WotLK: Elemental Talents mk II

Since the beta information was released, some of this had to be changed. Please be aware that as WotLK is still in Beta, the talents discussed in this entry may change

So by now you should have seen the numerous fan site WotLK talent tree calculators that have sprung up. My favourite, as always, is WoWHead's. Most of us would have seen alpha information before now, but it's all been "underground" until the WWI in Paris.

Looking at the talents as they are, there are a few nice changes, but a few "huh?" moments in there as well. Being an Elementaly focused Shaman, I'm going to look at the talents the Elemental tree, and later on have a look at sub-spec via Enhancement & Resto (most likely in a subsequent entry)

First off, there have been some changes to the lower tier talents. Earth's Grasp has been moved to Enhancement T1. Call of Flame gets a 2% per point bonus to Lava Burst (henceforth referred to as LvB) while the guaranteed least used talent, Elemental Devestation, gets dropped down another tier as well (that, combined with what may be unified combat ratings, will make for more interesting Enh specs) and Imp Fire Totems becomes Imp Fire Nova with a chance to snare all targets (reducing speed by 75% for 4 second).

One of the biggest, and in my opinion smartest, changes that show up in the Elemental tree is the fact that Elemental Focus now affects Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave. This also solves one of the biggest issues with offspec healing as elemental (in elemental gear anyway), burning mana at a higher rate than you would otherwise (this is because rather than the mana regen mechanics that Mages/Locks have, we chain clearcasting charges to reduce expenditure). It is important to note that the clearcasting buff is only caused by damage spell crits, rather than damage and healing spell crits, which means this talent will not be useful to restoration shaman with the way it works at the moment.

For the upper portion of the tree, there have been two changes. The first is that Elemental Precision is increased to 30% threat reduction, but reduced to 3% hit. As to how this will affect hit caps is an unanswered question, with Imp Faerie Fire affecting spell hit and the possibility of a change in hit requirements. The second change is that Elemental Shields now reduces physical damage taken by 6%, rather than reducing the chance you'll be crit. An interesting PvP change.

That covers the changes, so what about the new stuff?

Firstly, there's the oddity known as Elemental Oath. The previous version of this talent affected spell hit. However, the most recent version of the beta has changed it to 1% mana reduction & critical damage increase per point for your party members when you crit, stacking up to three times and lasting for 15 seconds (2 points possible). This is the Elemental version of Unleashed Rage, and will make an elemental shaman more valuable than just extra totems/heroism/ToW and whatever DPS they can output. The big question will be how it interacts with Clearcasting, Elemental Fury (100% crit bonus) and items such as the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (3% crit damage bonus).

Second is the new PvP talent Astral Shift. This used to make you immune to physical attacks for 3 seconds after taking 2 crits in a row. It now reduces damage taken by 10% per point (3 points max) while stunned, feared or silenced. Should be more useful now.

Paralysis replaces the alpha talent Lava Flow. This talent gives the empowerment that other classes have (10% to CL & LB) while also giving a 15% chance to "paralyse" the target with a 5 stack debuff that reduces movement attack and casting speed by 15% per charge. A charge expires every second for a maximum of 5 seconds. The empowerment part will be very nice, while the debuff will be mostly PvP oriented (I doubt it will have much impact in PvE).

Storm, Earth and Fire is an odd one. The Frost and Earth shock buffs are obviously PvP oriented, but will have some PvE use for kiting & spell interrupts, while the Flame shock dot modifier of 100% is an interesting one for PvE. The only problem there is that flame shock is a 20 yard spell, vs the 30 yard Lava Bolt, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lighting (only the latter two can be increased to 36 yards). This means that either standing at max range will not be required in WotLK, shock ranges will be increased, or the class developers haven't really thought about how range affects elemental spell rotations. (There is a fourth option, in which we steal flameshock dots from enh shaman)

Last of the Elemental Talents is Thunderstorm. This is an AoE ability with a 45 second cooldown, and what I can only assume will be a medium to small radius with a knockback ability (currently listed as 200 yards). The other effect of this spell is to restore 5% of your mana, which is effectively 5.55mp5 per 1k mana. not bad, but more of a regen talent than an AoE one.

Other changes in the beta include Wrath of Air giving 10% haste, while Flametongue is changed into a spelldamage replacement.

As yet I am not looking at any specific builds, but I can say that if we are not using LvB in normal elemental rotations, there will still be a filler point in the first four tiers. Also, if you decide to take Thunderstorm, you will need 52 points in the elemental tree, leaving 19 to spend in the other two. All this means is that the tree still feels a little top heavy.

In the next week or so I'll look at the first 6 talent tiers from Enhancement and Restoration, and see how useful they'll be for an Elemental Shaman.