The Egg and I

Welcome back to way of the totem. This week we have Triple Post Friday! I'd like to take a second and thank everyone for the kind messages and comments of encouragement. I'm glad that this information has been helpful. Today we'll be exploring badge gear, User Interface and mods, as well as Shaman specific macros. You can thank Shotax for the UI and macro posts as it was his request =)

So, you've been running heroics and you have all these badges Emblems you need to unload. What to buy what to buy? Well I have a few thoughts as to what you should get =)
First of all, Get your tier pieces! With your Gloves coming in at 60 Emblems, and your Chest at 80 Emblems, this is an investment you just can't pass up. Blizzard did an amazing job with shaman tier loot this time around. Even the pants are good! (t6 pants blew btw). Check it out Here. The pieces have near perfect stat allocation and even allow for a good mix of haste and crit letting you balance your tertiary stats a tad bit easier. I enjoy the fact that you can buy two pieces of tier loot with Emblems of Heroism immensely. Honestly though, those should be your first targets for badge loot. they are solid investments, will last you a long while and the 2 Piece set bonus is really nice as well. you wouldn't think 10% to water shield was big, but the extra 10 mp5 really does add up. The 10% alone has accounted for the one mana pot I use during speed pulls (psychotic Death Knight Tank ftw) So, your first choices made lets look at some of the other badge gear.

Lets take a look at neck pieces. Really the only choice is the Choker unless for some reason you really feel the need to stack Spirit (which if you do I will cry a little since spirit is totally wasted on shaman)The neck has great stat allocation and has MP5. It's only 25 Emblems So its an easy pick up (when you're as crazy as I am and pulling 20 ish badges a night it's even faster =P )

For your belt Shamanic Vision is pretty damn awesome it's right up there with The one from Loken. Toss a belt buckle on that bad boy, put in a couple really nice gems and you are good to go. It comes in at a mere 40 Emblems so farming the emblems for it is fairly easy. If you are looking for crit rating there is also Some leather lovin for 40 tokens as well.

If you're looking for a little totem lovin for 15 Emblems you can get This bad boy. Reducing the cost of chain heal is huge. We're all about fast, efficient heals and mana preservation / regeneration and that 79 mana adds up over time.

For off hands if you need a new shield and can't get the one from heroic Culling to drop, this little dandy can be yours for 35 token. Honestly its pretty awesome. All the right stats and all at the right price (and it looks cool too!)

Now for my prized possession. I'm going to admit here that when I got this I made a macro that said "ALL BOW BEFORE THE EGG" in guild / raid and linked to the egg. I'm a haste junkie and this pretty much is my drug fix. 505 haste rating is roughly 15.4% haste. Unbuffed no raid no pots no anything, when this procs I have a 24.7% haste rating. With Wrath of Air totem that's 29.7% add in 8% from a boomkin and retadin and omg the fast heals. Having this allowed me to swap to t7 gloves for two piece so I no longer needed to use Handgrips of Turmoil to maintain a 2.0 chain heal cast time. Even if you aren't staking haste the trinket is awesome sitting at a +98 spell power equip it's really nice. I also have to say the trinket procs off of EVERYTHING and I mean everything. From Ghost Wolf, Riptide, even Earthliving weapon and Earth Shield proc it! As far as I can tell it also has no internal cooldown. I've had it cast, recast right after or restart the count on the buff, so in theory with enough healing being thrown around it will be up most times rather then not. A solid solid piece.

Tomorrow I will talk about rep rewards and filling in your gaps in gear to get you ready for 10 and 25 man raiding.