Fiver

But why limit it to deep in the Enhance tree?

Especially if the Flametongue Totem debuff doesn't survive gestation, the self imbue should be available to to Resto and Ele Shamans too.

They're still vulnerable to CC and snares, their typical strategy being to maintain range. Now give them an incentive to actively engage in melee and things get much more interesting as they balance the steep opportunity costs (moving and increased exposure to Burns/Pushback/Psychic Scream/Cleave/Whirlwind/Nova) with a debuff that wins and loses arena matches.

 

alhill

Another way to rep up an alt without instancing is to farm ethereum prison keys on your main. It's good money anyway, a couple of hundred keys for my alt (plus normal questing) got me past honored with pretty much all the major factions.

 

david0925

The gimmick of the change is that Shamans don't need a MS debuff; the lack of control or anti-control is what makes them vulnerable in arenaplay, especially lower brackets where a defensive dispell is lacking.

Ghostwolf breaking snares will actually be good. While people will complain about that making them druid-like, Shamans don't have HoTs aside from earthshield which has to be triggered from taking damage. So I think this will be a reasonable change unless I'm missing something.

More reasonable and sensible than MS debuff, at least.

 

Starfire

Keep in mind however, Blizzard doesn't expect all aspects of a class to be viable in the arena. We aren't going to see Prot Warriors or Prot Paladins anytime soon. Perhaps Blizzard is simply writing off Resto Shamans seeing as how there are three other healing classes?

 

◊ Kasi

But the ability with FT totem to give people they are grouped with an ms debuff is what will make them more viable as a 2s/3s healer. Shaman/rogue, Shaman/Ret Pally and similarly based 3s teams become stronger.

 

Jayde

Well, to be fair, given that the raw DPS of MS is a lot lower than Fury, one could argue that Warriors are forced to sacrifice quite a bit themselves to get the MS debuff. Given the original location of Enrage/Death Wish and the speed at which Bloodthirst scales at the high-end, there isn't really a massive reason to go MS other than the debuff. (Or, certainly not historically before the introduction of stuff like Blood Frenzy/Second Wind.)

 

Threepi

Part of the problem with the "throw MS on everything" is that it could skew future balances. It's easy to tweak numbers and let it be relatively transparent. Take a little +healing here or there, and it'll add up. But when you actually add mechanics onto something it becomes a lot harder to tweak. From a personal standpoint, I don't care for the Mortal Shot or the Arcane Dispell, Blizzard could drop them next PTR patch and you won't hear a peep out of me. But for many hunters, it's become a "part of the class."

Numbers can be changed up or down pretty easily and the effects won't really be known until people start tearing through the theorycrafting with it.

Sad to say it shammies, but you've been "balanced." It's not what you want, it's probably not what you need, but in the eyes of Blizzard and in the eyes of all the classes that aren't shammans you got your buff and you're now "viable." Sucks, doesn't it?

 

◊ Malan

Because the purpose of the changes was to make Enhancement Shaman more viable in arenas, not to give all shaman an across the board improvement. I completely agree, it should be a deep enhancement talent and Elemental Weapons is the best place to stick it.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

◊ Kasi

Its not really that bad. Remember that shamans in 5s are the least represented healers. Most teams have a core of pally/priest. A lot of teams also run with druids for the increased cc. Now this gives resto shamans in that bracket a bit more help. Similarily now shamans in 2s and 3s might be able to more successfully run with a dps class that is not a warrior. This makes teams like Shaman/Rogue/Ret Pally a lot more viable for example.

Now I'm sure everyone just wants to have the same thing every class has. More instant spells, more ways to escape pressure and more CC. Obviously they're not going to be giving that. Well outside a bit, the new GW will make escaping easier as will the snare duration talent. Lowering the GCD on totems also helps. CC, well we're still kinda screwed there but I wasn't expecting anything.

The main thing I really see this doing though is just helping a bit to unlink shamans from warriors.

 

Caligula

I was much more excited when people were thinking it was "50% healing done by the target" not "to the target". Not only does it give Shaman a unique ability that would be desirable in all brackets, it would add a new level of strategy to PvP. Another MS effect just seems lazy.

Beta Talents are fun!

Build: 8982
Talent: Twisted Faith

Your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 2% (up to 10%) if your target is afflicted by Mind Flay.

 

◊ Malan

Eh, that would have been overboard. A healing reduction on the healer AND on the target meaning that only 25% of the intended healing actually got out? There's no way that could be considered balanced.

