Eh, Water Riding?

Cast walk on water, you can walk on water. Pretty cool, it makes travelling across water pretty fast.

But you can then mount up, and ride on water. It makes travelling across water very much faster.

Is this new? Or have I missed an awesome trick?

Being Prepared: Prequests for Drak'Tharon Keep

WoW Insider have a good gallery for each instance with a list of the quests in the instance, but because they don't list how you actually get the quests (for those at the end of a chain) I'll continue with these posts, for my own benefit if no one else's. At least Drak'Tharon Keep has some quest chains to do!

• Cleansing Drak'Tharon. To get this you must first do Good Troll Hunting for Horde or Troll Season! for Alliance. These lead to Filling the Cages, completing which unlocks Truce?, the start of a quest chain which ends with Cleansing Drak'Tharon. The quest chain includes Subject to Interpretation which you need to do to unlock the other instance quest.
  
• Search and Rescue. This one starts with Scourgekabob, which then unlocks Seared Scourge which is the immediate prequest for Search and Rescue. However, to unlock Scourgekabob you need to complete Subject to Interpretation.
  

These are all level 73 and 74 quests, so it will be a while before Kam can verify the information for himself.

Being Prepared: Prequests for Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom quests are few and far between it seems, and no quest chains needed.

• Funky Fungi. From Ooze-covered Fungus which is a drop from a Savage Cave Beast inside the instance.
  
• The Faceless Ones. From Kilix the Unraveler.
  

It looks like you can just roll up to the Azjol-Nerub area, pick up the quests and get going in either Azjol-Nerub or The Old Kingdom.

Being Prepared: Prequests for Azjol-Nerub

The shortest instance in the game, from what I hear. There doesn't seem to be that many quests for Azjol-Nerub and they aren't even at the end of any quest chains.

• Death to the Traitor King. From Kilix the Unraveler, who seems to be right outside the instance.
  
• Don't Forget the Eggs!. From
  Kilix.
  

You really don't need to be prepared for this one!

Bye bye Howling Fjord, Hello Borean Tundra

Kam has finally finished the quests in Howling Fjord, having dinged level 72 in the process. He also got the I've toured the Fjord achievement, although I wasn't aiming for it, so it was nice to be surprised when the achievement appeared.

Using some slight of hand Kam got to Dalaran and in a moment of weakness, bought a bear mount from the nice lady who sells the mounts.

Next up is the Borean Tundra, which I initially avoided because all I read said it was a whole lot of snow, but having gone there I was pleasantly surprised. Especially by Warsong Hold, which is a magnificent base of the Horde. Blizzard really outdid themselves with the Hold.

Nexus quest spoilers in the quest text!

The following contains quest spoilers for The Nexus instance. Although I expect most people have finished with The Nexus by now anyway.

The quest Prisoner of War is obtained at the end of a chain where you help Keristrasza to attack Malygos. She is taken into The Nexus and we must rescue her - the quest text reads "Raelorasz at the Transitus Shield wants you to enter the Nexus and release Keristrasza". Rescue a dragon? Cool.

Except that the very spoilerish criteria reads "Keristrasza Laid to Rest". Hmm, I wonder what is going to happen here, will she be pleased to see us and let us all go? Suffice to say the outcome was no surprise to our party. Blizzard, you must try harder!

Being Prepared: Prequests for The Nexus

Next in the series is The Nexus, in ... the Nexus.

• Quickening. First you need to do Secrets of the Ancients, available from Archmage Berinand in Coldarra. To get to Coldarra go to Borean Tundra, then to Amber Ledge, then get the flight to Coldarra.
  
• Postponing the Inevitable. First you need to do Reading the Meters, again from Berinand.
  
• Have They No Shame?. I just picked this up from Librarian Serrah, who stands in a tent near to Berinand.
  
• Prisoner of War. A reasonable chain which starts with Puzzling..., which starts with a drop from Coldarra Spellbinders. I got mine on the first kill. The quest chain itself is pretty cool, so have your screenshot button ready!
  

The Nexus needs a few quests before you are totally ready to head on in there, but I managed to get the above all done in around an hour.

Being Prepared: Prequests for Utgarde Keep

Kam prefers to have a full quest log for whatever instance he attacks, so here is the first in a series of Being Prepared articles. First up, Utgarde Keep.

• A Score to Settle. You have to do a few pre-quests for this one, starting with War is Hell and ending with Report to Anselm, available from Vengeance Landing in Howling Fjord. This is Horde only.
  
• Disarmament (Alliance). Picked up right inside the dungeon.
  
