The problem with talents that scale that well isn't so much the raw power they are at now, but the way they scale with gear. Increase in power that increase are horrible for game balance and are likely to be nerfed as player power through gear increases.

I remember a multi-page flaming thread on the US shaman forums when Tseric made exactly this claim. The reality is that flametongue weapon not only forces us to overwrite any existing weapon oils but also doesn't scale nearly enough to even compete with a lousy wand. It would need a massive overhaul of our whole weapon buff system to make melee a viable alternative for an elemental shaman. Moonkins regain mana from melee, which is more utility than we get, but can you imagine a balance druid running into the melee pack in order to hit the boss with his staff?

Mages can choose between extra regeneration through mage armor and extra damage through molten armor - we do not have such a choice. We can't actively give up some DPS for longevity. We can't choose between aspect of the hawk and aspect of the viper. Downranking isn't really viable anymore either. Elemental focus is all we have so please stop seeing only what you want to see and take a look at the whole picture for once.

No developer came forward and explained the reason for this proposed change and maths disprove the claims of super-efficiency. This change pigeon-holes us into certain gear choices without allowing us enough efficiency to attain those - how would you feel about giving a raid member who runs out of mana half-way into a trash pull four pieces tier 4/5/6 and class trinkets?

I currently run out of mana on SSC trash pulls with some of the best elemental gear available and that is a fact. The only reason I could sustain myself on Tidewalker was judgemend of wisdom and a flask of mighty restoration while all other casters could use supreme power. Before 2.0.10 I was using a flask of mighty restoration and mageblood elixir to not run out of steam between potion timers on the prince in Karazhan while using dungeon set 3 and heroic rewards, which is, after all, the targeted itemization of the instance. Surely, now that I out-gear the instance, I should not need to chain-pot on farm-level content anymore? I do, however, still need to use potions in order to sustain my nuking.

(Sorry for ranting but I really don't think hunter and mage concerns belong in a shaman thread.)

Edit: Tried to word it better.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...=ezareth&hl=en

I made a thread on the Shaman Forums concerning this.

I think it will hurt the majority of shaman pretty bad. The top geared Elemental Shaman will struggle but will come through this nerf OK.

One thing on my video. This was a bugged gruul where you did nothing but spam lightning bolt endlessly. I have 3 mages and a Warlock in my group. Notice at the end of the fight, I have the same mana as mages and they were using potions, gems, and evocation as well.

Now consider 6 months down the line when we add another 5-10% crit, mages will be at their same consumption and we will be close to completely sustainable mana.

We have to be honest here guys, I don't think anyone thought the scalability of 100% cost reduction per crit point wasn't too much. It had to change sometime, Blizzard just chose to change it a little early IMO.

What we need is some static buffs to help recoup some of our losses here.

Active 5MP5 per charge regen on water shield, 1/100 of our healing added to our mana spring. This would solve provide much lower scaling similar to a mages spirit, and give restoration shaman more of longevity which they also need.

Agreed. This change is a very logical one given its implications for long-term scaling, but the current standard of gear is going to suffer significantly with regards to sustainability. It would make a great deal of sense to add regen back into the class in other places which will not have the same scaling but will make damage moderately sustainable in the current level of gear.

Adding an mp5 component to water shield makes a ton of sense, given that its charges are consumed at a low rate in almost any kind of group work, which neutralizes its mana capability during a time when mana return is most needed. Adding small scaling to mana spring would also be a viable choice, although I prefer the former. Another viable option would be to improve Unrelenting Storm, so only elemental shaman would really be effected.

Somewhat of a derail, but another fix that I'm surprised wasn't made is to make our "clearcasting" work more like Illumination - refunding a percentage of mana for the spell that was just cast - eliminating the rank 1, rank 1, *crit* max rank, rank 1 routine.

No offense but mages already have a talent that restores mana on crit additionally to their plethora of mana regenerating abilities.

