• Rolling Thunder (Tier 4) *New* – When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning while your Lightning Shield ability is active, you have a 30/60% chance to recover 1% of your mana and to generate an additional Lightning Shield charge, up to a maximum of 9 charges.
• Fulmination (Tier 5) *New* – When you have more than 3 Lightning Shield charges active, your Earth Shock spell will consume any surplus charges, instantly dealing their total damage to the enemy target.
• Totemic Wrath is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 5.
• Unrelenting Storm is gone.

So, speccing into Improved Shields (increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 15%) feels a lot better now! Also, charging up your Lightning Shield will be added to the elemental’s casting routine, especially if you’re trying to instant kill targets. Make sure to fully charge your shield before popping your trinkets and you will finish with a nice, big Earth Shock hit. I’m more of a Frost Shock-er then an Earth Shock-er so hopefully we will see a minor modification in the new Fulmination talent in the future

After the break, a quick possible PvE and PvP build.

PvE: 34/7/0

The picture above is pretty self explanatory. Others would spend points in Elemental Warding to help out the healers in raid. I have a pretty egoistic point of view and say, it’s the healers job to keep the raid alive. During my entire WoW career, I’ve been busy with keeping people alive, either as a resto shaman or as a holy paladin. So I guess I’m eligable to post that statement The only time when I would consider to soak up ‘protective talents’ is when I’m in a 10-man raid with only 2 healers around. Question is, if this will still be possible in Cataclysm. Most likely not because of the mana management changes. I don’t see why I should put talent points into Elemental Warding or Ancestral Resolve when your raid is carrying 3 healers in 10-mans or 5, even 6 healers in 25-man raids. If you are really keen of helping out your healing friends, then I would suggest you to take the needed points from Ancestral Swiftness. This is not a mandatory talent if your raiding PvE content.

The reason why I left Improved Nova blank is easy: Blizzard recently stated that they want Earthquake to be the #1 AOE spell. I don’t mind that because I rather do damage at max range instead of standing next to the mobs.

PvP: 32/7/2

Obviously, all ‘protective talents’ are a must for PvP. The reason why I’m skipping Fulmination in the elemental tree is due to the fact that I use Frost Shock over Earth Shock 9 out of 10 times. I think kiting melee increases the survivability by a lot compared to the small -10% melee damage debuff on target applied by Earth Shock. This requires some testing though.

Maybe it’s more beneficial to max out Reverberation instead of maxing out Lava Surge. I’m looking here at arena players in particular. Anyways, we are stil in beta testing which means, stuff can and will change. Nothing is finally and these builds are only a first glimpse how I would spec in the current beta build.

Feel free to add your thoughts and comments if you have any. Yes, I know we are stil in early beta testing but hey, gotta kill time til Cata release somehow, right?

Alrighty, Chilton talks about the latest beta changes and how they internally tested Tol Barad with 50 Blizzard employees facing other 50 from the company. Later on, he talks about the the new guild system and how they changed the schedule and concept of releasing new content. That’s all fine but one thing got my attention though: I’m wondering what we are supposed to do for the next 3-4 months until Cataclysm gets released..? Cancel subscription until then? Why not? It’s not like the defeat of Halion or of the Lich King gets more exciting with every passing week… More after the break.

According to the current status of Cata beta testing, and Chilton’s tiny statement in that interview, Cataclysm is stil far away from being release ready. Yes folks, we are looking here at november or even december until WoW’s next expansion is out. Personally, I was hoping to see Cata in stores by the beginning of october but I guess I was way off

Fine, I agree on not having minor patches every 3-4 weeks. It takes time to create new, epic dungeons, so hell yes, I’m with you on this one Blizzard. Nevertheless, I think we are, at least I am, facing a situation we haven’t faced before: the last patch we received on live servers was the release of Ruby Sanctum. 3.3.5 went live on june the 22nd. That was 2 months ago. I also don’t expect that everyone has killed Halion on heroic mode yet which means that we are ‘just fine’ with the current available content. In a couple of weeks though, this will change. There won’t be much to do in Azeroth then. Casual players will most likely focus on getting their alts to lvl 80 but that’s about it. For the rest, like myself, this wait is going to be a very long wait. November / december is stil so far away, heck, I went sun bathing today!!

If you ever wondered when the prefect time is to take a small break from playing WoW, well, it is now! I assure you one thing: you won’t miss a thing while you’re gone. Enjoy the sun and the beer-garden weather with friends & family, as long as you can. Soon enough it will get cold again. And when it starts snowing, that’s the right time to come back to WoW. Hopefully Cataclysm will be out by then… but who knows… oh yeah Mike Morhaime does

Ghostcrawler

“In the next beta build (or the one after that), you will see two important changes to Elemental shaman. First, you will use Lightning Shield (for damage!) instead of Water Shield.”