I don't see how you can consider a resto shaman using flametongue as any sort of a real strategy. Incidental use of it? Ok maybe. But if you're the primary healer for a 5v5 team there's no way you're also going to be keeping up a flametongue debuff on a target consistently enough to be useful. First you're dealing with a low melee hit chance and secondly all your non-instants are going to reset your swing timer.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Krag

I think Kasi is talking about the Flametongue Totem in regards to Resto Shamans.

 

Caligula

They could just make it not stack.

Beta Talents are fun!

Build: 8982
Talent: Twisted Faith

Your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 2% (up to 10%) if your target is afflicted by Mind Flay.

 

◊ Malan

No he was responding to my response to a post saying that the Flametongue imbue should be available to all shaman.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

◊ Kasi

Well I was meaning to say that yeah through the use of flametongue totem it helps decouple shamans from warriors. I was responding to Threepi as much as I was responding to Malan. I didn't quote anyone's post so I wasn't responding to one post in particular. The only use of flametongue weapon for a shaman other than incidental whack someone as they're running by would be in 2s with setups like sham/lock or others to help kill a pet or such.

Edit: If you read a couple pages ago Malan you'd see I was making the same argument as you were. That having healers/casters be dedicated melee to keep up the debuff just won't work because it is more safe for them to be los'ing and at range. What it will help though is to give shamans an option to be with a class that is not a MS warrior. Rogue/Shaman becomes stronger because depending on the enemy healer you could go with poison (if priest), or FT (if druid or shaman) or even both if you wanted. (presuming ft is a magic effect like some are saying and can be dispelled) This opens up possibilities for shamans to be grouped with Ret Pallies, rogues, fury warriors, etc while not making them rely so heavily on MS warriors. So even though the change is kinda silly, it does give some more variety to resto shaman in 2s/3s as something other than group with an MS warrior and drop WF.

 

◊ Cadfael

This might have been for some time longer but I just noticed this.

When I try to log onto the PTR (which are down, don't try) I get the known screen where I should select realm type and language. Instead of only presenting me the option "english", I now have "development" as selection there. So I wonder if that has anything to do with the announcement that actually EU players could PTR test on US-Tagged PTRs or just another random hunch.

E: realm list is completely empty so I don't even get the realm names. Added screenshot.

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

PsyBomb

Consider that for this to happen would require DPSers to split their attention between the healer and the target... and for the defending team to allow DPS to stay on their healer. I don't think I've ever seen this situation happen above 1500, but then again I've never beaten 1850, either.

To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.

 

Arthurion

Yes you are right. I am EU Player and they changed "English" to "Development" too.

 

Caligula

I wonder if the new FT change will make a Fury War/Enh Sham team viable?

Beta Talents are fun!

Build: 8982
Talent: Twisted Faith

Your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 2% (up to 10%) if your target is afflicted by Mind Flay.

 

◊ Kasi

This really also does echo the need for feral druids to have a way to benefit from weapon totems.

 

• Playered

Erm not really? they dont want every spec to be viable in every bracket, and due to Restos superiority in 2s/3s (no doubt it wont go down to current shaman levels in 2.4) theres no real need to make feral that viable in them and the totem allows a feral to be slightly more useful in 5s because MS is less 'required' if so?

 

◊ Kasi

Ferals are not a strong spec currently in any bracket so I don't see why giving them the ability to pair with a shaman of some sort would be considered game breaking. Especially given that giving them WF benefit in a raid group would also help them since that is often a situation they are forced into.

I'm not sure I understand your argument for "theres no real need to make feral that viable in them and the totem allows a feral to be slightly more useful in 5s because MS is less 'required' if so?" Why does the totem allow a feral to be slightly more useful in 5s because MS is less required? Flametongue and Windfury totem work on the exact same system. Aka neither work with feral druids. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying these shaman changes does nothing to help synergy with druids.

 

Thebeat

This is on the US Test:

 

PSGarak

Perhaps giving everyone a plethora of MS-type debuffs is a way of splitting up PvE and PvP mechanics, without making it look like you're splitting up PvP and PvE mechanics. PvP is simply balanced for half as much healing, but it feels more 'natural' than arbitrarily changing the rulesets because there's an explicit debuff on your target telling you, caused by an enemy.

Also, I think Rockbiter makes more sense for leaving an MS debuff, especially compared to flametongue. The only way I can think of them chosing flametongue, is because they already planned to put it on totems, of which there is only flametongue (and they don't want it on windfury because that's already the best DPS totem).

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....88847noszh.png

 

◊ Kasi

Good point on the rockbiter vs flametongue. If they had wanted to make this debuff a personal buff only, they wouldn't have put it on an ability that can be produced by a totem for the group. This makes it seem to me this was rather intentional.