Master of Elements Rank 3
Your Fire and Frost spell criticals will refund 30% of their base mana cost.
What we really need is a complete rework of our weapon buff, shield and totem systems. Unfortunately that is not going to happen and we just don't have anything to smoothen this nerf.

And, with all due respect, please, please, stop posting that video. Arcane power builds are not the most mana-efficient mage PvE builds. Once your mages spec fully for PvE, like you do, they can talk about efficiency.

I don't know a lot about mage builds apart from basics but I don't think it is fair to compare the shaman single-target DPS build with anything but the most effective mage single-target-DPS build. It's like comparing a shadowstep rogue to a fury warrior and complaining about the damage difference. Sifting through Nihilum armory I see many 10/48/3 builds, which is the strongest single-target DPS build currently.

So while I usually agree with your arguments, this time I have to disagree.

I don't claim mages had no mana problems, they do. Arcane meditation is a joke with the level of spirit the normal mage keeps and evocation is barely useful but those are their problems, not ours. Those problems will persist even if we got nerfed. Currently shadow priests and warlocks are able to scale their mana regeneration with their damage. Blizzard should give that buff to mages and leave our talents alone because nerfing us won't improve any other class, it would rather rob them of our buffs because raid viability is a required condition for bringing a class into an instance in first place.

Edit: English is definitely greater than me today. Sorry for all the edits.

Question for the more mathematically inclined than I.

How does the change to EF affect how our itemization is budgeted? Does mp5 see a resurgence in value because of the reduced returns on crit rating?

what about int? it gives regen twice, once in the form of crit for EF and again as mp5 through unrelenting storm.

Don't worry, in any significant raid encounter priests still need to chain chug Super Mana Potions. And there aren't a lot of +dmg upgrades until T6 for us either.

Just a side-note: patch notes states that EF will be procced by the second lightning from LO now. Well, I was pretty surprised to read this because as I could remember, this has been already the case. Yesterday I checked, and yes, when my second LB was a crit, it procced Clearcasting. So no change here.

edit: got told from a friend on PTR that it should proc on a non-crit LO. Makes a bit more sense this way. Additional 5% chance for EF to proc.

I can see that in terms of damage. As far as Arcane/fire being less mana efficient than Full Fire I don't really see that. That was my only real contention.

Now onto the thread discussion I have been doing a lot of testing on test and have good and bad news.

Good news is Elemental focus is ADDED to Convection. Meaning with clearcasting your lightning bolts cost 70% of base or 99 mana.

Bad news is totems are reduced by convecation and clearcasting. Totem of Pulsing Earth is 24 mana off, 22 with convection and 8 with cleacasting.

With a 40% crit rate this means you are only averaging 16 mana off each cast. In this case in all but the most extreme circumstances I think totem of the Void is better.

If you can insure a steady stream of mana with potions then off course Void is better. But i can imagine fights where we simply run dry before the end and where Pulsing earth is better.

I'm a little disappointed with Blizzard's buff/nerf flip-flopping. Makes you wonder where they are pulling these numbers from, how much testing is actually done and how much foresight Blizzard is using in implementing these changes.

Life has certainly been good with the clearcasting buff, no lie, but in the back of my mind I was giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt: that they had planned ahead and the current embarrassment of riches would be balanced shortly by the raid/gear progression in the raid zones.

Right now for my guild, where straight up DPS is concerned, it's pretty much an aggro dance to see where we land on the meters. Sure, now more often than not I find myself with mana to spare, but I don't see that as a bad thing because shaman have a very pronounced DPS ceiling as we do not have any active means of dumping threat. So who cares how much mana is left over? I find the extra mana helpful in spot healing (ie. being a hybrid) during the encounter without worrying about how many seconds out-of-mana for the fight each heal will cost me.

...and as other classes with better threat management get better gear, they willl be able to increase their DPS in ways we cannot.

Yeah the lack of a mana dump in future fights could be a big issue.

Our DPS will always be tied to the threat the MT can dish out.

Just had a play on the PTR

T5 2pc bonus = chance for LHW to cost 380 less mana
T5 4pc bonus = 120 mana refund on crits (hey, aint that 40% of a lb cost?)

