Dual Boxing is for Noobs, Real Pros 36 Box

If you’ve been playing  WoW for any stretch of time then you’ve probably heard of what is known as a “dual boxer”. You may have even encountered some of these players who often control 2, 3, or even 4 characters all on different accounts at the same time.

Well, for one player 2, 3, or 4 just wasn’t enough…he has gone far and above the call of nerdery and plays an unprecedented 36 shamans at the same time! He’s raided numerous instances solo and plans to level all of his shamans to level 80 when the expansion comes out.

Fun Facts!

• Yearly Subscription Fees: $5611
  
• Expansion Upgrat Costs: $1440
  
• Total Computers Used: 11
  
• Total Addons Used: 3

I think the images below speak for themselves.

Upcoming Shaman Changes

More pretty big changes for the shaman class this morning. On the elemental front we’re looking at some pretty nice buffs to riptide, which had been looking sub par. Now that riptide can proc tidal waves there should be no question about the rotational significance of the new spell.

Tidal Waves: You have a 100% chance after you cast Chain Heal to lower the cast time of your next Lesser Healing Wave or Healing WAve spell by 30%. In addition, your Healing Wave gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects and your Lesser Healing Wave gains an additional 10% of your bonus healing effects.

This change in addition to the increase on initial healing should make the spell an absolute must for restoration shamans.

Some interesting changes on the elemental / enhancement front as well. I like the theory on Blizzard’s reasoning for trying to buff fire for elemental, but it’s a delicate balancing act. Currently an elemental shaman really does nothing in PvE accept drop totems and cast lightning bolt. So adding some sort of situational spells and abilities would be a nice addition. If the devs can work the new lava burst ability into the rotation it would be a job well done.

A small victory for enhancement shamans, initially it was looking like Maelstrom weapon was going to be nerfed to the point it was worthless, but in a last minute change Blizzard have decided to set it aside for the moment. It will certainly make for some very interesting PvP and PvE moments if it makes it all the way through till expansion.

Tidal Waves — Riptide now also procs this effect.

Riptide — We’re going to increase the initial healing component.

Storm Reach — now called “Elemental Reach” and includes Lava Burst.

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.

Thunderstorm — We will probably boost the mana return to 8% of total mana. That seems more in line with similar effects. We talked a lot about buffing its damage, but decided that may not be a good idea. With its short range, it isn’t a great rotational spell for a raiding Elemental shamans, and making you run up to hit a boss and run back is giving up a lot of cast time. Instead we’re going to try to keep the damage and knockback more situational (in PvP it will get used a lot) and make the mana return the big PvE raiding focus.

Maelstrom Weapon — We have a concern that the proc per minute frequency is too often. According to our numbers, it’s balanced for a two-handed weapon and a bit generous for a dual-wielder. However, this would be a nerf to Enhancement dps overall that we’d have to make up elsewhere, and it seems to be a fun change shamans are enjoying. So we’re going to let this ride for now. It’s something to keep an eye on, but we aren’t going to change it yet.

Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt — And now for a few words on Elemental damage. One of the things we were trying to do to make Elemental dps more interesting was to have a Lava Burst + Flameshock variant. We also themed some new deep talents to support this play style. The problem is that lightning still seems to do more damage than fire, which in turn makes the new talents feel lame because they benefit fire and not lightning.


Now we think that Lava Burst is doing appropriate damage for its cost and if anything Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are a little too good. (Remember they benefit from Curse of the Elements and similar spells now.) However, nerfing lightning would make it harder to level as well as making 3.0.2 kind of brutal for Elemental shamans, since Lava Burst is level 75. Hurting lightning would feel like a flat out nerf, and even though you’d partially make up for it at higher level, overall we think this would feel, um, yucky. So no big changes to lightning spells.

We talked a lot about just buffing Lava Burst and a deep fire-based talent or two. This will make Lava Burst too good on paper, but it might work out okay in the game itself. We’ll just have to see. We aren’t 100% sold on this course of action, so I’ll update when we decide for sure.

Once again, these decisions were the consensus of our design team, so please don’t give me the credit. In fact, if there are any changes you specifically don’t like — those I had nothing to do with

Shaman Resto Changes and Spirit Wolf Buff

The spirit wolf buff isn’t surprising, every other class with a pet will be scaling in WotLK, it only makes sense that shaman’s should as well. The recent changes to enhancement in combination with the buffed spirit wolves are really bringing the enhancement tree to a level it’s never been at.

