PSGarak

The major problem I see it as solving is that your optimal spell rotation is spaming one button, or sometimes two buttons, until totems run out. It's not a balance issue, but it's the gameplay issue that's been most pressing to the spec (actually, all 3 specs of your class, aside from totem-twisting).

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

 

Graze

Yes, a secondary strike wouldn't be too horrible. Perhaps even baseline making life more interesting for the non-melee speccs for the odd times they find themself in melee combat, I mean hunters got more moves than us in melee.

Chain Lightning is odd in rotations, according to the prominent elemental shaman thread on these forums, it's not that much of a gain, especially with the T6 4 part bonus, (it is my belief that this is because our spells are too fast. It hurts our "rotation" switching). Shadow priests use a rotation that grants remarkable gains because of the immense power in their spell, perhaps Lava Burst will be our Mind Blast.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Tana Umaga

We need to see what are the final numbers on LaB. Being a 2sec casting spell, and needing an active FS to automatically crit (i.e. 20 yards), if the basic damage of LaB is similar to that of LB, I don't think there should be any reason to include it in our rotation, I would rather cast another LB (more range, no autocritical but possibly a critical due to high critical rating).

Thus the idea that LaB is designed to be used during spell lockdowns or intense focus fire starts to gain a clear advantage.

So, if Flametongue doesn't give a decent amount of spellpower, the 2/3 points spent in Lava Flows could be redirected to somewhere else... maybe to fill the uncomplete 5/5 talents like Unrelenting Storms.

 

Ocyr

Maybe. It might come down to just a simple question of whether or not the Shaman has the gearing / raid composition to need full UR or not. I'll just be keeping my fingers crossed that the NS' interpretation is incorrect / Blizzard changes it's mind on this.

 

Graze

Numbers numbers numbers!
I'm not a math wiz and the math below may be flawed.
I've checked around and Mind Blast is claimed to be the best damage/cast time spell, thus it has to be a boost to dps, I figured this is the best spell to "match" against Lava Burst

Assuming 2000 spellpower, 25% critt, 0 haste, 400 spirit (in favor of the shadow priest) and 100% "normal debuff" uptime, including Flame Shock( in favor of the shaman).

MB: 992 to 1048, 1.5 sec Cast
That's (1020 + (1.5/3.5) * (2000+(400*0.3)) * 1.65 = 3332.06 Dmg per cast. Critts for 175%

Assuming a 51/0/20 build for no additional spellpower from MD & MQ.
LaB: dealing 888 to 1132 Fire damage, 2.0 sec Cast

That's (1010 + (2.0/3.5) * 2000) * 1.51 = 3250.81 Dmg per cast. Critts for 200%

Factoring critts:
So MB is 3332.06 + (3332.06 * 0.75 * 0.35) = 4206.73
And LaB is 3250.81 + (3250.81 * 1 * 1) = 6501.62

DPS:
4206.73 / 1.5 = 2804.49 DPS "per cast"
6501.62 / 2 = 3250.81 DPS "per cast"

Thanks to the huge critt advantage, LaB comes out quite a bit on top.

Edit: compared to pure LB spam.

LB DPS Assuming only Nature's Fury and Misery debuffs active.
((765 + (2.5/3.5) * 2000) * 1.16) * 1.1 = 2799 Damage per cast. Critts for 200%
Adding critt:
2799 + (2799 * 1 * 0.38) = 3862.62
3862.62 / 2 = 1931.31 DPS "per cast".

4x LB + LaB = 2165.21 DPS
infinite x LB = 1931.31 DPS

Adding in Stormstrike the rotation might not be worth it, another failure from Blizzard's part.
I'm not a math wiz and the math above may be flawed.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Ocyr

Apples and Oranges Graze. MB also gives back to the party (or raid in WotLK, we'll see) health and mana.

About the only valid comparison would be to Starfire, since balance Druids and Elemental Shaman are both Nature-based Hybrids that both act as as group-enhancers first (buffers), DPS / Healers second. Arcane would be the Druids secondary school , and Fire would the the Shamans secondary school. Even a quick glance shows that LavB is a gimmick spell, thus relegating it to PvP with room for a possible inclusion in a highly structured PvE spell rotation.

