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Totem Talk is our weekly look at all things shaman. Matthew Rossi would like to remind any readers with screenshots of their Horde shamans to email them to matthew.rossi@wow.com and not put them in the comments, where he is likely to forget they exist. In addition to being extremely hairy, he is somewhat ponderous in his recall.

The past couple of weeks have been exciting with Q&A's to analyze and PTR changes to consider. It's been easy for me to forget that I left our round-up of mail drops in Uldar half-way through the 25 man items. One of the things I forgot to gripe about as much as I really should have last time we discussed Ulduar mail is the complete and utter lack of mail boots for elemental shamans in the instance. As of the last time I checked, there are three pairs of boots in Ulduar 25: two enhancement, (yes yes, I suppose hunters might use them too) and one mostly suited to restoration shamans. And I covered all three pairs of boots last time anyway.

Let's get right to the heart of it, shall we?

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Filed under: Shaman, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Guides, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Each week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors looks at the warrior class, the dizzying highs, the devastating lows, and the agony and ecstasy of plate wearing, rage using toons everywhere in Azeroth, Outland and Northrend. Matthew Rossi is our slightly demented, hirsute guide to all things warrior. We're not kidding, the guy's really hairy. Like a sasquatch, really.

Okay, first off, a confession: I'm cheating on my fury spec.

I have been since the option to have dual talent specialization came out, actually. See, I tanked all through original WoW and The Burning Crusade (to be fair, I tanked as an arms or fury warrior because I could in MC and BWL) and so I figured, what the heck, I'll go prot for my offspec and tank some heroics. After an initial hiccough where I actually specced arms for some fights and fury for others, I settled back into a standard prot build for tanking heroics for friends. Then summer hit, and we all know what happens in summer: people suddenly want to go outside and froilic in the sunshine and you're sitting there waiting to raid with 22 people and no tanks. So what do you do?

Well, you strap on all that offspec tanking gear you collected 'just in case' and you tank Ulduar, that's what you do. Over the past couple of weeks I've tanked more than I've been DPS That's not the problem, however. It's not that I've been tanking that has me bothered... it's that I liked it. A lot.

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Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors

Hunters, patch 3.2 also means a new spirit beast for you to obsessively tame. Once again Mania's Arcania proves itself to be the go-to site for information about new pets. Since I know I'm going to be spending a lot of time wandering around looking for this new pet model, here's the skinny: there will be a new spirit beast in patch 3.2, it's name is Skoll and unlike the current spirit beasts Loque'nahak and Gondria, this one uses a saberworg model (the new Northrend worg model introduced in Wrath of the Lich King). It's still a spirit beast with prowl and spirit strike.

All we know so far is that it is apparently a non-hostile tameable mob when you first encounter it and that you'll need to comb the Storm Peaks Snowdrift Plains for a chance to tame it. All I can say is good luck, you obsessive pet collectors, and even better luck to those of us who know one. I predict a lot of time spent taming things in the snow.

Filed under: Hunter, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items

One of the things I've been doing in preparation for patch 3.2 is running a lot of heroics to fill gear holes in my enhancement set, since I am determined to get that set up to a respectable level before the patch drops. I don't often get to raid enhancement and my restoration set is mostly at the level I need it to be to heal 10 man content, so until fist weapons actually start dropping in raids, that means running CoT Strat a lot and cursing when the Band of Guile drops yet again. Seriously, if you need a Band of Guile, you should run CoT Strat with me in the party, because I can guarantee that it will drop by my very presence.

When you get a good PuG, of course, you keep running until you just can't stand anymore. Today I was in that very circumstance, a PuG that went together so well that we slid from CoT to Utgarde Pinnacle to Utgarde Keep to the Nexus in short order. While the Band of Guile dropped yet again (seriously, I should start charging spellcasters who want rings, as Annhylde's Ring also dropped) there was one moment that struck me as a good reason why I play a shaman. A badly timed disconnect on the part of our healer and one of our DPS led to my switching to heal the tank through three mobs, only to see him and the other DK (who I will charitably say was somewhat inexperienced in his/her class) go down when another proto-drake was added by a corpse exlosion. At this point, low on mana as I was, I managed to pop my Feral Spirit, Shamanistic Rage, Fire Elemental Totem, and Heroism to burn the last add down while restoring my mana in the process.

