scenemaker

If the WoTLK talent tree for us renders the Elemental Shaman as useless in PVE, as compared to other classes, that it appears it's going to be this Shammy may become a Death Knight. But, I'll play around with some hybrid builds first since there are some talents in other trees I've wished to be able to obtain in BC. We'll see what happens when WoTLK actually rolls out.

 

tufy

That would only work if they'd all stack. However, stacking totems would be silly. Imagine 5 elemental shamans with 5x totem of wrath and 5x wrath of air. GG dps.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Buanna

Totem of Wrath already stacks.

Boni and Bonii are not words.
Bonuses is.

 

ofancow

After reading every thread on EJ on the topic, and every post in this thread, I am still seeing some implications of the WotLK changes that the general Shaman/EJ population are more or less completely missing:

My thoughts:

*The "cookie-cutter" 51/0/20 will not be viable in raiding, as there are no scaling damage talents in the Elemental tree beyond the Totem of Wrath tier.

*Mana and hit seems likely to be at more of a premium in WotLK raids than it has been in tBC raids (I believe this to be the case because I see caster hit talents being halved, and the new spell costs are much higher than current spell scaling can account for). If so, ToW and Mana Spring gain value in a raid setting.

*Hybrid Elemental looks to likely be the only build that will scale well enough to justify an Elemental slot in high-end raids (specifically, 44/27/0 or 43/28/0 depending on gearing) - because of the aforementioned total lack of scaling damage talents in the top of the Elemental tree, the only real options Shaman will have are between 3% hit / 5% crit in the Restoration tree or significant spell damage from the Enhancement tree (from Mental Dexterity and Mental Quickness, which when combined is a better scaling version of the Restoration talent Nature's Blessing). This is not a real choice, as the damage benefits from the Enhancement tree's previously mentioned talents far outweigh those in the Restoration tree.

*Probably the only real reason to go into the Restoration tree, as an Elemental Shaman, will be to go deep enough to get Mana Tide (and in this case, the Shaman will certainly be a casual player, as once you take away ToW there is no reason not to bring a Restoration Shaman instead of an Elemental Shaman).

Outside the box thoughts:

If the +critical / +hit do in fact get merged, a Hybrid Elemental Shaman might benefit a physical DPS group as much or more than a caster group. Especially if Totem Twisting is removed.

edit: obviously this is all highly dependent on the currently leaked talents and spells actually staying more or less unchanged. Even minor positioning changes of certain talents within their given talent tree can change everything.

 

Anksunamun

Your theory is really interesting ofancow but I was wondering what talent is applied first to our spelldamage

I mean: first you calculate the amount of spelldamage gained with flametongue weapon enchant and then you add the "new" spelldamage gained from mental dexterity + mental quickness or you first calculate the amount of spelldamage gained from md + mq and THEN you add all the spell damage with flametongue weapon enchant ?

 

Phlis

You....don't know what scaling means do you? Here's a helpful example: Storm Earth and Fire is a scaling talent. As out spell damage increases, the "Increases Flame Shock Dot Damage by 100%" increases at a set rate, ie, it scales with gear. Here's a talent which doesn't scale: Enhancing Totems: Increases Strength of earth by 15%, which is a set value no matter what gear you have.

Also, Every talent below Totem of wrath scales with gear. Thunder will get better as your gear gets better. Lava Flows scales with gear.

As to the rest of your post. No, not really. The gear won't ever be there to support an elemental/enhance hybrid. Trying to melee and cast elemental spells doesn't work mechanically. There are no damage benefits from any enhancement talent except Mental Dexterity and even that is iffy because as I said, the gear won't be there.

The reasons to go into the Restoration Tree are Nature's Guidance and Tidal Mastery. Same reasons to go into the resto tree as pre BC. 3% Hit and 5% crit, along with some other benefits(30yd totems for example).

