Lucitron

+
*Ahem*... Decided to take a logical shortcut so to speak and not write out all of my thoughts in plaint text.

I felt it was pretty obvious that Flametongue Totem could be just as well placed by Restoration, thus allowing Elemental Shaman to put down Totem of Wrath. However, this is a scenario that probably works in 25-man, not necessarily for 10- and 5-man instances, just due to that there might not be a Resto/Enhancement Shaman present. If you've to choose between Flametongue Totem and Totem of Wrath, then it is possible that ToW is the better totem, however the relative gain, in comparison to how it is now, will be less since you've to sacrifice the flat spelldamage totem.

Next, I felt is was equally obvious that this reasoning is only valid if Totem of Wrath remains unchanged. It could become an Earth Totem, finally giving us a pro-caster Earth-totem. However, it could just as well be that Blizzard has decided to remove Totem of Wrath and give something else.

Almost none of the end talents that were leaked in the alpha are present in the beta patch notes. There is a screenshot where Blizzard employee mentions that the Enhancement end-tree would change, and some rough plans that they had in mind (instant cast LB/CL for Enhancement Shamans). The lack of information in the beta patch notes make me guess that Blizzard is not entirely happy with the end talents, and we might see some changes here. However, by the sound of it, Thunder is there to stay.


Addendum:
One other interesting thing is the fact that they decided to remove Tranquility Air totem. Some nay-sayers (like myself) have painted a gloomy picture where a 25-man raid might only need one Restoration and one Enhancement Shaman in WotLK. One counter argument to this doomsday view, was that an Elemental Shaman could always use Tranquility Air and Healing Stream totem to complement the totems that Restoration brought to the raid.

In a galaxy far, far away, senator Palpatine just learned Lightning Bolt rank 12.

 

Anksunamun

True. As you can see some totems have been changed but not the relative talents
-guardian totems: increases the amount of damage reduced by stoneskin totem (stoneskin totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage) and windwall totem by 10% ( this totem has been removed)
-improved weapons totems: increases the melee attack power of your windfury totem by 15% (windfury totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem) and increases the damage caused by your flametongue totem by 6% (flametongue totem is now a flat spell damage totem)
-elemental weapons: increases the damage caused by your rockbiter weapon by 20% (rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. windfury weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30) ... and increases the damage caused by flametongue weapon by 15%(as above)

 

tufy

Possible, I guess, but not likely.

I think they simply didn't bother listing what will be known soon anyway. Those patch notes are far from complete, for instance, with Paladins, there's no mention of Seal of Corruption and Seal of Martyr (basically horde Vengeance and alliance Blood), no mention of end talents, etc, just things being moved around.

Well, it should be noted that Blessing of Salvation was removed as well, replaced with temporary threat reduction in the form of Hand of Salvation. I guess TAT was sweeped out in the same wave. Note an interesting detail that there's currently also no mention of totems affecting the whole raid. Let's try not to panic too soon and wait for Beta reports to get a clear picture., then we can theory it out all the way.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Vaeys

Or they could just change Totem of Wrath to increase spell damage as well as give the hit/crit. (or make it Improved Flametongue?)

 

Graze

I think now we can confirm that Lava Burst is meant to be used by Enhancement Shamans and not us.
It's also funny how it's now Elemental Oath MAKING the entire tree, and not S,E & F or Thunder, a pretty darn good utility if you ask me.

Paralysis is probably only there so they can remove the bandaid coefficient on LB, making it .81 instead of .79, a nerf in disguise. 75% X speed reduction seems nice, should it only ever procc, and I bet bosses will be immune to the effect. a 15% procc feels too low, and it still relies on you actually being able to cast.

Also reminder to everyone that the MMO-C talent calculator is still wrong, Convection is only 3 points, that's why I can't get my specc to work.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

If Water shield becomes trainable @ level 20 already, what will take our place as the "cool brand new tbc spell"?

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!

 

Anksunamun

If it's true I don't understand why they give us lava flow..

 

sjogren

They don't. Look at the new talent calculators on mmo-champion.

 

Roywyn

Hm, to get Elemental Oath, Lightning Overload, Totem of Wrath and Paralysis (the little "PvE Square" in the tree), you need 46 in elemental. Which means that you can't take Mental Quickness at all.

