Totem Talk: Leveling on the 68-80 express

Totem Talk, the column for shamans, finishes up its roundup/overview/update (it's all these things and more!) of shaman leveling with a look at what you'll be doing once you get off the boat to Northrend. Matthew Rossi is tired now, but would like to thank Steve again for the screenshot accompanying today's article.

And so we arrive at Northrend, able to take the quests and explore the new zones. We've talked about faction rewards and instance gearing for shamans in Northrend before, and for the most part that still holds true. Here's a look back at the posts about the various five man instances and zone rewards:

• Dragonblight and Azjol-Nerub
• Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, and the Troll instances
• CoT Stratholme and Halls of Stone/Lightning
• Utgarde Keep, the Oculus (spelled correctly, but really, if I misspelled it what's Sacco gonna do, arm wrestle me? We all know how that would go) and the heroic versions of Utgarde Pinnacle/The Nexus.

The only real changes in terms of 5 man instances are the introduction of Trial of the Champion and Heroic TotC, and to my astonishment I've never done a gear list for shamans from TotC. That really is kind of astonishing. It's possible I simply lost track since I was in the middle of a vast discussion of Ulduar gear when TotC was on the horizon, but it's still a pretty big oversight. With another set of new five mans dropping alongside the Icecrown raid in patch 3.3, TotC/Heroic TotC 5 are instances any new 80 should be running to get geared up in anticipation of 3.3. So we'll talk about that gear today.



Before we do though: if you have a main who can pick it up for you, get the Tome of Cold Weather Flight as soon as you can. If you can get it, it makes the starting areas much quicker and gives you the option to cherry pick out quest hubs faster than before. (This is doubly true if you have access to an epic flyer but even the upgraded regular flyers are faster than regular epic land mounts and can also skip right over obstacles.) With this ability, doing both starting zones (which I highly recommend even if you have heirloom armor and weapons you won't replace... remember, all that stuff vendors or DE's and you can still use the big XP for the chains) has never been easier, and that means that you'll be more likely to be max level before you start Icecrown and the Storm Peaks, meaning that all those quests will be gold in your pocket. With both heirloom chest and shoulders and some luck on rested you can easily be 80 before finishing up Zul'Drak, especially if you do both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord.

Questing in Northrend is about as well designed as questing has ever been in WoW. The designers learned from their experience with classic and BC, and as a result, I can't imagine why anyone but the most die hard would entirely avoid it. But if for whatever reason you want to avoid all quests (perhaps this is your ninth or tenth alt) you most certainly can level without questing. In fact, leveling without doing a single quest has never been easier. You can of course chain run instances, but if you're also weary of that (or you can't for one reason or another) then there's always PvP as well.

The battlegrounds (even Alterac Valley post the nerf to the ridiculously high XP which we all knew was coming) are a strong alternative for the player who can't spare the time to run instances or who just likes to queue up and go. And with shamans being hybrids who can heal, you can more or less pick your playstyle and run with it and still help your faction out with the occasional clutch heal if you're of a mind to. 

Also bear in mind you aren't restricted to any one of these activities. You can run through an area's quests (I especially recommend this for places like Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak that have very rewarding group quests as well as quests that lead to instances like Drak'Tharon Keep or Gun'drak) then run a few instances and then queue for a BG or two to cleanse the palate. If you've managed to pick up dual specs you're in even better shape, as you can have an instance spec and a solo spec, or a PvP spec and a PvE spec. It's never been easier for a shaman to get to 80. 

Finally, an overview of the gear available to you as a fresh 80 from TotC/Heroic TotC. TotC5 gear is roughly the same quality as Naxx 10 and TotC Heroic matches up with Ulduar 10, putting you in purples with a solid outlay of time as soon as you hit 80. (Some friends of mine were even running TotC normal before they ever saw 80 and stockpiling the purples.) The one downside to TotC is that each boss/encounter has a fairly large loot table. I'm sticking to mail drops here, in the interest of space, but there are several leather and cloth drops that will no doubt be desired by shamans.

