WotLK Shaman Changes - Build 8982

More changes from build 8982, this time for the shaman class.

Skills
Elemental Combat

• Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

• Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc …)
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old - 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

• Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn’t increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Seemingly minor changes to the class, but the new stoneclaw totem in particular is very interesting. Having what essentially amounts to a shield totem, should increase the strategic element of totem placement, particularly in arena. If anything else this should make it a bit more difficult for other players to just snipe an entire totem forest in 3 seconds. Though this will all be dependent on the amount of the absorb.

Riptide just looks better and better every time I see it. Now with nearly +300 healing added to it it’s just looking stacked! (as it shoulder considering it’s so deep in the talent tree). A friend of mine who was lucky enough get a beta invite tried out the new talent earlier today, check out his results. Note: he would have had approximately 2500 healing on live with this gear / trinket / earthweapon.

Additionally, earth shield was healing for around 1300 with trinket up, and that’s without the new improved shields talent, which adds another 15%. All in all, restoration is just looking very improved for expansion.

Hunter Macro Guide

Mastering a hunter’s abilities and skills is no easy task. In addition to having to manage all of your own normal attacks and such, the hunter must also master his pet. Now, you could do this the old school way, and fill you screen with scores of buttons…but I prefer the more simplistic approach in the addition of a few well placed macros.

Beast Mastery Bomb Macro
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Intimidation
/petattack

Great macro for all you BM fans out there. Just change Bloodlust Brooch to the name of your damage trinket(s). Also, you don’t have to have intimidation in there, but it certainly helps to get a good start while you’ve got the bonus damage up.

Aim Shot Bomb
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/castsequence reset=6, Rapid Fire, Berserking, Aim Shot

You’ll want to change “Bloodlust Brooch” for the name of your own trinket, and also change Berserking to the name of your racial (if your race has an offensive racial).

Pet Heal Macro
/cast [nocombat] Feed Pet; [combat] Mend Pet
/use [nocombat] Boar Ribs

Just change “Boar Ribs” to what ever food your pet is currently eating. Additionally, if you have multiple pets that eat diffent types of food try this macro.

/cast [nocombat] Feed Pet; [combat] Mend Pet
/use [pet:Cat, nocombat] Fish Sticks; [pet:Gorilla, nocombat] Tel’Abim Banana

Mend Pet Overlap Protection
/castsequence reset=15 Mend Pet, null

Prevents you from overlapping your mend pet before the duration is ended.

Call Pet / Revive Pet Macro
/cast [nopet] Call Pet; Revive Pet

Not exactly necessary, but if you’re looking to put several skills / abilities onto just a few buttons this will help. It calls your pet if you don’t have it out and revives it if your pet has died.

Improved Mend Pet Macro
/cast [modifier:shift] Mend Pet(Rank 1); Mend Pet

For all you hunter’s out there with improved mend pet, you’re going to love this one. You may already be using it, but this puts it all on one button. If you just want to use your mend pet as a dispel you don’t want to waste a bunch of mana on a max rank. As such this macro allows you to shift click for a rank 1 mend pet, or just a regular click if you want a ma rank mend pet.

Trap Macros
/cast [modifier:shift] Frost Trap; Freezing Trap

/cast [modifier:shift] Exploding Trap; Snake Trap

Easy way to manage all 4 of your primary traps on just 2 buttons. Both of these macros will cast their secondary trap without a modifier key, but when the modifier (shift in this case) is used, it will use the first trap.

You could manage all of your traps in this manner, using different modifier states to add each trap. But in my experience having multiple modifiers on the same key just gets incredibly confusing.

Hunter Totem Killing Macro
/petattack [target=earthbind totem]
/petattack [target=searing totem]
/petattack [target=grace of air totem]
/petattack [target=grounding totem]
/petattack [target=mana spring totem]
/petattack [target=windfury totem]
/petattack [target=strength of earth totem]
/petattack

Pretty basic, spam it to target the shaman’s totem forest with your pet.

Steady Shot / Auto shot Macro
/castsequence reset=target/3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot

Nice little script, this prevents you from cutting off your auto shot when spamming steady.

Mouse Over Macros
/cast [target=mouseover] Viper Sting

/cast [target=mouseover] Aim Shot

/cast [target=mouseover] Multishot

Very simple macros that you may or may not like. These require you to hover over the target you want to attack. Personally I was never a fan of them on my hunter, but I know some players (especially players who primarily use the mouse) like these type of macros to assist in faster target switching. Simple add a mouse over macro for every ability you’d like to have on the mouse over system.

Emergency Feign Death Macro
/stopcasting
/cast Feign Death

Stops what ever you are doing and immediately feigns death.