I mean ‘Come On!’ this is great news and it’s good to see Blizzard stil working on the shaman class. On the other hand, they had to come up with a nifty idea because elementals weren’t to happy with speccing into Improved Shields. This enhance tier 1 talent benefits the non casting shaman a lot more and was more of a filler talent for elementals. I guess Water Shield was useful to some kind in arenas but using a shield that does ranged damage is going to be a very nice change.

“Second, you will want to use Earthquake for AE over Fire Nova. These changes, especially the former, will provide Elemental shaman with a bit of an upgrade in the rotation over what you’re used to in LK.”

Semi-exciting news on this one. I actually would like to use Earthquake over Fire Nova. I like being out of range of mobs One thing is clear tho, elementals will have nice AOE abilities

Here are other changes from the past week if you should have missed it:

“Magma Totem now costs 18% of base mana, down from 27%.

Lava Burst damage has been increased by 25%.”

So, I’m really looking forward to the next beta builds. So much for stopping browsing the forums for beta news lol

I guess we better spend our precious spare time with RL friends instead of browsing all kind of beta forums and look for the latest beta news. Sometimes it’s good not to be invited to beta-testing. Hmmm summer, here I come

So all beginners, veterans and theory-crafters, make sure to head over to check out www.TotemSpot.com

Click here for the guide: WoW Filming on MAC

Join me after the break to find out what makes WoW so special. It’s more then a regular game: it’s about meeting new people and friendship and socializing on a totally different level.

As a competitive athlete (ice-hockey) I never had time for playing games or computer stuff in general. Even today, I find Playstations or XBOX pretty boring. I understand that you can play against other real persons via internet but still, how much do scenarios in each fight/game change from the ones before and after? Call of Duty (CoD) or FIFA Soccer or Madden Football, it’s always the same old, same old. WoW on the other hand is an always evolving, an active world. Players turn Azeroth into a vivid and mysterious world. Generally speaking, Blizzard brings out every 1-2 years an expansion and patches the game every 6-8 weeks with new content. There are always new things for the player to discover and to do and interact. It never get’s boring.

Furthermore, behind each Alliance or Horde character there’s a real person playing that “toon”. Battles and duels are never the same because you never know what your opponent will do next. The range of possibilities how to react in certain situations is much more larger and bigger then in console games. WoW offers more. And that is, for me at least, much more entertaining then winning car races, football games or be top in CoD Deathmatches.

In my almost 6 year WoW career, I have met a lot of people. People from literally all over the world. People playing from Singapore, from Australia, from North America and even some people playing from New Zealand and Europe. Some were crazy, some were annoying. Some were funny and some were not. But sometimes, if you are lucky enough, you get to meet the right person with the right attitude and personality. Be it a girl or a guy, you eventually become really good friends over time. Then, the Facebook friend request is just a few clicks away.

I hereby want to greet Ariakas, Manor, Sirene, Jerec, Sasoni, Sirius, Rezzar and Cashmoney!

Bonds are established when strangers go on a “adventure” together. In so called parties or raids, the players experience the same emotions / feelings overcoming certain obstacles and challenges, together as a team. This experience even amplifies when the party is communicating via Ventrilo or Mumble (Voice over IP). I mean, you get your friend’s reaction and emotions right away, without reading any chat text and alike. This is a totally new level of socializing. Just imagine Facebook turning from a passive social platform into an active virtual world, where people can do stuff together in real-time. Facebook apps are going to be out.

Moreover, imagine companies being active in such a virtual world. I think I will need to google for the word “virtual marketing” after I’m done writing this article. Let’s say Nike sponsors the next battleground map. How crazy would that be? How cool would it be to drive through Azeroth in a BMW mount? Might this be the next step of “web evolution”?

WoW is not like other games. This is a world with great potential in many ways. For gamers, for people liking to meet new people via the internet, and of course, for big time companies looking for new ways to interact with their customers. And this is only the start.

Yes!!! I so much love rebuilding my UI after a server transfer… NOT! Well, the more addons you use, the more time consuming it is to turn the standard Blizzard UI into a real piece of art again. Now, after several hours of tweaking and moving your new bars to the perfect position, you want to see and test your new layout / design in action by joining a battleground or a small 10-man Vault of Archavon (VoA) raid.

The new pew-pew machine on US-Stormscale joined a bunch of friends to test his lightning skills in VoA after a 9 months break. And damn was it hard to keep my eyes on the Flame Shock DoT while casting your lightning spells and Lava Bursts. Healing on a paladin, which has been my main since ICC release, has nothing to do with ‘multitasking’. That’s the main reason why I love playing an elemental shaman: there’s so much stuff going on which requires the player to be very careful and pay more attention to, to cooldowns and surroundings, then other classes. More details on the difference between playing a holy paladin and an elemental shaman and what it takes to become a solid elemental shammy after the break.

