If you’re still following this, you’re more dedicated then I, obviously.

I thank you for your time, and am humbled.

As I’ve noted previously, I’m a graduate student. I get my degree on May 19, and this being the last month of school, I’ve officially going into over-drive mode finishing papers and projects. I’ve had to sink over 100 hours into my personal practicum, plus two more classes which have eaten into my ability not just to write, but to play the game.

As we’re going into 3.1 our favorite class and spec is looking great. New PVP options might just make us a viable arena contender, and we’ll be getting some new PVE toys. My character Wolfie is doing well, and I finally gave up the ghost on Engineering. I’m now JC/Alch and I’ve been very pleased.

When I graduate in May, I’ll be able to devote myself. I think, unless there is a major problem, I’ll have a job coming out of school, and I’ll be able to stay in New York City. When things settle down, probably after May 5th, I’ll be able to begin updating again. I miss doing this, and I promise, it won’t be long.

So so sorry.

Hello everyone,

First, I’d like to apologize for the insane length between posts.

I’m a grad student, as as you might assume, from Mid October through December, I get kinda crazy. Never fear, this is the next-to-last semester, and I think I’ll be done next Monday or Tuesday. It’s looking good that I’ve aced every course, so I’m very pleased with myself.

Of  course, my WoW time has suffered as a result of perfecting my leet Archival skills. I’m currently only 74. For my own defense: I am nearly epic Engineeer though (The new DPS mail goggles are fantastic, we’ll talk about that soon).

Wrath is the greatest expac for any game I’ve ever played, with the possible exception of Frozen Throne for WC3. I wish I could be more unbaised but I think everything it’s done was simply amazing. Playing through both starting areas is a joy, and the hardest part is now deciding where to go next (I want to do Grizzly Hills, but everyone says Dragonblight for faster leveling). Since most of the rest of the ‘Bears are all ready 80, I’m trying to speed as much as I can.

So, once I’ve got things sorted out with school, and have my leveling up, we’ll get back to more regular updates.

Until then, some links you should know:

http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t20765-shaman_enhancement/ – Fresh Info from the Elitist Jerks, including links to both Mac and PC simulators.

http://maxdps.com/shaman/enhancement.php?saveID=8f8f520458 – Updated info from the MaxDPS guys.

Some topics we’ll be covering: How to coordinate totems with other Shaman in your raid, some upcoming Shaman changes, and best of all, what fun toys lie for us in Wrath and beyond.

See you guys shortly.

I apologize for the infrequent updates, as I adjust to school, furnish my bare-bones apartment, enjoy a new relationship (her page, not mine. , and start my new job. It’s been a busy month here at NSE HQ!

Last Thursday, I was granted the right, as thousands of others are, to test Wrath of the Lich King for myself.

I’ve only had barely a half dozen hours to play, and of course, with the ups and downs of Beta testing and beta servers, that’s not much at all.

Here’s what little I can say:

Death Knights are a threat to Enhancment Shaman, but not a killer one. I think that Blood and Unholy Specced both will fill similar roles to ENH Shaman, but neither bring the utility we do. We’ll have to play better to avoid the flood, though.

If you want to have a ton of gold for the start of Wrath, take a 20+ level alt, and start running around your favorite starting area picking every Herb Node you see. On the beta server, herbs that go for 15 silver a stack on my live server are going for 20 gold. Even at a quarter that price, the days after Wrath goes live will be frantic and you will make a killing.

Northrend is very odd. Because of slowness and server downages, I’ve only had a few hours playing Wolfieone in Northrend, and I’m enjoying it. My gear is not being replaced by greens, and lots of you have a lot better then me, so don’t get worried about spending time getting purples now – it will pay off well enough to be worth it

I think that’s all to report for now. I’ll let you know what I think of professions as I get more play time, and I hope to soon have some reports on what I think.

I have a URL I’m holding for a personal website, and until it’s up, I’m using it as a forward to this blog. You can reach here by typing in http://www.saintstryfe.com/ (pops).

Keep your comments flowing!

Drek’thar’s story starts pretty much when the Orcs of Draenor were standing at a very dark place. He, like Thrall, was part of the Frostwolf Clan. Unfortunately, unlike the wise father of Thrall Durotan, he was ready to go a-kill’n those lousy Draenei on the say-so of another major Shaman, Ner’zuhl (being influenced by Kil’jaden, the guy who we prevent from coming to Azeroth in the Sunwell Plateau). He started playing around with Demons, multi-classing in that way that only major lore characters can. Damn them.

