Wubwub and Gurgthock, I wanted to add a little bit to our discussion on the PE thread that we hijacked regarding the Earthfury vs. Ten Storms debate.

I dumped all the set data into an excel file and here are the general results.

Upgrading from 8/8 EF to 8/8 TS nets you:

+23 healing +68 damage +5 spellcrit (set bonus accounted for) -8 concentration.

And of course a little bit better stats. 23 healing and 8 concentration are a pretty close tradeoff; though I generally have a +heal set and a concentration set for different fights, and the +5 crit is certainly nice, but not stellar.

Now, lets take a look at the typical gloves/bracers/boots 5/3 setup. Compared to 8/8 EF, this setup nets:

+10 healing +19 damage -1 crit +12 concetration

Compared to 8/8 TS, this setup nets:

-13 healing -49 damage -6 crit +20 concentration


So, there are a few tradeoffs. However, the major tradeoff for giving up the earthfury are the ridiculously good set bonuses. Before the patch, TS gave something like +120 healing, compared to the +23 healing it gives now. The spell crit is good of course, especially if you pvp. However, it is only marginally useful with LHW, and situationally useful with chain heal.

You were arguing that the ten storms changes were a beneficial change to the set, and I just don't see it. You basically get a bunch more spell damage for a lot less healing on the set as a whole. Switching from 8/8 TS to the 5/3 set gets you 20 mana/5 at the cost of only 13 healing and some crit. I know you and gurg have both said in the past you are going for 8/8 TS, and I just can't fathom why. I realize that TS is in theory a better set. It nets a higher itemValue and is a better overall upgrade. However, the EF bonuses are just great -- the totem radius is something I have grown very accustomed to, and the 5 peice is essentially 9.2% of about 85% of your mana used on a fight returned. And of course, TS has better resists. However, it seems as though blizzard is going to force us into a specific gear set for any resist dependent fight, so these are nice for general pvp use but not so hot in end game PVE.

This thing ended up being a whole lot longer than I intended, but I would still like to hear your comments. I respect both of your opinions a lot, and would love your input on this.

And, can we have a short moment of silence for the TS shoulders? RIP. :(

If you would like, I can add stats to the post. I have them all up, and they are seriously marginal differences.

Ok, the stats:

From 8/8 EF to 8/8 TS:

+9 int -7 spi +7 sta

From 8/8 EF to 5/3 combo:

+9 int -10 spi +5 sta

From 8/8 TS to 5/3 combo:

-3 spi -1 sta


Like I said, pretty darned trivial.

I haven't read the original discussion this thread seems to reference. What I would say is that the large upgrade we see from our blue set to tier one are definately a one-off. The upgrade to our mana pool and healing output is far more measured now.

The 5-piece Earthfury bonus loses it's usefulness as you reach the +healing level of priests and druids because the rank of lesser healing wave needed continues to slip.

The 3 piece bonus is most effective for something situational like tremor totem but in general I'd say it's easily given up with efficient group composition.

There is no reason to use 8/8 Ten Storms over 5/3 EF/TS when raiding. I just collect the sets so I can switch around pieces for Shadow resist or Fire resist while keeping the good bonuses.

I wasn't arguing the Ten Storms changes were an improvement to the set at all. I probably fall somewhere in between you and Wub on this one.

I was annoyed by the changes, especially because at the time of the changes, the three pieces I still needed were the gloves, shoulders, and BP, and I was drooling over the fact that getting those three would put me at +600 to healing, which I'd been aiming for just as a general benchmark for a while. Oh well, that'll have to wait.

The change to the gloves and BP really isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, though. It's a couple dozen points of healing lost, and some damage gained.

The shoulders change is dumb, but I will admit to some degree of superficiality and say that I'll wear them anyway (and apply my Z'G shoulder enchant that I have sitting around waiting for them) for looks and the feeling of progression.

Once we've mastered AQ40, I plan on having 5-piece Stormcaller + 3-piece TS for 2.1s chain heal with the chain heal bonus as my full-time combo.

It's somewhat irrational of me -- I'll freely admit that part of it is just "well, this is higher ilvl and it drops later in the game so I should wear it" and that's what I'm sticking with. But really, I'll still have all the EF around if it's needed.

I've grown accustomed to raiding without the +10yd bonus and it's really not a big deal. I swap in a third piece of EF for the fights where I really need that extra radius (dropping totems for a tank in a precarious position, or dropping tremors for tanks). 5-piece EF is nice, but I don't need it. There isn't really a fight in the game on which I run out of mana these days, and I don't really chug mana pots except maybe on Nef after a shaman yell that burned ALL my mana. If, in AQ, I find mana becomes an issue again, I'll certainly swap back to 5/3 for those fights.

Now, my other point from that thread is that while the changes to the set do not personally completely suit my playstyle, I understand the aim of the set designers. Personally, I think the class sets should be more hybrid than they are. I like the idea behind the AQ40 sets from a pure design perspective. Make the class sets something that is equally useful to all sorts of talent builds and roles within a class. Stormcaller has its benefits for healers, but it's also pretty good for an enhancement or elemental shaman. Genesis is good for healing but also for feral damage. Conqueror's is something you can tank and DPS in without having to switch. And so forth.

