ICC, Paladin Alts

Picture is unrelated, I just got a chuckle out of it

Last night I was happily leveling my new alt obsession, Pallyadin the female Belf Paladin. It is all good fun, and I have been tanking my way to 80 using the dungeon finder and questing for gear.

There was a message in guild chat that said, if we do not have 1 dps for ICC we will have to sit 9 people for the night. Despite the fact that I was about to BBQ some awesome 3 cheese Angus burgers for the boy and I decided to raid, and make the boy cook me dinner. They needed DPS so I took the mage in instead of Skraps the shaman. It was a blast, and let me tell you with that 30% buff the DPS was averaging about 6k, with the top DPS hitting 10k. We wrecked the place, despite the fact that I still fail at moving out of the fire on Lord Marrowgar. (I mean really? WTF man, how do I always die in the fire on him? It isn't like it is hard to miss GIANT blue trails of fire)

Hopefully sometime this weekend, we will get past the plagueworks and head to the blood wing, an area I haven't seen yet.

On to my noobtastic self. As I mentioned, I have been leveling a Paladin alt. She is now level 78, just one and a half short levels to the level cap, this will be my 5th 80. I really need to get this altaholism under control, I have now spent 25k gold on epic fliers. It is too much!

Cataclysm Shaman 31 Point Talent Trees

OK. Before you get on my case, this is a COMPLETELY non-scientific, not in the beta so I don't really know, "Best Guess" of what the cookie cutter build of the Resto Tree will be in Cataclysm.

Here is a direct link to the talents so you can check them out.

There are a few talents I am not particularly happy with, and I am sure they will change as testing goes on. The first one, REALLY deep in the tree that I am not really sure of is Telluric Currents as I understand it mana management will be a big part of the healing game in Cata, and this spell may be necessary for the mana regen portion. I just worry that with things ramping up in Cata, not only will the mana management be required, but it may also require healers to DPS more to beat tighter enrage timers. This may well push the already difficult job of healing over the edge. Because not only will you have to be watching DPS that still in this day and age not move out of the fire, but on every spare GCD have to throw a lightning bolt, or shock in to beat the enrage.

Focused Insight is a talent I did not pick up, although thinking back on it, a instant cast shock, may be more efficient than a lighting bolt for the reduced cost of the next heal, plus a Greater Healing Wave with a 15% mana reduction and 5% bonus on top, kinda gets me happy in the pants.

As near as I can tell there seems to be about a 3 talent "option" in this new 31 point tree, depending on your play style, or weather or not you are doing PVP you can pick a couple of what I am calling tertiary talents, Ancestral Resolve, Focused Insight and Natures Guardian.

As far as your secondary tree, it seems pretty obvious that you are going to want to go into the enhancement tree, as the elemental trees lower talents only improve damage, while enhancement improves some of your buffs, and your mana pool. Although Concussion in conjunction with Telluric Currents may be required for the mana regen.

This ends my completley uninformed, best guess at the new 31 point resto tree. If I manage to find time later this week before I leave for a 3 day white water rafting trip I will take a look at the other trees. But I am not sure I will get the chance, still trying to recover here at the office after a small fire in the telco closet here at work over the weekend.

Exclusive Shaman preview!

I just had a wonderful chat with Ghostcrawler, he leaked some wonderful tidbits about upcoming Cataclysm changes for the shaman class.

THERE WILL BE A NEW TOTEM SCHOOL! In addition to the new totem, each totem school will have a summon elemental ability. These elementals will not be directly involved in combat like the current earth and fire elementals, but will provide a super charged raid buff from their usual schools. We will be summoning a air elemental to increase party haste by 20% for 30 seconds and water elemental (not like the mage elemental) that provides a massive AOE mana regen with an effect similar to a druids Tranquility.

To go with our current Earth, Water, Fire, Air. We will get the Spirit totem! Spirit totems will be able to combine the four original totems elementals into a super powerful Elemental.