With Durotan’s no-no to drinking the Blood which made the other orcs all koo-koo for cocca puffs they get rejected by the others, and shoved once they go to Azeroth to a remote, barren wasteland in the Alterac Mountains, renowned for it’s swiss cheese. Eventually, when Ogrim Doomhammer took over the Blackrock Clan (the leaders of the Orcs at the time), Drek’thar got him to understand that Ner’zuhl was bad news. Sadly, this détente didn’t work out – Durotar and Thrall’s mom got ganked by Doomhammer, and Drek became the head of the Frostwolves. Promotions aren’t always fun.

Fast forward. Thrall, thought dead with his parents, but actually saved by Admiral Blackmoore, returns to his people’s homeland. It was Drek that allowed Thrall to do that annoying multi-class thing with his Warrior training and his inherent Shamanistic powers. After working to free the orcs who were interred after the end of the second war, Thrall took Doomhammer’s Black Plate armor, and became Warchief of the new Horde, the job he holds until your Alliance raid takes him down for the achievement in Wrath.

After helping Big T set up Ogrimmar and the new Orc/Troll homelands, he bounced around Kalimdor for a while. Eventually, he returns back to the Alterac Mountains, where a troublesome group of Dwarves have started mining, calling themselves the Stormpike. And thus, we get the Alterac Valley battleground, where Drek’thar is the general the Alliance can defeat to win the event. Those Horde-members willing can also find him as part of a questline in Nagrand in the Outlands, where he accompanies Thrall as he sees his homeland for the first time.

If you’d like more info on the Horde’s premier old blind shaman, the WowWiki page was the basis of this article, as well as the novel Lord of the Clans.

I’m getting back into the swing of writing. Let me know what else you’d like to see, and we can work on providing it. I’ll admit right now my WoW playing is very light, with classes starting plus, I’m honestly trying to not burn myself out before Wrath. So get going with some ideas!

First, a few facts we know: ENH Shaman are being fundamentally realigned into real melee/DPS casters. As mentioned previously, talented, STR, AGL and INT will all provide AP for ENH Shaman. Where as previously, Shaman would sub-spec into Resto for the Hit gained by Nature’s Guidence, the “Cookie Cutter” builds will be going into Elemental for a new talent that will give us big hits with our new Lava Burst spell.

Though it’s always subject to change, the most recent Talent Tree builds can be played with here from MMO-Champions. Let’s review a few of our new toys:

Ancestral Knowlege/Mental Dexterity: This is one of our best new toys. All that Mail armor we pass up because it has hunter stats will be good for us now-  With the class naturally getting AP from STR and AGL (rather then 2xSTR), we also now will get it from INT. That’s a hell of an investment for 8 talent points.  Note that some currently-well geared people might notice a small DPS drop, with STR-focused leather.

Improved Shields – Not just Lightning Shield anymore, you can get some more mana from Water Shield now. As well, it synergies with Static Shock later.

Improved Windfury Totem – More Haste for your WF Totem. Just to be clear, rather then extra hits, WF Totem will give raid-wide Haste bonuses (which will effect both Melee and Spell).

Improved Stormstrike – More charges, shorter cooldown. Ain’t noth’n wrong with that.

Spectoral Transformation – WHen we shift into Ghost Wolf, movement impairing effects have a 50% chance to be shrugged off, and it adds the same to to Spirit Wolves (We’ll get to that).

Maelstrom Weapon – Crit with a weapon 5 times, get 20% reduction in cast time. Ooh nice. Will also synergize well with Elemental Devestation.

Feral Spirit – Two pet-bar controlled Wolves join you on your call, for 45 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. Note, this hasn’t been implimented yet, so there hasn’t been extensive testing on how they’ll attack. We’ll hope to get that soon.

This is my talent build. Tell me what you think, and we’ll go over it.

I’m excited for wrath. I think we’re going to see a lot of growth and as a class, we’re going to be putting up some big numbers.

Good News, Everyone!

Once things settle in, I’ll be back to writing.

Recent news tells us that we’re going to get a pre-expansion patch with a lot of the Shaman-specific content coming relatively soon. So I’ll be online soon to let you guys know about what we on the ENH side of things can expect

Don’t worry, the blog is not at all dead.

