Prepping for Herald of the Titans

So, you've seen this nifty title around town, Herald of the Titans. You've looked it up, sort of, and have found out that in order to acquire this this title you must have a level 80 character. Beyond this little tidbit of information, you're finding yourself in need of a little help. This article is here to lend you a hand.

Edit: This achievement was temporarily bugged to where a group of 90s could gain this FoS/Title. DPSing down the boss before it could register the gear and levels of the group can be considered an EXPLOIT, as it is not intended for level 90s to be able to achieve this Feat of Strength. It should be known that using/attempting to use an exploit is a bannable offense according to the Terms of Service that Blizzard has in place, thus isn't something you should be attempting. This bug has also been hotfixed, so stop trying to find a way to circumvent the system that's in place.

The Herald of the Titans is a title acquired by a team of level 80 characters, all in gear of item level 226 or less, taking down this star guy called Algalon. Algalon is remembered as one of those bosses that straight up resonated with all players, both lore-wise and with his encounter. His is an epic fight to experience. Originally Algalon's encounter had a 1 hour time limit in which you could make attempts on taking him down attached to it, but this is no longer the case.

Herald of the Titans has been moved to a Feat of Strength. It is still obtainable however, and the title is account-wide. For a short while after the account-wide titles became a thing, it was thought that this was one title that would forever remain character bound. It turned out though that this was just a bug. Once you achieve the Herald of the Titans FoS, you unlock this nifty title for all of the characters on your account!

Locking Your Character at 80

Freezing your character's XP gain is fairly simplistic. If you're Alliance, you'll want to visit Behsten, who is located in the Stormwind Keep. For Horde, you'll want to speak to Slahtz, who is located in the Valley of Honor. Both of these fellas are stealthed level 19 rogues, though you shouldn't have much issue tracking them down if you click on the provided links.

If you wish to continue on leveling your character after you receive your title, you simply talk to these guys again to turn your XP gain back on. The cost to either toggle the XP gain on or off should only be about 10g.

Gear

In order for the group to qualify for the achievement, everyone must be sporting gear of an item leveling of 226 or lower in all slots, with an exception for weapons, which may be item level 232. Crafted gear, BoEs, and Justice Point gear can all fill gaps quite nicely, and in some cases turn out to be best-in-slot items.

Best-in-slot gear is not required for the achievement, but the more 226 gear you can get on your character, the better. Shoot for making your character sport at least all epic items prior to attempting this encounter.

Gemming

For this Feat of Strength it is preferred that all participating characters to be gemmed with the epic quality Wrath of the Lich King gems. For *most* classes, folks will want to gem their primary stat (Agility/Intellect/Strength) with the exception of possibly tanks and/or healers, who may prefer a mix of their primary and preferred secondary.

Enchanting

Like gemming, it is preferred that all participants have their characters enchanted with the best enchants available to them. It is understandable if a character is on a server that a player may not have a dedicated enchanter to provide materials/enchants for the Herald character (assuming that the Herald toon isn't an enchanter his or herself), however all participants should at least have some sort of enchant on every piece of their gear. Keep in mind that these days many enchants can and will scale. Here is a very useful spreadsheet detailing which enchants scale and in what ways to help you determine what may be best for your level 80.

Professions

Professions, while not 100% required, can be a huge help in both gearing and optimizing your Herald character. Like at max level, crafting professions (Tailoring, Enchanting, Jewel Crafting, Leatherworking, Black Smithing, Engineering, and possibly Inscription) are generally preferred over gathering professions (Herbalism, Skinning, Mining). Again, not something that is absolutely needed, though if you have the resources available to you to level up your Herald character's professions to the Cataclysm level, it can help out immensely.

Food

Cataclysm foods are permitted for the Herald of the Titans achievement. It is advised that you stock up on some Cataclysm foods in your primary stat for personal use in the event that a feast is not able to be provided.

Flasks/Potions

Again, for this achievement Cataclysm consumables (in this case, flasks) are permitted. Since group cauldrons are no longer a thing, it is advised that you come prepared with a few flasks in your primary stat.

Likewise you may use Cataclysm potions for this event. While a full stack of a potion of your choice (for DPS this would be a potion that provides your primary stat, for healers this may be a mana return potion, and for tanks this may be either a healing potion, an armor increase potion, or an Agility/Strength potion for increased DPS) probably won't all be needed, it is advised that you have several of these potions on hand. For those of you familiar with double potting, that will not be necessary for this encounter, as the time from entering combat and the time that Algalon actually engages is nearly the full duration of the initial pre-pot. Save your potions for the burn phase!

Reforging

For a Herald character, reforging can be a bit tricky. If you are aware of the exact number you need for your hit and/or expertise caps, using a site such as WoW Reforge can come in pretty handy. In the event that you're not completely aware of what your caps are, an addon called ReforgeLite can help you out greatly. If you need any help with figuring out how this addon works, you can refer to my ReforgeLite post.

Before you begin reforging, it is advised that you research which secondary stats your class/spec prefers. For most level 80 classes, Mastery tends to be the most powerful stat available regardless of the level 90 preference of said class/spec. However, for DPS specs it is incredibly important that you must first reach your hit and/or expertise caps before you begin to stack Mastery or any other secondary stat. Tanks, it is likewise advisable to look into how important it is to reach your hit/expertise caps for both threat generation and resource regeneration. Reforging no longer exists, but leaving this section in for now. You never know when Blizz may change their other mind!

Rotations

Spell priorities and rotations for most classes can be gleaned from their level 100 counterparts, and guides on these spell priorities/rotation may be found on various blogs and/or sites such as Icy-Veins. Naturally, as a level 80 you will not have all of the nifty spells that a level 100 does, but you should have most of the meat and potato spells for your spec. Make minor adjustments as needed.

The Gearing Process

There are several ways to begin the gearing up process, many of which may need to be employed depending on how lucky you are with drops.

1) Crafting - There are several pieces out there that may be crafted for a Herald character. However, these recipes are often subject to droprates, so if you personally or your guildmates do not have the recipe, it may be a bugger to find the right pattern. For 226 specific gear, there are belts and boots available for crafting. If you're in dire need of a chest and glove filler, 200 gear is likewise available for crafting, provided you have the recipes.

2) Wrath 5 Mans - Queuing up for heroic Wrath of the Lich King 5 mans is not necessarily the most efficient way to go about things, unless you have a ready-made group of five. The option is there, however, to have a level 100 solo these instances for you. While most of the heroic-mode 5 mans either sport gear that is rather low in item level (200 or so) or too high (the ICC heroics sport 232 gear), they can provide some decent fillers. Here are some instances that you'll want to focus on to get your filler gear:

Heroic ICC 5 Mans: While most of the gear in these heroics cannot be used for Herald of the Titans, what can be used are the weapon drops. Remember, weapons of ilvl 232 may be used! These heroics will provide that.

Normal ICC 5 Mans: The gear that drops in the normal version of these dungeons drop 219 gear, which is perfectly acceptable. Easily chain farmed if you have the time available to you.

Heroic ToC 5: This instance will provide you with 219 gear on heroic. Heroic ToC should be soloable by most classes/specs at level 100.

Regular ToC 5: Soloable by level 100 characters, ToC regular provides ilvl 200 gear. While not the most optimal, this instance provides Heralds characters with an easily obtained/farmable trinket. Most of these trinkets were desirable up into even Icecrown Citadel if a raider at that time was unlucky.

3) Cataclysm Dungeons
Justice Points can be used to purchase a variety of gear from the vendors found in Dalaran. Some of these purchasable items are BoE, so they can be bought by another character who has excess JP laying around. However, many of the items are BoP and will require farming on your Herald toon.

There are two Cataclysm dungeons that are available to level 80s: Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns. Queuing up for these randomly, at least one per day for your daily boost in JP gain, is pretty much the best way to farm for your needed Justice Points.

Given the fact that you'll be farming these two Cataclysm dungeons over and over again, chances are you'll end up with two different sets of gear; one for farming, one for Herald of the Titans. It is perfectly okay to wear items that are above the 226 requirement while you are farming for your Herald gear. As a matter of a fact it's encouraged to have a higher item level set, especially if you're having a friend solo instances for you, as it greatly increases your chance of survival in some situations. If you're running with a gear group through Ulduar, wearing higher gear generally yields higher damage output, which naturally speeds up the farming runs a bit.