• Ingvar Must Die (Alliance). Again right inside the dungeon.
  

As you can see, UK is quite easy to grab all the quests for.

Did someone forget to sleep?

With the launch of Wrath, everyone has started levelling at 70 at the same time, so we've been able to observe some interesting phenomena. Beforehand, everyone was pretty much grinding this and that, and only a brief alt would level up here and there. Now we can see a direct comparison in play time, style and levelling speeds.

What we have in our guild is the following:

• Hardcore leve11er. This type has been spotted on from around 8-9am and stays on until around 4am. They are streaking ahead at level 77, or their Death Knights are already passing mains. They are currently finding it hard to get a group for an instance run, due to the rest of the guild being so far behind. May have taken holiday to coincide with the Wrath launch and/or killed their girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/family. You can bet they are on the second the servers come up from maintenance.
  
• Working 9-5, levelling hard to make an 80. This type have a day job, or didn't book holiday, but that ain't going to stop them. Generally most in our guild are in this category, grouped together so able to run instances. They are mostly level 75-74 by now. A steely determination and a stuff around the house they can put off till they hit 80 characterises this set of levellers.
  
• Questing from Home. This group can't generally play every evening due to family commitments, but they can work from home then spend some or all of that time in instances and questing. Most usually seen during the work day in some instance or another, they are mysteriously silent on IRC when at home, yet chat endlessly in IRC about WoW when at work. They are also liable to go AFK at a moment's notice in an instance, when the wife comes up to check on them, so beware if you are in a group with such people!
  
• On not a lot. This sort, of which I am half a member (and I'll let you figure out which other group I belong to), plays some evenings but has severely restricted times due to other commitments, among them Heroes, Merlin, Sarah Connor Chronicles, DIY and child care. We lurk at the bottom of the guild, barely out of Howling Fjord and dinged merely 1 level.
  
• Serial Altoholic. Lastly, they have a main who is keeping up with another set of levellers, but mysteriously have a level 71 Death Knight. Oh, and several other toons at levels between 70 and 73. A serial altoholic has been spotted, going round robin between all their alts to keep playing in rested XP, each making a little bit of progress but playing the same quests again and again. A high boredom threshold is probably required.
  

The lock at level 77 has dinged 78 since I started writing this. Sigh.

Facepalm moments in teh Wrath

Challenged by BBB we are to recount moments of asshattery in Wrath. This doesn't have a twist however, its just badness. Anyway March of the Giants requires you to kill big hard elites, then use a mining pick on their corpses to remove their runes. Unfortunately, it seems the quest is bugged and WoW will say "invalid selection" when you try to use the pick.

That is, it seemed that the quest was bugged, until I noticed our group were being followed by several Alliance, who would be hanging around right underneath the giant when it fell. Finally we realised the corpses can be "deruned" by anyone at all, even those pests who hadn't killed it and were just hanging around. So watch out - ninjas are about on that quest, it's best to drag the corpses away and refuse to kill them if anyone else is lurking around.

I won't mention the other incident where a member of my own guild nicked a stone artifact from right under my nose, as I was fighting off the mob who was guarding it. Well apart from just then. He did apologise afterward tho.

Horde and Alliance expedition quartermasters sighted

Apparently I wasn't quite right in my Shaman rep rewards guide, there is in fact a quartermaster for some Horde factions who sells items at a certain rep level. Wowhead doesn't list this information yet, but Wowwiki comes to the rescue. Gara Skullcrush in Warsong Hold sells the Warsong Shanker and Warsong Stormshield, both at revered.

Alliance Shamans may want to check out their faction vendor, who sells Vanguard Soldier's Dagger and Lordaeron's Resolve, both at revered.

Both also sell the recipe for the Engineering Hog at Exhalted, if you are an engineer and want a sweet Hog to tear up Northrend with.

From reports from guildies, it seems you gain faction standing with Horde Expedition whenever you gain standing with any of the sub-factions The Hand of Vengeance, The Taunka, Warsong Offensive and The Sunreavers.

Wrath first impressions

My first impressions of Wrath are quite favourable. Kam is lurking around the Howling Fjord mainly because I thought a snowy landscape would be boring, so I avoided Tundra (I didn't really like Winterspring). Plus 15 turkeys have already died in 3 minutes.


The scenery is really quite nice, the lift up the side of the huge cliff on Vengeance Landing is quite spectacular and the area around Utguard Keep equally so. The quests are pretty neat - one involved recovering underwater items, which is no problem for a Shaman. Kam is tearing through mobs with his enhancement spec, but I am really hoping for dual specs so we can get some healing practise.