Paralysis increases your Lightning Bolt coefficient from 0.71 to 0.81 if they remove the hidden bonus, or 0.79 to 0.89 if they don't. That's equivalent to increasing your total spell power by 0.1/0.71 or 0.1/0.79, so 14% at best. Resto gives you 4% crit and +10 yards on totems. (And -25% totem cost.)

Estimating 2k spell damage and 1% crit ~ 25 dmg for entry level raid gear, that gives us 380 spell power equivalent from Paralysis and Tidal Mastery.


If we try to get Mental Quickness for 30% AP-to-dmg, we have to drop Paralysis in addition to Resto.
The numbers for AP raid buffed at 80 were ~2k AP buffed attack power with Mental Dexterity, so Mental Quickness would add ~600 spell damage. (And Ancestral Knowledge mana.)
This is pretty static however, with no significant gear scaling (only intellect), while Paralysis and Crit scale directly with spell power.


From this first impression, ToW/LO/EO+MQuick looks very competitive for early gear levels for fights where 20 yard totem are no significant disadvantage.
(Considering Ancestral Knowledge and Totemic Focus can be weighted against each other.)

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput
This assumes Rune of Razorice and Slow for Torment unless noted as "No TtW".
More detailed at http://elitistjerks.com/923110-post2775.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.

 

tufy

Another interesting aspect is Astral Shift, which basically functions like a stun / fear / silence shield wall. Definitely a cool pvp utility.

Also, I've added the talent trees into original post. As stated before, cleaning the file later.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Lucitron

Well, as I stated in my first post in this thread (decided to edit it), the first beta-version looks a bit more promising. I like the new version of Elemental Oath, and Paralysis talent is a nice touch, though perhaps not exactly what I had in mind. However I still feel that there is a lot of room for improvements. For PvE, then there is no huge reason to take Storm, Earth and Fire talent, or the Thunderstorm talent.

In a galaxy far, far away, senator Palpatine just learned Lightning Bolt rank 12.

 

Kaideq

I think the tree looks dire for PVE, elemental Oath is the only real improvement PVE wise, Paralysis can be nice, if they do not remove the coefficient patch we have now. IMO that is a big if.
6% crit and 6% less mana is all we're getting sofar as far as I am concerned.

One of our strengths pve wise was that; we could get a lot of gear without spell hit to negate the lack of a "main nuke +x% spell dmg" talent, yet they cream 7% off elemental precision and goodbye natures guidance, another potential 3% lost.

In short I'd say we're loosing 10% hit and gaining 6% crit / 6% less mana used.
Imo we're loosing out big.


We're down 3 cool brand new TBC spells compared to other class's then, seeing the lack of use for the elemental totems as they are now.

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

Graze

From what I've read a blue write "the Flame Shock part will be a good DPS increase in PvE, the other two parts were with PvP in mind" (something like that), oh did I laugh about that part. I still think it's a useless talent.

Thunder might be just 1k mana, but on a 45 second cooldown and that's quite nice, at a terrible gcd usage, but still. Plus it might be our only way of countering the horrid mana cost changes.

Yes true, the elementals are true lacklusters, but one can only hope they do something about that. Blizzard isn't really known for fixing "old" things. Vanish anyone?

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!

 

Papaduval

that would be losing 6% spell hit and gaining 6% crit damage and 6% less mana used

We're still losing out though :P

 

Paladia

I was actually looking forward to being able to get a few spells off with how Astral Plane, Improved Fire nova and Thunder worked when melee was beating on you. However, now the Improved Fire nova totem no longer stuns, so that's at least one less spell every 15 seconds. Astral plane won't give you immunity either, so that is one less spell every 30 seconds (provided it would proc, which is quite likely if facing any melee). The current mechanics of Astral plane is alright though but the change to fire nova totem is quite huge.

With Flametongue giving spell damage and ToW giving spell crit, it feels like a flawed mechanics. A possible solution would be to have the ToW talent add the crit/hit buff to any fire totem placed, as then it would work with searing or flametongue as well as giving a very small benefit to PvP.