4) Ulduar
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, farming Ulduar for gear is another option. There are a few things to remember though:

- Ulduar 10 provides 219 gear from normal modes; 226 gear from hardmodes and Algalon
- Ulduar 25 provides 226 gear from normal modes; 239 gear from hardmodes and Algalon, which is not usable for Herald of the Titans
- Be sure to not save yourself to Algalon the week you plan on attempting the achievement. Remember, the lockouts have changed. If you kill Algalon on 25 man difficulty, you will also be locked out of Algalon 10 for the week.
- Be mindful of possible lockout issues if you were to participate in a partial run through Ulduar. While lockout issues should not occur if you were to say, kill 3 bosses and someone else cleared everything besides Algalon himself, it is possible that funky things could occur. Just play it safe during the week you plan on attempting the achievement.

If you happen to have either a second account with a max level character on it, you could very well solo a good  chunk of Ulduar for gear as well, with your Herald toon in tow. If this option isn't available to you, if you happen to have a friend who is generous with their time and is a capable soloist, they could potentially run you through the instance as you try to keep yourself alive. Again, a few things to remember before you attempt duoing this with a friend or yourself:

- Ulduar 10 should be soloable by any type of level 100 character.

- Ulduar 25 likewise should be soloable by any level 100 class/spec. Yogg can be problematic for some classes, but with some finagling just about any class can counter his tentacles.

5) Other Raids
If you really need gear with a quickness, do not forget to run Naxxramas 10 (ilvl 200) or 25 (ilvl 213), Malygos 10 (ilvl 213) or 25 (ilvl 226), Obsidian Sanctum 10 (ilvl 200/213 with bonus drakes) or 25 (ilvl 213/226 with bonus drakes), and Onyxia 10 (ilvl 232 weapons).

The tier 7 set bonuses are often decent and can/should be used if you're unable to get yourself a 2 and/or 4 set tier 8 bonus.

Naxx 10: Should be fully soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Naxx 25: Should be fully soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Malygos 10/25: Both versions of this instance should be easily soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Obsidian Sanctum 10/25: Both versions of this instance should be easily soloable by any level 100 class/spec
Onyxia 10: Easily soloable by all classes/specs over level 90.

6) BoEs
Remember to check the auction house if you've already tapped all of your raiding resources, because BoEs drop from Naxx, OS, EoE (Malygos), and even Ulduar itself. These BoEs can certainly fill in a space in a pinch, and generally only go for a few hundred gold at most these days.

7) Extra Sources of Justice Points
Edit: With making this guide, I completely forgot about the conversion of Honor Points to Justice Point. If you had leveled via PvP, you may trade your extra HP for JP at the Honor vendor in your faction's main city. Below is a quote from one of our commenters, Evlyxx, advising us on how to gain even more HP to trade over for JP:

However, 1 vital source of Justice Points is missing from the guide, the PVP quests in Venture Bay, which give 200 honor per day that can be converted into Justice Points every other day. Not a lot by level 90 standards but the return per minute is huge as the biggest unforseen problem I and my friends encountered was getting Justice Points as the Wrath dungeons didn't reward any.

The Fight

Alright, so you've got the gear and it's all dazzled up, you've got your required raiding consumables, and you're ready to get down to business. As it is with current end-game raiding, it's wise to look at the fight ahead of time. Here's the original Tankspot guide on how to tackle this encounter.

Looks a bit complex, eh? Try not to fret too much, as the encounter is actually much easier, thanks to our little friend called Mastery. That's right, because of this one little (and rather potent) stat addition, overall DPS *should* be higher than it was when Algalon was current content, healing throughput *should* be a bit stronger, and tanking likewise *should* be a bit smoother. I strongly accentuate the word should simply because often Herald toons are not sitting in full BiS 226 gear, nor at Herald toons generally a class someone plays as a main. Despite everything, Mastery as a whole tends to help make up the differences of both skill and lack of BiS gear.

While yes, the fight is much easier with a group of twinks and semi-twinks, do not allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of "this is easy" however. For most groups, it will take several pulls before everyone is acclimated to how the encounter feels on their particular character. If everyone has prepared correctly though, the learning process and achievement gain should be fairly painless.

I hope that this post has helped a few of you out! As always, if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to ask. I wish you all luck with your gearing. Now go have yourself some fun!

MoP Enhancement Shaman - Need To Know Guide (90)

Yes, this is a nearly identical post from the original Need To Know guide that I did shortly after 5.0.4 dropped. I have however tweaked a few things so now it reflects what you need to know as a level 90 Enhancement Shaman. This guide has been updated to reflect changes that have taken place in patch 5.4.

What's Changed

Stats
- Hit and expertise caps are no longer what they were. You need 7.5% hit and  7.5% expertise, respectively. 7.5% = 2550, or 2210 for those of you who have racial bonuses that grant hit or expertise.
- Haste is no longer completely garbage. At level 90 mastery, haste, and crit are all roughly equal; the stat that is strongest will depend on your personal gear. Haste will increase RPPM procs (legendary cloak, legendary meta gem, certain trinkets) and is the preferred stat when using the talent Primal Elementalist. Haste will also increase the number of ticks done by our healing totems, depending on how much haste one has.
- Mastery in 5.4 is generally the preferred secondary stat, but it may depend on your gear set up. Mastery increases all of the fire, nature, and frost damage we do (which is to say a large majority of our spells) and becomes very strong with AoE situations.
- Critical Strike becomes less of a focus for Enhancement once we've surpassed roughly 20% crit. Once we're around that percentage point, Flurry uptime becomes adequate (making haste worth our time) and everything beyond that is just bonus. Crit, along with excess hit and expertise, tends to be our reforge stat.

Mechanics
 - Searing Flames (x5) no longer build up on a target; instead they stack on us, making target switching less of a pain.
- Buff totems have become auras, thus our clunky totem bar is gone. What totems you have left are now cooldown-type deals, save for the Searing and Magma totems.
- Our Fire Elemental has had his CD reduced to 5 minutes and should reset once an encounter is either completed or a wipe has occured. He now gives us Searing Flames, which makes him not only a viable totem to use, but a rather powerful CD.
- Our Earth Elemental can now be considered to be a minor DPS CD. He should no longer taunt off of someone who is rocking a tank specialization, but he may still try to taunt little adds that haven't been picked up by a tank yet. Keep an eye on him.
- Feral Spirits have lost their control bar. Because of this change, we no longer have their stun ability. The ability they used to grant, called Spirit Walk, is now a separate ability that has a relatively short CD, especially when glyphed.
- Pets such as our Feral Spirits and our Fire/Earth Elemental totems will no longer "snap shot" stats and will adjust to your current procs and stats as they roll out. No more double-dipping on Heroism for your puppies, but no more sitting around for the proc-gods to line up either.

Rotation
Our rotation varies slightly depending upon the talent choices we make. For more information on this, please read the rotation portion of the complete Enhancement guide over on Totemspot.

Spec
For the most part, you'll be adjusting your spec on a per-fight basis. I'm going to suggest talents that you'd use depending on encounter. Please note that specs are no longer of a "set it and forget it" mindset; adjust to your needs accordingly!

Tier 1: Stone Bulwark Totem or Astral Shift
- SBT is a great general use talent. This ability has decent uptime with a relatively short cooldown, so feel free to use it liberally.
- AS is for those moments when you need a large damage reduction cooldown, but only for a very short window of time.

Tier 2: Earthgrab Totem or Windwalk Totem - Both of these talents have utility uses. These are abilities that are often forgot about, but they can be incredibly handy in a large variety of raiding and soloing scenarios.

Tier 3: Call of Elements or Totemic Persistence or Totemic Projection
-  CoE will allow you to use your Capacitor Totem, Earthbind Totem /Earthgrab Totem, Grounding Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Stone Bulwark Totem, Tremor Totem, and Windwalk Totem more often. Great for encounters that require you to use your utility totems more often.
- Totemic Persistence allows you to have up to two totems of the same school up at the same time. This does not include fire totems. Having your Earth Elemental out and still being able to pop a Tremor Totem or Stone Bulwark totem at the same time without despawning your Earth Elemental is a wonderful thing.
- Totemic Projection does have some uses, though as a general rule we don't often need to move a totem to any place besides our feet.

