer friend. MTT should be used early and often, but not on the pull early. Unless your tank(s) was awful and pulled while the healer(s) had little to no mana. (Soon to be a thing of the past, come 6.0)
+ When in doubt of knowing exactly when to pop your healing cooldowns, ask! Bug your raid leader or bug your healers. Go in with a plan, come out with loot!


Go forth and be awesome, so sayeth the Saz.



Writer's Note: While this article has been written as a comedy piece, there is a good bit of truthrage behind these words. As a veteran shaman, raider, as a well seasoned raid leader, all of the above are things that I notice on a regular basis. The commandments listed above are the things that truly drive me bonkers. I hope that I've not only provided you all with bit of a laugh, but also with some helpful insight on how to better improve your shamanistic skills. /salute

Writer's Note 2: I'm fully aware that I probably slaughtered the usage of Early Modern English. Linguist/literary folks, I apologize. Mostly. Kind of. I might only be marginally sorry.

WoD Alpha: Keybind Interface

When it arrives, Warlords of Draenor will come packed with several quality of life changes. Some of these changes will go unnoticed by many (especially addon using) players, but some of them will certainly make things a bit easier for everyone else. What change am I talking about this time around? The keybind interface. Here are some previews.

(Click images to enlarge)

As you can see, the layout is much more clearly defined than it is on the live servers. No more scrolling through a massive list trying to figure out where to configure that one bar. Everything is beautifully labeled and easily accessible. For those who prefer to use the standard UI bars, or those of us who are on a rare occasion forced to use the standard UI bars instead of our favorite mods, this is a most welcome change.

WoD Alpha: Toy Box and Mounts Interface

Hoarders, rejoice! For the time of the Toy Box is nearly upon us. For those of you who are interested in getting a sneak peak at what the interface will look like, have a screenshot of it!

As you can see, our Toy Box will have a pretty snazzy search and filtering system, one that's nearly identical to what we have currently for our non-combat pets. Finding your favorite item should be pretty easy once this system is in place. I know that I'm definitely looking forward to this feature, as my shaman has been crying about inventory space since Wrath of the Lich King.

One thing to note about the toybox: it currently doesn't automatically add the items into the toy spellbook. You'll have to click on the item (current new Beta interface will actually indicate this), and it'll be placed in your spellbook, thus being removed from your inventory.

It appears that our mount page will get a similar treatment as far as sorting is concerned (hooray!), though it doesn't seem like all of the sorting functions are implemented at this time. My assumption/hope is that they'll break it down further into achievements, instance drops, crafted, and vendors as well.

Edit: Looks like they have a bit more filtering added in now!

I'm really looking forward to both of these quality of life implementations, small as they may seem. Personally I don't think they can get here soon enough!

WoD Alpha: New Ghost Wolf and Feral Spirit Models

Those of you who happen to follow me on Twitter and Facebook may already know that I'm one of the lucky ones who have managed to snag an invite onto the Warlords of Draenor alpha test servers. Over the next few weeks I hope to write about my thoughts on the changes to Enhancement and shamans in general. For now though, I shall answer one of our most pressing questions: With all of the new model revamps coming in WoD, will we get a new wolf form?

The answer is apparently: Yes!

Standard Ghost Wolf and Glyph of the Spectral Wolf

As you can see in the above images, we're most definitely getting an updated version for our ghost wolf forms. Both are rather transparent, much along the lines of our current unglyphed wolf form on live, and are nearly invisible when seen against light backgrounds, such as snow. Unlike the Glyph of the Spectral Wolf on live, the spectral version of our wolf is the same size as our unglyphed version.

But what about our Feral Spirits? Well, we're definitelly getting new versions of those too!

New Feral Spirits

As you can see, they're much larger than our ghost wolf forms. Currently on live servers, if we have Glyph of the Spectral Wolf activated, we're roughly the same size as our puppy pals. Since both glyphed and unglyphed versions of our ghost wolf are the same size, our new wolves will always seem large in comparison.

How about raptors? Well, at this moment in time our Spirit Raptors (if you use Glyph of Spirit Raptors) do not have new models. Perhaps we'll see those in future builds, but I have my doubts on those being terribly high on the priority list right now.

Behind the Avatar Podcast

Last weekend yet another brave soul allowed me to babble on about Warcraft related topics on their podcast. This time around it was the lovely Leeta from Behind the Avatar. Leeta got personal with me, digging into the hows and whys of my WoW experience. Of course rambling and ridiculous stories were told, and as usual, I manage to lose my ability to words now and again.

Enjoy!

Behind the Avatar - Episode 39

Training Dummies Podcast

This past week I once again had the pleasure of joining Rob and Hend on The Training Dummies podcast. The last time I was a part of their show, we spoke about soloing and all that fun jazz. This time around they had me ramble excessively about Enhancement Shaman and I ended up using very technical terms such as "thingies." If you missed the live show and would like to hear me yammer on for over two hours, have a link!

The Training Dummies ep 63

Enhancement is Awesome!

Happy Winter Veil/New Year!

<3