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tufy · 06/13/08, 7:55 AM

After a short discussion within Binkie’s One Stop Elemental Shop, I’ve been convinced to open a new thread concerning Wotlk talents in F&F Alpha. In order to keep One Stop Elemental Shop clean, let’s discuss all current and future changes here. I’ll try to keep this post updated with new info as much as I can

UPDATE: 17.10.2008 - Updated with known build 9095 changes (latest changes in bold)

TALENTS:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?shaman

PATCH NOTES:

Shaman
* All totems have been changed to last 5 minutes instead of 2. (This only affects totems that previously had a 2 minute timer, obviously, totems with a shorter duration didn't get any increase)
* All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
* Concussion (Tier 1) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
* Convection (Tier 1) now also lowers the mana cost of Lava Burst.
* Call of Flame (Tier 2): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
* Improved Fire Nova Totem (Tier 4): Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20%, and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire Nova Totem for 2 sec.
* Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
* Call of Thunder and Elemental Fury swapped in places. Elemental Fury now costs 5 talent points and Call of Thunder costs 1.
* Earth's Grasp (Elemental) is now a an enhancement talent.
* Elemental Devastation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
* Eye of the Storm (Tier 4) changed to give you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and Hex spells.
* Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
* Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
* Storm Reach has been renamed to Elemental Reach and now affects Lava Burst.
* Elemental Shields (Elemental) now reduces all physical damage taken by 6%.
* Elemental Oath (Elemental): Your spell critical strikes grant your party or raid Elemental Oath, increasing critical strike chance by 3%. Lasts 15 seconds.
* Totem of Wrath (Elemental): Summons a Totem of Wrath with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the damage done by spells and effects by 280 for all party and raid members, and increases the critical strike chance of spells and effects by 3% against all enemies within 40 yards. Lasts 2 min.
* Lava Flows (Tier 9): increases the range of your flame Shock spell by 5/10/15 yards, and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 6/12/24%.
* Astral Shift (Elemental) reduces all damage taken by 30% while stunned, feared or silenced.
* Storm, Earth and Fire (Tier 10): Reduces the cooldown of your Chain Lightning spell by 2.5 sec., your Earth Shock's range is increased by 5 yards and the periodic damage done by your Flame Shock is increased by 50%.
* Totemic mastery (Restoration) removed, all totem ranges increased from 20 to 30 yards.
* Nature's Guidance (Restoration) removed.
* Healing Focus (Restoration) is now 3-point spell, down from 5-point.
* Totemic Focus (Restoration) moved to Tier-1, up from Tier-2.
* Tidal Focus (Restoration) moved to Tier-2, down from Tier-1.
* Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
* Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6/8/10%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
* New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
* Thundering Strikes (Enhancement) now increase spell crit chance as well.
* Elemental Weapons moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3. Now Increases the damage caused by your Windfury Weapon effect by 13/27/40% increases the spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by 10/20/30% and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 10/20/30%.
* New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
* Mental Dexterity moved from Tier 3 to Tier 5.
* Shamanistic Focus (Enhancement) now reduces mana cost of all shocks by 45% (previously reduced shock mana cost by 60% after melee crit)
* Wrath of Air Totem is now a flat 5% spell haste totem.
* Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified. Top rank: 144 spellpower
* Flametongue Weapon now increases spell damage in addition to it's damage proc chance (currenty top rank is 211 spell damage)
* Frostbrand's snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
* Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 3% base mana.
* New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
* Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
* Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
* Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or "baked" into tanking abilities.)
* Windwall Totem has been removed.
* Bloodlust and Heroism affect whole raid and have been changed to add: After the completion of this effect, those affected will become Sated (Exhausted in Heroism's case) and unable to benefit from Bloodlust (Heroism) again for 5 min.

SPELL PUSHBACK CHANGE:

General
Spell casting and spell channelling pushback has been changed to the following:
When casting a spell:

* The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
* All hits after the second will have no effect.

When channelling a spell:

* The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
* All hits after the second will have no effect.

SPELL HIT RATING IN WOTLK

As confirmed by Roywyn, spell hit rating in WotLK remains unchanged at 17%.

GLYPHS:

* Glyph of Lava Lash - Damage on your Lava Lash is increased by an additional 10% if your weapon is enchanted with Flametongue.
* Glyph of Lava - Your Lava Burst spell gains an additional 10% of your spellpower
* Glyph of Elemental Mastery - Reduces the cooldown of your Elemental Mastery ability by 30 sec.
* Glyph of Flame Shock - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 6 sec and it is not consumed by casting Lava Burst. (Old - 3 seconds, didn't prevent Lava Burst from consuming it)