Tier 4: All three talents at level 90 pretty much on par with each other. Each has its use, depending on your situation.
- Elemental Mastery is for situations where you need higher, concentrated burst in a pinch. Also a nice talent for single target encounters where you may have down time in between where you can hit something.
- Ancestral Swiftness is preferred for single target static fights.
- Echo of Elements is great for AoE/cleave encounters, as well as for leveling and soloing

Tier 5:  Ancestral Guidance or Rushing Streams
- Ancestral Guidance is a very strong healing cooldown, so long as you're able to hit something while it is active. This talent can produce some pretty ridiculous healing numbers when tied in with Ascendance, however it's not always possible to have both of these abilities rolling at the same time. AG is the perfect talent for when burst hybrid healing is necessary.
- Rushing Streams causes our Healing Stream Totem to heal for an increased amount of 15% and to hit two targets (instead of just one). This is a very solid choice for general static healing, especially for those still running with haste builds.

Tier 6: All three talents are fairly close to each other, even with the various combinations from tier 4. What you choose to use will rely on a combination of gear, the encounter, and your comfort zone.
- Unleash Fury With mastery back in action in Siege of Orgrimmar, UF has once again become an appealing choice. This ability will buff your personal damage (not that of your Elementals or wolves, sadly), and becomes a very solid choice with the t16 2 set bonus.
- Primal Elementalist is an amazing burst cooldown choice, even though it prefers haste builds over mastery. Even when using a mastery build, PE still can treat you well, depending on the encounter.
- Elemental Blast is a strong talent choice, though it does complicate the Enhancement rotation some. If you're unfamiliar with the Enhancement priority rotation, or are working on a fight that has a lot of high movement, this may not be the best choice. Complications aside, it is very viable, as it will buff your pets and all of your abilities for a short amount of time.

Major Glyphs
- Flame Shock causes this ability to heal for 50% of the damage it does.
- Healing Storm increases any of your direct healing done. This is to say that it makes Healing Surge and Chain Heal stronger by 20% for each stack of Maelstrom Weapon you have. Fairly potent and pretty much a necessity for soloing.
- Feral Spirits increases the healing done to you by your wolves or raptors (if you have the Spirit Raptors cosmetic glyph) by 40%. Excellent for extra passive healing when they're up, also very helpful for leveling/soloing.
- Lightning Shield is a glyph that has some niche uses. The major downside to this glyph is that it is reactive, instead of proactive. If you're not receiving hits within a rapid succession (which in a raiding environment it's pretty rare that you will be) the proc of this glyph is pretty much a waste, as it has a rather short duration for the 10% reduced damage. I've found that this glyph is absolutely fantastic though for soloing.
- Fire Elemental Totem can be used in certain situations, though its use often results in a DPS loss. Times to use this glyph include short windows of increased damage where this glyph will allow said windows to line up with your Fire Elemental cooldown, or fights that last a certain duration and allow you to stack other cooldowns with your Fire Elemental.

Minor Glyphs
- There is only one minor glyph that has a non-cosmetic function: Lava Lash. This glyph is necessary in those situations where you don't want to break CC via spreading your Flame Shocks around, or if a boss fight requires you to control your cleave. It's just a "per basis" sort of glyph, like many of the majors.
- All other minor glyphs are purely for fun. However, I find that Spirit Wolf can be pretty handy to have around.

Utility Totems
- Stormlash Totem is a wicked little thing that buffs the raid for 10 seconds, causing them to pump out some extra nature damage. Naturally (har har) this gets slightly buffed through our own mastery. Sadly it's on a five minute cooldown and isn't reset through Call of Elements. Also, does not stack with other Stormlash Totems.
- Healing Steam Totem no longer works like the old, static HST. This one is a single target SMART heal, which will always try to choose the target with the lowest health. Can have its timer reset by the talent Call of Elements. May also be improved through the talent Rushing Streams.
- Healing Tide Totem is no longer a talent, but a cooldown that is baseline for shaman of all specializations. Great AoE healing utility.
- Capacitor Totem, Earthbind Totem /Earthgrab Totem, Grounding Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Stone Bulwark Totem, Tremor Totem, and Windwalk Totem are all great minor utility totems. Remember them, use them, love them.

If you wish to read more in detail about each of the spells, glyphs, and various other Enhancement-related MoPish things, please take a look at the Enhancement Guide for Mists of Pandaria, which can be found over on TotemSpot. If you're looking for some macro tips, check out my Enhancement Macro post, and for all things totems, there's my Pandaria Totem guide at your service.

Enhancement Shaman 5.0.4 - Need To Know Guide

I know, I know, 5.0 launched a week ago and I'm kind of late to this guide party. You know what though? I'm going to do up a quick little guide anyways, for those of you who don't care to wade through every little detail..

What's Changed

Stats
- Hit and expertise caps are no longer what they were. You need 7.5% hit and  7.5% expertise, respectively. 7.5% = 768, or 666 for those of you who have racial bonuses that grant hit or expertise.
- Haste is no longer completely garbage. Currently at level 85 mastery, haste, and crit are all roughly equal, with mastery and haste been a smidge above crit. Depending on your level of gear, haste or mastery may pull ahead as the prime stat. Honestly, with only a little over two weeks until MoP's release (at the time of me writing this post), those of you who have been mastery stacking can continue to do so. Feel free to pick up the Starcatcher Compass now though if you happen to come across it, as it'll no longer break my heart if you use it ; )

Mechanics
 - Searing Flames (x5) no longer build up on a target; instead they stack on us, making target switching less of a pain.
- Buff totems have become auras, thus our clunky totem bar is gone. What totems you have left are now cooldown-type deals, save for the Searing and Magma totems.
- Our Fire Elemental has had his CD reduced to 5 minutes and should reset once an encounter is either completed or a wipe has occured. He now gives us Searing Flames, which makes him not only a viable totem to use, but a rather powerful CD.
- Feral Spirits have lost their control bar. Because of this change, we no longer have their stun ability. However, Spirit Walk is now a separate ability that has a relatively short CD, especially when glyphed.
- Pets such as our Feral Spirits and our Fire/Earth Elemental totems will no longer "snap shot" stats and will adjust to your current procs and stats as they roll out. No more double-dipping on Heroism for your puppies, but no more sitting around for the proc-gods to line up either.

Rotation
- Stormstrike and Lightning Bolt have moved up on the priority order some. Otherwise, our rotation is nearly the same as it has been.

Spec
For the most part, you'll be adjusting your spec on a per-fight basis. I'm going to suggest talents that you'd generally use on say a Patchwerk-type encounter. Please note that specs are no longer of a "set it and forget it" mindset; adjust to your needs accordingly!

Tier 1: Stone Bulwark Totem or Astral Shift - SBT = for those times that you need a bit longer duration of protection. AS = for those moments when you need 40% damage reduction, but only for a short moment of time (think soaking on H-Ultraxion).

Tier 2: Earthgrab Totem or Windwalk Totem - Both of these have minor utility uses, but will probably be rarely needed in a PvE environment.

Tier 3: Call of Elements or Totemic Restoration. CoE will allow you to use your Healing Stream Totem more often (which your healers will love you for). Totemic Restoration has some niche uses, such as possibly being able to use your Fire Elemental totem for a quick burst phase (think Spine tendons), and then pulling him back early so that he's up sooner. Needs some toying with to see if it'll work for you on an given encounter. Totemic Projection *might* have some incredibly niche uses, but it's fairly rare that an enhancer needs to toss a totem anywhere but at their feet.

Tier 4: All three talents at level 90 are nearly on par with each other. However, at 85 Echo of Elements is probably one of our stronger general use talents, while Elemental Mastery is great for more bursty situations (again, think Spine tendons).

Tier 5: From the latest numbers I've been seeing over at TotemSpot, it's looking like Ancestral Guidance is beating out Healing Tide Totem as far as potential healing output is concerned.

Tier 6: N/A at 85, but here's the skinny for when you hit 90. All three talents are pretty darn close to each other, even with the various combinations from tier 4. As it stands currently though, Unleash Fury is the top performing talent on a stationary fight. The other two talents my prove themselves more useful for other types of encounters.

Glyphs
- There is only one major glyph that is required: Flame Shock. All other glyphs are utility and should be used according to the encounter you are facing.
- There is only one minor glyph that has a non-cosmetic function: Lava Lash. This glyph is necessary in those situations where you don't want to break CC via spreading your Flame Shocks around, or if a boss fight requires you to control your cleaving (think achivement runs; those of you who have run with me on things like ToGC through TLR and remember me saying "don't use FS!", yeah this fixes that). It's just a "per basis" sort of glyph, like many of the majors.

