Primal Strike and Frost Shock

     So in the past I've written about my issues with certain classes. There are three things I don't like in a class: 1. Dead Space, which is just watching auto attacks as a physical class, or spending to much time casting filler spells as a caster. 2. Deviation from the class theme or ignorance of it. 3. Unused spells. That being said all I find all three of these in the shaman class. There are two shaman spells that I'd really like to see used. Frost Shock and Primal Strike.

     My preferred spec as a shaman is Enhancement, that being said I still find it the most entertaining spec. With that being said there's an issue with Enhancement that I'd hoped would have been remedied with Cataclysm, that's dead space. The shaman rotation is exciting however the number of shaman abilities is actually fairly limited. It boils down to Shock, Lava Lash, and Stormstrike. Since all shaman shocks are on a shared cooldown you only get one every 6 secs. This plus the cooldowns on other abilities results in a lot of dead space. With Maelstrom Weapon procs and the new Unleashed Elements have lessened it a bit but i still find myself in periods where all my abilities are on cooldown. I'd hoped that Primal Strike would have added an additional ability to fill some of that space, unfortunately it shares a cooldown with Stormstrike.

     I've talked about this in the past but I've always felt that shamans rely to much on the element of Air with some Fire. Water and Earth are somewhat absent in shaman spells. Healing spells focus almost entirely on water, while elemental as a better spread with Lava Burst and Earthquake. Still frost damage is almost no existant outside of PvP. There are two abilities in the shaman toolbox that deal frost damage Frost Shock and Frostbrand Weapon. These two have been pretty much locked down as PvP skill, for frostbrand weapon I can tolerate it, but I'd like to see a much greater variety of use with shaman shocks. This applies to both elemental and enhancement. Frost Shock would fit will with Restoration and restoration subspecs. Focused insight could be a good place to imply the use of Frost Shock. Fulmination could work with both Earth and Frost Shocks. As for enhancement an early tier enhancement talent that would increase the damage of one damage type after a hit from another type. This would promote alternating between Earth and Frost shock. 

     My idea for Primal Strike is much more developed. Primal Strike shares a cooldown with Stormstrke, this is the problem. Instead we create a new proc, Grounding Strike. Grounding Strike would work off the same mechanics as the Druid talent Sunfire. Sunfire causes Moonfire to become Sunfire during Solar Eclipse procs. The proc would take one point out of Static Shock, and would require 2 points in Static Shock. Everytime your Lightning shield dealt damage through static shock it would have a chance to proc Grounding Strike. Grounding Grounding deals primal strike damage, plus nature damage equal to three lightning shield charges and applies two maelstrom weapon stacks. This ability would trigger no cooldown and reset the cooldown on primal strike. It would have a short internal cooldown of about 3 sec or so.

Interesting Sight in Stonetalon

     So I'm out questing on my new Boomkin out in Stonetalon Mountains and I see a bunch of these guys. The Krom'gar Mauraders come in Tauren, Orc, and Troll, but strangely all the troll are male forest trolls. Now in current standing horde politics Undead do what they want, Tauren are somewhat distancing themselves from the orcs, blood elves... are finding magical artifacts(?), and Trolls are on the in a bit of a conflict with Warchief Hellscream. This rift, however, only seems to apply to the Darkspear trolls, who are the largest, but not the only tribe currently allied with the horde.
     There three know troll tribes affiliated with the New Horde. The Darkspear, under Vol'Jin who are the primary tribe within the hordes forces and the one player characters are a part of. The Recent conflict between Garrosh and Vol'jin has somewhat lessoned their power in the horde. Then there are the Shatterspear, from Mountians of Darkshore, who recently at behest of the new warchief launched an assault on the Night Elves below, and have been all but wiped out in the process. Both of these are Jungle Troll tribes, however the image above is not by any means a Jungle Troll.
     With this said that leaves only one other tribe, the Raventusk of the Hinterlands. The only Amani tribe allied with the horde. Like the Darkspear they are a very small tribe considered weak by other trolls, thus had little love for the other amani tribes. With the Wildhammer of Aerie Peak within spitting distance of their village allying with the horde was very much ideal. However it is unlikely that they would have the numbers to send troops all the way to Stonetalon without leaving themselves open to attack by the dwarves.
     Which means this is probably a bug. A slight oversight by devs since these mobs are likely killable by alliance players questing in the zone. Interstingly these are the only Forest Trolls on kalimdor. With the nothernly location of the Shatterspear, it is also possible that them being jungle trolls was also an over sight. As Amani were in the north (with the Drakkari splinter off from them) while Gurubashi were in the south. Regardless this small change presents a lot of possibilities for story. My knowing that there has been little change in the remain Amani territory, I'll have to quest through the Hinterlands to see if there is any merit to this .