WoW Forever: the shaman weapon chain gets easier

There is a shaman-only chain on the beta that ends in a weapon worth carrying. The Tempest's Weapons hands in to Bath'rah the Windwatcher in the Alterac Mountains — the same character who gives warriors their famous axe — and pays out a choice of Lightning's Grasp or Tidebringer's Claw, both fist weapons, or Rage of the Storm, a two-handed mace that raises Stormstrike damage by 10%. Elementalist's Guard, a shield, comes with it. All 4 are item level 40.

Getting there is the part people have been complaining about. The chain follows on from the wind totem quest: first a step that sends the shaman to loot Charlga Razorflank at the bottom of Razorfen Kraul, then Storm, Earth, and Fire, which asks for 20 twisted totems collected across Dustwallow Marsh, Desolace, the Swamp of Sorrows and the Badlands, and then Heed My Call, which puts waves of elementals and quilltusk enemies in Thousand Needles between the shaman and the hand-in.

The newest build takes a great deal of that out. Blizzard's note says the creatures needed for Storm, Earth, and Fire respawn more quickly and drop their twisted totems more often, and it adds sources that were not there: Maraudine Scouts now drop air totems, Ongeku can drop an earth totem, Murdaloc can drop a fire totem, and the fire totem can also be had from the Dustbelcher ogres across the Badlands. Larger camps such as Dustbelch Grotto respawn faster, smaller ones do not. And the Eye of the Tempest, the piece Heed My Call wants, is now a multi-drop, so a group does not have to run it once per shaman.

The route through the chain comes from a player's write-up on a forum rather than from Blizzard; the easing comes from Blizzard's own beta notes, which is where the wording above is from. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever opens at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.