Utility Totems
- Stormlash Totem is a wicked little thing that buffs the raid for 10 seconds, causing them to pump out some extra nature damage. Naturally (har har) this gets slightly buffed through our own mastery. Sadly it's on a five minute cooldown and isn't reset through Call of Elements. Also, does not stack with other Stormlash Totems.
- Healing Steam Totem no longer works like the old, static HST. This one is a single target SMART heal, which will always try to choose the target with the lowest health. Can have its timer reset by the talent Call of Elements.

Alright, this post has already become more extensive than I intended it to be. If you wish to read more in detail about each of the spells, glyphs, and various other enhancement-related MoPish things, please take a look at Purge's Enhancement Primer over on TotemSpot.

How To Enhance: Heroic Spine of Deathwing & Heroic Madness of Deathwing

We are now in our eighth month in being saddled with Dragon Soul. The 30% buff has been presented to us, allowing some of us to burn even faster through this long-lived raid, and giving others a chance to finally take down what is undoubtedly the two most painful and unsatisfactory end game boss encounters.

Let me be incredibly blunt: the heroic modes of Spine of Deathwing and Madness of Deathwing are NOT the most friendly boss encounters for an enhancement shaman. With the nerfs Spine has become a little more forgiving for us, but the fast paced theme (for a DPSer anyways) of Madness leaves our numbers...well, it's been leaving me rather disappointed personally.

Heroic Spine of Deathwing



As I've said, Spine is not really a fight for enhancement. Our ability to pump out high burst damage on command is dismal. The DPS trinket recommended to use for this fight, the Kiroptyric Sigil, has a base stat of haste (which is complete and utter garbage until MoP). Oh, and good ol' Derpy McDerp Searing Totem would much rather wail away at anything BUT the exposed tendons. His preference target seems to almost always be the Corruptions.

Yeah, not an ideal fight for us.

Now the video above is from a restoration shaman's point of view in the fight. Why? Because of one major thing: the group that I run with has a less than ideal raid composition. There are essentially two basic builds you can go with this fight: A) 1 tank, 2 heal or B) 2 tank, 3 heal. To run set up A your group's tendon burst damage needs to be deliciously high. This means that you have yourself at least one, if not two, sub rogues (in a 10 man), and an arcane mage. Other classes such as warriors and feral kitties are also capable of some pretty fantastic burst tendon damage. We don't have this with my group. Adding myself and an offspec dps warrior unfortunately does not burn the extra 30-40% of the health left on the tendon of our usual burn phases, thus we are stuck with the harried B strategy.

Yeah, Spine is still the one fight that I'm stuck swing healing on. Healing with an agility flask and food buff ftw.

There's not a lot we can do to up our performance with our spec's current dismal performance on a burst fight like this, but there are a few things that can help maximize our potential - not to mention survivability - on this incredibly frustrating encounter.

Spec Changes:
None necessary

Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw) If no one is putting out a fire resist aura of sorts, swap out Ghost Wolf for the Healing Stream glyph.

Totem Changes:
None, but you'll definitely want to be twisting in Stoneclaw totem throughout this fight.

Damage
1) Get yourself a Kiroptyric Sigil if you haven't already. Reforge the haste into mastery. You shouldn't be needing to reforge that haste into anything else if you're using the other, much more beneficial trinkets.

2) Macro the Sigil in with your puppies. I'm no macro queen, but the following is incredibly simple and works just fine.

/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast Feral Spirit

To get really fancy, you can also add in a target + pet attack command in there:

/tar Burning Tendon
/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast Feral Spirit
/petattack [target=playertarget]

Again, I'm no macro queen, so if you have suggestions on how to clean up a macro such as this, I'm all ears.

3) If you're an engineer like I am, and have a tenancy to macro your gloves to your wolves, be sure to not use that macro for the tendons. Why? The Sigil trinket and your gloves will set each other on a short cooldown. The Sigil's agility bonus is much greater than the one our gloves give us. For this fight, tie the trinket to your wolves and use your gloves as soon as they're off cd, assuming the tendon is still up. Otherwise you can save your gloves for doing a bit of damage on the amalgamation or while you're taking care of bloods.

4) Get yourself some decent weapons. This is the one fight where a pair of heroic Morningstar of Heroic Wills would possibly be better than regular version of a pair of No'Kaleds. Why would they be better? Well, you have a gem socket for more agility, plus the heroic Morningstars have more raw weapon damage than the regular NKs, plus you can also pick one of the rather crappy secondary stats on the Morningstar (probably the extra expertise) and reforge it into more mastery. The proc rates on the NKs, while delicious for any other encounter, become an unreliable factor for this fight; better to go with consistent raw damage than to rely on a proc.

Heroic Morningstar *might* also be a touch better than heroic No'Kaleds for this fight just because, again, you can net yourself a little more agility through the gem sockets plus you can still reforge into a bit more mastery. However, you do lose out on some raw weapon damage. It's kind of a tight call and I unfortunately do not have raw SIM data in front of me to confirm which would be better for this fight. Personally I'd just stick with my heroic NKs simply because I don't want to gem/enchant my heroic Morningstars. Yes, I'm that lazy/cheap. No I don't think I'll get any legitimate use out of the Morningstars anytime soon. /hangs head

5) As with the choice of going with the consistent damage of a pair of Morningstars as weapons, you want to try and avoid proc-based trinkets for this fight. If you have, say, either a combination of Wrath of Unchaining and either Vial of Shadows (if you're so lucky!) or a Matrix Restabilizer, you'll want to trade out either the Vial or Matrix for your Sigil trinket. Stacking trinkets such as WoU have an incredibly fast ramp up time, so you shouldn't need to worry about anything there. Take out the RNG trinkets, give yourself a little more control over your damage.

Survivability
There are a few difficult moments that your healers must deal with on this encounter.

1) Super Heated Nucleus; happens just before Nuclear Blast
2) Rolls
3) Searing Plasma + any damage you may be taking

My suggestion is to use a glyphed Stoneclaw totem for the amalgamation pulses that happen just before the Nuclear Blast. Use Shamanistic Rage during the rolls. Use any racial survivability/healing cooldowns you may have if your health is getting sketchy while you have the Searing Plasma debuff. If you feel the need to use your survival cooldowns elsewhere, go for it. Use them liberally. If you're dpsing in a 2 tank, 3 heal composition, your healers will thank you for whatever little help you can give them in the damage reduction department. Even with gear and with this being incredibly nerfed, Spine can be a healing intensive fight towards the end of the third plate, especially if you're having to do double lifts (aka exposing the tendon twice) on each plate.

Loot
Wrath of Unchaining - One of our two best in slot trinkets. Get this asap! (May your roll hacks be with you, if you run with a crapton of agility users like I do.)

Overall, this is an incredibly repetitive and boring fight. There is a ton of waiting around, then a mad rush to maximize dps the exposed tendon in a short span of time, then a ton of more waiting. Bring your sharpest weapons, a load of patience, and for the love of all things cuddly, teach your dogs not to randomly dive after a corruption. If you can do those things, you'll be well on your way to experiencing Deathwing's Madness.


Heroic Madness of Deathwing



Ahhhh madness, how frustrating you are. Once you manage to sweat and swear your way through his spine, you now get to deal with what is one of the most anticlimactic encounters you will ever face. Much like Spine, Madness is one of those fights that takes you 10 minutes of waiting around before the real hard parts of the encounter begins. Seriously, this fight is a cake walk until you hit the fourth platform. The forth platform and the head phase are the only really difficult parts of this fight, so you must do what you can to survive until those parts.

Kiss your sanity goodbye, my shaman friends.

Alright, this fight isn't all doom and gloom. Madness is by and large easier on us than Spine is, but it's still a fight that can leave you wanting to pull your hair out at the end of the day. Let's go through a few things that can help to ease yourself away from premature balding from scalpel abuse, shall we?

Spec Changes:
None necessary

Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw) If no one is putting out a fire resist aura of sorts, swap out Ghost Wolf for the Healing Stream glyph.

Totem Changes:
Swapping to Magma totem on this fight may be beneficial if you can get it down just before the bloods spawn. If they've already spawned, don't bother wasting the extra GCD. If you see the ground doing it's bubbly thing and you can get over to it before the bloods become target-able, drop a Magma totem on their heads!

Twisting in Stoneclaw totem during heavy moments of damage is definitely recommended.