There are problems - one of the quests involving researching runes from dead giants seems to be bugged, so that you can't use the corpse and have to go kill another one. Given these are elite giants who will knock 7 bells out of you, this is quite annoying. If Kam dies at the North of Giant's Run (trying to kill elite giants), he ends up in the graveyard at Vengeance Landing, despite there being a GY in Giant's Run. This means having to run away from his corpse to catch the lift!


Busy is a good word to describe Aszune. The queues are up to 40 minutes long at peak times and the questing areas are predictably camped out. Clearly some are making progress because on Saturday at around 4pm Aszune had a level 80 mage or warlock (I forget which), a mere 2-3 days after Wrath launched.


All in all it is still fun, and quite nice to be able to quest in new areas again.

Shaman Wrath reputation rewards and tactics

I have taken a look at the Wrath faction reputation rewards and tried to figure out which ones are of interest to Shaman, at what reputation level they are and how to go about getting such rep levels. Then I've broken down each faction into what sort of rewards (Resto, Elemental or Enhancement) they give at each rep level, to try to get an idea of which ones to go for first. I've not considered any cloth items, only mail and leather. Finally the assumption on the spell gear is that mp5 is for Resto and crit is for Elemental, so any crit based healers should check out the Elemental gear too.



From what I've learnt, all faction reputation, after quests, is earnt from dailies or championing in level 80 instances. There doesn't seem to be any more tactics needed, where you used to do the handins till friendly, then the quests, then finish off with instances. Having said that, some factions cannot be championed, making grinding their reputations harder.


Key C = caster of Elemental spec, H = healer of Resto spec, E = ownage of Enhancement spec, A = all specs.


Quick jumps:
Argent Crusade
Frenzyheart Tribe
The Oracles
The Kalu'ak
Kirin Tor
Knights of the Ebon Blade
The Sons of Hodir
The Wyrmrest Accord
Horde Expedition
Alliance Vanguard
Comparison table


Argent Crusade
Wowhead lists 81 quests for the Argent Crusade, 11 of which are dailies. It looks like you can only do 4 per day, as there is some sort of random factor much like the fishing and cooking dailies. They have a tabard so rep can be gained in level 80 instances.

• Friendly A: Tabard of the Argent Crusade. The championing tabard.
  
• Honoured E: Cloak of Holy Extermination.
  
• Revered C:Battle Mender's Helm. This mail helm looks good for Elemental due to its spell crit, although a Resto Shaman could use it.
  
• Exalted E: Boots of the Neverending Path. These are leather boots but look good for Enhancement failing any mail ones.
  
• Exalted E: Polished Regimental Hauberk. Tasty. This is a fantastic chest piece and definitely the best outside of raids and heroics.
  
• Exalted C H: Signet of Hopeful Light. A caster ring, with haste so this may be of use for Elemental and Resto Shamans.
  

Frenzyheart Tribe
This is the first of the Aldor/Scryer like factions in Wrath, the other being The Oracles. You can only be exalted with one at once, although there is a daily quest which lets you convert from one faction to the other, via handins which increase faction with one and decrease faction with the other... faction.


There is no tabard for the Frenzyheart Tribe, so you can't champion faction for them. Wowhead lists 21 quests, including 9 dailies from levels 77 to 80.

• Revered C H: Scavenged Feathery Leggings. These legs give haste, so they are good for Elemental or Resto.
  
• Revered E: Azure Strappy Pants. These are leather but may be good for Enhancement.
  
• Revered A: Disgusting Jar. This turns into something after 7 days incubation - Wowhead comments suggest a potion which changes appearance. There isn't enough information yet to know precisely what the rewards are, although initially it seems to be fun potions.
  
• Exalted A: Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury. This trinket is reminscent of the Skyguard Silver Cross with 71 haste rating and an extra damage upon kill buff, so something good for grinding.
  

The Oracles
This is the other faction you could chose over the Frenzyheart Tribe. They too have no tabard so rep grinding is done via dailies. They have 20 quests including 7 dailies for level 77 to 80. One quest is to swap factions to Frenzyheart. 3 of the dailies might be a random choice as their titles are very similar. Oh and they resemble Murlocs which may put you off, and actually make you want to get to Unfriendly with them...

• Revered E: Glitterscale Wrap. A leather belt but again may be useful for Enhancers.
  
• Revered C: Sharkjaw Cap. This mail head piece has crit so ideally for Elemental, but a crit-based Resto shaman may want it.
  
