If you want to make waves in the Shaman community and you don’t want to mention the now-taboo Spirit Link, then you would be well advised to follow Ghostcrawler’s lead. His response to a fairly innocuous forum post on Monday raised many an eyebrow in the Resto and Healing communities and might have permanently affixed a winkled crease in my brow. But one thing’s for certain, no one could accuse the crab of giving too much away, beyond of course,…

So, it’s come down to this: it’s the end of the expansion, you either have more Emblems of Frost than you know what to do with or not enough to even put a dent in your shopping list, you’re locked to a certain level of progression which either does or does not include ICC/RS hardmodes, and all you want is a gear set that will give you a feeling of accomplishment. Or maybe you’re making the best of this time,…

In the spirit of Cataclysm, which someone so appropriately has dubbed WoW 4.0, talent trees are the latest game element to see some of the effects of new-but-old-but new redesign philosophy (which by the way, as a fan of continual improvement, I actually applaud). Cut down from today’s 51-point trees, these new talent systems are intended to encourage players to identify with their spec early on in character progression, and to offer both meaningful and progressive changes in game play…

Raid lockouts have been the talk of the town as of late, with Ghostcrawler recently providing more than enough forum feedback for ardent raiders and trolls alike to sink their teeth into. With Beta on the horizon and a number of connected and lucky players very anxious to post without fear of the NDA hammer falling, speculation, discussion, comparisons, and talks about the raiding end-game changes have been making their rounds. As an ardent 25-man raider (I do it on…

The last major instance of the expansion and one that has been explored by a large number of raiders, Icecrown Citadel (ICC) has been surrounded by criticism and drama since its release. It was an expanded testing ground for a number of new Blizzard raiding mechanics, including limited attempts, heroic toggles and regimented gating, all of which seem to have developed enduring magnet for raiders’ ire. And while some have since flip-flopped their opinions about the overall challenge to be…

At around 12:30pm yesterday afternoon, a loud <THUNK> was heard from the Resto Shaman community as jaws hit the floor and tall blue trolls fainted dead away from excitement. Unless you are living under a rock, you know that yesterday Blizzard released its teaser on what Cataclysm has in store for the shaman class. So, instead of depressing you with cautionary tales and statistics on how many Blizzard “concepts” hit the floor during testing, let’s just take a look at…

About a month or so ago, during some down time at the end of my day, I wandered onto the MMO-Champion Shaman forums ready to answer some questions and, instead, walked away with one of my own. As I detailed in a previous post, it’s been my joy as a healer in WotLK to have maintained a fairly consistent spec since xpac release. I think most resto shaman are in this same boat—by and large we could spec resto in…

So by now, you’ve become acquainted with World of Logs, played around with its tools, and maybe uploaded a log or two to your guild’s site. You have a basic faculty with the interface and feel comfortable navigating through the various layers of information. But, if tasked to provide feedback on a new healer in the guild, or critique your own performance, do you know where to look? Given that I’ve been spending the whole of my raiding time in…

Upon seeing the encounter for the first time, my impressions of the Lich King were many—“holy heck that’s a small throne”, “did he shrink since Wrathgate?” and “oh lord, not more RP”. Looking forward to breezing through this final boss, I was a little bit shocked when we took our first serious attempts at him last week, only to discover, Arthas isn’t a pansy. In fact, over the xpac I’ve come to realize: the hallmark of a great fight is…

There are times where something looks amazing in theory but falls absolutely flat in application (Bizuri’s Totem of Shattered Ice, I’m looking at you here). And there are other times when something seems okay on paper but turns out to be hugely beneficial (t8 4piece towards the end of Ulduar, I miss you). And then there are times where despite the hype, doubt and hoopla, an underdog emerges triumphant—such is the case for Resto Shamans’ t10 4pc bonus. While t10…