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Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, (Shaman) Totem Talk

What to say about patch 3.2 so far? One of the dangers of writing about the PTR in general is the possibility that, as you are typing out what you want to say, a brand new PTR patch is dropping. To some degree this would be a welcome circumstance even though it would erase what I'm writing about now, because the current PTR has nothing for warriors.

Well, okay, not nothing. They buffed Armored to the Teeth slightly. On the PTR it grants 1/2/3 AP per 108 armor, as opposed to on live, where it takes 180 armor for that same benefit. Why 108? Maybe because it was easy to swap the 8 and the 0. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. The amount of AP you get from the talent isn't tremendous, but anything's better than nothing I suppose.

Also, the block value changes are in (I tested them out yesterday), and, well, they fail even as a band aid fix to the problem of block performance: sure, you deal more threat to trash pulls and take less damage from them, but as far as bosses are concerned, block is still lackluster as a 'oh I don't want to die' stat. You can now block up to between 3 and 4k of a 22 to 25k hit, I'm not exactly breaking out the party hats. Especially when you'd have to stack the heck out of the stat to get even that much out of it.

And man, as nice as the T9 tanking set is in terms of pure stats and bonuses, you will not want to give up that T8 4 piece set bonus with the straight up 20% magic damage reduction for it. 10 seconds of 20% magic damage reduction? You simply can't undersell how awesome that is for tanking big spike damage bosses in Wrath raids. It's pretty much the only thing that keeps warrior tanks viable against DK's and druid tanks for those fights.

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Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Wrath of the Lich King

Yay for more Argent Coliseum news! Our European brethren get the lowdown on the Argent Coliseum with a brand new under development page highlighting what is to come from this patch 3.2 raid and dungeon instance. As we were already given to believe, it's similar to the Ring of Blood/Amphitheater of Anguish questlines from BC and WotLK. Also, in order to access the 'hard mode' 10 and 25 man heroic versions of the raids, you apparently first have to defeat the normal mode version.

• In the "Heroic" version of the Crusaders' Coliseum, you and your raid only have a limited number of attempts for each raid lockout period, and each time your raid wipes, one of your attempts will be used up. To embark on the epic Trial of the Grand Crusader, you must first prove your worth by clearing either the 10 or 25 player version of the Crusaders' Coliseum's normal mode. After you have dealt the killing blow to the coliseum's final heroic mode boss will you be able to collect the Crusaders' Tribute, and the fewer attempts you needed to complete the Trial of the Grand Crusader, the better your reward will be.

They go on to list the kinds of fights you'll encounter in general terms: while we don't really get any names, we're told the general breakdown will be beasts like magnataurs and jormungar wyrms and poweful Scourge minions of the Lich King. "How the Argent Crusade managed to capture these fiends remains a mystery; what's less mystifying is your fate should you fail to overcome this challenge." I have to admit, I'm very curious about the lore behind these encounters.

If you're looking for more details, scoot on over to the under development section and take a look. You can also take a look at the accompanying screenshot of the Argent Coliseum.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Instances, Raiding, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Europe

Patch 3.2 has been announced, and shamans saw some changes. That's the short version.

Well, we've had the big patch notes bomb dropped on us, and they weren't kidding about changing restoration around, were they? Of course, if you're an orc shaman, you also got expertise with fist weapons added on to your racial, which is pretty neat all told. We also finally saw the debut of the new totem interface, which I can't say enough good things about. The ability not only to drop up to four totems in one GCD but to have up to three customizable sets of four totems for different uses (I plan on making a set just for when there's no DK's around and I can finally use Strength of Earth totem instead of freaking Stoneskin) just made the clouds part and a host of glorious angels descend upon me. Turns out they wanted some money, but still, for a moment it was pretty keen.

Before we get rolling, though, I want to remind people: I want your horde screenshots! Otherwise this column is just going to be goat-men from the Twisting Nether, and I know you don't want that. I personally don't care, but you guys get so upset, and while that orc racial does make leveling my orc shaman appealing, I don't really think I have the time.

I should probably also mention that rogues got axes in an attempt to give the design team more freedom to actually put some axes into the content. (Yay for one 1h DPS axe in all of Naxxramas, EoE, the Obsidian Sanctum and Ulduar!) I can only look forward to the host of axes in Argent Coliseum that are too fast for shamans to use effectively. On the up side, goodbye, totem stomper macros! We hate you!