• Revered E: Toothslice Helm. This mail head is the Enhancement version of the above. According to my scales it is a very good rare headpiece, beats the Swiftarrow one.
  
• Exalted A: Oracle Talisman of Ablution. This trinkey restores mana when you kill a target which would give XP, again reminiscent of the Skyguard Silver Cross, so a good grinding trinket for any spec. However, currently my enhancement shaman doesn't have any mana issues, so the Frenzyheart alternative may be better.
  
• Exalted A: Mysterious Egg. This egg hatches into one of 4 pets or failure. One for pet collectors. *Cough*
  

The Kalu'ak
These fishy guys again have no tabard, Wowhead lists 52 quests for them, and they only seem to have 3 dailies of level 71 to 72. So rep grinding will be done via dailies.

• Honoured E: Cuttlefish Scale Breastplate. This mail chest has a total of 114 attack power with the Enhancement talent. However I replaced it with various crafted ones at 80, so good for levelling only.
  
• Honoured H: Cuttlefish Tooth Ringmail. A mail chest with mp5 so suited to a Resto shaman or maybe Elemental if you don't have a critty one.
  
• Honoured E: Whale-Skin Breastplate. This is a leather chest with the same 114 attack power as the mail one above. I would go for the mail chest to be honest for Enhancement.
  
• Revered C H: Totemic Purification Rod. This 1 handed mace packs 314 spell power and haste!
  
• Revered E: Traditional Flensing Knife. This 1 handed dagger does 119dps and has a speed of 1.7. This may be good for Enhancement if imbued with Flametongue and you don't have a good offhand. However I would recommend a slow off hand instead, even if its "paper" DPS is lower.
  
• Exalted A: Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole. An epic fishing pole with +30 fishing and free underwater breathing. Essential for fisher ppls.
  
• Exalted A: Nurtured Penguin Egg. A penguin non combat pet! Any pet collectors will be after this one for certain. *Cough*
  

Kirin Tor
The mysterious magic dudes we stormed Karazhan for, now freshly installed somewhere in Northrend with a honking great floating city. They have 29 quests, but the only dailies are the cooking and jewelcrafting ones. Both award Kirin Tor faction plus either cooking awards or JC tokens.


They do have a tabard so reputation can be ground in level 80 instances.

• Friendly A: Tabard of the Kirin Tor.
  
• Honoured C H: Shroud of Dedicated Research.
  
• Honoured E: Spaulders of Grounded Lightning. Nice Enhancement shoulders.
  
• Honoured E: Lightblade Rivener. Again a fast 1 handed dagger with melee stats, so might be good for use with Flametongue weapon.
  
• Revered C: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries. A head enchant with crit rating so suited to Elementals.
  
• Revered C: Flameheart Spell Scalpel. This 1 handed dagger packs 34 hit, 25 crit and 355 spellpower, so its ideal for an Elemental shaman. It is also arguably better than the Revered Kalu'ak mace.
  
• Revered E: Mind-Expanding Leggings. These are leather legs but have some solid melee stats, for desperate Enhancers.
  
• Exalted E: Boots of Twinkling Stars. These epic boots have all the enhancement goods.
  
• Exalted C: Ghostflicker Waistband. A leather belt with solid stats for Elementals.
  

Knights of the Ebon Blade
These Emo guys are still smarting from their encounter with the Lich King, but don't let their sweepy haircuts and dour attitude put you off. Wowhead lists 31 quests for them, 3 dailies at level 80, and they have a championing tabard.

• Friendly A: Tabard of the Ebon Blade.
  
• Honoured C: Dark Soldier Cape. A spell power cape with 29 hit so ideal for an Elemental shaman.
  
• Honoured E: Unholy Persuader. A 2.5 speed fist weapon with melee stats, ideal for off hand Enhancement with WF. The Stalactite Chopper is better however.
  
• Revered E: Arcanum of Torment. This head glyph has attack power and crit so it is for Enhancement shaman.
  
• Revered E: Spaulders of the Black Arrow. Very good shoulders, the best you can get outside of instances.
  
• Revered C H: Wound-Binder's Wristguards. Leather wrists but maybe for Elementals or Resto shaman.
  
• Exalted E: Darkheart Chestguard. A leather chest with melee stats for an Enhancement shammy.
  
• Exalted H: Kilt of Dark Mercy. These mail legs have a whopping 29 mp5 so are ideal for Resto Shaman. Elementals may want to take a look.
  