I do feel that any high tier one point talent should be useful in both PvP and PvE (which the 41p and 51p talents are not). Thunderstorm is quite useful in PvE, but the mana pot component of it should definitely be increased to something along the lines of 15% (which would still be just 3 untalented lightning bolts at 15k mana, or 1.3 chain lightnings), hardly overpowered for a 51 point talent. In its current form it won't even give you enough mana for half a chain lightning, which feels like a joke.

Blizzard really enjoys making the Shamans as unreliable as possible. With some lucky procs of LO, Paralysis and improved frost shock an opponent could die without every getting the chance to shake hands. But more likely the won't be of much use as the proc chance is so low. 5 points in a 46 talent to get a 25% 2 seconds root on a cooldown, which won't likely be used as the cooldown is shared by a much more important spell (earth shock) seems very poor. A one second 100% root would have been a more desirable alternative.

The basic idea of paralysis is good, as it is useful in both PvE and PvP, the main problem is that it relies on a (rare) proc, especially considering how rarely you get to spam lightning bolts in a pvp environment. Making the proc work on any offensive spell should be considered.

 

Kaideq

Meh I really wonder why I had 10% in my head on elemental precision, thanks for slapping some sense into me.
Hmm 6 on 6 isn't all too bad, actually. Especially not for Spacegoats

Starchild Spacegoat Shaman in Beta

 

Dra

It's also 6% less mana and 6% extra crit damage for everyone in your group, not just for yourself, so it's not really valid to compare it that way. Elemental Oath provides us with the group buff utility we desperately needed, which makes it infinitely more valuable, altho it seems a bit underwhelming still, I think that letting it stack 5 times would bring it more in line with other similar effects.

 

Darian_TruBlade

I'm surprised the MQ and MD spec is still in there. I'd have thought Blizzard would have done something to remedy that. In fact, the removal of the 3% hit talent from the Resto Tree seems to only encourage it further.

I'm looking at the following three builds.

52/0/19
46/4/21
43/28/0

The key difference between MQ&MD and the other two builds is 10% spell damage to LB and CL, 4-5% Crit, Totem mana efficiency/range, and either Nature's Swiftness or Thunder. What MQ&MD gets is 500-900 SP, 10% Int, and some misc utility/survivability. Even on the low end, 5% more overall damage and 10% to our most used spells means we're looking at around 3000 spell damage before MQ&MD starts to be inferior.

Effectively, there needs to be a more compelling reason than SE&F for PvE Elemental Shaman to avoid the MQ&MD build, ever.

 

PSGarak

Keep in mind also, most other classes with high hit are dropping down to 3-5% from talents, so it's not shamans who are being singled out by that change. The subtlety changes are similar to what's happening with other classes too.

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

 

Graze

So every caster is now supposed to gain about 10-13% hit from rings/trinkets/backs, oh joy.
Remember we're sharing gear with Resto shamans and the whole idea with gear interchangeability goes away as you put your first hit gem in there. I'm curious about Blizzard is gonna fix this.

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!

 

Ulthwithian

Graze: I'm not sure if I take your meaning with the quote. If by 'interchangeability' you mean that we cannot use the same gear to do the job, it would seem that you are correct.

However, if by that you mean that Blizzard cannot allow Resto Shaman and Elemental Shaman to share the same drops, I'm not sure if I can agree with that. It would seem to me that socketing would be the exact fix to the itemization differences between different specs that otherwise would use the same gear.

 

Graze

What I'm saying is that the a part of the idea with the spellpower change is that you can use one set of gear for two trees, Balance/Resto and Elem/Resto basically. The exact same gear. And by that I mean no hit gems/enchants. Should you have to re-gem/enchant your gear when you respecc, the whole point is lost.

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

I don't know that Blizzard wants Elemental Shaman to avoid it. If you look at how the Elemental and Restoration trees are now laid out, 51/0/20 is no longer viable (have to go 52/0/19), and Guidance - one of the bigger pve reasons to point restoration as a sub-tree -- is gone (which, by the way, has the nifty effect of giving Enhancement Shaman no reason not to spec Elemental as a sub-tree now).

MD+MQ remains the carrot that will get Shaman players to do what Blizzard wants -- get back to being what their vision of Shaman is: Hybrids. Whether we like it, or not.