Normal TotC

• Abyssal Rune - a solid caster DPS trinket for elemental shamans
• Banner of Victory - For enhancement, I would say you'd be better off with a Mirror of Truth or a Darkmoon Card or any Naxx 10 drop. Even some blue DPS trinkets would outperform this, since it's got a large chunk of static Armor Pen on it. The proc is nice enough.
• Belt of Merciless Cruelty - haste for Maelstrom Weapon procs and solid stats and a gem socket.
• Brilliant Hailstone Amulet - a fairly solid elemental piece, especially for a new 80 who might be low on hit.
• Carapace of Grim Visions - I'd actually use this as restoration before elemental with that crit on it, but it could work for either.
• Leggings of the Bloodless Knight - same as the Carapace.
• Scale Boots of the Outlander - solid for enhancement even with the armor pen on them.
• Signet of Purity - sigh, why can't shamans get anything good from spirit? Of all the caster/healer classes this is the worst for us with Holy Paladins probably a close second. Luckily I don't care about them.
• Tears of the Vanquished - this thing seems to proc a lot. I'd say it's better even than it looks, and it doesn't look bad at all.
• Uruka's Band of Zeal - ah, for the enhancement shaman trying to catch up on expertise this is a ring to be seized.
• Writsguards of Ceaseless Regret - even with the armor pen these are pretty solid. But I prefer the Interwoven Scale Bracers, if you can get them. And of all the heroics, heroic Nexus is by far the easiest.

Heroic TotC

• Aledar's Battlestar - In a world where 2.6 speed weapons are hard to get and we're already fighting for them with DK's and rogues, pick this up as soon as you can. It's easily as good as anything that will drop for you before Trial of the Crusader 10.
• Ancient Pendant of Arathor - yes, it has armor pen. But it's still solidly itemized otherwise.
• Chestguard of the Ravenous Fiend - same as the APoA.
• Girdle of the Dauntless Conqueror - solid for resto, decent for elemental.
• Gloves of the Dark Exile - would it have killed you to have put haste on one of these drops, Blizz? I guess the Belt of Merciless Cruelty was your one present to enhancement shamans.
• Kurisu's Indecision - here's a cape to fight with every other DPS caster for, elemental shamans.
• Mariel's Sorrow - a very nice healer mace.
• Pauldrons of Conceal Loathing - no armor pen! It's a Winter Veil Miracle!
• Pauldrons of the Deafening Gale - okay, caster shaman shoulders with hit and crit. Since hit is useless for restoration I'll give the nod to elemental, although that crit is just weird for a class that can force crits.
• Sinner's Confession - a ring that repeats the Pauldron's gearing issues, but presumably the ring is meant for any DPS caster.
• Spectral Kris - I've seen elemental and I've seen resto with it. It won't drop on any run I'm on, of course.
• Symbol of Redemption - a healing neck for sure, and a nice one too.

Okay, and with that we should be more or less done with our 68 to 80 climb and should have an eye on where to go for some gear. Next week, we'll be shifting gears to really talk in detail about what shamans will look like in 3.3.

Totem Talk: 21 to 40 the Shaman way

Totem Talk talks leveling again with a discussion of the changes in 21 to 40 since the last time we discussed it. Matthew Rossi wanted to use this picture sent in by a reader, however. It has nothing at all to do with leveling. but it's a happy shaman with two 171 DPS 2.6 speed mugs. What more can you possibly want? Thanks to Russel Jones for sharing it.

I considered doing a big loregeek post this week while waiting for the 3.2.2 changes to continue shaking out for shamans. So far in my experience (raiding as enhance/resto, PvPing as resto/elemental) elemental seems to have had a nice little buff that, while hardly game breaking, helps bring caster shamans closer to other ranged DPS. Didn't really see the point of posting that again, so instead I considered doing a "Famous Shamans of WoW" post that talked about the impact shamans have had on the Warcraft setting for good and ill. I mean, Ner'Zhul alone gives shamans some serious lore cred, not to mention Thrall, Drek'Thar, Nobundo, and even Gul'Dan.