Now, if Blizzard testers have any amount of intelligence at all, they will; remove the cool-down completely, allow the various elemental tree talents to affect LavB (like casting range, etc), and let LavB proc off of any Shaman FlameShock. This would give Shaman a fully viable backup school of Magic, open the dungeon designers to design any sort of encounters they want (without "screwing" any class), and make no difference in PvP, all while opening up a new door of viability for Elemental and Restoration Shaman (who pretty well have to avoid entire regions of tBC due to nature immune mobs and not wanting to spend 5 minutes per mob meleeing them to death with a 41 dps dagger).

edit: I did follow your discussion and rejected your conclusion for the reasons listed. The spells are Apples to Oranges. MB will give back over 900 hp to everyone in range, and 60-70 mana as well. LavB has no secondary effects. MB is also not a secondary school of magic for SPriests. They do not compare well, and should not be compared as comparisons between the two are going to be invalid for those reasons. Also, I pointed out in a math-intensive post several pages ago that LavB has a slight edge as a part of a highly structured rotation (vs a straight LB spam) so you are just restating things already posted a long time ago in that regard. You might want to read the entire thread.

edit2: I've seen your math and logic Graze. What you are failing to see is that your reasoning is specious - it doesn't matter how well LavB compares to any other class' spell when determining it's usefulness for inclusion or exclusion in a shaman rotation. The only, let me stress that, only consideration that matters is whether it increases shaman dps. As I said, your apple to orange comparisons are pointless within your own context. Nothing you provided serves to justify changes to what was said pages ago. That is to say, regardless of whether it is better than MB or not, it does have a place in a raid rotation under specific conditions that have already been thoroughly examined.

 

Graze

No you missunderstand, I compared it to Mind Blast as the "Rotation maker". I did NOT compare it as a "secondary school nuke", Lava Burst is a "rotation maker", NOT a "secondary school nuke" such as Starfire.

And by "rotation maker" I mean; This spell is SO good, you basicly must use it. If it was about a normal LB in power, it would make no sense, please follow the discussion.

[E] I never claimed MB to be a secondary nuke, and you're wrong, MB alone have no secondary effect, it's just what it happens to do because of VT and VE. I chose to compare it with MB because it was claimed to be the spell with the highest dmg/cast time, thus a perfect candidate for a spell to base a rotation upon. It was stated as a possible rotation yes, but the current page is discussing whether or not it's a good idea. See Garak's, Mine and Tanaumaga's posts above for reference.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Darian_TruBlade

Part of it may end up being how Lava Burst scales. We can expect 2/3.5 or 57.2% for the Spell Power coefficient. Comparing with Lightning Bolt using 25% base Spell Crit and the 51/0/20 Build:

Lava Burst Scaling = (Spell Power * 57.2%)) * 1.05 [Concussion] * 1.06 [Call of Flame] * 1.10 [Lava Flow] * 1.15 [Imp Scorch] * 1.13 [Curse of Elements] * 1.25 [Spell Crit]
Lava Burst Scaling = .91 * 1.25
Lava Burst Scaling = 1.14

Lightning Bolt Scaling = (Spell Power * 79.4%)) * 1.05 [Concussion] * 1.10 [Lightning Overlord] * 1.06 [Nature's Fury] * 1.35 [Spell Crit + Call of Thunder + Tidal Mastery]
Lightning Bolt Scaling = .97 * 1.35
Lightning Bolt Scaling = 1.31

So without Flame Shock, Lava Burst is a full 17% behind in scaling. The following calculates the minimum % of casts with Flame Shock present for Lava Burst to be even with Lightning Bolt on scaling.

.91 * (1 + X) = .97 * 1.35
1 + X = 1.31 / .91
1 + X = 1.44
X = .44

44 - 25 [Chance of Critting Anyway] = 19 [Crits from Flame Shock]
19 / 75 [% of Hits with 25% Crit] = .253 [Some LavB would have Crit anyway]
25.3% Uptime.

Without a Fire Mage and a Warlock (More likely in 10-mans than in 25-mans), the required uptime increases to 69%, meaning so long as a friendly Enhancement Shaman is willing to keep Flame Shock up Lava Burst represents 30%-75% better scaling.