If your group's composition is a bit light on slows (hunter's ice patch traps, boomkin's mushrooms, DK's chilblains, etc) you'll want to be twisting in Earthbind totem to slow the bloods during the head phase of this encounter.

The Encounter
The  differences between normal and heroic mode are few, but the few differences that are there can be rather deadly. Most groups now 1 tank, 2 heal this fight, which means that a dps must soak impales so that the tank may have his or her cooldowns up at key points, and that healing during certain situations can get rather tight.

If you watch the video closely, I'm often running away from the big bad floppy tentacly thing that spawns soon after the raid engages each new claw/wing tentacle. Why am I running? Because as an enhancement shaman I cannot eat an impale and survive, even with Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw totem up. No way, no how, I'm gonna die if I eat that impale. With my raid, we have a hunter soak the first impale of platforms 1-3, and then we have other dps help soak both impales of platform 3. During this time all melee must vacate the melee range of the Mutated Corruption; this tentacle will focus the impale on the person in melee range with the highest threat. Guess what, because of Misdirect a hunter will probably have much less threat than any melee. The same theory applies if you're using a shadow priest to soak. Having a rogue soak an impale is kind of a toss up, but because of Tricks of the Trade, chances are again that they will have less threat than you do as an enhancement shaman.

General rule of thumb: if a dps is soaking the impale, GTFO.

Another difference on heroic is that a random player will be chosen to get a Corrupting Parasite, which will explode when it drops off of the person (it doesn't hurt the person it's on when it drops off). The general rule with this little ball of squiggly death is to drop it in the Time Zone (while you still have it), near the arm/wing tentacle, but not in the tentacle. On the green platform, you can just leave it be and Dream through the damage. If you drop one off of yourself on any other platform though, it is imperative that it gets damaged to at least 30% health. The rule we run with is that if you drop it and you're not a healer, you help damage it (I kind of forgot to on one of my parasites in the video...whoops), otherwise ranged should be able to simply take care of it.

Bolt is another thing that the melee in our group rarely take care of, but I find often that I must run out of melee range of the Mutated Corruption anyways, since the second impale of any platform and the bolt are often timed pretty close together. More often than not I hang around and take out the bolt, unless we're able to quickly kill off the MC so we can completely negate the second impale from going off all together.

Regenerative Bloods and Spellweave procs = the money dps increasers of this fight. Funny enough, not only do the bloods bloat the dps meters, but the Spellweave procs are a vital component to this fight. Ideally the bloods should be brought over to the wing/claw and/or the parasite so that the spell cleaves can do their work. With Spellweave, all of the things should die incredibly quickly. Unfortunately for us enhancers, quickly is not our thing. Our window of time to get out our AoE is incredibly slim, especially with the 30% nerfs in place. Your best bet is to watch your timers, run over to the spawn point of the bloods, drop Magma Totem, Flame Shock the first blood that shows its ugly bubbly head, then Lava Lash + Fire Nova as soon as there's more than four of them out. Unless your raid's AoE is really slow, chances are you probably won't have time to get an Unleash Elements off before a Fire Nova (aka creating a 'Super Nova' for yourself), but if you can manage to squeeze in another GCD before everything dies, go for it.

Head phase: if you've gotten this far and the raid hasn't had to use any battle rezzes yet, you're doing great! Or even if you have, and you've made it this far, you're still doing pretty damn well. /highfive!

This final "phase" is yet another hurry up and wait type deal. You will go from waiting around for certain adds to spawn, to dpsing a bunch of bloods down as quickly as you can mash your buttons, to quite possibly waiting around again to push Deathwing down another 5% health.

Alright, so here's the deal with Deathwing's noggin.

Elementium Fragments will pop out of the ground, just like on LFR/reg mode. If you can Flame Shock cleave them + Fire Nova them, go for it! So long as you won't end up spell cleaving DW too much that is. You don't want to accidentally push him down past 15%/10%/5% before your group is ready to handle the bloods. These fragments will occasionally cast Shrapnel on a random person. If that person is you, simply hit the big green Dream button that pops up. Have another Shrapnel cast on you, but your Dream button is on cooldown? Shamanistic Rage + Stoneclaw totem, plus give your healers a heads up so they can top you off before you get smashed in the face. If you don't do these things, chances are pretty good that you'll end up being dragon soup.

Shortly after the Fragments spawn, two big dudes called Elementium Terrors will pop up, just like they do in LFR and regular modes. Like everything else, these guys can be spellweaved. However, ideally your raid will want to keep one of these guys up, despite their stacking debuff on the tank. Why? Because when the bloods DO spawn, the tank can move the Terror from the Time Zone (where they should be tanked) over to the bloods. You cleave off of the Terror into the bloods, which is much more ideal than getting a Flame Shock on a blood, only to die stupidly quickly from the AoE, and you missing out on hitting a Lava Lash, thus missing out on Nova AoE. Chances are pretty good though that your Terrors will just die very quickly, like they do in my run, and you'll have to suck it up and somehow deal with less than ideal AoE situations.

/grumbles about enhancement AoE on nerfed content

This is what I generally do when bloods spawn. See the bubbling on the ground, Ghost Wolf on over as quickly as possible, drop a Magma totem. You'd also drop an Earthbind totem here, or on another designated spot if your group is short on traps/slows. I *try* to Stormstrike the first one out, just to get some damage rolling, but most often I find myself scrambling to get a Flame Shock on a middle blood (these suckers go down FAST if your group is on the ball with AoE, as they should be) and spreading as soon as that global cooldown swings around. Nova, Chain Lightning, and Stormstrike as they come up.

My raid tends to do a bit push between 10% and 5%, with spawning the blood packs back to back. This is when I use my wolves and Heroism (Bloodlust for you Horde folk) gets popped. The extra Chain Lightnings from our tier 13 four piece bonus is kinda handy here. Our wolves with hero rolling pop Maelstrom procs like it's their job. Utilize that as much as possible when you're unable to Nova.

This fight is all about rinsing, repeating, and being aware of health percentages on Deathwing's various extremities. It's all about control and being on the ball with your AoE. If you and your raid team can master that, this fight is an easy-ish win in the bag.

Loot
No'Kaled - Hands down, our best in slot weapons for the expansion. Combat rogues will want one of these bad boys for their main hand for some fights, but these are pretty much custom tailored to suit an enhancement shaman. If a rogue tries to take one of these over you, BITE THEM. Same goes for DKs. Tell them to bugger off, because these things are not only super sexy base stat and raw weapon damage wise, but two of their three procs scale off our mastery, and these buggers proc often. So very, very sexy for us.


So there you have it ladies and gents. Apologies about not getting all of the segments of this guide out in a timely fashion, but I certainly hope that it helps at least a few of you out. As always, if you feel that I need to make a correction, or you have a question/comment/concern, please do not hesitate to leave a message as a response to this post, or to contact me directly through either my email address listed on this site or Twitter.

Good luck guys and may the RNG gods be with you!

How To Enhance: Heroic Morchok & Heroic Yor'sahj

Did your guild just down Madness of Deathwing on normal? Are you finding yourself looking at the Morchok/Kohcrom twins in the face on heroic and scratching your head a bit? Have you been working on heroic modes for a while, but are new to the ways of the enhancement shaman and are looking for a few tips? Murgleglrgl and baby murlocs on top? Well, I have just the post for you!

At the time of writing this guide, it is the first week in which the 20% Dragon Soul nerf has been active. Provided your group has decent gear and at least an inkling of coordination, everything up until heroic Warmaster Blackhorn is (or should be) an absolute cakewalk. If you are the raid's swing healer, like myself, everything should be more or less two-healable now (provided your main spec healers are semi geared and on their A-game), which means you get to rock the sexy numbers on the DPS charts instead of the HPS charts. Yay!

Here are a few tips and tricks for the first two fights to do just that: rock the charts. By rock the charts I mean live and put out a few shiny numbers along the way.



This video above is from when Dragon Soul received its first nerf (I believe anyways), which was a whopping 5%. As you can see I'm on the Morchok side, which out of the two twins is definitely the more active side. You can also see that I'm crystal soaking, which means a TON of movement for me. Not a big deal, really.

Morchok's side is thus for crystal soaking: stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal, etc until the Black Blood phase, then stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal etc until either another Black Blood phase happens or the boss dies, whichever happens first.

Kohcrom's side is more of a stomp, stomp, crystal, stomp, stomp rotation, if memory serves. Much less movement, much more of a snoozefest!