Then make your nonset loot highly specialized. Make nonset pieces with better tank stats than Conqueror's and nonset pieces with better DPS stats. Make pure feral leather and massive +healing cloth. (Take a look at the Robes 4 down in the second column here: http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page1.jpg)

My only complaint was that since Helm of the Lifegiver, Blizzard seems to have forgotten that some shamans are pure Restoration and focus on their ability to heal. Helm of the Lifegiver was a really well-designed item, except for the fact that it was ilvl 62 (!! -- that's lower than Z'G loot -- req lvl 57) which makes almost anything else quickly surpass it. But since then, we really don't have much. So yeah, what I'd like would be a hybrid class set with good regen, +caster stats, some +str/agi, and +dam/crit too. And then str/agi/crit mail, healing/regen mail, and other selections, so we can truly mix and match.

I love the helm of the lifegiver. If it wasnt for set bonuses there really isnt an upgrade for a full resto shaman like myself. the conc on the ef helm is really nice and in fire fights it is obviously the choice but TS and EF are still inferior. The bonuses are the only things that really bump it above the helm of the lifegiver. anyways I love the 5/3 combo. I think a person can be a viable raider with that combo throughout most things and personally I like that for stuff like trying to get lok or rejuvenating gem. I guess that is entirely different of a discussion than what is being discussed above. The greatest issue I have is the 5 piece ef bonus really allows me to feel comfortable with that and then I want to upgrade my rings and trinkets which I think is a better use of my DKP. Eventually I could look at 8/8 TS(It will be a very long time though) but I certainly dont need to hurry and heck maybe they will have another upgrade in noxxromus(I spelled that wrong) and I can just skip the 8/8 TS upgrade.

Unless we're going to see some extremely long drawn out fights, or a boss with some sort of mana draining ability, I have decided I will most likely be using 8/8 TS most of the time aswell.

The extra concentration and the ridiculous set bonus from five pieces of Earthfury are all well and good, but when you're ending fights with nearly full mana without using any sort of healing rotation +healing just ends up being better regardless of the amount of mana regen you're trading for it.

+healing items are not only increasing your efficiency and the longevity of your mana pool, but they're increasing your healing per second. HPS ended up being a big deal in BWL, so if AQ is similar the +healing and extra crit(which in turn is increasing your warriors AC with talents) from Ten Storms just ends up being more valuable than the mana regen and set bonuses of Earthfury, because if you're playing smart you are most likely not running low on mana anyways.

But most importantly, Ten Storms looks amazing, and everyone knows that looks are the most important stat. :)

I kinda get the impression the developers regret ever making sets like Earthfury and Cenarion, that somewhat pidgeonholed the classes they were for. I don't think they want druids/shamans/paladins just being used as "healbots" on raids. They want these classes to be considered hybrids, so they're designing our armor to reflect that.

I really think they need to tone down the power of a lot of set bonuses. Players end up being shackled to outdated equipment because they are making certain set bonuses so powerful. Take Nemesis 8/8 for example. 20% less threat is so good that I predict warlocks will be using this set bonus over a year from now. They need to stop making percentage based set bonuses that scale no matter how long the game has been out(20% less threat is going to be just as good now as it is in a year).

On the flipside it is nice that our hard earned equipment isn't made useless a few months after we loot it, but I still think they need to be a little more careful with these set bonuses.

Semi-off topic, does anyone here have any experience with the 8 piece Ten Storms set bonus? I'm interested in the specifics of how it works but I'm still missing the gloves to test it myself. On paper it seems like it could be pretty nice. Does +damage affect it like normal Lightning Shield?. Does it have 3 charges? etc.

Also, about the changes to Epaulets of Ten Storms, I agree that right now the change is kinda ridiculous. After thinking about it a bit the only explanation I can think of is that the developers realize that as time goes on +31 healing is becoming less powerful, but +1% crit is just as good as it always was. This is the advantage of all % based bonuses; they scale.

That's my only explanation for why they value +% to crit so highly.

Well right now the 8 piece lightning shield is fairly awful. It has three charges of 50 damage, the damage is always 50. These charges can be used up by anything hitting the player, azuregos aura, fire novas etc. However they will only reflect damage from direct physical attacks, like thorns. So almost every single one of my lightning shields is wasted to magic AEs when raiding. In the patch they did say that lightning shield will now reflect on elemental damage, of course ours already does so I believe they're talking about the ten storms 8 piece.

hi all

Im a lvl 60 shaman and i have 6/8 TS atm, i use the arathi highlands exhalted shoulders and helm of the lifegiver. Im very happy with this setup till now, i never liked earthfury but ts is fine, its gives a shaman much more advantage in pvp than either EF or even the blue pvp set. Im still unsure if i will ever go for 8/8 TS, helm of the lifegiver was my first ever epic so im attached to it :P and also, onyx has only dropped 1 ts helmet so far. We killed her many, many times (i think we were in top20 in world to take her down, still only 1 helmet :x)

I cant wait to get my hands on stormcaller set, its seems very very fun and good set.

but what i was wondering was the followign, how does 5+ TS work for enhancement shammies that pvp with it? my talent built is 19/0/32 and i never been enhancement after level 40. I would really like to know how the set is in enhancement built pvp.

(i hope you can undestand my post, i need to work on my english :P)