"Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME? "

Welcome back to way of the totem. Today I'd like to talk about the next wing in Naxxramas, The Construct Quarter.

The Construct Quarter is the second wing you should be looking at after the Arachnid Quarter just based on it's difficulty. This wing contains four bosses as opposed to the three bosses in the other quarters. The trash leading up to the first boss is a series of Abominations, Slimes and Giants. There's nothing really special to note here on the 10 man versions, just simply heal heal heal.

The first boss up is the infamous Patchwerk This cuddly ball of joy and sunshine is going to be your best friend, and by that I mean you'll hate this fight. He hits like a truck and not only smacks the main tank around, but hits another member of the raid for an obscene amount using his Hateful Strike. the target will be the person in the raid with the most health who is not the Main Tank. He is a healing and dps check. My suggestions for you are as follows. Firstly, don't worry about any other totems besides Wrath of Air and Mana Spring. Keep Earth Shield on the Hateful Strike tank. Keep Riptide up at all times on the Hateful tank, and hopefully you have your Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave in, because making that hit like Healing Wave on your ES target, combined with Riptide and liberal use of Tidal Force will keep the Hateful tank alive. Damage on the main tank is a lot more even, so as long as you keep the OT topped off, you should be fine. Patchy does have an enrage timer, and you do not want to let him get there, so after the main tank has established aggro, blow your Heroism / Bloodlust and let the raid burn him down like so much firewood.

Here's a vid of the fight / strategy



After the lug topples over, you can start poking through Patch's pockets. He's actually got a fair amount in the way of viable healing pieces. The mail shoulders are a solid piece, giving you all the necessary shaman stats while adding in some haste. If you are looking for crit, These Leather Gloves or Cloth Boots will server you well (despite having spirit, but we'll forgive them for now). Lastly he drops a really nice dagger. Good spell power, decent stats, crit and haste. It would make a solid pickup.

Next on the hit list is Grobbulus. First question on the list, and one I've been trying to figure out since naxx was released... HOW THE HELL DOES HE SEE???... well, right, anyways. He's a fairly straightforward boss in theory, but execution will more then likely need practice. The things you need to be aware of as a healer are only a few in number. Firstly make sure you are behind Grobby so you don't spawn a slime. Damage on the tank may spike as slimes get to them before
an OT an pick it up. The ability of Mutating Injection has two main points for you as a healer. Firstly this places a debuff that shows up as a disease on the target, it can be removed, however under NO circumstances should you cleanse it. After 10 seconds it spawns a poison cloud, if you dispel it the cloud will spawn immediately and bork the placement, and cause your raid to suffer. This means if you are running Decursive, turn it off. The second point to be aware of is when the cloud spawns. The person spawning the cloud will take a decent chunk of damage, they should be topped off before they go running off and topped back off when they run back in. Other then that move with the raid, top off the cloud people, pop Heroism / Bloodlust at the 50% mark and collect loot.

Here's a video of the fight and strategy.


Grob drops a couple really nice pieces for us. He has a nice set of Gloves, they are cloth, but are still very nice as far as stats are concerned. If you need crit raiting he has a decent Neck Piece as long as you don't mind a little spirit. Now the item you've all been waiting for (I know I still want it =P) This lovely Mace. Great stats, haste, MP5 and goooood spell power. This is a nifty little item to pick up and if it drops, you'll probably want to clean up your drool then bid =)