Can an enhancement shaman soak stomps? My answer to this question is: probably. I believe that soaking is still better left up to shadow priests and rogues, or even a boomkin/plate dps if your (10 man) composition is missing one or both of those classes/specs, but now with the nerfs you should be able to safely soak stomps as enhancement. This is provided that you and your healers are semi geared though, and your healers are on the ball with topping you off prior to a stomp. I'd highly recommend trying to soak on Kohcrom's side first, as that is the easier side to heal. I'd also definitely recommend utilizing a rotation of Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed Stoneclaw, that is) to help out on reducing your damage taken. Bottom line: test it out and see if you and your healers can handle it. Upside to soaking stomps though? You don't need to run around like a loony toon to soak crystals. Soak one or the other, as trying to swing both could potentially have some not so desired consequences (see: death).

If you'd like a more in depth help guide to this encounter, please take a look at my original heroic Morchok guide. The information found there is still valid, but don't bother swapping out the Windfury glyph for the Feral Spirit glyph unless your healers tend to fall reeeeally behind, and only if you're saving them as a healing cooldown for some odd reason. The standard Prime glyphing of Lava Lash, Windfury Weapon, and Stormstrike should be more than sufficient for this encounter.

Loots:
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.

Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.

Sporebeard Gauntlets - If for some reason you can't get your mits on the heroic tier gloves, these are your next best bet. They're better than the normal mode tier gloves, but not quite as good as the heroic tier gloves. BiS for hunters, second BiS for us.



Heroic Yor'sahj ain't no big thang if your group knows what's up. If you need an overall strategy how-to guide, head on over to this Icy-Veins over view. I am going to assume though that you are already at least semi-familiar with the encounter.

Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)

Glyph Changes:
If you're sitting on the boss - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're moving to oozes - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're sitting on the boss - Major: Remove Ghost Wolf and use Chain Lightning
If you're moving to oozes - Major: Remove Stoneclaw and use Chain Lightning (assuming your healers are good and you're not getting pounded on too hard by the adds).

Some of these glyph changes are highly dependent on your group composition, the raid's general dps output (if there's a lot of high AoE dps output in your raid, Flame Shock and Chain Lightning may not be worth the swap; I know it really isn't for my 10 man group because everything dies so quickly), and the capability of your healers (for the last suggestion).

Totem Changes: None, kind of.
If you're in a 25 man, swapping out Searing Totem for Magma Totem during a double black phase (yellow ooze + black ooze = nom AoE damage potential for you!) could very well yield a dps increase. This again is dependent on how high your raid AoE is though. If the adds die quickly and there's no overlap between the first set of adds and the second, you may be better off with sticking with good ol' derpy Searing Totem.

Totem twisting between your usual earth totem (Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, whichever your raid needs, if any) and the glyphed Stoneclaw totem can be handy for those moment when it's a purple + black phase and the adds are beating the crap out of you.

Should I stay or should I swap? No one likes to have to switch between adds. However, unless your group is somehow lacking a rogue or a kitty druid, chances are pretty good that you'll have to switch over to the oozes. Personally, I'm almost always having to swap to the oozes (though with the recent nerfs I may no longer need to do this), while someone else (generally a hunter, the rogue, or when we were two tanking it, the tank who currently did not have the boss) works on the mana void, if it's up.

AoE, how do I do it? During black phases, you should never physically swap to the little crazy elephant-looking dude adds. Keep your focus on the boss and use your AoE rotation from there. What's the optimal way to AoE as enhance? Well, let me tell you.

Flame Shock (keep FS as high on the duration as possible, for the FSs that are spread will take on the duration of the parent FS; the FS glyph makes this a bit easier to deal with, but was only really necessary for me to glyph back when I was running 25s. Never spread a FS with less than 10 seconds on it, if possible. The standard FS/ES/FS/ES rotation *should* in theory be sufficient, but watch it just in case.)
Lava Lash when there are four or more adds within a 12 yard radius
Unleash Elements
Fire Nova
Chain Lightning as soon and as often as possible
Stormstrike and Earth Shock as fillers

Unleash Elements will not be up for every Nova that you do, but it will "super power" your Nova when you are able to use it. Also, I tend to hold my Maelstrom stacks as we're going into the black phase, likewise with Lava Lash, unless I'm sure that it will be up in time for when the adds finally arrive to the boss. Timing is everything when it comes to properly AoEing, and that timing is all the more crucial when you're running with a well geared and capable group that can AoE the crap out of crap reeeeally quickly.

Loots:
Leggings of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier pants. BiS, super sexy. You may raid pantless out of game, but don't pass these bad boys up in game! Turn this token in to purchase your Spiritwalker's Legguards.

Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.

Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.



Moving forward: Besides Morchok, at this point every encounter up until Ship should be one tank, two healable for a team of 10. The only encounter that *might* still require three healers would be Zon'ozz, but with the newly instated 20% nerf our team was able to two heal that encounter with few mishaps (mmm, gotta love ball bugs). After healing some of those heroic fights for so long, the transition back into dps is a bit of a disorienting one. If you're dpsing as enhancement for the first time, don't lose heart! It will take a few pulls to really get into the groove of a some of those fights, as it does with any role.

While I've written a giant wall of text already, the best advice I can ever give is this: Know your rotation, know your tool kit, know the encounter. The rest just takes practice in order to put the pieces together properly.

Never let your axes go dull or your wolves go hungry.

Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 3 (Fire and Water)

In the Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 1 we covered our totems and what their equivalent buffs are. We also touched briefly on which totems you should consider using. Part 2 of the guide covered the uses of our Air and Earth totems. In part 3 of my guide I will try to expand the basic knowledge on our Fire and Water totems and try to give some tips that may help you decide which totems to use in which situation.


A few things to note:
- All totems have instant cast times.
- Up to four totems can be dropped at once.
- Only one totem per school may be used at one time per Shaman. This means that you personally cannot have two fire totems out at the same time, for example.
- Totem up time can be adjusted through the talent Totemic Focus - Restoration tree (Rank1/Rank2).
- All totems are considered to be of the physical school.


Fire Totems
Flametongue
Use: Increases spell power by 6%.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 11% of base mana
Modifications: Totemic Wrath (Elemental Only)

This is a typical fire totem for a Restoration Shaman, assuming there isn't a mage around to cast Arcane Brilliance. Elemental Shaman have a talent called Totemic Wrath that increases Flametongue Totem's spell power base to 10% instead of 6%. Demonology Warlocks have have a buff called Demoic Pact, which is the same as an Elemental Shaman's Totemic Wrath talent.

Confused on what to use when? Here's a list of situations.

A) If you have a Demonology Warlock in your raid, don't worry about Flametongue; use another fire totem instead. Searing Totem or Fire Elemental Totem are both great choices in non-AoE situations.
B) If you do NOT have a Demonology Warlock, but you are an Elemental Shaman, use your Flametongue Totem. If you are not an Elemental Shaman, but have one in your raid, see the second half of situation A.
C) If you do NOT have a Demonology Warlock or an Elemental Shaman in your raid, but you DO have a Mage, see the second half of situation A.
D) If you are a Restoration Shaman who does NOT have a Demonology Warlock, Elemental Shaman, or a Mage in your raid group, use Flametongue Totem.
E) If you are Enhancement, you get to be greedy and not use Flametongue at all. If you are extremely caster heavy though, or you're missing all spell power boosts in your raid somehow (highly unlikely, but you never know), Flametongue *might* be handy to use. It's highly unlikely that you'll ever find yourself in that kind of a pinch though.

Searing
Use: Hurls fireballs at enemies. Prefers targets effected by Flame Shock or Stormstrike.
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: None
Range: 0-20 yards
Party/Raid: The bad guys.
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 5% of base mana
Modifications: Searing Flames (Rank1/Rank2/Rank3)

This is an Enhancement Shaman's bread and butter fire totem. If you are an Enhancer, you should be specced into Searing Flames, as it increases the chance to "set the target aflame." If you do this, and allow Searing Flames to stack to 5 on your target and then hit Lava Lash, you shall have yourself a tasty bit of damage.

For Restoration or Elemental Shaman who do not need to use their Flametongue Totem due to that buff already being present in the raid, and find their Fire Elemental on cooldown (or waiting to be used at a certain opportune moment to release the big fire guy), this is a definite DPS option.

A fair warning about this totem: It's buggy.