769 dmg, 19.64% crit, all the necessary elemental crit & damage talents

92848 & 98830 damage in total, roughly 770 dps

Got some Mage & Lock extras to flesh out the set.

Didn't check on the proc rate for the 4pc mana back.

I think the OP-ness of the original elemental focus was that it allowed FSR regen to kick in if you strung two crits together. From what I can tell the changes have been made to prevent that.
I'll grab a proc-watch and go see Dr Boom again tonight though (please note that I had to ninja some items from the Lock/Mage T5 boxes to replace my resto gear. Mostly unenchanted and ungem'd too, plus this is without any buffs).

If I can pony up some gems this evening, and some more enchants, and maybe some buffs, we can take a look at it again.

Also going to re-look at my LB theorycrafting, in the same line as the healing one I've got in my sig.

I did it myself on test tonight.

Things are grim guys....REALLY grim.

For all purposes Tier 4 is over 3 times better than Tier 5 in terms of mana efficiency.

Tier 5 is a 25% proc rate on crit. Interestingly you get the mana back when you cast the spell instead of when it lands so you know it is going to crit before you see it.(This proves exactly where the crit roll is done).

Tier 4 is a 40% proc rate on crit.

This means the mana you save on Tier = 108 mana per crit
The Mana you save on Tier 5= 30 mana per crit.

Then comparing the 2 peice of 20 damage/healing for your whole group versus a 15 second buff that reduces a lesser healing wave cost puts Tier 5 at the bottom of the barrel in terms of set bonuses.

Blizzard is blind or has noone with any imput into game balance that plays a shaman.

That is interesting. Clearcasting only seems to proc (at least for me) once the crit spellcast lands at the target. Odd that they'd put in separate mechanics for effects that proc on crits, esp. if the roll is done at the end of the spellcast, not contact.

If their presence (or rather, distinct lack thereof) on the "official" WoW shaman boards is any indication, it would not surprise me.

I, like many already know, can't describe how disappointing the lack of any effort there has been on Bllizzard's part for establishing a good relationship and good exchange of information and feedback on those boards. It's absolutely staggering and deeply disappointing how horrible it has been - for not months, but years now.

I didn't want to give up for so long on salvaging that relationship, but they continue to make it more and more difficult to have much faith.

Wow, just poked my head in here as my shaman is in the level 60+ range... and you guys are seriously comparing shaman to mages in sustained casting? I was actually hoping to see some actual numbers instead of "this looks grim". This is a longevity nerf not a dps nerf btw.

100% clearcasting on crit for 1 talent point + the fact that you can get 14% crit just from talents was broken. Your lightning bolt scaling better than pretty much any other spell in the game is broken. Yes it's a nerf but at least show some sense.

I don't think it's fair to compare ANY "pure" dps class with a class that can heal.... It's like comparing a warrior's tanking ability with a mage's tanking ability. It makes no sense whatsoever. How about if you want to do my damage I can do your healing. Or if you want polymorph. I get your totems. That reasoning is flawed.

P.S. Posts like this make me want to go read the wow general forum for intelligent posts.

Actual numbers are here if you'd read the whole thread.

On crit now we lose 99 mana per crit plus any chance at 5second rule regen.

I'm pretty sure mages can get just as high of crit or close to it through talents. Especially with Winter's Chill on frost.

Lets see mages get Evocation, Master of Elements, 10% clearcasting, Arcane Meditation, Mage Armor, Mana Gems? Did I miss anything? Ohh yeah Frost Channeling.

Lightning Bolt scales while "scaling" better than other caster's spells also consumes mana faster than other spells.

Shadowbolts, Frost Bolts, and Fireballs all have a plethera of stacking Curses, debuffs, and talents that increase their damage. Lightning bolt has stormstrike that is instantly used by hunters and rogues.

Please if you are going to "poke your head" into a Shaman thread be a little more informed and less insulting.

A similar comparison isn't a mage tanking but a Feral Druid tanking in comparison to a Warrior.