Peter Lee's Awesome Tauren Shaman Art

Over at the official World of Warcraft Forums we’ve recently been blessed with a Shaman Q&A!

What’s in store for the Shaman in the future? What do the chaps at Blizz want to do with the Shaman? And how do they see the class evolving in the future?

The original post is a good 4,000 odd words, but I’ve summarized the important notes and news here.

If you’d like to read the original full post, go here.

Otherwise, read on for my summarized version.

Shaman Roles:

Shaman’s have three key roles, as any good Shaman player would know – ranged DPS (my favorite), melee DPS, and healing. Blizzard have no plans to change this, but apparently in the past they had thoughts of letting Shamans tank… no more however.

Blizz state that they are looking at making Shaman’s a more viable class in PvP – especially in 2v2 arena games. In 5v5 we’re obviously very handy with our totems, but 2v2 Shaman’s aren’t popular and Blizz are looking into changing that.

The Shaman is still the most “hybridized” class – for example, unlike Feral Druids, Elemental or Enhancement Shamans can cast heals effectively without shape shifting. Again, no plans to change this.

Totems:

For a long time Shamans have bemoaned the unmovable nature of their totems – they’ve been called “turrets” as they generally just have to stand in one place and “shoot”.

Blizz are stating they’d like to make it possible for Shammys to drop all four totems at once on one global cooldown, which would be nice, but they’re still working on implementation and have no release date on that yet.

There’s a “far out there” word on making totems mobile (I don’t think it’ll ever happen) by letting players carry one on their back, and on a similar note, there’s talk of making some totem buffs normal spells… this has ramifications of course, like, if we can strength buff without using an earth totem, that means we might be able to add yet more buffs or protective states to our fellow party members or PvP buddies. Tremor and earthbind totems all round for PvP!

I liked this minor but handy improvement, “…as a small quality-of-life improvement, we are going to let low-level shamans trade in the four elemental totems that clutter their bags for a single totem they can equip in their totem slot. Since the four “clutter”; totems can’t be destroyed or sold, currently there is no way to get rid of them. This change will essentially give shamans their four bag slots back.”

Now how about removing Shaman totem quests altogether?

One of my favorite ideas re totems in this Q&A was letting Elementals come out of preexisting totems, rather than having to lay their own individual totem. So, if you’re using a fire totem of any kind, your elemental will be automatically deployed at the same time. How this will be balanced and implemented isn’t touched on.

Other random comments:

Shamans have for a long time been known for having the lowest bas  health levelsin the game, something which Blizzard have finally realized, and say will be rectified in 3.2! Awesome news for any Shaman player.

There’s lengthy discussion regarding item drops and how it relates to WoW as a whole – suffice it to say, its a very complex problem trying to come up with a way to satisfy players loot needs without making drops too rare or overly specific.

Raiding:

Some Shamans have been feeling that their role as a group healer has been diminished in Ulduar — Blizzard are aware of this, and of the fact that Resto Shammys have it tough trying to keep mana levels up compared to other healing classes which seem to never run dry. There’s also comment about new sets of gear arriving soon to help out Shamans who would like to buff their chain healing ability.

There’s also a short discourse on Shaman roles in raids, are Elemental Shaman’s performing well enough, are Resto Shaman’s where they need to be to preserve an interesting play style: Blizzard says yes – they especially want to ensure chain heal and LHW are optional – not just a “spam chain heal” class they were in Sunwell.

PvP:

As I’ve experienced a lot myself, Shaman’s are pretty easy kills with their low hitpoints in PvP – and they’re also big targets since any opponent worth their salt knows that totems plus good group & single target heals will make life difficult for them… so they target Shamans as a high priority.

This situation, combined with the fact that Earth shield is an easy dispel makes Shaman’s lifespan pretty short – Blizzard are toying with the idea of making earthshield harder to dispel, perhaps making one layer dispelled per cast rather than all 2 or 3.