* Glyph - Water Shield 01 (Shaman) - Your Water Shield has 3 additional charges.
* Glyph - Chain Heal 01 (Shaman) - Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target.
* Glyph - Lesser Healing Wave 01 (Shaman) - Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.
* Glyph - Earthliving Weapon 01 (Shaman) - Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.
* Glyph - Healing Wave 01 (Shaman) - Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.
* Glyph - Mana Tide 01 (Shaman) - Your Mana Tide Totem grants an additional 1% of each target's maximum mana each time it pulses.
* Glyph - Earth Shock 01 (Shaman) - Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Earth Shock ability by 1 sec.
* Glyph - Frost Shock 01 (Shaman) - Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.
* Glyph - Windfury Weapon 01 (Shaman) - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.
* Glyph - Stormstrike 01 (Shaman) - Increases the nature damage bonus from your Stormstrike ability by an additional 8%.
* Glyph of Flame Shock (Shaman) - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 3 sec.
* Glyph - Lighnting Shield 01 (Shaman) - Increases the damage from Lightning Shield by 20%.
* Glyph - Chain Lightning 01 (Shaman) - Your Chain Lightning strikes 1 additional target.
* Glyph - Fire Nova Totem 01 (Shaman) - Increases the radius of Fire Nova Totem's effect by 2 yards.
* Glyph - Flametongue Weapon 01 (Shaman) - Increases spell critical strike chance by 2% while Flametongue Weapon is active.
* Glyph - Lightning Bolt 01 (Shaman) - Reduces the cost of your Lightning Bolt ability by -10%.
* Glyph - Fire Elemental Totem 01 (Shaman) - Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 min.
* Glyph - Healing Stream Totem 01 (Shaman) - Your Healing Stream Totem heals for an additional 20%.

NEW SPELLS:

Wind Shock
8% base mana
20 yd range
instant cast
7 sec cooldown
Instantly blasts the target with a gust of wind, causing no damage but lowering your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you, and interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec.

Lava Burst (Rank 2)
10% Base Mana
30 yd range
2s cast time
8 sec cooldown
You hurl molten lava at the target, dealing 1192 to 1518 Fire damage. If your Flame Shock is on the target, Lava Burst will consume the Flame Shock, causing Lava Burst to critically hit.

Hex (Rank 1)
3% Base Mana
20 yd range
1.5s cast time
45 sec cooldown
Transforms the enemy into a frog. While hexed, the target cannot attack or cast spells. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Lasts 30 sec. Only one target can be hexed at a time. Only works on Humanoids and Beasts.

Thunderstorm (Rank 1)
Talented (tier 11)
0 Mana
Instant
45sec cooldown
You call down a bolt of lightning, energizing you and damaging nearby enemies within 10 yards. Restores 8% mana to you and deals 1450 to 1656 Nature damage to all nearby enemies, knocking them back 20 yards.

SPELL CHANGES

Wrath of Air Totem
320 mana
Air Totem
Summons a Wrath of Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem provides 5% spell haste to all party members within 20 yards. Lasts 2 min.

Flametongue Totem
325 mana
Fire Totem
Summons a Flametongue Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. Party members within 30 yards of the totem have their spell damage and healing increased by up to 144. Lasts 2 min.

Stoneskin Totem (Rank 8)
295 mana
Earth Totem
Summons a Stoneskin Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem protects party members within 20 yards, increasing armor by 860. Lasts 2 min.

Strength of Earth Totem (rank 6)
300 mana
Earth Totem
Summons a Strength of Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the strength and agility by 86 to all party members within 20 yards. Lasts 2 min.

Sentry Totem
no change

According to Koraa, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning have their special damage coefficients removed, this change being compensated by adding nature boost to Curse of Elements:

Lightning Bolt always had a higher coefficient than similar bolt spells. This was because there weren't as much/any nature damage debuffs. Now that they exist, we're restoring Lightning Bolt to it's intended coefficient. Your DPS in a raid setting will if anything be higher with these changes.

WoW Forums -> Lightning bolt coefficient nerf?

BUFF/DEBUFF CHANGES

With the release of upcoming content patch players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.

Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications.

IMPORTANT! Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. It should not be assumed that one class' current performance relative to others in beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many may feel the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all of those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

There are thirty or so different categories into which buffs and debuffs fit. Here you will find a comprehensive list of the changes made broken down by category and which spells/talents are in that category.

* Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
* Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
* Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
* Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
* Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
* Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
* Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination's Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
* Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter's Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
* Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
* Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
* Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
* Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill
* Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
* Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
* Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
* Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
* Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
* Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
* Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
* Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
* Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
* Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
* Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
* Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
* Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
* Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
* Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
* Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
* Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
* Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
* Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
* Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
* Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants spirit and intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the "Increased Spell Power Buff" category are also not all the same potency, as they scale and grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of attack power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

Below you will find a list of the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that list of changes:

* Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
* Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
* Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
* Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
* Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
* Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
* Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
* Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
* Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
* Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
* Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
* Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
* Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
* Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
* Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
* Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
* Hunter's Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
* Improved Hunter's Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
* Sting (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
* Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
* Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
* Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
* Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
* Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
* Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
* Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
* Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
* Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
* Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
* Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

NOTE: this post is still under construction and will be updated as much as I can keep it.