Finally, hit and crit are not being merged outside of Elemental Oath. Spell Hit and Melee hit are being merged. Spell Crit and Melee crit are being merged. That does not mean talents which increases Spell Crit are going to increase Melee crit as well and vice versa. Totem of Wrath will most likely not affect melee hit/crit. An Elemental/Enhancement hybrid is trash for end game raiding, and always has been. Keep it out of here, please.

 

tufy

Spelldamage is always applied before percentual bonuses. This means flametongue will always increase +dmg before other talents (such as Concussion) will scale the spell. Percentual increases of the same value, though, are summed up.

Mhm, I agree, though taking NS might be smarter than Thunder for raiding purposes. 51/20/0, though, might just well be a very cool pvp hybrid.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Ocyr

I am pretty sure you either didn't understand that post, or you don't understand the leaked talents, or maybe both? Ofancow seemed pretty specifically talking about Elemental raiding specs it seemed to me, and in that context talents like 'Storm, Earth and Fire' and 'Thunder' don't "scale" Elemental Shaman raid DPS at all ... Elemental Shaman don't use shocks as a part of their DPS rotation in raids, and a point-blank AOE will have limited uses on trash and no benefit on a single target (eg. raid boss).

He also didn't seem to be saying anything about melee, or wearing melee gear. If you look at the leaked talents, 'Mental Dexterity' increases Attack Power by 100% of Intellect. 'Mental Quickness' increases Spell Damage by 10/20/30% of Attack Power. So if you look at a current level 70 Shaman with ~320 attack power base, 550 intellect (in decent gear and unbuffed), add in raid buffs (Kings, Might, Wild, Intellect, Strength totem, xxx) the level 70 Shaman ends up gaining near 300 spell damage -- and the spell damage will scale with gearing (based on intellect being converted to ap>>spell damage, primarily).

I think he makes a good point ... the Elemental Tree after TOW/LF offers no damage / damage per second benefit to raiding Shaman (at least where single-target / boss fights are concerned). And putting the extra talents into the Restoration tree net nothing towards damage beyond the 20 points it takes to get the spell crit and spell hit.

So the only question is, really, will the benefits of 30% of a Shaman's intellect (and additional attack power conversions from base attack power and raid buffs) be worth more to personal damage than 3 hit and 5 crit rating, at level 80? It's an easy "Yes" looking at the level 70 impact of the talents (assuming they were available at level 70, of course), so his ideas are due vaid consideration for a level 80 I would think.

 

Pitbuller

And there isn't new spell like lavaburst wich need flame shock to be 100% crit. 'Storm, Earth and Fire' give almoust 100dps.
Flame shock get 16% of spell damage per dot.
+5% concussion
+10% from lava flow.
+10-13% from CoE
+15% scorch
+100% from "Storm, Earth and Fire"
You get only 3dot per rotation 10-12s. Let say 11s rotation.

So 1500spell damage. (1500*0.16) * 1.15 *1.1 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 3 * 1/11

95.6dps without and 191dps with Storm, Earth and Fire' from dot portion only.
So I say this is scaling talent. And give also some utility.

Edit: Forget calculate misery but the point is same.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Dra

Actually, factoring in raidbuffs you will end up with well over 400 spelldamage from the enhancement tree:

Without AP from gear an elemental shaman has 386 AP with MotW and Kings. Add to that imp SoE for 218 ap (86 * 1.15 * 1.10) * 2, blessing of might for 220 ap and you're at 824 ap.With about 450 intellect unbuffed, add to that AI, MOTW and Kings and you get 591 int (450 + 40 + 17) * 1.1 * 1.06 for another 591 ap, bringing us to a total of 1411 ap, or 424 spelldamage with standard raidbuffs.

Scaling or no scaling, that's a lot of spelldamage.

