For those of you who are leveling a shaman (or really, any class), this addon is probably one of those that you should go ahead and download. Why is that, you ask? Well, it’s basically a free leveling guide placed into the game as an addon. Yeah, I have some banners on this site for leveling guides - but honestly - I haven’t made a penny off the advertising, and only have it up there to help pay for the domain name itself. Anyhow, if you have the money to burn - buy one of the guides. If not, or if you would just rather not spend $40+ on a leveling guide, I suggest you read on!
Sorry for the few days of downtime, I was spending all weekend moving into my new house 
Anyhow, here’s the goods!
Concerning totems survivability in PVP
Source: Koraa
In a future build your Stoneclaw Totem will “protect” your other totems, virtually increasing their HP by a value. We haven’t decided how much it will give your totems, but it should be enough to protect them from being one shotted.
In a future build your Stoneclaw Totem will “protect” your other totems, virtually increasing their HP by a value. We haven’t decided how much it will give your totems, but it should be enough to protect them from being one shotted.
Totems are intended to be as fragile as they are, it’s what balances out their power. If we gave Totems base increased survivability, we would have to give them increased cooldowns, mana costs etc.
Some WotLK patch notes listed on MMO Champion back on the 2nd
Source:
- Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
- Natureâ??s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
- New Talent: Tidal Force- Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
- Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shamanâ??s total health.
- The range of all â??friendly totemsâ? has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
- Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with â??Tidal Forceâ?.
Spirit Wolves will have abilities - right now, they don’t hit very hard
Source: Koraa
They’ll have abilities (like a stun, snare etc.) and will serve as a DPS timer.
They’ll have abilities (like a stun, snare etc.) and will serve as a DPS timer.
We’ll be working on a Shaman polish very soon.
Concerning a change to Lightning Bolt’s coefficient
Source: Koraa
Lightning Bolt always had a higher coefficient than similar bolt spells. This was because there weren’t as much/any nature damage debuffs. Now that they exist, we’re restoring Lightning Bolt to it’s intended coefficient. Your DPS in a raid setting will if anything be higher with these changes.
Lightning Bolt always had a higher coefficient than similar bolt spells. This was because there weren’t as much/any nature damage debuffs. Now that they exist, we’re restoring Lightning Bolt to it’s intended coefficient. Your DPS in a raid setting will if anything be higher with these changes.
Over a concern that Enhancement might be mana starved - this reply came to a post stating Static Shock was kicking off more often than it should, causing Lightning Shield to have to be applied more frequently than intended.
Source: Koraa
Bingo.
Bingo.
You should have to sorta swap between the two based on the situation (water and lightning), based on if you need mana or not. It also sort of has to do with your itemization, what kind of gear are you using?
Concerning Paralysis not working:
Saw these linked over at MMO Champion today, they all pertain to Wrath of the Lich King
Source: Koraa
Static Shock causing Lightning Shield charges to all fire off at once (no cooldown on LS) is a bug
Static Shock causing Lightning Shield charges to all fire off at once (no cooldown on LS) is a bug
Source: Koraa
Maelstrom Weapon is causing casted spells that had become instant cast (due to the talent) to reset the swing timer. They plan to fix this.
Maelstrom Weapon is causing casted spells that had become instant cast (due to the talent) to reset the swing timer. They plan to fix this.
Source: Koraa
Flametoungue weapon is not giving spell damage like it is supposed to.
Flametoungue weapon is not giving spell damage like it is supposed to.
Koraa states:
We’ll be doing a polish pass of the Shaman soon. But yes, we do want Flametongue Weapon to be the “Elemental Shaman” weapon. Not sure yet if that is through passive spell damage or a different mechanic.
The NDA has been lifted, below are the current patch notes for WotLK
Shaman patch notes are listed below, Hit the link for a full set of notes
- All totems are now considered on the “Physical” school, and no longer magical spells.
- Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Call of Flame (Elemental): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
- Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
- Concussion (Elemental) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
- Convection (Elemental) is now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Now lowers the mana cost of Thunder and Lava Burst.
- Earth’s Grasp (Elemental) is now a tier-1 talent, up from tier-2.
- Elemental Detestation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
- Elemental Focus (Restoration): Now also can proc off Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave, and can be used on all healing spells.
- Elemental Fury (Elemental) now requires Elemental Focus as a pre-requisite
- Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
- Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
- Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified.
- Frostbrand’s snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
- Ghost Wolf’s mana cost is now 13% base.
- Grace of Air Totem has been removed. (Agility has been rolled over into Strength of Earth Totem)
- Improved Fire Totems (Elemental) is now (again) Improved Fire Nova Totem. It now has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets for 2 sec.
- Improved Lightning Shield (Enhancement) is now Elemental Shields, and is in Tier-1.