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Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Talents, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Wrath of the Lich King

Back at the very end of last year, the folks at MMO-Champion did their usual excellent work in mining up a heap of models from Ulduar. Now that it's six months later, I have to ask: what happened to all of them? Take the sword pictured above. If you've raided Ulduar, you've seen this model wielded by the Twilight's Hammer cultists in the hallway to the Descent Into Madness. Why, then, is it the case that there are four 2h swords available in 10 and 25 man Ulduar and none of them use this model? Furthermore, why do all four of them in fact use the same model instead?

As you can see from the older post, there was an alternative two handed mace model, two more 1h sword models, another crossbow model and an alternate gun model as well. You may not love all of them (our own Alex Ziebart felt that the crossbow model lacked) but you have to wonder, why does every Ulduar gun, crossbow, mace and 2h sword look identical? Why are there only two one handed sword models when there could have been four? Are these models coming in a later instance or are they just there to dress up some NPCs? I actually think that the sword model alternative rocks pretty hard. I realize the mace says 'aspect' instead of 'ulduar' meaning that it might be intended for a later Chamber of Aspects instance, but even so, there was clearly a lot of work making new gear for Ulduar that didn't even get used outside of some NPCs. Any opinions on why we got one model for most drops in Ulduar instead of using some of these?

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Expansions, Raiding

I promise we'll get back to our Ulduar guide for tanks and DPS warriors next week. For this week, however, since we're midway through the sixth month of 2009 and we've seen patches up to 3.1 released (and we're waiting on 3.2) I thought it would be a good idea to go back and cover some of the things a leveling warrior might want discussed. We get emails from all kinds of warriors, and so it's only fair to cover the concerns of warriors who aren't raiding Ulduar but rather just setting foot off of the dock in Howling Fjord.

Before we get started, though, the upcoming Patch 3.2 changes for Warriors in their current entirety: Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor. Try not to get too excited, people.

First off, I'm often asked about stats for up-and-coming warriors. We have covered some of these before back in the beta, but the beta was a year ago now and things have been changed and polished. First off, I'm going to link all the posts of interest to a leveling warrior and discuss how they may have changed, and then I'll try and cover some more general advice.

• Building Up To It covers some target numbers and stats to focus on. I should note that this was written before the changes to Armor Penetration made it much, much better as a DPS stat for warriors: the more ArP you have, the better it is as a DPS stat until you have enough ArP to reduce target armor by 100%.
• We covered Hit and Expertise in two posts, one for DPS warriors and one for Tanks. The tanking post is still accurate as of 3.1, but the talent changes to Arms and Fury mean that there is currently no talent that reduces chance to dodge for Fury Warriors and Arms has both Strength of Arms for passive expertise and Weapon Mastery.
• We discussed the dangers of overstacking a stat to the exclusion of other, also necessary stats.
• Finally, we covered gearing up in a four part post just before Wrath launched Parts one, two, three and four were all published before Wrath itself had actually come out, but they're still reasonably accurate to help your warrior get from 70 to 80, We covered weapons between 70 and 80 too.

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Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions, The Burning Crusade, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Wrath of the Lich King

Well, as we already discussed, block is currently a lackluster stat for tanking. But patch 3.2 has some changes in store, and one of those changes is to how much block value you'll see on just about everything, clearly aimed at boosting block's worth.

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
  
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

What this basically means is twofold. First, of course, you're going to be blocking for more damage. Since the amount of block value you get from your shield and from strength will not be affected, it won't be exactly double what you're blocking for now, but it will be close to that much: expect to see at least 75% more block value all told.

Secondly, however, any item you've been using to temporarily double your block value either for mitigation or for threat (I used to keep Coren's in my bags for that very reason) will not provide double the block value on the proc, but rather the same amount for twice as long. To use Coren's as an example, it will now provide 118 block value, and when used will provide 200 more block value for 40 seconds instead of 20.

If anything this will increase block's value as a threat stat (I've seen no changes to abilities like Damage Shield, Shield of Righteousness or Shield Slam) as well as giving it a bit more teeth as a mitigation tool. I don't think it's a permanent fix to block, but as a stopgap measure it should make the worth of it a bit more obvious.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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Filed under: Paladin, Warrior, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Instances, Buffs