Shamans have a “high skill cap”, in other words, they’re a difficult class to play in PvP if you want to equal the other classes. Blizz is working on this, but its hard to balance this without making them overpowered for skillful players.

Totem killing macros in PvP – get ready for a big surprise pet users, Blizz is doing the right thing and stopping /easy kill macro commands that swipe down all your totems with the click of a button. Players using totem killer macros will now need to devote precious attention and time to doing so. Oh my yes!

Conclusions?

All of this stuff sounds great, and I’m drooling, but like a lot of Shamans out there I’m saying, “show me the money”… or in other words… a lot of this stuff has been known about for a long time, lets see the changes implemented – soon!

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Shadow Spec With Some Holy

Are you ready to crack those DPS problems that keep you from joining raids or PvP events?

Over the past month I have been fiddling around with the shadow talent tree hoping to boost my stats. The problem I ran into was with every increase in this talent tree I lost something big in another area.

Back and forth I went trying to come up with the right combination until I finally settled on something that I feel is perfect for people who want a flexible shadow priest. A shadow priest who can handle the DPS requirements of raids, take out PvP opponents with burst damage, and of course level up quickly.

Keep in mind additional rows will open up after every 5 talent points used.

Row 1 (Spirit Tap, Improved ST, and Darkness)

The 1st row is built around increasing your spell damage and regenerating mana. Any Priest knows you need a substantial amount of mana when healing others, so this will be important. Make sure you use 3 talent points in the Spirit Tap. I recommend skipping over the Improved Spirit Tap and focus on filling the Darkness ability with all 5 points.

Row 2 (Shadow Affinity, Improved Shadow Word: Pain, and Shadow Focus)

Add all 3 points to the Shadow Affinity and gain a 25% decrease in threat from Shadow spells. Also, fill the Shadow Focus with all 3 pts. You want to decrease as much mana cost as possible and this removes 6%.

Row 3 (Improved Psychic Scream, Improved Mind Blast, and Mind Flay)

You will need to fill the IPS if want the Silence ability (which I recommend). Plus, putting the lone point in Mind Flay will allow you to slow opponents by 50%  – great for PvP priests.

Row 4 (Veiled Shadows, Shadow Reach, Shadow Weaving)

The two important abilities here are Shadow Reach and Weaving. Placing 2pts in Shadow Reach will give you an extra 20% range on Shadow Spells. Putting 3pts in Shadow Weaving will add a 100% chance to increase your Shadow damage by 2% for 15 seconds.

Row 5 (Silence, Vampiric Embrace, Improved Vampiric Embrace, Focused Mind)

Adding the 1pt needed for Silence allows you to keep an opponent from casting spells for 5 seconds, again great for PvP, especially against enemy spell casters.

Vampiric Embrace and Improved Vampiric Embrace should both be filled as well and will keep your health ticking along nicely during solo play or to top up after copping a few whacks in a tough dungeon. During a 5 minute period, any Shadow spell damage will revert 15% health to you and 3% to party members. The IVE allows a 67% health reimbursement. Then of course Focused Mind should be filled to reduce mana costs on all Mind spells by 15%.

Row 6 (Mind Melt, Improved Devouring Plague)

I’m not big on 4% critical strikes for Mind Melt, so unless you’re really heavy on PvP, I skip it. Fill up the Improved Devouring Plague talent… you will increase the total damage duration by 15% and deal a 15% instant strike of the total damage caused over time.

Row 7 (Shadowform, Shadow Power)

It’s very important to add the talent point needed for Shadowform. It adds 15% damage, decreases 15% damage to you, and reduces threat by 30%. However, the big boost is a 100% crit hit with Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch. Fill the Shadow Power as well so you can increase your Mind Blast, Flay, and SW: Death spell crit damage by 100%.