- New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
- New Spell: Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman’s weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by x and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additionaly over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
- New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Restoration) - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect.
- New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
- New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
- Rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. Windfury Weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30.
- Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
- Shield Specialization (Enhancement) - Now a 2-point talent, and increases the chance to block with attacks by 10/20%, and increases the amount blocked by 5/10%.
- Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
- Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
- Strength of Earth Totem now also increases agility.
- Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or “baked” into tanking abilities.)
- Unleashed Rage is now raid wide.
- Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
- Windwall Totem has been removed.
- Wrath of Air is now a flat 10% spell haste totem.
After the jump, you can see the full patch notes. Listed immediately below are those that are most relevant to Shamans - if you feel I have missed any summary items, please let me know!
General
- Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
- Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
- Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
Shaman
- Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
- Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.
Mages
-
- Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
Warlocks
- Demon Skin, Demon Armor, and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
Dungeons and Raids
- Sunwell Plateau
- Kilâ??jaeden Encounter
- Sinister Reflections are now interruptible.
- Kilâ??jaeden Encounter
Items
-
- Brutal Gladiatorâ??s Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
User Interface
- Target buff/debuff timers that appear when you cast a spell are now more visible.
- Added the following macro commands: /targetenemyplayer, /targetfriendplayer.
- Added key bindings for tab targeting players.
- Ctrl-Tab and other target nearest friend functions will no longer target you.
- Targeting using /target will prefer live targets over dead ones.
- You can no longer click the minimap to cast ground targeted spells.
Bug Fixes
-
- The mage spell, Counterspell now shows in the combat log.
- Talented abilities that cost a percentage of base mana will no longer display an incorrect mana cost when inspected by a player of a different class or level.
- Greater Elementals summoned by a shaman will now properly have a combat log entry.
- A message will now appear in the combat log if a debuff is removed by normal melee attacks.
- It is no longer possible to dispel Shattered Sun Pendant buffs.
I have long been accused of having one of those interfaces that always draws the comments of “dude wtf. how the hell can you play with that much shit on the screen?!”. Well, my last interface wasn’t bad, but it was just too many addons to keep track of. And it was using 40-50MB of memory. Not good at all.
Ok, so maybe I have had a few too many Irish Car Bombs with my fiancee tonight, and yeah maybe my coordination is off just a tad. But come on. Desolace. Blizzard, what the hell were you thinking? I never leveled up through this zone with Dinak, but good lord. My little level 35 tentacle-shaman, Adoros (yes, his spec sucks right now, I was testing Anticipation!), is having a hell of a time dodging the clusterf*ck of mobs you decided to drop in the middle of the zone. Oh look I aggroed a scorpion while in Ghost Wolf form. Oh wait, now I’m dazed because he caught up to me from 15 yards away. OH shat! 3 buzzards inc! Dazed! Confused! OMGWTFISGOINGONHERE?! This zone is to WoW as New Jersey is to the USA. The armpit of the nation. Everyone wishes it would fall off the map. Seriously. This is probably the single most horrendous, worst thought out, ill quested, pathetic zone in the game. Please, fire the developer.
NO? Well, if you can at least send him or her my displeasure, that would be wonderful. thanks!
My best friend, Crops (among other *crops named characters) of Alleria mentioned to me today at work that he was leveling a new Enhancement Shaman. For PvP no less. Yes, I cringed. But, I also remembered all the nice things we are getting come Wrath, so it might not be too bad for him 
So I was thinking, maybe I should write a little post on a talent build order while leveling. This is only one recommendation, and there is bound to be somebody out there wanting to pick it apart. Hey, go for it!
I was trying to go for a build that would support the solo shaman until around level 61/62 when you will probably start grouping for some instances in Outlands. From then on it tries to incorporate some group enhancements as well.
Also, leveling as Enhancement is not the only way to level a shaman. However, it is generally touted as the fastest for leveling. Elemental leveling can be very fun, and leveling as Resto is great for the masochists out there! *grin*
Aside from the obvious way of fighting the boss and running either a damage meter, or checking out a WWS report afterwards - there is another way to determine what your expected DPS should be against a boss. I have found the site, Max DPS, to be fairly accurate in determining what my dps output should be against a given boss, provided I bring my “A” game and perform my dps rotation properly. The combination of this site and WWS reports help show when I am slacking off, and possibly what I am doing wrong.
I have not evaluated this website closely with an Elemental build, but for my current enhancement setup, it’s proving to be a nice barometer of where I should be. I am still currently gearing up my enhancement set, and as such I still have a few lackluster pieces (like my green wrist slot, and the fact I have no melee trinkets whatsoever!). Even so, when my DPS rotation is on point, I am pulling DPS above and beyond what your average player will pull in the equivalent gear. For the curious, I am currently playing with a SS->ES->FS->SS rotation