In situations where no other Shaman is present, a separate calculation will have to be made as to whether including Flame Shock + Lava Burst in the rotation is more of a help or a hindrance. Matters also change significantly if instead we assume MQ & MD spec.

Edit: I forgot the effect of Misery (My guild rarely has a Shadow Priest v.v) but as it should affect both evenly, I'll leave my calculations as is.

 

draconis0101

I've heard rumors of shaman totems affecting the raid now instead of just the party. As well that lightning shield will also add spell dmg. Any truth to this? Could push elemental to extremely high dmg but our mana would pour out. I'll find where I originally read it and post a link.


Shaman - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information

Static Shock, rank 9
You have a 2/4/6% chance to hit your target with a Lightning Shield Orb charge when you do damage, and increases your spell damage by 3% when you have Lightning Shield active. (Lower 2 Ranks: "...and increases the number of charges of your Lightning Shield by 1/2.")
(3 Ranks)

So what I gather is that your LS will have 5 charges, a 6% chance to blow a charge in addition to your spell dmg and it passively increases your spell dmg by an additional 3%.

Windfury Totem: The effect is no longer a weapon enchant. It now provides a buff giving the same effect, the end result being that it now stacks with poisions, sharpening stones and also works for druid feral forms.
Many totem's effects are being combined (e.g. Grace of Air and Strength of Earth into a single totem).
Totems will now effect all nearby raid members instead of being confined to party members.
Heroism/Bloodlust will affect all raid members nearby in the same way as totem changes.
Rockbiter Weapon: Removed and replaced with Earthliving Weapon.
Flametongue Weapon: Now increases spell damage.
Summon Air Elemental: Summons an Air Elemental to accompany the caster until dismissed.

Alot of that should make it to where eleshamans will see more raid time. Also, I heard a rumor that they are going to make elementals pets like a locks. They stay out till unsummoned.

 

Kirion

Except, static shock is enhancement talent

42.

 

draconis0101

Well, hybridization seems to be where they are heading in this xpansion.

 

Graze

No, it's homogenization, so there will be fewer items overall, thus fewer items getting disenchanted and it will be easier to give classes and "offspeccs" items. The "hybridization" is a side effect from this. However I do like the idea of Static Shock being an elemental skill - however, the love is going to Enhancement for now it seems.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Buanna

This will either not happen or destroy raiding entirely. There's no middle ground.

25 man raids will be required to take 15 shamans.

Boni and Bonii are not words.
Bonuses is.

 

draconis0101

God, I totally agree. If that happens, they'll nerf that Clark Kent style. Or they'll add something that keeps you from being affected by another lust for so long. Probably 10 min timer.

 

Toastradamus

They can just tack a 3-minute or so weakened soul-like debuff onto BL. The first 2 shamans added to a raid each contribute theirs for any boss fight longer than 3 minutes, and the third shaman's is useful for any boss fight longer than 6 minutes. Then the first shaman's bloodlust is fully useful, the second's is almost fully useful, and the third's is significantly less useful. Any shaman after the first three pretty much might as well not have Bloodlust at all.

Seems to fit with the whole "2.5 of each class per raid" theme, diminishing returns after the first two.

I imagine someone has suggested this somewhere already (perhaps the raid consolidation thread?). I see a 10 minute debuff tossed out a lot, but to me that seems to go too far (shaman #2 bringing a lot less to a raid than shaman #1 should not be the goal). A case could be made for 5 minutes, although it would depend on the average length of a boss fight.

And of course, this wouldn't preclude some sort of additional tweaking of the ability if it's still too strong, but it should allow for not nerfing Bloodlust into something that is no longer impressive. And of course by allowing it to be raidwide you remove the temptation to stack shamans, as has been pointed out many times.

The only real downside I can think of is having a debuff for so long. Whenever I get debuffs I can't remove that last a long time I forget about them for a while, then freak out and try to figure out how to remove them, then re-realize that I can't. Over and over and over, until it's gone.