The Sons of Hodir
The Sons of Hodir have no tabard, but have 4 dailies among their 11 quests. They also sell shoulder inscriptions at Honoured and Exalted very much like the old Aldor & Scryer shoulder inscriptions, except we get access to them all!

• Honoured E: Lesser Inscription of the Axe.
  
• Honoured H: Lesser Inscription of the Crag.
  
• Honoured C: Lesser Inscription of the Storm.
  
• Honoured E: Giant Ring Belt.
  
• Honoured E: Spaulders of Frozen Knives. A leather shoulder piece which may serve an Enhancement shaman.
  
• Revered C: Reins of the Ice Mammoth. A massive mammoth mount which Tauren can ride!
  
• Revered E: Broken Stalactite. This 1.8 speed dagger has melee stats and may be useful with a Flametongue weapon imbue in the off hand.
  
• Revered E: Giant-Friend Kilt. Some leather legs which may be useful for Enhancers.
  
• Revered E: Stalactite Chopper. A perfect 1 handed 2.6 speed axe with melee stats. You can use 2 for utterly silly ownage. The best reputation main hand and off hand I can find for enhancement.
  
• Exalted E: Greater Inscription of the Axe.
  
• Exalted H: Greater Inscription of the Crag.
  
• Exalted C: Greater Inscription of the Storm.
  
• Exalted A: Reins of the Grand Ice Mammoth. Another big mammoth, this one can carry 3 people rather than 1 for the other mammoth, but it does not come with vendors like the Dalaran Tundra Mammoth.
  

The Wyrmrest Accord
An alliance of the dragonflights except the blues, the Wyrmrest Accord have 38 quests, 5 dailies at leve 73 to 74, and a tabard for championing. Expect this one to be popular because there is a flying drake mount at exalted.

• Friendly A: Tabard of the Wyrmrest Accord.
  
• Revered H: Arcanum of Blissful Mending. A head glyph with 8 mp5 so ideal for Resto shaman.
  
• Revered C H: Gavel of the Brewing Storm. This 1 handed mace has the same spellpower as the Kirin Tor mace, but has haste instead of hit, so is also suitable for a Resto shaman.
  
• Exalted E: Dragonfriend Bracers. Leather bracers which may serve an Enhancement shaman.
  
• Exalted H: Grips of Fierce Pronouncements. Mail gloves with 26 mp5 so suited for a Resto shaman.
  
• Exalted A: Reins of the Red Drake. This is the flying drake which most rep grinders will really want.
  

Horde Expedition
The other factions in Wrath don't have anything for sale individually. They are for the Horde: The Hand of Vengeance, The Taunka, Warsong Offensive and The Sunreavers. However there is in fact a quartermaster for the Horde Expedition, called Gara Skullcrush, who sells items at a certain rep level from Warsong Hold. From reports from guildies, it seems you gain faction standing with Horde Expedition whenever you gain standing with any of the sub-factions The Hand of Vengeance, The Taunka, Warsong Offensive and The Sunreavers. So doing the quests is the way to go. It also seems you gain rep by running level 80 dungeons without any championing tabard.

• Revered E: Warsong Shanker. Might be an option for an enhancer looking for a fast off hand to use with FT.
  
• Revered C H: Warsong Stormshield.
  

Alliance Vanguard
The other factions in Wrath don't have anything for sale individually. They are for the Alliance: Explorers' League, The Frostborn, Silver Covenant and Valiance Expedition. Again there is a quartermaster for the Alliance Vanguard who sells rep items. I would assume that gaining rep with any of these sub-factions will gain rep with Alliance Vanguard, so doing the quests is the way to go. It also seems you gain rep by running level 80 dungeons without any championing tabard.

• Revered E: Vanguard Soldier's Dagger. Possibly for enhancement off hand with FT.
  
• Revered C H: Lordaeron's Resolve.
  

The following table attempts to summarise what is available for each spec at each level. As before, the key is E=enhancement, C=caster, H=resto, A=all. The brackets are for leather items, and x* is for the head enchant for spec x, for example E*. Where there are more than one item I've written 2xE, for 2 items for Enhancement.

Faction/level	Honoured	Revered	Exalted	Championable
Argent Crusade	E	C	E C (E)	Y
Frenzyheart Tribe		C/H (E)	A	N
The Kalu'ak	E H (E)	C/H E		N
Kirin Tor	C/H 2xE	C* C E	E (E)	Y
Knights of the Ebon Blade	C E	E* E (C)	(E) H	Y
The Oracles		C E (E)	A	N
The Sons of Hodir(1)	E (E)	2xE (E)		N
The Wyrmrest Accord		H* C	H (E)	Y
Horde Expedition/Alliance Vanguard		C/H (E)		N

1 - shoulder glyphs for all specs at Honoured and Exalted.



Choice of faction
So for the choice between The Oracles and the Frenzyheart Tribe, the Tribe have Caster and Resto leggings and a leather item for melee. The Oracles have a head piece for casters, crit-based resto and enhancement. They also have a leather item for melee. The stats on these pieces are fairly similar between the Tribe and Oracles. The trinkets are interesting, I think the one from the Tribe is better for enhancement because thus far I've had no mana issues whatsoever, but I know levelling as Elemental mana is a precious commodity so The Oracle's trinket would be better. Personally I am leaning toward Oracles because of the pets basically.

What to champion first?
Basically it depends on your spec (of course). The Kirin Tor, Knights and Wyrmrest have the head glyphs at revered, so those are worth picking up as soon as possible. The Sons have the shoulder inscriptions, but you can't champion them. So I will be championing the faction which gives the head glyph to revered.


Conclusion
There is a lot of enhancement gear available at various faction levels, plus some elemental and resto items. What I've not done yet is compare the items against quest rewards - in TBC the 5 man quest rewards yielded some very nice items which were ideal for gearing up for raiding and heroics.

In defiance of the Lich King

According to the blurb which accompanies the Collectors Edition of Wrath, we "defy" the Lich King by having the Frost Whelp pet, having presumably somehow stolen it from his frost wyrms. Clearly Master Handler Sylvester is actually to blame, I have proof which I shall use to defend my innocence should Arthas come knocking.

This letter accompanied Frosty, skillfully glossing over exactly how Sylvester got this whelpling. He is a very cute little fellow though, so Kam is willing to risk the Wrath of the Lich King to have the guy around.

Thrall, Heal FFS!

You would think that the guy who brought Shamanism back to the Horde would at least remember to use Lesser Healing Wave when his health got low!


Actually this post is meant to be about Kam's experiences in Karazhan as melee DPS, but after running Kara, Kam popped over to the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar to see the scourge invasion and awesome uber cool WCW-style fight between Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream. Check it out if you are in the area, the Horde faction leaders are all gathered in front of the arena area and argue a bit before the fight as well. It's a lore moment not to be missed. The only thing I'll say about the fight is that Thrall is down on health but not mana, and we all know for a Shaman you're not dead till the mana runs out. So here is hoping for a conclusion to the fight soon.


So enhancement in Karazhan. As a die hard ranged caster, doing melee DPS was... odd. Shaman could really do with some sort of charge to get in range quickly - those warrior types have one, but we spent a lot of time running around chasing mobs. In the chaos of spells going off, paladin consecrates and other effects, it was sometimes hard to tell which way a mob was facing, making getting behind them quite difficult. Luckily we didn't get to the Prince - I've seen the melee running in and out on that fight and don't really fancy doing it myself.


The fights we did do (Attumen, Moroes, Oz for Opera, Curator, Aran and Illhoof) were fairly standard and involved a fair amount of running around. Given all the running around it was surprising to discover that Kam did decent, competitive damage overall and maybe a shade more than in elemental spec.


In conclusion it was a lot of fun, but noticeably harder than being ranged DPS. There is a lot of running around to get into range of mobs and get positioned correctly for melee. Did I mention there was a whole load of running around? I don't know how the melee do it really.

Kam gets some Enhancement

After healing a few instances and some of Karazhan, the recent nerfs to raid difficulty have given Kam the perfect excuse to finally try out the enhancement spec. After some research I've chosen this 8/53/0 spec, but clearly I didn't do enough research because this one looks better, with a full load of Maelstrom Weapon for 4/5 Ancestral Knowledge.


First impressions:

• Kill speed. Mobs are dying very fast, a shade faster than with elemental, despite Kam's enhancement gear being a lot weaker than his elemental gear.
  
• Top tier talent. Feral Spirit wolves are very nice, the 2 controllable spirit wolves almost make you feel like a hunter, except they don't last (shame). By contrast the elemental talent Thunderstorm is just not as cool, or useful in PvE. The knockback and AOE is pretty nice, but it's just not in the same league as your very own spirit wolves.
  
• Button mashing. Fighting as enhancement certainly requires more button pressing than elemental; stormstrike, lava lash and earth shock need to be used every time they are off cooldown, not to mention refreshing water shield and using Shamanistic Rage and feral spirit as appropriate. By contrast Kam's tactics for elemental was to pull with a few lightning bolts, then auto attack the mob, pressing flame shock every 12 seconds and occasionally lightning bolt.
  