 

Ocyr

Dra, I had a friend of mine get in Elemental raid gear and fully buff up (BoK, AB, BoM, MotW, flask, everything). His appropriate stats were:
starting spell damage - 1651
Intel - 593
Str - 229
AtP - 883
Adjusting for LK talents proposed by NS:
AtP - 1476 (883 + 593)

Net gain of spell damage at level 70 in level 70 gear: 443
final spell damage at level 70 would be: 2094

Now how would one compare 443 spell damage to 8% additional DPS (3% hit and 5% critical) to find the gearing level where they two different talent builds cross over? I'm no math wizard so someone can figure it out if they want and probably do better than I have, but I come up with it taking around 3,451 spell damage for the restoration talents to break even with the enhancement talents, for personal DPS, assuming the restoration points actually add 8% dps value (they don't). I realize we know nothing about level 80 gear, but I highly doubt Shaman will have 3500 spell damage on their Tier 7.

re: Pitbuller - 191 DPS isn't worth the GCD it would take to cast flame shock right now. Granted the new fire spell shaman will get can feed off the flame shock and crit, but considering enhancement shaman are a staple of modern raids, I can think of a place where elemental shaman can get a steady stream of flame shocks to feed off of. Enhancement Shaman running with Elemental Shaman already use Flame/Flame instead of Flame/Earth, so they wouldn't even have to change their shock cycle. Leading back to NS' point -- anything past 44 deep in Elemental will lower that Shaman's potential DPS value to a raid and have no scaling value to personal DPS where main-dps spells are concerned.

Also, pitbuller, you ignore the fact that almost every talent and benefit from your build can be taken in NS' build, and you keep trying to focus on a pvp shock talent, and then also ignore NS' replacement talent set that adds well over 400 spell damage. I find it unlikely that a 50% boost to Flame Shocks total DPS would outweigh 443 spell damage (which also benefits shocks and the new fire dd spell, especially since your math is all over the place - more than a 100% margin of error in your math, from yesterday to today).

So let's put it a way even you can understand:

You want to sink 50 points into a tree, to increase the DAMAGE OVER TIME component of a single shock spell, that you plan on CONSUMING with another fire spell

vs.

another build, that will add at the MINIMUM 443 spell damage (in level 70 gear and level 70 buffs, no less), that applies to all your spells (even the flame shocks), and you get every other dps talent available in the elemental tree (other than the pvp shock spell talent)

The real kicker being that you have already acknowledged that 50% of your argument is moot if you even have 1 bad enhancement shaman in the raid. Your argument becomes 100% moot if you have 1 good enhancement shaman, or two bad ones.

 

Pitbuller

I will redo my math that you get the point.

1500spell damage.
20% crit from gear.

dot damage:
(105 + 1500 *0.13025 per tick) * 1.15 *1.1 * 1.05 * 1.1 *1.05 * 3 * 2 = 2764.8

initial damage:
(377 + 1500* 0.15) * 1.15 *1.1 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.23 = 1135.96
3900 damage per gbc.

3900 / 1.5 =
2599dps without haste per cast.
Even FS is boost to yuor dps and LvB is giantic.
Range is still problem but not flameshock scaling.
Run numbers next time before claiming something.

And enhance still use fs/es cycle when raidin with elem brothers.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Pitbuller

* There is a plan to give player access to two talent specs to switch between them without having to respec all the time. More details in the future.

Elem/Resto is new raid spec? Changing beetween bossess would be nice.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Thermomenes

Flametongue being changed to increase spell damage is a nice addition. Has anyone thought about how Flametongue totem will apply to the raid?

How does the flametongue buff interact with weapon oils? Do they stack?

Since Flametongue is fire, just like totem of wrath, which will be the preferred choice to drop for dps?

Should resto shamans be on flametongue duty and elemental shamans drop their totems of wrath?

If resto shamans dropped their flametongues, it would be weaker than an ele shaman's totem due to talents. Does this suggest raids will want 2 ele shamans at minimum?