Row 8 (Improved Shadowform, Misery)

You definitely want to add the 2pts needed for IS. It allows you to remove movement impairing effects 100% of the time you use the Fade ability. Good for PvP, and good for running away from monsters… not that you’ll be doing any of that with this build… right? Improved Shadowform is also great for PvP when you’re trying to get a cast off on a melee class like a rogue or enhancement shaman who hit you with a flurry of attacks, no more watching your casting bar stay still!

Row 9 (Psychic Horror, Vampiric Touch, Pain and Suffering)

You will have to fill each one of these abilities in order to hit the next row. You’ve got a good fear spell here, and then Vampiric Touch and the nasty Pain and Suffering both boost your shadow damage.

Pain and Suffering is especially nasty for Shadow Priests as it refreshes your Shadow Word Pain ticks for even more damage.

Row 10 (Twisted Faith)

Place 5pts. here so you can increase your spell power by 10% of your total Spirit. There is also additional help to your Mind Blast and Flay by 10%. Combining spirit heavy gear with this talent can result in some really nice boosts to spellpower, so consider giving that a go if your bank account is up to the challenge.

Row 11 (Dispersion)

There will be times that this can be extremely useful – its a real “get out of jail free card, and can be intensely annoying to PvP opponenets. Its also gotten me out of more certain deaths than I care to recall.

Add a point here to finish out the tree and reduce your damage taken by 90%, regenerate mana over 6 seconds at 6% of total per second and eliminate several movement impairing effects.

Specialize Your Shadow Priest From Here

What to do with the other 20 points?

When you’re finished here you can go back and add the extra 20 points to your Shadow tree, or give your Priest a nice boost in other areas. Since I’m not sure what you use a lot, this will be up to you. In the end though, having a Shadow talent pool like this will help you become one of the better DPS dealers in your guild, make you survivable in groups and very hard to kill in PvP.

My personal pick for the last 20 points is putting it all into holy healing talents to make me useful in small parties, but if you’re into PvP I think its pretty hard to go past putting the rest into the balance.

That’s all there is to it. If you’re really mad keen on leveling quicker check out my Horde Leveling Guide front page for info on some commercial guides… They’re not really necessary, but are admittedly a nice luxury to have.

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Holy Priests – How to Build the Ultimate Group and Raiding Spec

Holy and Discipline Priest Build

When it’s time to be in a large raid group, or quest with a group of friends, getting the most out of your Holy talent tree is important. It’s the only tree where you can maximize your health regen and at the same time increase places like spirit, mana, and movement speed in your favor.

And now that you can duel-spec with the patch 3.1 changes, it will be important to keep the Holy talent tree set up for specific runs.

I’ve played my priest a lot, and actually respecced the guy so many times I’m almost embarrassed – but in the process I’ve worked out what really works in a hard-core raid.

This is it.

Row 1 (Healing Focus, Improved Renew, and Holy Specialization)

As a healer you probably know how important it is to be able to heal without interruption. This is why you should place 2pts in Healing Focus and gain 70% reduced pushback during any healing. Right now, don’t worry about the Holy Specialization. Instead, fill the IR and increase the amount you heal by 15%.

Row 2 (Spell Warding, Divine Fury)

I played back and forth with these 2 forever. When it comes down to it, just add 5pts to each run and move on. You reduce the amount of damage you take from spells by 10% with SW, and reduce casting times for 4 different abilities by .5 seconds.

Row 3 (Desperate Prayer, Blessed Recovery, Inspiration)

Well, you definitely need to add 1pt to the DP because it gives the caster an instant 263 to 325pt heal. The other 2 abilities I just skip for now because they don’t give me immediate results.

Row 4 (Holy Reach, Improved Healing, Searing Light)

Even after only adding 2 points in the 3rd row, you should have opened up the 4th. Here it’s important to maximize Holy Reach out because you gain 20% extra range on 6 different healing spells. IH will need to be full as well so you can get the 15% reduction in mana cost for 5 different abilities. I skipped over Searing Light for now, but only because it increases damage from spells and isn’t a healing setup.

