Last week we discussed how to Enhance your Shaman. This week
we’ll be discussing some ways to Modify you Shaman. A less
self assured person may think there is something wrong them.
Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s the game.
Also feel free to use the phrase, “this has never happened to
me before” mostly during wipes.

There are a litany of mods available for the World of
Warcraft.  I’m going to "steer" clear of the mods
that
are designed for every class. For example Quest Helper, a tremendously
powerful mod that really makes questing in WoW extremely simple. Great
mod? Sure. Can Shamans use it? Absolutely. Will this specifically help
my Shaman’s game play? No.

As such here are few Shaman specific mods, or SSMs. Ok, that term
doesn’t exist yet. Feel free to coin, seem hip and cool to
your guildies.

style="font-weight: bold;">Totem Caddy
Without a doubt, Totems are the defining ability of Shamans. Worried
about getting your Totems placed quickly? Hate when you set a Water
Totem, just to accidentally replace it with another Water Totem? Well
who doesn’t? FEAR NOT, href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/totemcaddy.aspx"
target="_blank">Totem Caddy
will remedy all those
problems and many more.  Totem Caddy is a well laid out mod
that not only monitors your Totem’s timers, it additionally
monitors the timers of your shield and weapon imbuement. TC is very
easy to use and fairly unobtrusive mod. The player can set one totem
per element on the UI. There are also sections for set what shield and
weapon imbuement of your choice. Once your totems are chosen, just hit
the giant button in the middle of the UI. The mod will automatically
switch to the next Totem in the rotation. Totem Caddy is useful for any
Shaman
spec.
There are also built in timers to
know
when your Totems expire. A visual notification will notify the player
when their shield and imbuement have expired. It’s a well
thought out and planned mod, although players could set a variety of
macros to obtain the same goal.  Totem Caddy will allow for a
little more on the fly type of programming though..

Heal
Bot
Here’s a little Restoration Build love, folks. While not
exclusive to Shamans it is by far one of the most useful healing mods
out there. href="http://www.wowace.com/projects/?search=Heal+Bot"
target="_blank">Heal Bot
lists the members of your raid on a separate grid.
A variety of skins built into the mod will allow players to configure
the screen as they see fit.  Don’t care about the
scenery? Set it to max.  Need to move with a little more
agility in order to make jumps or avoid flames? Choose another
view.  Heal Bot allows a player to program three heals
controlled by your mouse buttons. (right, left, and middle) By moving
your cursor of the name in the Heal Bot grid, and click the appropriate
mouse button. It really does make healing a bit easier.  There
is a down side to this system.  clicking on a name in the Heal
Bot grid does not “select” the character. It is for
those mouse controlled heals only. So be wary with trying to cast
another shield on a tank using this select feature. Although if you are
savvy enough you can “perma-select” your tank or
character of choice.  This allows you to keep them as your
target
while not having to worry about deselecting them to heal another raid
member.  

style="font-weight: bold;">Decursive
If you are familiar with WoW, then you have heard of href="http://www.wowace.com/projects/decursive/" target="_blank">Decursive.
A
Simple tool to target players and remove curses. The audible chime of
this mod will notify you of your afflicted party members. Simply find
the individual within the grid and click on them. There really
isn’t much more to it than that. Although you may want to
coordinate with your fellow raid members who you should be focusing
on. It may help to break the raid into easier to manage decursing
groups.  It’s pointless for too many people to focus
on the same player while others may suffer.  This mod is
usually
geared for restoration Shamans with the talent Cleanse Spirit
which allows a Shaman
to dispel poison, disease, and curses.Enhancement and Elemental
Shaman are usually focused on DPS so a good restoration Shaman can both
heal and decurse at the same time. style="font-style: italic;">
 

style="font-weight: bold;">Shock and Awe
This Mod is mainly geared  to assist an enhancement Shaman.
  href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shockandawe.aspx"
target="_blank">Shock and Awe
displays timer bars for all Shaman Shields, Feral
Spirits, Shamanistic Rage, Shocks, Stormstrike, Windfury, Maelstrom
Weapon, and Lava Lash. It will show you the number of orbs an earth,
water, or lightning shield will have, stacks of
MW, and advises of next shock in rotation. Using the new priority box
will ensure you
will always use the highest damage ability to maximize your DPS.
 Shock and Awe will also warn you if you do not have a Shaman
weapon enchant on your weapon (Windfury, Earthliving) and will announce
when your shield runs out of orbs or expires.  This mod, in my
opinion, is one of the most important mods for a DPS Shaman and a true
must
have.

style="font-weight: bold;">Totem Timers
The
href="http://www.wowace.com/projects/koko_totemtimers/"
target="_blank">Totem Timers
mod displays
timers for all four totem types and their cooldowns as well as
all three types of shaman shields, the
reincarnation cooldown, and weapon buffs like Windfury, Earthliving,
and Flametongue.
Each timer can be used to cast its associated spells, either by mouse
or keybinds.  You can simple set it up to have left mouse
button
will cast Windfury Weapon, right mouse button will cast Earthliving
Weapon and last but not least the middle mouse button will cast
Flametongue Weapon.  The same setting idea can be for all
three
Shaman shields.  As a restoration Shaman I use Totem Timers in
conjunction with Totem Caddy  where I mainly use Totem Timers
for
the weapon timer and Totem Caddy for the totem timers.

style="font-weight: bold;">Shields Up
This
is a simple but effective
Mod for every type of Shaman.  You can monitor your Earth,
Water,
and Lightening Shield. A clear text will appear in the middle of your
screen stating how many charges your shield has remaining and if a
particular shield is overwritten by another.  Along with text,
a
sound alert will happen when your shield expires or is removed. Players
can customize the sounds, colors, and icons
based on their preference.The newest version of   href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shieldsup.aspx"
target="_blank">Shields Up
will support all
talents, for example, Improved Earth Shield or Static Shock along with
every type of glyph.
   style="font-weight: bold;">
X-Perl Unitframes
I
know this mod is not "specific" for the
Shaman Class but I believe href="http://www.wowace.com/projects/xperl/" target="_blank">X-Perl
is one of the most important Mods for a
Shaman or any class for that matter.  Useful tools such
as Range
Finder which fades in and out
based on if that raid member is out
of range for incoming heals.  Debuff
Highlighting is a nice
addition because it will light up or color a raid members raid bar if
they have a debuff.  Priority given to show debuffs that you
can cure first.  HoT
Monitor will highlight raid
members
clearly that have you own active heal over time spells. Regardless of
how many other heal over
time buffs are on the raid members, you can keep track of your own hots
and when they expire.
With X-Perl you can change the size, color, and text of your raid and
party frames and  you can choose to show buffs and debuffs on
party and
raid members.  Grim Reaper,
which is one of my favorite additions to X-Perl, gives you an indicator
on how a raid members dies.  

I know there are some players out there that say mods
"ruin the game"
or "make WoW way too easy" but in my opinion a mod cannot play the game
for you, only enhance your experience of the game.