• Taking damage. One bonus of elemental is that Kam generally goes around with a shield, so his armour is quite high and he doesn't take too much damage. Dual wielding means no shield so quite a lot of damage is taken. Luckily Maelstrom Weapon works with healing spells, so we can pop off an instant healing wave when needed. This damage taking is really only an issue when Kam gets jumped by a few mobs, for 1 mob it dies so fast that it doesn't get the chance to do much damage.
  
• Other. Another bonus of enhancement is that because a lot of the damage is melee, those pesky nature-immune elementals prove no problem.
  

An honourable mention must go to the Shock and Awe mod, which displays a handy hint for which spell to use next in a rotation. For an enhancement noob such as myself, its very useful indeed.


I'm not sure whether Kam will stay enhancement for levelling - to build a healing set will require lugging two completely different sets of gear around, whereas in theory elemental gear forms a good basis for a healing set. Except that currently Kam has almost 2 completely different sets of gear; one for healing that prioritises mp5 and one for elemental that prioritises crit. If shaman are to become crit-based healers then a set of gear with crit will do well for both elemental and resto, but I am not yet sold on that. I do however want to heal some instances so I hope the dual-spec feature is not too tardy.


I suppose the early Mail spellpower gear in Wrath will show Blizzard's intent - if it is all spellpower and crit then crit-based will be the only option, but if a lot of spellpower and mp5 stuff starts to appear (or heaven forbid they force us to choose between mp5 and crit for quest rewards), then I'll be horribly confused and have to strike some sort of balance.

You Stinker!

On his continuing quest to gain the 50 pet achievement, Kam had gotten to 49 out of 50, mainly with the help of Warcraft Pets. Next up was to try to get a Mechanical Chicken by completing all of the "Find OOX" quests. Except that it was around 2 years ago that Kam quested in Azeroth, and being a forgetful Tauren he had... not remembered which chickens he had rescued.


Following a Wowhead tip to ticket a GM, Kam was summoned by the awesome Rocking GM Wixibixe to a private meeting at Janeiro's Point. Wixibixe helpfully told Kam that yes, he was a slacker, and had only rescued OOX-22/FE. This was puzzling because Kam had taken apart Zul'Farrak the night before trying to get a beacon. However, those helpful Wowhead comments came to the rescue again, as it transpired Kam had gotten the beacon then failed the escort quest in Tanaris. So he couldn't get another beacon but could go back to the chicken and retry the escort.


Wixibixe was kind enough to teleport Kam to Tanaris, and then the hunt for OOX-17/TN began. And ended quickly due to the coordinates posted on Wowhead. Finally Kam found a use for Thunderstorm - confronted by 4 Wastewander bandits, Thunderstorm threw them back and killed 2 instantly, leaving the other 2 to run away in shock. A quick visit to the Hinterlands saw another robot chicken escorted to safety.

A visit to Booty Bay to hand in and finally the Mechanical Chicken was Kam's, the Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart achievement complete. Thank you Oglethorpe Obnoticus. Hearing of his obvious love for pets, Breanni was kind enough to mail Kam, asking him to look after Stinker, a task he gladly undertook. The little fellow is very cute, but hasn't exhibited the bad behaviour Kam was warned about. Suddenly Kam' lust for non combat pets has faded, although they are neat, I don't think we will be grinding for any rare ones. Well maybe just the one.

Patch 3.0.3 Shaman notes & changes

I don't usually do this but why not this one time. Here are the latest patch notes for Shaman with some idle commentary in italics.


Shaman

• Flurry: Now grants the proper number of charges when it triggers. How handy.
  
• Improved Fire Nova Totem: Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20% and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire nova Totem for 2 sec. Might be a useful escape option in PvE and will of course annoy lots of PvPers.
  
• Lava Burst: The base damage has been increased by approx. 10%. A damage buff to a spell which, if you believe it, will be part of an end game Elemental rotation.
  
• Maelstrom Weapon: Tooltips corrected to correctly describe the chance for this talent to be triggered. How handy.
  
• Riptide: The initial heal amount has been increased on ranks 3 and 4 and periodic healing has been increased on all ranks. Extra HoT power is welcome, although it was pretty good already. Ranks 3 and 4 are at level 75 and 80 you gits.
  
