07-07-2005, 07:48 PM
As a shaman, my joys have been:
* Watching the big, pretty numbers: Flurry + Windfury = often frequent strings of big crits, which feel great when you are wielding a slow one-handed mace.
* An exceptional soloing experience: Yeah, I don't expect shaman will ever get any class specific love, not unless Blizzard manages to overbuff each and every one of the other classes in the game significantly. Shaman are forgiving of tactical mistakes for at least the first 30 levels, very flexible, and have enough tools that a thoughtful player can feel that his effectiveness is strongly increased by good choices.
* Scarlet Monastery: Worth running numerous times until you get the dagger, shoulder, legs, shield, helm, gloves, and, if so talented, either of the two handers. It is a good place to learn to how to play in a group, if you have soloed up to that point. The loot reward is so tilted towards shaman that no instances seem worthwhile until you hit Mauradon.
* Mana management: I try to bunch together as many instant cast spells as I can once I cast a heal or a couple of lightning bolts, then leave off casting for as long as I can. The five second rule adds a great deal of reward for intelligent use of abilties which give you the option to constantly be in the five second penalty (like lightning shield, totems, and the shocks). When in instances, however, agro management often overrides optimal mana choices (see below).
* Totem management: I try to think about hairy math problems related to optimization; for example, determining whether it is better to drop a grace of air totem, a windfury totem, or to keep the mana for healing if your party consists of two shamans, a rogue, a warrior, and a mage.
* Bind point efficiency: I've talked with numerous shaman who never adjust their bind point from Ogrimmar. I don't get this. Thoughtfully changing your binding while traversing around a lot can save you five to ten minutes an hour, if not more.
* Exploration: Mostly I enjoy seeing new parts of the game world for the first time, but learning a zone to the point where you don't need to look at the map anymore or memorizing chest, named rare mob and gathering spots fall into this category, too.
* Pseudo crowd control with healing: Adjusting who and when to heal to try to stay high enough in the hate list to protect casters.
* Shinies: I have derived hours of pleasure perusing thottbot, planning the progression of the character, what instances, quests, or crafted items will provide me the next best available upgrades to my weakest items. I find this process almost as rewarding as actually getting the items.
* Watching the big, pretty numbers: Flurry + Windfury = often frequent strings of big crits, which feel great when you are wielding a slow one-handed mace.
* An exceptional soloing experience: Yeah, I don't expect shaman will ever get any class specific love, not unless Blizzard manages to overbuff each and every one of the other classes in the game significantly. Shaman are forgiving of tactical mistakes for at least the first 30 levels, very flexible, and have enough tools that a thoughtful player can feel that his effectiveness is strongly increased by good choices.
* Scarlet Monastery: Worth running numerous times until you get the dagger, shoulder, legs, shield, helm, gloves, and, if so talented, either of the two handers. It is a good place to learn to how to play in a group, if you have soloed up to that point. The loot reward is so tilted towards shaman that no instances seem worthwhile until you hit Mauradon.
* Mana management: I try to bunch together as many instant cast spells as I can once I cast a heal or a couple of lightning bolts, then leave off casting for as long as I can. The five second rule adds a great deal of reward for intelligent use of abilties which give you the option to constantly be in the five second penalty (like lightning shield, totems, and the shocks). When in instances, however, agro management often overrides optimal mana choices (see below).
* Totem management: I try to think about hairy math problems related to optimization; for example, determining whether it is better to drop a grace of air totem, a windfury totem, or to keep the mana for healing if your party consists of two shamans, a rogue, a warrior, and a mage.
* Bind point efficiency: I've talked with numerous shaman who never adjust their bind point from Ogrimmar. I don't get this. Thoughtfully changing your binding while traversing around a lot can save you five to ten minutes an hour, if not more.
* Exploration: Mostly I enjoy seeing new parts of the game world for the first time, but learning a zone to the point where you don't need to look at the map anymore or memorizing chest, named rare mob and gathering spots fall into this category, too.
* Pseudo crowd control with healing: Adjusting who and when to heal to try to stay high enough in the hate list to protect casters.
* Shinies: I have derived hours of pleasure perusing thottbot, planning the progression of the character, what instances, quests, or crafted items will provide me the next best available upgrades to my weakest items. I find this process almost as rewarding as actually getting the items.