All 3 shaman talent specs are just looking great. Blizzard has done a great job balancing each spec accordingly. The one somewhat unknown area for me…at least not 100% known is still restoration. In theory the spec looks fine, but it will be difficult to determine if it will be equally effective in both PvP and PvE situations until level 80.

Riptide and Restoration tree
Riptide probably isn’t going to be a crazy awesome raiding tool *unless* you’re in a fight with a lot of movement, in which case it does its job very well. It is situational, but we actually made a lot of the new spells situational because almost every class already had bread and butter abilities well before LK.

Now, I think it does shine in 5-player dungeons, PvP or in 10-player raids, depending on how many hot-based healers you have. The initial heal could probably be a bit larger. That is something we may change after some more testing.

I know Resto hasn’t gotten as much attention as other shaman specs in this forum, but honeslty we think it’s because you work pretty well. Players have gotten made when I’ve said that before, but particularly in raids, everyone knows what they’re going to get from a Resto (CH and Earth Shield) and I don’t think that is going away.

Spirit Wolves
We might have to lower the healing per damage if the damage goes up a lot with the AP changes. In other words, you might not see a buff to healing and damage.

Spirit Wolves scaling with Attack Power
I said Strength at one point, but they never did scale off of Strength. In fact they never scaled off of anything. They were the same no matter what your level or gear. We fixed that though, and they should scale very well (using AP, not Str). Let us know if that isn’t happening.

Then you’re going to love them next build.

WotLK Paladin / Shaman Glyph Changes

A few glyphs changes for paladins and shamans in the most recent beta update, build 9038. I like the paladin changes, though the 100 yards on a holy light seems a bit excessive. I would not be surprised to see this reduced to a more reasonable the 30-60 yard range.

The shaman changes on the other hand are flat out horrible. 3 or 4 minutes off the elemental totems are not going to convince any shaman to take these glyphs. There really is no situation where you can say…”yes, If only I had that extra 4 minutes off the totem…” If these glyphs were buffed to a 10 minute reduction or changed from major to a minor glyph you could make a case for them, otherwise I just don’t see any way you’d choose these over other glyphs.

Paladin

• Glyph of Holy Light - Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 100 yds of the initial target. (range changed from 5 to 100 yards)
• Glyph of Flash of Light - Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially, but also heals for 140% of its initial effect over 12 sec. (duration changed from 15 to 12 sec)

Shaman

• Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 min. (old version was 3 min)
• Glyph of Earth Elemental Totem - Reduces the cooldown of your Earth Elemental Totem by 4 min. (old version was 3 min)

WotLK Shaman Talent Changes - Build 8970

Mostly generic talent adjustments and fixes, certainly the most interesting change is the addition of the new restoration talent, riptide. Riptide - Heals a friendly target for 764 to 826 and another 477 over 15 sec sec. Your next Chain Heal cast on that primary target within 15 sec sec will consume the healing over time effect and increase the amount of the Chain Heal by 25%. 18% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant Cast, 6 sec cooldown.

Not much PvP utility, but certainly a nice bonus for PvE shamans. Chain heal is already the primary healing spell for most shamans anyway, this just adds extra unneeded incentive to spam chain heal.

The big change, and one I’m most excited for is the new 5 minute timer on all totems. Pretty awesome change for shamans’ as a whole, I’m not sure how much this change will factor into arena play as totems are easy targets…but for PvE shamans this will make a huge improvement to overall mana efficiency in long duration fights.

A welcome and long overdue change…now all we need is a new ability called “High Powered Rotary Fan” - your totems now float on a cushion of air and are programmed to follow you around via GPS. =D

Elemental

• Lava Flows - Now increases the range of your Flame Shock by 5/10/15 yards instead of increasing the amount of bonus spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by an additional 15/30/45%.
• Eye of the Storm - Now reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and Hex spells by 23/46/70% instead of giving you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage.
  

Enhancement

• Static Shock - Now increases the number of charges of your Lightning Shield by 2/4/6 up from 1/2/3.
• Elemental Weapons - Now increases the spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by 10/20/30% and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 10/20/30% instead of increasing the damage caused by your Flametongue Weapon and Frostbrand Weapon by 5/10/15%.
  