As a holy paladin all you need to do is

• to keep your Judgement of Light up on target,
• Divine Plea every time it’s up, except during intense healing situations,
• to keep Beacon up on the raid’s Main Tank,
• use Holy Shock whenever you need to move,
• Holy Light spam whoever is below 85% HP.

And that’s it! Trinket activation is set to trigger automatically through the healing mod VuhDo. Now compare this to the elemental shaman class. An elemental shaman needs to pay attention to

• the right totem placement,
• keeping the Flame Shock DoT up on target,
• adjust spell rotation so that Lava Burst has no down time when it’s up,
• Frost Shock when you have to move but check if there’s at least a +4 sec FS DoT on target before you use Frost Shock,
• cast Bloodlust / Heroism at the right time,
• recast totems if they should get destroyed / ran out,
• refresh Mana Shield if needed,
• coordinate and cast Elemental Mastery, trinkets and racial cooldowns and abilities accordingly,
• DPS the right target.

Yeahhh, a lot of stuff going on for the raiding shammy.

So no wonder that Fantasiar sucked big time in his first raid (10m VoA) after 9 months. I mean he stil got 2nd on the DMG/DPS meters for every boss fight and that with his dusty T9 healing/DPS gear. In my eyes though, I could have done a lot of better then those 6k DPS. First, I had to get used to the spell rotation which wasn’t that complicated but timing the spell rotation right was kinda hard at the start, especially having both Fetish of Volatile Power trinkets (heroic and normal version) equipped. I also had trouble keeping my FS DoT rolling. It happened 2-3 times that my LvB landed just after the DoT ran out. Now that wasn’t good at all as you can imagine.

Another thing I noticed is that I need to get a new, a real gaming mouse for Cataclsym. My current, cheap, 3-button Logitech mouse won’t cut it. I’m also considering to modify my current UI design, but first, I need to take part in a couple more raids before going ahead and spending endless hours on retuning my UI again.

So, expect to see an article about getting the right gaming mouse and also an UI-article in the near future. For now, feel free to post any suggestions or experiences you might have with gaming mice. Thank you

Fantasiar becoming a goblin shaman is taking shape now. Today, I went ahead and gave Blizzard Entertainment 25 US dollars for transferring my elemental pew-pew-machine from US-Illidan to US-Stormscale. Moreover, I had to wire over another 30 bucks for getting his hair cut, getting a total facial make-over and for adding some big scars on his new tanned skin. Goblins aren’t the prettiest race out there so, yes, you can say that this transformation has gone the other way then its supposed to. People spend big money on boobs jobs or on a new, prettier nose. My toon in the contrary has gotten uglier and more fearful, a troll at the moment, then he ever was as Draenei on alliance side. Well spend money I guess

Fantasiar is joining the daytime raiding guild <Reviction> which has been around for almost 4 years now. Daytime raiding? Yes, you heard right! I’m an european, located in the heart of Munich, Germany, playing on US servers. Join me after the break for more info about <Reviction> and my experience as a daytime raider on US servers.

If you’re “stuck” like me on US servers but live in a different time zone then you already know finding the right guild with the right raiding schedule is a tough challenge to overcome. For myself, I studied Biochemistry at the University of Vermont when WoW got released. After 5 years, I moved back to Germany and that’s how I ended up where I am today. When I get home, which is usually around 7 pm, the realm time shows 1pm. Now this isn’t exactly what I call ‘peak hours’. Dalaran is almost empty, even NPCs are taking ‘una siesta’ because there’s nothing going on during this time of the day.

You can imagine that it took me a while, in fact years, before finding the right guild and be able to raid on a constant basis again. I had to wait for the implantation of Server Transfer and Faction Change and thank god for that! This allowed me to get into an organized, high PvE-content progression raid again. That’s why <Reviction>. It is the most progressed daytime raiding guild on US servers, currently working on 25m Sindragosa hardmode.

Reviction Raiding Schedule

8:30 PM – 12:30 AM (GMT +01:00) –  Berlin, Rome, Stockholm
7:30 PM – 11:30 PM (GMT +00:00) – Dublin, Edinburgh, London
2:30 PM – 6:30 PM (GMT -06:00) – U.S. Eastern
1:30 PM – 5:30 PM (GMT -07:00) – U.S. Central
12:30 PM – 4:30 PM (GMT -08:00) – U.S. Mountain
11:30 AM – 3:30 PM (GMT -09:00) – U.S. Pacific

25-MAN CONTENT MON / TUES / WED / THUR
10-MAN CONTENT OFF-NIGHTS

apply to Reviction (H) here