Row 5 (Healing Prayers, Spirit of Redemption, Spiritual Guidance)

Healing Prayers is another mana reduction, and when full it will take away 20% of the mana cost for Prayer of Healing and the Prayer of Mending. The Spirit of Redemption is a great weapon when you’re in a group or raid. It allows you to run out of health, but heal others for 15 seconds, and then die. You never know who will need more help. Obviously you need a little fight in you during your adventures and the SG will do this easily. Add all 5pts and receive a 25% increase of your Spirit to spell damage.

Row 6 (Surge of Light, Spiritual Healing)

Okay, you have two options here. I personally try to stay away from Smite and Flash Heal when I’m at the higher levels, but if you use them a lot you’ll want to fill Surge of Light. I say skip it for now and fill the Spiritual Healing. It increases the amount of health you heal by an additional 10%. Plus it opens the next level.

Row 7 (Holy Concentration, Lightwell, and Light Resilience)

One of my favorite abilities in the Holy talent pool is the Lightwell ability. It is kind of like the equivalent to a portal, and members of your group or raid can click on it to gain additional health. They will receive 801 health over a 6 second period. It’s a lot nicer then shuffling through each person. Plus, you can skip over the other two and still reach level 8.

Row 8 (Body and Soul, Empowered Healing, and Serendipity)

I like the body and soul ability, but it’s not needed right now. I pass on it when trying to keep some of the talent points, and only add 2pts to Empowered Healing. The idea here was to keep 5pts in the row, and filling up Serendipity with 3 did the trick.

Row 9 (Empowered Renew, Circle of Healing, Test of Faith)

This is probably one of the most important rows to fill up. The Circle of Healing is my 2nd favorite trick, because it can heal 5 party members at the same time. Keep in mind they have to be within a 15 yard radius of you though. Test of Faith gives you a 12% increase in healing abilities towards any friends that are below 50%. Then of course, the ER does pretty much what it says.

Row 10 (Divine Providence)

You will notice that you don’t need to fill this up with 5pts to reach row 11, like other trees. Just use 3pts. It will still give you a 6% increase on several healing abilities, but we don’t need the other 4% possible.

Row 11 (Guardian Spirit)

As a player this isn’t my favorite thing to use, unless I throw it up on a tank or something. Whoever you heal gets a 40% increase in HP. There’s a few other things as well, but if you haven’t paid attention to it before, I won’t spoil everything.

20 Points Away! Do you go Shadow, or Discipline?

Personally, when I’m healing raids I’ll use up the rest of my points on Discipline to up my survivability a tad. The last thing your group needs is their primary healer getting killed (don’t you HATE that feeling?), so I tend to err towards Discipline.

Will that in mind here’s a bonus Discipline suggestion for super dedicated raid healers who want to keep that whole dying thing to a minimum:

Unbreakable Will 5/5, Silent Resolve 3/3, Improved Power Word Fortitude 2/2, Martyrdom 2/2, Meditation 3/3, Improved Power Word Shield 3/3.

All of the effects under these talents will boost your survivability by either making you harder to kill, or by reducing threat. The combo of which should help you stay alive that extra 10 or 20 seconds you need.

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Discipline Build With Shadow

The discipline Priest is one of the least understood of all Priest builds. Is it good for PvP? Should I forget about discipline if I’m raiding or the primary healer? And what about solo – shadow is the clear choice right?

Those are the major questions being asked about discipline priests, and I’ll briefly answer them for you here…

Let me start with PvP.

PvP Discipline priest are an awesome sight to behold. One on one, discipline priests can be a really tough opponent to kill.

With reflective shield sending almost half the damage your receive back to your opponent (look out rogues), and then your basic healing skills backing you up, you can pretty much survive anything.