Next batter in the line-up is Gluth. I have a love hate relationship with this fight. In theory he's a simple fight. You will see three grates on the floor after you run through the pipe. Zombie Chow will spawn from them and start eating people's faces until someone assigned to kite them grabs them. You will most likely have to drop an Earthbind Totem in front of one of the grates to help slow down the chow while a hunter hits up Frost Trap on another. Paladins make great kiters for Gluth's adds and can lay down a consecrate between the middle grate and the raid. You will have to make sure that not only are the tanks getting healed, but so is the kiter. The zombie chow stacks a debuf that increases the physical damage taken. Making sure they don't hit the tank and keeping the kitting tank alive and topped off. Every minute and a half or so Gluth will cast Decimate reducing everyone's life to 5% of their total and summoning all zombies to him. Your first priority as a healer is to top those tanks off! The zombie's drop aggro so you should have enough time to top the tanks off. After your tanks are good switch immediately to the raid, Chain Heal as if your life depends on it. My trick here, is I center my first few chain heals on the healers. The raid is going to be clumped up so you should have an easy time geting 4 targets per cast. When the raid is good, toss down a magma totem to clean up the zombie chow and then proceed until Gluth is a smear on the floor. I love this fight because it's fun when you are trying to get everything set and learn the encounter. I hate the fight because it makes my mana cry big man tears. Conserve your mana, watch your heal targets and make sure you have all your consumable.s

Here's a vid on that fight.


Once he's down for the count, you can rummage through the corpse for some really happy fun loot. First of all, he drops your tier pieces, and not just one, he has a chance at one of three! Your Shoulders, Chest, and Legs. Secondly he drops one heck of a Ring, Neck, Cape and Belt. Chances are you're getting something off this undead puppy.

Now on to our last boss of the wing Thaddius

Thad the man is a Flesh titan, and the first one introduced to the game way back in vanilla and is where fights like Mechano lord in Mechanar draw their inspiration from. Thad has two adds in phase 1, Stalagg and Feugen Listen for the raid healer to assign out sides, normally melee one side, casters another. You should stick with melee so you can use your chain heal. Be advised that these adds every 20 seconds or so will trade tanks between platforms, so be ready to switch out your Earth Shield between both tanks. Treat the tweedle dee and tweedle dumb like romeo and juliet try to down them at the same time, but conserve your cooldowns for the big guy, you'll need him. There's really not much to healing this fight, in theory you shouldn't be tossing out too too much healing so your mana should be fine, My suggestion to help alleviate your healing some is make sure you keep Healing Stream Totem down. I wouldn't bother with Earth Shield on the tank Riptide and Chain heal will do the trick. Other then that just be prepared to move around a bit.

Here's the Thaddius strat video



It's a pretty easy fight. Once the flesh titan is no more, you can rummage through his pockets in hope of finding your Legs if Gluth didn't have them or a pretty decent Helm.

That's it for the construct wing. All in all its a pretty easy wing, just a couple healing and dps checks, but a decent amount of shaman healer loot to be had. Happy healing and good hunting.

Patches!? We don't need no stinking patches!.....wait....

Welcome back to Way of The Totem. Today's installment is about the PTR, the incoming patch and its effect on raid healing.

This post is set to appear as a guest post over at The World of Matticus =) so please check there for it to be up soon =)

Naxxramas 10 man healing tips for the soul! ...*Hack-ACK* Oh! I think I just shot webs out of my nose!

Welcome back to another installment of Way of the Totem. With everyone rolling on up to 80 and getting their badge gear and heroics done. It's time for a foray into Naxxramas! Naxxramas was, in my opinion, one of the best instances ever created. Sadly not very many people got to experience the content and fights that were so ahead of their time. Now however, in what I feel is a truly awesome move, Naxx is your introduction into the world of raiding in Wrath of the Lich King. The zone is broken down into essentially 5 wings. Arachnid Quarter, Construct Quarter, Plague Quarter, Military Quarter and Frostwyrm Lair. There is a grand total of 15 bosses in this zone, all of which were revolutionary for their time. The instance has two settings, normal and heroic. For today we'll just talk about normal 10 man version.


Lets talk about the first wing you should be doing, Arachnid Quarter.

The trash here leading up to the first boss is pretty straight forward... actually throughout the entire wing it is, there's not a whole lot to worry about with the trash. The spiders will curse and poison though. For dealing with the poison I would highly suggest utilizing your Poison Cleansing Totem BUT... wait until the poison is cast. Once the poison is out drop the totem, when it hits, it pulses right away dispelling it for your entire group. Really handy to clean up 5 people with one cast. Dispel curses as they pop up (usually only 1 or 2 at a time) and clear up to the first boss.