 

Graze

Any cooldown would be devastating to any arena team using two shamans, why they would ever want that - and if they do add a cooldown (personally, being a PvE'er, I like the idea), they'd have to improve our "solo" power, and not balance us around what others can achieve with our ten minute cooldown.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Toastradamus

You're right, I forgot to consider multi-shaman arena, which does get a nice boning from an enforced downtime between bloodlusts.

They could always make bloodlust/heroism only affect melee/ranged attack speed, then add powerlust/altruism (or whatever silly names you want to use) to affect casting, then slap both with separate 10 minute debuffs.

 

Ulthwithian

Hey all. I realize that this is really very odd, but I was wondering if anyone had looked at a Resto/Enh hybrid spec in terms of its ability to deal damage. Something like this.

The main killer in terms of damage would seem to be losing the cast time decrease of LB and CL. The loss of EM and EF might also affect damage (and certainly would affect sustainability). However, the benefits over a hybrid Ele/Enh build would be:

1) Higher crit (9% from Tidal Mastery/Blessing of the Eternals vs. 5% from Call of Thunder)
2) Higher passive hit (3% from Nature's Guidance)
3) Earth Shield
4) 1:0.6 Int:spellpower conversion rate (as opposed to 1:0.3)
5) Mana Tide Totem

Now, I am not trying to say that this will be an endline raiding spec, but is it possible that for 5-10man content, this might work as a hybrid? I'll be looking into trying to apply some math to this and see what comes out.

 

Graze

Well you lose everything from the elemental tree, not to mention ToW, which is basically the reason you're in the raid to begin with. I don't see how that would ever work for an Elemental build. reduction in cast time is pretty much the best dps booster talents there is.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Ocyr

Ulwithian you'd have to find out if:

8% crit
6% hit
.5 second reduction in casting time (14% DPS benefit)
10% damage multiplier (LO)
5% damage multiplier (Concussion)

was worth giving up the extra 30% int converted to spell power. Because this build is always available to people who want to be a truer caster/healer-hybrid for PvP and 5-mans (the talent choices you provided didn't make me think you were talking about melee/healer-hybrid).

 

broods

Any elemental pve shaman would be foolish not to pick up mental quickness and dexterity from the enhancement tree.

In fact, i think the spellpower boost will be so great that blizzard will nerf it really quikcly.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...13300000000000

This is just a sample build with some melee stuff included for kicks but you get the general idea.

With int converting in to attackpower and AP in to spellpower the boost will be massive. Especially conisdering that lots of buffs might be raid wide such as unleashed rage and battleshout. Fully raid buffed mental quickness might give upwards of 800 extra spelldmg. Nothing else will be able to compare in the slightest with mental quickness build. ( dont tell me the 5% crit from resto will compare rofl )

 

• Aeverius

How much math did you do on this? The bulk of your attack power is going to come from raid buffs. If you don't get the 550 AP Battle Shout, or the 300 AP BoM, the bonus spellpower drops drastically. Bumping the base STR to 120 (lvl 60->70 was 90->105, so 120 is a best-guess) and assuming all possible lvl 80 raid buffs excepting Death Knight abilities (minus new Strength totem, no data on that yet, so the lvl 65 one is used here), 1450 INT is required to hit 800 bonus spellpower. That's even assuming Unleashed Rage with 100% uptime, something I seriously doubt you'll be able to count on. Considering that T6 shamans currently have about 460 to 500 total intellect before raid buffs, I don't think we'll see anything like 800 spellpower from this setup at any point in time, unless a whole lot of variables change, or a lvl 80 shaman has 400 base strength, or something.

What you're losing to do this is 3% hit, 5% crit, 25% lowered totem cost, and Totemic Focus, as well as anything below Totem of Wrath. Obviously you can't put values on those right now, as the conversion ratings at 80 will be different, and so will the available stats from gear. Still, it is a big bonus to spellpower, and if you can get the major supporting buffs, there's a good chance it'll be worth it.

All that being said, this only works because a) every talent under Totem of Wrath is of uncertain utility at this point, and b) because Mental Quickness isn't one Tier lower. Willing to bet at least one of those things changes.

[e] Modified ballpark T6 int values to reflect a realistic range

Improved Lay on Hands is really fucking good: