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Totem Talk: The best healing advice ever

by Joe Perez on Feb 25th 2014 (11 months ago)

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

So, I've been playing this game for a long time. I mean, since before the game actually went to retail. I'm an old man at this point, at least in game terms. I've been around for the good times and the bad times, the highs and the lows and everything in between.

For officially four of those many years, I've been writing here at WoW Insider. A dream job for me for sure, and one I'm very grateful to have landed. Over the course of that time though, both in terms of just game time and of writing blog posts, I've dolled out and received a ton of advice. As always it came with the caveat that your mileage may vary, but I like to think it's been good more often than not over that time. But, in all my years of playing and writing, there has been one bit of advice that I received that has been by far the best advice I've ever received, and the best I can ever give.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Falling in love with PVP Healing

by Joe Perez on Feb 11th 2014 (11 months ago)

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

With the end of season 14 announced, and the imminent arrival of Patch 5.4.7, I thought I would take some time and get involved in some PVP action. I've always had a fondness for PVP, but raiding always took so much of my time in game, that between out of game things and raiding I just didn't have the time to invest into any amount of PVP. That's changed with a new guild, a new raiding schedule and a new work schedule out of game, so when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to start PVPing again, well I jumped at the chance.

While I'm not nearly as well versed in PVP as my fellow shaman of awesomeness Oliva Grace, I still manage to have a lot of fun in both Arenas and Battle Grounds. That said, I've been away from the PVP scene for a while, not setting foot in an arena since the middle of Cataclysm. I thought I would share my experiences and thoughts from this past week.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Resto fashion through Mists

by Joe Perez on Jan 28th 2014 (1 year ago)

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

Something that I've always loved over the years has been the aesthetic of shaman armor and tier sets. Over the years we've had some really killer tier sets that have showcased our connection to the elements. From the magma, water and planet armor from Burning Crusade, to frozen tusk armor of Wrath of the Lich King. We've had some really killer sets with some really awesome particle effects over the years.

I feel though, that with transmog, we've sort of moved away from looking at our gear sets in favor of using our older sets of gear. With that, I think that this past expansion has produced some of the greatest shaman armor we've had, arguably since the very beginning of the World of Warcraft. I thought it would be nice to take a look at the tier sets from the aesthetic perspective that we've received over the course of the Mists expansion.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Why do you play a resto shaman?

by Joe Perez on Jan 13th 2014 (1 year ago)

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

It was a question asked of me the middle of last week by a friend over drinks. We Have been playing video games together, and in particular World of Warcraft, for close to the full decade of it's existence. He has always been more of the DPS type, and never really took to healing as any class, and since I've always been the healer, he was intrigued by what my answer could possibly be.

It seems like a simple question at first. Why do we play any class at all really? But there are a miriad of factors that can be cited as the reason we do. Lore, aesthetics, mechanics, armor. The list can be quite a long one. I sat back and I thought about exactly why I played a restoration shaman for so long, and thought that I would share.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Resto Shaman's Year in Review

by Joe Perez on Jan 1st 2014 (1 year ago)

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: For the Love of Healing set bonuses in Siege of Orgrimmar

by Joe Perez on Dec 17th 2013 (1 year ago)

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

When it was first announced, the tier 16 set bonuses were something that I was initially pretty excited about. Both the tier 16 2-piece and 4-piece bonus seemed to be things that would fit well into our repertoire and gives us a little bit of a boost. Some healers weren't too convinced that these would ultimately be any good for us. It's a debate that happens pretty much every time we get a new tier of content and gear.

So, we've been in Siege of Orgrimmar for a bit now, and a fair number of healing shaman have either obtained their pieces of tier gear from the various raid difficulties, or are starting to now. So then the question of the quantum second is ultimately whether or not they are any good. I figured I would share my own observations on the matter.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Restoration between now and Warlords of Draenor

by Joe Perez on Dec 3rd 2013 (1 year ago)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

Well, I don't know about you but I'm still very excited about the announcement of Warlords of Draenor. I mean, it was honestly the big news from BlizzCon 2013 and the feeling is still quite electric from almost everyone in regards to it. For some, The Burning Crusade and going to Outlands was one of the greatest things to ever happen in the World of Wacraft. For restoration shaman in particular, BC was that point in time where everything was awesome and shaman were the top of the food chain for healing.

This week though, I'm not here to talk about the glory days of shaman healing. No, that will be an article for another week. This week I wanted to talk about the time between now and the next expansion. It is always a topic to think about what to do in that time where you're waiting for the next expansion to even enter beta phase. The good news is Mists of Pandaria offers so many more options than any other expansion before. I thought I would share how I'm spending my time between now and Warlords of Draenor.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm

Totem Talk: What's Next for Restoration?

by Joe Perez on Nov 19th 2013 (1 year ago)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

BlizzCon has come and gone and it has left us, as it usually does, with a very small glimpse of what is yet to come. It seems like every expansion restoraiton gets shifted one direction or another. Whether it is focus on stats or our role in the healing team of a raid. No matter what way you look at it, excitement or fear, change is coming.

While the expansion, Warlords of Draenor, has just been announced and system changes are still being developed but it is never too early to start taking a look into what we can start to expect. Whether it's from gear, to stats, to spells and ability well... I'd rather start taking a gander now and not be blindsided later. That said, right now it's all speculation, since the game isn't even in beta yet.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Resto Faces Another Sha, and Ganks a Dragon

by Joe Perez on Nov 5th 2013 (1 year ago)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for the shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

You've made it this far, and you're almost through the opening act in the Siege of Orgirmmar. You are getting ever so much closer to facing down Garrosh. The next two bosses that stand in your way are both pretty straight forward, but also have the potential to be infinitely annoying.

The good news, at least for Restoration shaman, is that both of these upcoming fights have amazing opportunity to make use all of our group healing spells and abilities. The mechanics aren't too terribly hard, but they are certainly worth going over so you can know what to expect.

This is not a comprehensive boss guide, but is instead tips and tricks I have learned through my own personal experiences.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: The Curious Case of Chain Heal

by Joe Perez on Oct 22nd 2013 (1 year ago)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

Back in the glory days of restoration shaman, say around The Burning Crusade, Chain Heal was the best things since Roasted Kodo Meat. It was the premier group heal, it was incredibly efficient in terms of mana cost, and you could heal for the same value as two healers. It was truly the greatest of times for those healing minded of us.

Anyone who has been following me on Twitter has probably noted that over the last few weeks I've had a pretty love hate relationship with CH on various fights in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is a complicated matter, at least through my eyes, for a few reasons.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

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