Anub'Rekhan
Pretty straight forward fight. Stay spread out, keep ES up on the tank, worry only about your personal need totems like Wrath of Air, Mana Spring Totem and Flametongue. Keep max distance from you main tank at all times, especially when he moves the boss around the room.

Lets see if embedding video works!



Success!

Pretty straight forward and easy. As far as normal mode drops from this boss, there is two peices I'm fairly certain any shaman will want. This ring and this pair of boots

After you collect your loot from the first boss, it's a quick hop and skip to the next boss Grand Widow Faerlina just double back the way you came, hang a left through the hole in the wall and there you are. You're main problem is to keep poison cleansed, so, same rule as above. Wait till it's cast, and then drop the totem, you can then Cleanse Spirit the stragglers. Chain Heal will be kindda useless here as everyone will be moving to avoid fire, so be prepared to drop a lot of Lesser Healing Waves. Downing her nets you a chance at These Bad Boys

The fight isn't bad, but here's another video for it!



Just roll your heals and keep people clean =D

Next up is Maexxna

Big angry spider! This fight is more of the same, just be prepared to drop your totem to cleanse the poison, but then keep it down. Keep the main tank topped at all times and FULL Earth Shield as well, this way you are prepared for Web Spray. Riptide will keep the cocoon target alive long enough to be broken free and join the raid again. Conserve mana as much as possible because at 30% she enrages. Save your cooldowns for this part. Be ready to pop your Fire Elemental Totem and pop your Heroism / Bloodlust and spam chain heal. Maxxie drops 3 things I think every shaman caster would love to have. This shield is very nice and has a lot of very very good stats on it for both healing and dps. This trinket is the same as my beloved egg, so if you don't want to pony up 40 badges, you can hope for this. Lastly the neck she drops is very nice, again with a solid combination of stats. Here's a video of the encounter for you to enjoy.



Bottom line is this wing is fun, quick, and really Shamans shine here. The mass amounts of AoE poison dispelling makes half of the wing just silly.

Rep rewards: Filling your gear gaps

Everyone's been doing heroics and while you are doing heroics you best be wearing a tabard! If not... then I don't really know what to say expect /emo

Now the badge gear is really nice but rep rewards are going to fill your gaps to help get you ready for raiding. First stop on the rep reward train is Wyrmrest. Our buddies there have some really nice items that fill in gaps quite well. Revered with the dragons gives you a nice selection of items, and the reason I mention the Wyrms first is because well...They have the inscription for your head I think we'll all be looking at. You can also nab yourself a decent Mace. The only thing it's missing is MP5. It does however have good stats, crit and haste. This is good as well if you decide to switch it up and go off-spec elemental. Now at exalted, not only do you get a cool Drake to run around on but you can snag Grips of Fierce Pronouncements which are well worth the 28 gold if you ask me, I mean just look at those stats.

Next stop is Ebon Blade. That sexy Duchess has a really nice goodie for us in the form of this awesome Kilt.
Good stats and two sockets to boot. She doesn't really have anything else that benefits us too much so I wont dwell

On to the mages of the Kirin Tor! Their Quartermaster actually has a number of things you might be interested in. If you want a little crit and don't mind leather This belt will be right up your alley. The Robes at exalted aren't bad. Good stat allocation and 26 mp5. Worth picking up till you can get something better. The head enchant is also good if you are trying to stack crit raiting. The leather helm from there isn't bad either, decent spell power and mp5 and it looks kindda cool. The last piece from here is a Haste Cloak It's not bad but you can have better crafted. It's a definite filler piece and will serve you at least into 10 mans.

Argent Crusade only really has one thing you might be interested in so I'll just point it out real fast. This helm isn't bad if you are stacking crit

That's pretty much it for the rep rewards worth snagging to fill in gear gaps, chances are if you're running heroics you won't have much to worry about but figured I would put them out there for you guys to take a look at.

Hope it helps

Macros, macros macros!

