Dear Blizzard: Elemental Shaman Itemisation

Dear Blizzard,

Could you please re-think the way caster gear is itemised?

Most of the gear that is showing up on the PTR at the moment has Spirit or MP5 on it. Not much of an issue for other classes, given they get some benefit from spirit (although for some this bonus is fairly minimal), but Elemental gains precisely zero from any regen itemisation. What this means is that the few items that are added without regen stats will be hotly contested by DPS casters, or forcing us to resort to taking regen items for smaller upgrades than will be available otherwise.

The current T7 cloaks, rings and necks are a good example of the problem. All bar two rings have some sort of regen on them, and of those two, the sole hit ring drops in 10man off a single boss, while the other is a KT25 drop. The rest drop fairly frequently, and odds are most raiders are disenchanting these by now. Cloaks are similar, with a best in slot from Sarth+2, followed closely by a random Naxx25 boss drop, and a ilvl 200 craftable.

6 out of 19 necklaces don't have regen stats (4/15 when you remove the EoE quest items), cloaks are 3/13, and rings are at 8/19 (although only one of these is above ilvl 200, and only an extra 2 from raid instances).

Why are regen stats bad you say? For starters, Shaman get virtually nothing from Spirit. In fact, with the planned changes to regen outside of the Five Second Rule, we'll get even less. Mp5 won't be affected by this, but for a class than can use 160-170 mps, but regenerates ~67 mps from self buffs alone (Unrelenting Storm, Water Shield, Mana Spring), forcing us to take additional mana regen is like making Feral Druids take extra defence rating to remain crit immune (Yes, I know that they get dodge from Def rating, but it was the best analogy I could think of). We don't need more mana. In fact, come 3.1 the ideal build will skip Convection entirely, because we don't need the 10% mana reduction (and even then, mana issues should be fine).

The Too Long, Didn't Read version of this post is as follows: Unless something changes with caster itemisation, Elemental Shaman will find themselves short changed gear wise, and as such end up under performing as we progress through Ulduar and beyond (and since gear allocation is usually based on performance, this will end up being a negative feedback loop).

Generally I like making suggestions to fix problems that I "complain" about, and in the case of Elemental there are a few.

• Swap Unrelenting Storm & Nature's Blessing, so that Elemental gets more spellpower and Resto gets more mp5
• Change Lightning Shield to give a spellpower bonus as it's passive effect, possibly via an elemental talent.
• Add a talent to convert spirit and/or mp5 into additional spellpower/haste

The ultimate solution would to be improve caster itemisation so that Elemental and Restoration Shaman use the same base gear, as well as less class specific itemisation of non-armour items. If melee itemisation can be fixed with the ArmorPen & haste changes, why can't caster itemisation be improved too?

[insert witty signature line here]
Binks.

PS: I'm not bitter and twisted, I'm just voicing an opinion here.
PPS: I would sign it hugs & kisses, but I felt that might send the wrong message.