Your damage dealing isn’t quite as impressive, but if you play with a good team you can hold points until the cavalry arrives and punishes whoever thought it was a good idea to attack you.

So a big tick to discipline priests if you’re considering that route.

Grouping and Raiding.

Discipline priests can be a great build for raiding and grouping, but obviously won’t ever match a pure holy healer. What IS great about discipline priests is that in raids as a secondary healer they’ll be a bit like an anchor to the group. While your primary might die quickly when it takes aggro, you’ll be there till the finishing line unless you really mess things up, and you’ve got a real healing punch to back it up. And lets not forget that if you get attacked you’re reflecting some damage and adding to group DPS…

Solo.

Meh… while I love the discipline build for almost anything (its a great jack of all trades and has amusing abilities), solo simply won’t be as fast as a good shadow build. On the other hand, if you like to keep yourself flexible, able to solo, heal, or pvp, and you DON’T want to waste a ton of gold respeccing all the time, you won’t go wrong with discipline.

The following build is a good all-round discipline spec.

Here’s my Priest Discipline Talent Build:

Row 1 (Unbreakable Will, Twin Disciplines)

This interesting build starts with placing 3pts in the UW, and 2pts in Twin Disciplines. We only need 5 total, so mix it up and utilize a little bit of both. Neither one of them are going to be a massive help, which is why I don’t fill either one of them.

Row 2 (Silent Resolve, Improved Inner Fire, Improved Power Word: Fortitude, and Martyrdom)

Silent Resolve will be vital since it reduces Holy and Discipline threats by 20%. Plus there’s a 30% chance they won’t be dispelled. Just skip the Inner Fire for now, but if you use it more than I do, come back to it later. Fill the IPWF with 2pts so you get a 4% Stamina increase. Lastly, fill Martyrdom so you can continue casting through strings of PvP blows from those pesky melee classes, or when you need to get that last heal off before you die in a raid .

Row 3 (Meditation, Inner Focus, Improved Power Word: Shield)

I love the Meditation ability simply because it has a ridiculous 50% mana regen while you cast. So add 3pts there and placing a point in the Inner Focus gives you a mana reduction of 100% on your next cast. In fact, you should fill up the entire row. Your IPWS when full, will give you a 15% increase in damage absorbed.

Row 4 (Absolution, Mental Agility, Improved Mana Burn)

The first 2 reduce mana so it’s important to fill them both up. I skipped over the Improved Mana Burn simply because I never use it. If you do, come back to it later and cut your casting time down by 1 second.

Row 5 (Reflective Shield, Mental Strength, and Soul Warding)

I love the Reflective Shield because I don’t have to do anything and can still reflect 45% of the damage someone throws towards you, back to them. I skip over the Mental Strength because I can gain more intellect on armor and enchantments. However, adding a point to SW is important since it reduces your cooldown on PWS by 4 seconds.

Row 6 (Focused Power, Enlightenment)

I would usually just skip over these, but you will have to add 1 point to both areas, just to get your points up enough to open up the next level.

Row 7 (Focused Will, Improved Flash Heal)

You will notice that Power Infusion isn’t listed. This is because I didn’t place 5pts in Mental Strength. I do place 3 pts in the IFH, but only 2 in Focused Will.

Row 8 (Renewed Hope, Rapture, Aspiration)

Players will absolutely love you if they get a taste of the Rapture ability. Check it out on your tree and make sure you add all 3 pts. Aspiration needs to be filled so you cut down on the cooldown of Inner Focus, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression and Pennance abilities by 20%. Handy.

Row 9 (Devine Aegis, Pain Suppression, and Grace)

Okay, once you reach this level you need to make a decision. Either add a total of 5pts in the row, or move along and look at row 10. I’m not so keen on any of this row unless you want to lean towards being a healing discipline priest, and I went back to MS because I didn’t plan on building the Discipline talents to help others. Plus I could now get Power Infusion.