Restoration

• Healing Focus - Reduces the pushback suffered by 23/46/70% instead of giving you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption.
• Blessing of the Eternals - Now increases the chance to apply the Earthliving heal over time effect on the target by 40/80% when they are at or under 35% total health instead of increasing the bonus healing from your Earthliving weapon by 5/10%.
  
• Earthliving Weapon - All ranks saw a healing increase, max rank now 70 up from 26.
  
• Spirit Link - Removed, replaced with Riptide.
  
• Riptide - Heals a friendly target for 764 to 826 and another 477 over 15 sec sec. Your next Chain Heal cast on that primary target within 15 sec sec will consume the healing over time effect and increase the amount of the Chain Heal by 25%. 18% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant Cast, 6 sec cooldown
  

Totems

• All totems now last 5 min.

New WotLK Shaman Changes

More changes were announced today for the shaman class. The changes to restoration / elemental were pretty bland, but I really like where blizzard is taking the class as far as enhancement goes. More and more we’re s

eeing talents that really allow for a wide variety of viable hybrid builds.

From what I’ve read and seen on the WotLK beta, enhancement shamans have been pretty much dead last in overall damage output. Enhancement is getting some pretty solid improvements with this patch though, both in utility and DPS. This change should hopefully bring enhancement shamans up to par with the other DPS classes.

Earthen Power Changes - Huge PvP Buff

Perhaps the most interesting of these changes is the new “earthen power” talent, which causes your earth bind totem to have a 50%/100% chance to dispel all snare effects when it pulses. This is a huge change and it should have a massive change for shamans in PvP. For most of TBC enhancement shamans have been on the verge of really being a great class for PvP…but their lack of utility and no MS debuff has kept them out of traditional arena teams.

While they probably won’t get a mortal strike buff before WOTLK, I think this change to earthbind will really improve the total viability of the class for 2s and 3s. I’m very excited to see how this group of enhancement shaman changes synergizes with the other new class changes.

Elemental

• Elemental Fury and Call of Thunder are switching places. Call of Thunder will be a 1-point talent, and Elemental Fury will be a 5-point talent. For Elemental Shaman this won’t mean much, for Enhancement it means they can have easier access to 100% spell crit damage.
• Lightning Mastery will now reduce that cast time of Lava Burst by 0.5 sec with 5 points. (Down to 1.5)
• Lava Bursts base damage numbers have been significantly increased.

Enhancement

• Mental Quickness and Unleashed Rage have swapped places.
• Spectral Transformation renamed “Earthen Power”. It causes your Earthbind Totem totem to have a 50/100% dispel all snare effects when it pulses.
• Weapon Mastery: Now a 3-point talent (4/7/10%)
• Stormstrike - New animation, also now increases all Fire, Frost and Nature damage done by the Shaman instead of just Nature.
• New Talent (Tier-8) - Lava Lash: You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 75% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. 3 second cooldown. 4% base mana cost. (Also note: Lava Lash does Fire damage, also procs Maelstrom Weapon)
• Maelstrom Weapon: Can now be used for Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave.
• Feral Spirit - Many bugs with Spirit Wolves fixed, also increased the damage done by the Spirit Wolves

Restoration

Ancestral Awakening improved to 10/20/30%

WotLK Shaman Changes

Quite honestly, It’s hard to get excited about the most recent round of shaman changes to hit the WotLK beta. We’ve basically got a few balance issues fixed and that’s it. That said I do find these changes a bit annoying from the restoration side.

I mean, let’s take a brief look at the resto tree. We get tital force, which is pretty lack luster in my book. It basically is amounting to a 3 critical heals, no big deal. I suppose you can’t be too hard on tidal force, considering it’s a tier 3 talent. But then on top of that they cut Nature’s blessing in half?! I really don’t care for Blizzard’s explanation there either. I mean c’mon, it’s a tier 8 talent. If you’re going to go that deep into the restoration tree there should be some legitimate benefits to the last few talents.

While I’m not exactly angry with the totem mastery removal it does take away from a variety of potential hybrid specs. For most specs it’s pretty much a staple, the 20 yard totem range just doesn’t cut it. So giving this to all shamans certainly works as a nice buff for all elemental and enhancement shamans.

Guess I shouldn’t gripe too much since I play elemental.

• Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
• Nature’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 Shaman’s total health.
• The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
• Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.