• Stormstrike: Other shamans can no longer consume charges of your Stormstrike, and each shaman can have their own stormstrike on the victim. This is good for Enhancement shaman who won't get their Stormstrikes stolen by Elementalists, although it says other shamans and doesn't mention if Boomkins and the like can use the charge.
  
• Storm Reach is now called “Elemental Reach” and now includes Lava Burst. If Lava Burst was to be part of a level 80 Elemental rotation, it had to have a range to match Lightning Bolt, with this change it does. Oddly even with Lava Flows, Flame Shock only has a 35 yard range, unlike LB and Lava Burst which have a 36 yard range with this talent.
  
• Thunderstorm: Mana gain has been increased to 8%. Maybe now it will be useful in PvE, although I am still underwhelmed by this supposed top-tier talent, and the knockback makes using it in raids a real pain.
  
• Tidal Mastery: Now correctly applies its critical strike bonus to Earth Shield. How handy.
  
• Tidal Waves will now also proc with Riptide. This means we have another option in a resto "rotation" - to Riptide then quick Healing Wave someone, rather than having to Chain Heal to get the quick HW effect.
  

Professions

• The level requirements required to train gathering skills have been removed. How handy although I would prefer this extended to all professions ;)
  
• Inscription
  
  
  
  • Glyph of Flame Shock: Now extends duration by 6 sec and prevents Flame Shock from being consumed by Lava Burst. As Baluki says this is now an awesome Glyph for elementals. I won't rehash his stuff, go read :)
    
  • Glyph of Lava: Glyph of Earth Elemental removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases coefficient on Lava Burst by 0.1. Ok odd that they are mentioning coefficients in the patch notes but hey. This is an extra 10% on whatever the spellpower coefficient of Lava Burst is. I don't have the numbers so undecided on this one.
    
  • Glyph of Strength of Earth: Replaced with Glyph of Lava Lash which increases the bonus from having Flametongue Weapon by 10%. Enhancers, I think they want you to use FT on your offhand.
    
  • Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Replaced with Glyph of Elemental Mastery, which decreases the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 30 sec. Makes EM have a 2.5 minute cooldown, which is nice enough but I'm not sure it is essential, as an Elemental shaman should be critting quite often anyway.
    
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Shaman: Totem of Wrath tooltip updated to reflect that it affects all crit chance and indicates that it increases Spell Power (instead of just damage). How handy.
  

Oi!

Kam's Walking Stick found on a certain Kam Deepfury in The Stockade. Quite what this gentleman is doing with my staff is unknown, or how he got it, but I feel a trip to The Stockade is required to seek this pretender and acquire my rightful possession.


Thanks to Crashandburn for spotting this knave. Justice will be served.

Mods for achieving

It's no secret that the new achievements system has been a big hit with me, I've been scouring the length and breath of Azeroth to do some of these, and obsessively collecting non combat pets trying to get 50. Here are a few mods which help with the achieving.


Urban Achiever. This gives you a replacement achievement UI, with a search feature which is very very useful. I hate the clicky nature of the default UI, so being able to type in "rokk" to find Kickin' It Up a Notch is invaluable. The mod also tracks up to 5 achievements, rather than the 1 the default UI does, which proved very useful during Hallow's End when Kam was trying to hit all the candy buckets in WoW.


Over Achiever. This adds a tooltip when you hover a critter, saying if you have /loved it or not. Very useful. It tracks exploration achievements and automatically displays your progress in the zone you are in, which is again very useful if you are exploring. It does a ton load of other things including slash commands to search for achievements, although I prefer a search box.


Enhanced Achievements. This extends the achievement tooltip to show your progress on an achievement. So when you see an achievement spam, you can click to see if you have done it, when or how far through you are.


So there you go some useful mods for achievers. Anyone know of any more?

Fishing is 4 fun

What an eventful evening of fishing... and I never thought I'd see the works eventful and fishing in the same sentence.


Friday evening and nothing much to do - first up to fish up the Lurker Below. With the aid of the Halloween candy and the ghost costume it makes, Kam entered SSC and slow fell onto the water, walked across the water onto the Strange Pool. After some uneventful fishing, a giant water monster jumps out and one shots him! Score one crazy achievement.


A quick visit to Old Man Barlo reveals the daily is Crocolisks in the City, so off to Orgrimmar to fish. Catch 1 and who else but Old Crafty appears, less crafty now he is caught. Check another achievement. Back to Shattrath to hand in, and who is in the bag? Chuck! Another croc joins Muckbreath in Kam's inventory, and the Crocs quest is checked off and Kam has been Old Man Barlowned.