You must always be aware of what target this totem is attacking, and if it's attacking a target at all. In theory it's supposed to favor targets who are affected by Flame Shock or Stormstrike, but this isn't always the case. The AI isn't the brightest in this little totem, so it must be baby sat a bit. The relaying down of this totem may be needed to fix any targeting issues.

Magma
Use: Causes 268 fire damage to all surrounding enemies every 2 seconds.
Duration: 21 seconds
Cooldown: None
Range: 8 yards
Party/Raid: All the bad guys.
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 18% of base mana
Modifications: None

The AoE (area of effect) damage totem for Shamans. It will scale in damage according to how much spell power the caster has. Works well in conjunction with Fire Nova for situations containing 3+ mobs.

Fire Elemental
Use: Summons a fire elemental to rain destruction on the caster's enemies.
Duration: 3 minutes
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Range: Longish (I assume it's 30-40 yards)
Party/Raid: The bad guys.
Health: Based off a % of the caster's health.
Mana Cost: 23% of base mana
Modifications: Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem

This is a Shaman's big DPS totem, no matter what the spec (okay, it will be a definite DPS loss for an Enhancement shaman with single target, though AoE situations are debatable I think). The fire guy is great for burst damage. His damage scales with the Shaman's spell power (perhaps AP for Enhancers?). He can be healed, is immune to fire damage, can be buffed but will not benefit from Heroism/Bloodlust. He does have a good bit of armor, but the Earth Elemental makes for a better tank. The Fire Elemental's duration can be expanded through Totemic Focus, and his cooldown can be reduced from 10 minutes down to 5 minutes via Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem.

He also makes for great party lighting.

If you're feeling especially fancy, you can now rock both of your Elementals at the same time. Though be warned, your Rock Elemental does taunt, and may not be ideal for most raiding situations. Parties in major cities though? Totally cool.

Water Totems
Mana Tide (Restoration Only)
Use: Everyone within range of this totem gains 400% of the caster's Spirit for the duration of the totem's life, excluding short duration Spirit bonuses.
Duration: 12 seconds
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 10% of the caster's health
Mana Cost: None
Modifications: Totemic Focus

Mana Tide Totem is a Restoration Shaman's best friend (and a dear friend to all other healers as well) in mana tight situations. This totem is similar to a Druid's Innervate and a Priests Hymn of Hope. You will need to coordinate with your raid when you should toss down this totem if you're working with multiple mana return cooldowns, but the general rule is that sooner is a bit better than later. What I mean by this is don't wait until you're OOM (out of mana) to drop this totem; use it sooner in the fight so that you can possibly have it for a second time a bit later on in the fight. This totem feeds off of the Spirit that the casting Shaman has (the more Spirit they have, the more the return to the raid will be), but it will NOT include any temporary Spirit procs, nor does it seem that it will gain an extra Spirit boost from an on-use trinket effect.

The talent Totemic Focus WILL extend the duration for the totem. Combine the reduced totem cost with the longer life duration of your totems, and you have yourself two well spent talent points for a Restoration Shaman in my opinion.

Mana Spring
Use: Restores 326 mana per 5 seconds.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 4% of base mana
Modifications: None

This totem is great for boosting a group/raid's mana return. However, unless you're experiencing severe range issues, this totem is unnecessary if you have a Paladin casting Blessing of Might (unless you die, there should be no range issues at all with this buff) or a Warlock rocking the Fel Hunter, which gives Fel Intelligence (you *might* have range issues with this guy, but it's rather unlikely with a range of 100 yards).

Healing Stream
Use: Heals party members for (28 + (the spell power of the caster) * .0827) every 2 seconds.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 30 yards
Party/Raid: Party Only
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 3% of base mana
Modifications: Glyph of Healing Stream, Soothing Rain - Restoration Only (Rank1/Rank2)

In the event that you do not need Mana Spring Totem, this is typically the totem of choice. This totem will stack, but is party only. However, if you happen to use Glyph of Healing Stream, the effects of that glyph will be raid wide; even glyphed, Healing Stream Totem will still be party-wide only.

Speccing into Soothing Rain will greatly increase the healing effects of this totem, by a whopping 50%. The spell power of the casting Shaman will also effect the strength of this totem. Couple this with the Glyph of Healing Stream (resist to fire, frost, nature damage), and you have yourself a fairly strong healing tool.

Note: Resistances do not stack. The higher resistance value will always override the smaller resistance value.

Quote from the comments section at Wowhead by Biske.

-Overwrites values it exceeds (Fire, Frost, and Nature with Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings)
-Leaves the resistances it does not buff alone (Arcane and Shadow for Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings)
-Coexists with it's counterpart without stacking (Equal value as Resistance Aura in Fire and Frost, while covering Nature instead of Shadow)

It will never stack with any of these group buffs.

Elemental Resistance
Use: Increases fire, frost, and nature resistances.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 30 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 8% of base mana
Modifications: None

A rather pointless totem if you are sporting Glyph of Healing Stream Totem. It offers up the same amount of resistances that the glyph gives, and you lose out on the extra healing from the Healing Stream Totem. If for some reason you do not have the glyph, nor have a Hunter to toss up Aspect of the Wild (nature resist), a Paladin to use Resistance Aura (fire/frost/shadow resist) or a Druid using Mark of the Wild (all magical resist), then help out the healing team by popping out this totem.

Note: Resistances do not stack. The higher resistance value will always override the smaller resistance value.

Quote from the comments section at Wowhead by Biske.

-Overwrites values it exceeds (Fire, Frost, and Nature with Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings)
-Leaves the resistances it does not buff alone (Arcane and Shadow for Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings)
-Coexists with it's counterpart without stacking (Equal value as Resistance Aura in Fire and Frost, while covering Nature instead of Shadow)

It will never stack with any of these group buffs.

Totem of the Tranquil Mind
Use: Reduces the loss of casting or channeled time when damaged by 30%.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 30 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 8% of base mana
Modifications: None

This totem can be quite handy to casters who are suffering from excessive push-back caused by taking damage. If your casters (or you) are suffering from push-back, and there isn't a Paladin around using Concentration Aura, consider using this totem.



Related Posts
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 1
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 2 (Air and Earth)


World of Saz 2011

Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 2 (Air and Earth)

In the Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 1 we covered our totems and what their equivalent buffs are. We also touched briefly on which totems you should consider using. In part 2 of my guide I will try to expand the basic knowledge on our Air and Earth totems and try to give some tips that may help you decide which totems to use in which situation.


A few things to note:
- All totems have instant cast times.
- Up to four totems can be dropped at once.
- Only one totem per school may be used at one time per Shaman. This means that you personally cannot have two fire totems out at the same time, for example. 
- Totem up time can be adjusted through the talent Totemic Focus - Restoration tree (Rank1/Rank2)..
- All totems are considered to be of the physical school.

Air Totems
Windfury
Use: Increases melee and ranged attack speed by 10%
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 11% of base mana
Modifications: None

Typically this is the totem of choice for Enhancement Shamans or Shamans who find themselves in melee heavy groups. If you have a Death Knight with Improved Icy Talons or a Survival Hunter specced into Hunting Party near by, this totem is unnecessary. Feel free to double up though if the other air totems are not of use to you to help prevent range issues.

Wrath of Air
Use: Increases spell haste by 5%
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 11% of base mana
Modifications: None

This is the favorite totem of the Restoration and Elemental type of Shaman, and may be used by an Enhancer if he/she finds themselves in a caster heavy group. It's unnecessary to use this totem if you find yourself grouped with a Shadow Priest or Balance Druid thanks to Shadowform/Moonkin Form. Just like with Windfury totem though, feel free to double up with this buff in the event that you feel range may present an issue.

Grounding
Use: Redirects one harmful spell cast at a nearby party member to itself. This act will destroy the totem. Does not work on area of effect (AoE) spells.
Duration: 45 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Range: "Nearby" (Assuming this is 20-40 yards)
Party/Raid: Party
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 5% of base mana
Modifications: Glyph of Grounding Totem

This totem is excellent against casters (and will also absorb certain spells from melee types as well) in PvP as well as great against mobs/bosses who toss out single target spells. Great situational usage to help negate incoming spell damage. Can be glyphed to reflect spells back at the caster, though the cooldown is extended to 45 seconds (recast of totem).