But then I remembered that we were talking about me leveling a baby shaman when stuff started hopping again. I got sidetracked leveling in AV, but that's no reason not to start talking about shamans and leveling again.

This is the original 21-40 Totem Talk leveling column. As you can see, it was written two years ago (well, almost) and while it's not entirely inaccurate now (shamans do still cast spells and drop totems) we still should talk about all the ways things have changed. 

Heirloom items are one big change, of course, but we did cover those in our first foray back into leveling. It does bear repeating that if you can get heirlooms for your baby shaman (that is to say, if this shaman is your alt and not your main or only character) then by all means you should do so.

First up, for you leveling shamans, you'll get your first mount at level 20 and your epic mount at level 40, the same level as Dual Talent Specialization. DTS is a huge deal for a shaman, although the 1000g cost puts it out of reach of the average, this is my first time playing character. But for an alt, DTS will make soloing and grinding much more pleasant while also allowing you to have a healing spec in case you want to run a dungeon as a healer. 

Also new this time around are the new ways to drop 4 totems at once. We've covered these before, but to specifically cover the ones 21 to 40 shamans will be seeing, you'll get Call of the Elements at level 30 and Call of the Ancestors at level 40. These make dropping multiple totems at once much less painful, removing the GCD issues that made shamans plonk plonk plonk one totem at a time while everyone else got to cast or attack.

The abilities you get at your level are pretty much unchanged otherwise. Totem Consolidation has given us a single Cleansing Totem which you get at level 38. This means you won't have the totem at level 22 to cleanse poison. (You should have Cure Toxin from level 18 on, so you'll just have to target and cleanse until level 38.) Similarly, while Windfury is still a popular totem it's nowhere's near the clamorous "gimmie gimmie" that melee used to regard it with now that it's a pure melee haste effect. 

Call of Water remains unchanged for both Horde and Alliance with the Alliance one still being a trifle easier. Likewise, Call of Air is still a lot more fun and seems a lot more integratedAlliance side.

As far as what talent specialization to use between 21 and 40, that's still pretty much up to you. It's easier with heirlooms to build an elemental set for a lower level shaman and the changes to talent trees, while not ridiculously different at the levels described here, do allow you to feel more like an elemental shaman than was possible at the time I wrote the original post. By the mid 30's you can have talents like Elemental Fury, Call of Thunder, Elemental Reach and Unrelenting Storm, with Lightning Mastery within reach. While you'll probably still have to wear some cloth at these levels, it won't be as difficult to get caster leather and then mail at 40.

Enhancement won't really feel any different at all at these levels. You still won't get dual wielding until level 40 so enhancement will still be all about running around whacking stuff with a big, slow 2h with Windfury on it, and frankly, that's still good enough. Similarly, while restoration sees talents like Tidal Force, the improved Ancestral Healing and the entirely redesigned Healing Way, these changes don't really make restoration play any differently in 2009 at these levels than it did in 2007. (It's basically just better.) You'll be able to getCleanse Spirit at level 40, allowing you to remove curses as well as poison and disease, which is very very nice. Again, though, it won't feel different, just better.

I feel amiss in that I haven't covered Sentry Totem. Yes, you still get Sentry Totem at level 34. It's still the totem I wrote an entire column about, and its magnificence has not dimmed a whit in the two years since I first wrote about leveling a shaman between 21 and 40. Sentry Totem, don't ever change. We love you for who you are.

Considering the amount of time that passed, the old column still lists a fairly strong selection of attainable gear for these levels, but that's not surprising since the big change to instances at those levels took place just before it was written. The real changes to the class that will have an impact on these levels are general ones (mount changes), heirlooms, and the totem interface improvements as well as changes to what totems you get when as some totems were consolidated. As long as you keep those changes in mind, it's basically still pretty much the same climb between these levels.

Next week we'll either return with 41 to 60, or we'll discuss shamans in Trial of the Crusader.