If you do choose to go and max out these talents, be sure to dump your remaining points (after you reach Penance) into Holy. Otherwise, its a total waste.

Row 10 (Borrowed Time)

Borrowed time is pure gold, and you’ll definitely want to max it out to gain the 25% spell haste and power word shield buff. Get it.

Row 11 (Penance)

You’ve reached the pinnacle of the discipline talent tree. Penance shoots a volley that will either cause damage or heal depending on the targets. You can’t go wrong with this one and it adds even more flexibility to your priest.

You probably noticed that I love this tree mostly for the reduction in mana usage and flexibility. In the end its one of those builds that you can be flexible with and still do well, but if you use it like I did, you’ll have more spells to cast, good mana replenishment, and the ability to be useful in many different parts of World of Warcraft.

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How to Level Up Your Priest Faster with the Proper Talent Tree!

How many times have you been running around a city and you see the chat filled with requests?

You know, things like, “LF 5 Priests for Violet Hold” or “Need Healers for the Underbog- Will Pay.”

It would be nice to hang with everyone else, but unfortunately you are still 15 levels away from getting the chance. For the “Average Joe” it could take days, if not weeks to go from level 60 to 75, but with a little direction I can help you solve this problem.

The Priest Leveling Build:

The first thing you need to do is check your talent tree.

One of the biggest reasons players can’t level up faster is because they don’t have the right build on their toon. In order to respec your character, find the nearest Priest trainer. Keep in mind this will cost you a little money, but it will be well worth it when you’re done. So what can make the difference?

As you well know, World of Warcraft can easily distract you within the game. Whether it’s the AH, going on a raid with friends to heal, or even looking for that epic gear can take away from actually leveling up faster, but so does sticking all your talent points in the Holy area to help everyone else. In order to take down your enemies in a timely fashion and lookout for yourself, it’s important to hit up the Shadow Tree.

Shadow Tap (3/3) should be filled first since it will give you a 100% boost to your bonus after killing something that disperses experience or honor. Then you can max out your Improved Shadow Tap (2/2) in order to reach the next level of talents. Your next build should involve the Shadow Affinity (3/3), which will reduce the threat against you by 25%, and the Shadow Focus talent (3/3) that gives a 3% hit increase for Shadow Spells and decreases mana cost by 6%.

The third level is going to depend on what spells you use the most. Since I’m a big fan of the Mind Blast, the “Improved Mind Blast” (5/5) will be helpful since it takes off 2.5 seconds of your casting time when it’s maxed out. Also, your Veiled Shadows (2/2) ability is important to have since it drops the cooldown period by 6 seconds of your Fade and two minutes off your Shadowfiend.

You can read how the rest of them work on your own time, but for now let’s just make a short list of what else you should use on your Shadow Tree.

Vampiric Embrace (1/1)

Improved Vampiric Embrace (2/2)

Focused Mind (3/3)

Darkness (5/5)

Shadowform (1/1)

Shadow Power (5/5)

Misery (3/3)

Vampiric Touch (1/1)

Pain and Suffering (3/3)

Improved Shawdowform (2/2)

Twisted Faith (4/5)

Dispersion (1/1)

Now, once your Priest is equipped with these tools you should head over to the AH and bulk up on health and mana potions. Also, having plenty of First Aid bandages will be helpful as well.

The whole idea is to be prepared, just as if you’re getting ready to go on a week long hiking trip. This way you cut down on deaths, save time, and go questing for a substantial amount of time. Oh, and one other thing before I get outta here. Make sure you set your Hearthstone to the main area you’re questing! This way when you’ve completed all the quests, you can simply hearth back to the town instead of riding.

Doing all these things and many others you find along the way will allow for a strategy that works wonders. Do this and you’ll see that while you might have a different priest leveling spec than you initially wanted, the “meat” of the game starts at level 70… Lets get there first without wasting DAYS of /played time! Don’t be afraid to respec your to a leveling build, it will only help you!

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