Earth Totems
Strength of Earth
Use: Increases Agility and Strength by 549.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40 yards
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 10% of base mana
Modifications: None

A bread and butter totem for Enhancement Shaman. Could also be used by a caster Shaman when they find themselves in a melee group missing melee buffs, or in a melee starved composition to help buff a tank. This buff is the same as a Warrior's Battle Shout, a Death Knight's Horn of Winter, and a Hunter's pet's Roar of Courage (cat). In theory there should not be any range issues with this buff seeing as though DKs should be always keeping up their HoW to help with Runic Power, likewise with Warriors keeping up BS for Rage (or just shier habit for either of these classes). A Hunter's cat will automatically refresh this buff to anyone in a 100 yard range, assuming it can stay alive.

Only double up with this buff if range issues become prevalent (this shouldn't be much of an issue honestly, especially with a Hunter's pet) or in the event a melee/tank dies and is not in range for a refresh from a Warrior/DK.

Stoneskin
Use: Increases armor by 4075.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: None
Range: 40
Party/Raid: Both
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 10% of base mana
Modifications: None

This is a great totem to help reduce physical attacks on either yourself/group/raid (PvP) or your tanks (PvE). Paladins also offer this buff from Devotion Aura, and more than likely a Protection Paladin will have this aura active against physical damage dealing bosses. In the event that you don't have a Paladin running this aura though, or that you're outside of a Paladin's 40 yard range for some reason, feel free to pop this totem down to help reduce the damage your tank's face may take.

Stoneclaw
Use: Taunts nearby enemies, has a 50% chance to stun the enemies for 3 seconds. Also protects the user's other totems by giving them a shield that absorbs up to 4143 damage.
Duration: 15 seconds
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Range: 8 yards
Party/Raid: Self
Health: 6186
Mana Cost: 6% base mana
Modifications: Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem

This is the totem that will make fun of your - or anyone else's for that matter - mother. Pretty handy to have out if you're a young solo-er to help keep the mobs off your back, in PvP to help protect your other totems, and it can be glyphed so that it will also place a shield on you which is 4x the strength of the shields it gives to your totems.

Earthbind
Use: Slows the movement speed of enemies.
Duration: 45 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Range: 10 yards
Party/Raid: Bad Guys
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 5%
Modifications: Earth's Grasp (Rank1/Rank2), Earthen Power (Rank1/Rank2)

In the event that you must get away from enemies, slow them down! This totem is great for getting away from mobs/other players, and can also be very handy in kiting. If you place talent points into Earth's Grasp (Elemental talent tree) you have a 50%/100% chance to also root an enemy in place for 5 seconds. If you place talent points into Earthen Power (Enhancement talent tree) you have a 50%/100% chance to remove snare effects from yourself and all nearby friendly units. Very handy for PvP, but may also have some situational uses in PvE.

Tremor
Use: Shakes the ground to remove Fear, Charm, and Sleep effects. May be dropped while under previously mentioned effects.
Duration: 6 seconds
Cooldown: 1 minute
Range: 30 yards
Party/Raid: Both (Was party only. If you can confirm raid wide, please let me know!)
Health: 5
Mana Cost: 2% of base mana
Modifications: None

Feared? Drop your Tremor Totem. Charmed? Drop your Tremor Totem. That lecture you're sitting through during class putting you to sleep? Drop your Tremor Totem!

This totem has practical uses in both PvE and PvP. Once upon a time this was a party only effect remover, but now it seems to be raid wide. It also used to last 5 minutes and pulse every 5 seconds and could not be dropped while under the effect it is made to help remove, but now that is no longer the case. Once a minute you may drop this totem to help release you from some ailment that makes you lose control of your character, and help you it will for a grand total of 6 seconds. Keep this totem key bound for those situational uses!

Earth Elemental
Use: Summons an elemental that protects the caster and his/her allies.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Range: Longish (I'm assuming ~40 yards)
Party/Raid: Whoever he likes.
Health: Unknown (I'm assuming it scales with the caster's gear)
Mana Cost: 24% of base mana
Modifications: None

The Earth Elemental can be a Shaman's best friend in a sticky situation. He's our "tank" totem. He has a taunt and a semi decent health pool. You may want to keep an eye on his health though, he tends to be a bit squishy. The Earth Elemental (aka our Geodude of WoW) can live through a few hits from a boss, but I strongly suggest only pulling him out in emergency or pre-determined situations.

It is possible to have both the Earth Elemental and Fire Elemental out at the same time now, though even in big DPS cooldown situations I'd be highly cautious about dropping the rock guy. Please, summon your elementals responsibly!



Related Posts
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 1
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 3 (Fire and Water) 


World of Saz 2011

Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 1

When people think of Shamans, they think of two things: Heroism/Bloodlust, and totems. More often than not it seems that many Shaman make use of their totems in an improper way. Cataclysm changed things quite a bit for Shaman-kind; the Hero/Lust buff is now able to be given by a Mage's Time Warp and Hunter's pets the corehounds through Ancient Hysteria, and many raid buffs were consolidated.

So where does that leave us? Well, we're still the totem slingin' buff bots that we've always been, but now we must pay even closer attention to what we lay down. If your raid set up is just so, you may find yourself needing to place less than four totems down or simply doubling up on other buffs. Here is a list of all our totems and of the equivalent buffs offered up by other classes.

Air Totems
Windfury Totem
- Improved Icy Talons, Frost Death Knights
- Hunting Party, Survival Hunters

Wrath of Air Totem
- Shadowform, Shadow Priests
- Moonkin Form, Balance Druids

Grounding Totem


Fire Totems
Totemic Wrath, Boosts Flametonuge Totem, Elemental Shaman Only
- Demonic Pact, Demonology Warlocks

Flametongue Totem
- Arcane Brilliance, Mages

Searing Totem
Magma Totem
Fire Elemental Totem


Earth Totems
Strength of Earth Totem
- Horn of Winter, Death Knights
- Battle Shout, Warriors
- Roar of Courage, Hunter's Pet (Cat)

Stoneskin Totem
- Devotion Aura, Paladins

Stoneclaw Totem
Earthbind Totem
Tremor Totem
Earth Elemental


Water Totems
Mana Tide Totem (CD)
- Innervate, Druids
- Hymn of Hope, Priests

Mana Spring Totem
- Blessing of Might, Paladins
- Felhunter, Affliction Warlocks (Mostly used by Affliction Warlocks, but can be summoned in any spec.)

Elemental Resistance Totem (Fire/Frost/Nature Resist)
- Aspect of the Wild, Hunters (Nature Resist)
- Resistance Aura, Paladins (Fire/Frost/Shadow Resist)
- Mark of the Wild, Druids (All Magical Resist)

Totem of Tranquil Mind
- Concentration Aura, Paladins

Healing Stream Totem

Here's the skinny: our totems are completely situational. Our totems allow us to be like all of the Hunters' pets rolled into one...sort of. They allow us to be adaptable; they make us flexible enough to help cover situational needs. What totems we use completely depends on the group/raid composition we which we find ourselves and the boss mechanics of the fight that we're participating in. Even though we have an immense variety of totem combinations in which to choose from, each one of our specializations has a basic totem setup that it favors. The lists below states which totems said specs favor. Use this list as a starting point, and then adjust your totems to help fill in the buff gaps of your group/raid.

Enhancement
Windfury Totem
Strength of Earth Totem
Searing Totem
Healing Stream

Elemental
Wrath of Air
Stoneskin Totem
Flametongue Totem
Healing Stream

Restoration
Wrath of Air 
Stoneskin Totem
Flametounge Totem
Healing Stream

Now, it is okay to double up on some buffs so long as the other available buffs are covered and there are no situational needs to be met (tremor for boss fear mechanics, for example). Sometimes the doubling up of totems can help cover a broader radius, or sometimes it may prove to be handy to have the totem out in the event that someone dies, uses an Ankh/Soulstone/Battle Resurrect and is unable to get rebuffed. Just be mindful of the buffs present, and adjust your totems accordingly to the different situations as they present themselves.

If you happened to be a raid leader (or just a raid setup-minded individual) and are looking for a full chart of the new buff configurations, definitely check out Finalized Raid Buffs/Debuffs for Cata by Pwnwear and Cataclysm Hunter Pet and Raid Buffs done up by The Hunter's Union. Both of these lists were excellent references in helping me put together this guide and I highly recommend that you check them out.

In the event that I missed a totem or its buff counterpart in the chart/lists above, please feel free to correct me!



Related Posts
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 2 (Earth and Air)
Cataclysm Totem Guide: Part 3 (Fire and Water)



World of Saz 2011