I’m having a bit of a hard time finding a place, but light is breaking and I might be back on the horse within a week. To be honest, WoW has been very far down my priority list and writing has not come easy with 16+ hour days.

For now, hang on and we’ll get back to write.

My college housing has run out, and I’m on a hunt for a new apartment. There’ll be no new posts for a few days up to a week. Good luck till then, and when we get back, more ENH Shaman goodness!

Farseer Nobundo, image from WoWHead

Gameplay hints are important, but I think it’s really one of the most important parts of this game to enjoy the background. WoW is a big world – no pun intended. It spands novel series, comic books, 3.5 games before WoW, plus all the events that happen in the MMO itself. That NPC you click on may just be a random person, or it could be a character with indepth story details and a fascinating history that helps make the game just that more enjoyable. In my Shaman of Note segments, I hope to start bringing these characters, specifically Shaman who are important to us as players. And I’m going to start with one of my favorites, one of the better documented Shaman in the game who helped bring us Alliance-favoring players the class, Farseer Nobundo.

Our story starts not long before the Planet Draenor, the home of the Orcs we play and where the Draenei skedattled to after the Burning Legion took over Argus, was shattered by another fallen Shaman, Gul’dan. Nobundo was a Draenei Vindicator, a type of Paladin who see it as their duty to not just stop evil, but bring retribution. The WoW roleplaying games have Vindicators as as prestige class, if that helps give you some context.  He wasn’t the figure you see if you go to the Exodar now. He looked, well, like a Draenei Paladin. Go watch the video at the start of Burning Crusade, that was him basically. That’s a Draenei Vindicator.

When the temple of Karabor (aka The Black Temple where Illy S. hangs out now) and the first Shattrath City were going down, most of the Vindicators got scattered to the winds.

Fighting evil for all he was worth wore him down, and the fel energies that were everywhere twisted many draenei into what we now call Broken. As he deformed, his connection the Holy Light which Paladins so revere was severed, and the remaining Draenei were harsh to their fallen brothers and sisters. They drove them out (in one of the moves that can legitimately point to the Draenei being huge jerks, but forgive them, they just had thier world smashed, and to them, the Broken were a sign of corruption).

Nobundo would pray daily to the Light. One day, strangely, his prayer was responded to, but not by the Light at all. He heard a voice on the Wind. Draenei knew about Shamanism mostly from the Orcs (who they were friends with at one time, before they got all Bloodlusty). With time, Nobundo learned the ways of the Shaman. He taught them to other Broken (and in the Draenei community, Shamanism is still considered rather wacky and scary, and some really dislike it, though that isn’t very visible in the game).

With his new found boldness he went back to Shattrath, where Velen, Prophet of the Draenei, saw this event coming (he does that a lot in TBC). Despite the “racism” he faced, he was accepted, and in a relatively short time, Draenei started to have Shamantic insights. These are the Draenei that we play in game.

As the Draenei alligned with the Naaru (beings of pure light), they planned an attack on the housing unit of the former Tempest Keep, the Exodar. Noboundo gave the Raid all the totems and Heroism they needed, because at the end, they managed to break way and take the “ship” to Azeroth, despite the little hiccup caused by Blood Elf sabotaurs.

Nobundo now stands as the highest level Shaman trainer in the World of Warcraft for Alliance Players, and as well, is willing to tell any Alliance-friendly player who wishes about his story from his own prospective.

A more complete version of his story was written by Micky Nelson, and is called Unbroken. I heavily recommend reading it as a supplement to understanding how in depth the story of this game can be. You can, of course, always read more in depth versions of the source for this article from WoWWiki.

I’d also like to note that story’s tag line, “Everything that is, is alive.” is a personal favorite saying, and it really sums up how, if you ever want to engage in eole play with your Shaman, you should proceed. For Shaman, the stones, the stream and the sky all are just as alive as you or I. Honoring them gives you thier power. Drek’thar notes to a Young Thrall in one of the novels that while Warlocks and Mages command powers, Shaman call on the elements. Now in game terms, the Elements aren’t fickle. But remember that, should you try to RP – you don’t command or boss around the elements. You approach as a humble supplicant. They will respond.

Since I’ve talked about the Pappy of all Alliance Shaman, in next Shaman of Note, I’ll discuss the Pappy of all (current) Horde Shaman, Drek’thar. He’s got a possibly cooler backstory, being the teacher of Thrall and the boss we Allies have to take down in Alterac Valley. Stay tuned!