So I don't really use too many macros, I only really use ones that let me clean up my action bars slightly, and one main one for Earth Shield

First I use a macro that lets me cast water shield when I click it, or if I'm holding the ALT key it casts lightning shield. Here's that one.

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Water Shield; Lightning Shield


it lets whatever I'm casting take over the image by leaving it as #showtooltip (I use the "?" icon for the macro icon)

again its just to clean up some bar space. but using the same macro you can alter it to suit many needs.


#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Water Walking; Water Breathing

Same principal as the one above it, one button with a modifier that allows you to cast either spell saving your some bar space.

Pre-wrath and before cleanse came and made me giggle like a school girl on prom night we used


#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt] Cure Poison; Cure Disease

again just a space saver.

now for my trusted Earthshield Focus macro! now I warn you I'm typing this from memory since I'm at work and cant get in game right now to copy and paste it and as a result I will update it when I get home with exactly what I have but here it is

#showtooltip
/focus
/cast [target=focus,exists][button:2,target=target][mod:alt=/clearfocus][target=focus,help, nodead][target=target,help,nodead][target=targettarget,help,nodead][noexists]Earth Shield

Here's the premise. First target you pick and click the macro button it will set them as your focus and cast earth shield on them. If you right click on the macro, it will put the earth shield on whoever you have targeted and if you hold the ALT key and hit the macro it clears your focus.

That should be the answer to the comment about earth shield focus blues =)

That's pretty much it for what I use for macros, like I said I'm more of a clicker. I had alot more before 3.0 hit. I had ones that swapped out totems for different heals and allowed for total min max, but that's been removed in the current build of the game. =(

Hope this helps

"Oh taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side And balancing the whole thing"

So... lets... Talk... User Interfaces.(couldn't resist sorry)

WoW is not the first MMO that allows for users to customize their interface but it has gone far and beyond what any other game I can recollect has done beyond the cosmetics. A healer's choice in MODs and how they craft their UI has a large impact on how well they do. The first thing to remember is it has to feel right to you. If you don't feel right with your UI and where everything is then honestly you wont do as well. I personally feel that the UI is 10% data feed 10% placement and 80% cosmetic. Lets be honest healers, we're going to be seeing it a lot might as well be pretty to us.

Let me show you mine.

annnnnd Here's a list of the mods I use
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/Jacapo/WoW/Picture12.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/Jacapo/WoW/Picture2-3.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/Jacapo/WoW/Picture4.png

Now here's what works for me. First of all, the main thing anyone needs is good unit frames. I use Perl classic for party / target / target of target. Durring a raid the party on the left is hidden, so far no way to remove it completely but it doesn't really bother me in the 5 mans. Mine is hidden and Mine has been replaced by the big diablo 3 orbs at the bottom. That's my health and mana bars. Flashy, yes, effective, yes. Reason for them is two fold. The orbs are aesthetically pleasing but more importantly they put a HUGE reminder in front of me, about my own health and mana, something that even I after years of doing this still lose track of in the heat of a tough boss battle (yeah exploding on Illidan was fun). Healers often suffer from tunnel vision, focusing on the raid and the tank more then themselves (we're selfless like that), so my suggestion to you, put YOUR health and mana in a place HIGHLY visible to you. Some people prefer to just move their frame lower center, some use HUDS. No matter your method make sure you have a reminder of when to heal yourself.

For raid unit frames I use GRID. I adopted it some time ago and it gives me everything I need. It notifies me when a person has aggro, it gives me their health, mana, rage, energy or rune power totals, it tells me when they are cursed poisoned or diseased and it tells me who is targeted for heals and the rough estimate of how much healing is incoming to a person. This allows me to prioritize heals and keep my overhealing low or know when a tank really needs more healing. Find raid frames you like and use them. There are a lot of options to choose from for them.

Second important thing is to have your buttons and macros easily accessable. I use bartender 4 I admit I'm a clicker. I don't like key bindings because I keep my keys clear to get-my-ass-outa-dodge if I need to. I click and use the number keys to cast. Most of the time I'll click a target in GRID and then hit my healing button (2-6 = heals for me). The main thing is I keep everything I need to cast close together and visible front and center this way I'm not looking all over for one specific ability. I also give my pots and food and stones its own little section above my map so I can always see them as well.

My map mod I use chinchilla with Cartographer and Gatherer
so I can keep track of where my guild is, but also move the map to the lower right out of the way and turn off a lot of the features like the calender button, and turn useful things on like Coordinates. Since my attention is usually towards the bottom of the screen for unit bars and other information it seemed logical to place the map down there for easy viewing.

In the upper right you will find RaidCooldown I use this during a raid to track who has burned what cooldowns so I know when to use mine, or when I shouldn't be yelling at a druid to combat res someone =P (but that's more of a raid officer / leader thing if you are not just an information junkie)

I also use fubar with pluggins for many of my mods as well as Mods like Big Wigs for raid warnings and Cellular to keep my in game tells in order and easily accessible. These are just information consolidation for me.

Arguably the most important mod I use is my totem mod. I choose Yata. It provides me with totem timers I can move, totem cooldowns, and a movable, scalable totem bar. The bar itself is very handy. Right clicking on the bar on any totem icon casts Totemic Call so I can drag totems or recall them for one last burst of mana for a heal if I need to without searching for the ability. It's also handy because when I mouse over one of the fours slots, it builds up from that slot all available totems from that school. If I move my mouse up and left click on one of the totems not on the main bar, it places it on that main bar instead of what was there. It allows totem sets to be fluid, which is really good if you have more then one shaman on a raid, it helps cut down unnecessary totem overlapping.

The casting bar you see there is Quartz. It is important to have a good casting bar and here's why. Blizzards is good but it doesn't account for server > client lag, and it doesn't always give you an accurate casting time. Quartz gives you your real time casting time, with any push back from damage you recieve, and gives you a "good to cancel zone" with accounting for your lag. If you look at my picture up there you'll see a little red at the end. As soon as my cast bar is in that area it's safe to "cancel" my heal by jumping or moving and start another. That means the lag should be enough within that red zone that the original heal will go off without cancelling and the second heal will already be started. Ever have an "oh shit I have no clue how you died" moment in a raid? Lag would be the reason why, even if you didn't see it. In that fraction of a second you weren't healing, you missed your mark. Getting and learning how to use a casting bar like Quartz there is a must in my opinion for all healers.

My trend, if you didn't notices, is information gathering and consolidation so I can see whats going on, target the party/ tank quickly, and roll my heals accordingly.

So here's the How to get going key points so to speak.

1.) Get a unit / raid frame mod that will allow you to keep tabs on your party and place it in an area where you will easily be able to float your eyes between that and your abilities. (Grid still gets my vote and at one point in time was required of all my healers in a raid =P)

2.) Place your own unit frame in a highly visible area so you can track your health and mana. Letting yourself die is just embarrassing =P (and yes it still happens to me =[ lol)

3.) Shamans get a totem bar that works well for you. The simpler the better. Totem caddy and things like that just take up too much memory.

4.) keep your main abilities key bound or on the main action bar (1 through " = " ) so you can easily roll your hands across the keys while you are selecting your team mates for fast efficient healing.

5.) Get a casting bar that accounts for latency and get comfortable with it. It will ensure there is no downtime between heals on healing intensive fights and will help you visualize the heal and get used to timing the casts with your connection speed.

6.) Place key items in areas where you can easily see them without having to draw away from everything else. Healing is all micromanagement really, just make sure you keep everything you need in a tight package.

7.) make it aesthetically pleasing to you. You're going to be staring at it all night long it might as well look pretty to you =D

8.) Experiment with placement and trying things out. Test it out in a battleground (no durability lost ftw). I tell all my healers to do this, it helps you get used to your UI while having little to no consequences.

9.) Try to not let it become something like this


Later tonight I will post a list of useful macros I use for things like Earth Shield and Weapon buffs etc etc. =D Hope this helps

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.