 

PSGarak

First, there's no reason yet to believe that flametongue weapon totem will give the same buff that flametongue weapon does. Second, improving flametongue weapon totem is a enhancement talent, not an elemental talent (flametongue talent is self-only currently). Third, with various totems being rolled into each other, I think the wisest course of action regarding selecting totems is actually to throw ours hands up in the air and wait for more information.

Fourth, and I separate this because it sorta contradicts my first point: with windfury totem being a buff, it's possible that flametongue totem, and/or all the self-imbues, will become buffs as well.

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

 

Thermomenes

Lava Flow: Increases the amount of spell damage gained while having Flametongue Weapon equipped by 5/10/15%, and increases the damage done by your Flame Shock and Lava Burst by 4/8/12%.

Weapon buff totems currently in game modify party weapons in the exact same fashion as the self buffs. There is no data indicating blizzard will change its totem schema in the next expansion. So if self-flametongue will be given an inherent spell damage modifier, by extension the party effecting totem will as well.

However, you are correct in the analysis that the talent is self-only. I didn't catch that until i realized "weapon" is the terminology used for the non-totem buffs.

 

PSGarak

I just realized: Strength of Earth and Grace of Air merging into a single totem was given as an example, with the indication that there would be more totem consolidation. This gives strong hope to Totem of Wrath being lumped in with Wrath of Air or some such totem. Note: Wrath of Air is actually an unlikely candidate because the talent is available at level 50, well before the base spell. All things considered, I wouldn't be extremely surprised if Wrath of Air got merged with the new Grangth of Airth as well. They would either need to add lower ranks, or give it to another totem, like Searing or something. I would also expect to see Mana Spring and Healing Trickle combined.

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

 

Lucitron

As mentioned earlier, Flametongue Totem is a fire totem just like our Totem of Wrath. Which is the strongest between those two? Well, we have not any numbers for the values of Flametongue Totem, and as also mentioned above, there is no certainty that the totem will behave the same way as our weapon-buff.

 

Pitbuller

Simply just put Totem of Wrath to add effect on searing totem. This would justify to be at 20yard range.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Paladia

It feels like most of the totems can be combined.


The already confirmed Strength of Earth + Grace of Air (Likely Earth)

Poison Cleansing + Disease Cleansing (Water Totem)
Healing Stream + Mana Spring (Water Totem)
Wrath of Air + Tranquil Air or Flame Tongue Totem (if it gives spell damage even for others)
Earthbind + Stoneclaw or Tremor (Earth Totem)
Stoneskin + Windwall
Nature Resistance + Fire Resistance + Frost Resistance (Elemental Resistance)

Stoneskin plus Windwall would still be useless of course unless it is changed. If I could decide it would instead work like a Grounding totem but for melee and ranged special attacks, as then it would have a use. Making it a % based reduction just means the encounters would be made with that reduction in mind, so it would have no actual use.

The Totem of Wrath talent should be remade in my opinion, so it instead gives a +3% crit/hit aura to any fire totem, making it at least semi useful in PvP as well.

If one can dream, I'd sure hope they replace the other lesser totems as well with something useful, such as Sentry Totem, Earth Elemental Totem, Fire Elemental Totem (how on earth did those end up being half of the new abilities added in TBC for Shamans?)

 

Pitbuller

Earthbind + Stoneclaw or Tremor (Earth Totem)
They can't merge Stoneclaw to pvp totem or it's gonna get big hp boost. But I like tremor + earthbind idea.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Torgol

Actually, no, weapon totems do not give exactly the same buffs as weapon imbues. Windfury totem only gives one extra attack to party members, and Flametongue totem provides considerably less fire damage to party members than the weapon buff gives to the shaman (20-60 for party vs. 40-125 for the shaman). So it's not unreasonable at all to assume that Flametongue totem will continue to provide only the extra fire damage on hit, and not the extra spell damage. . . especially since that would make Wrath of Air rather redundant. That could be fixed by combining the two, of course, but we'll have to wait and see what they have in mind there. . .

I never have understood this complaint. I mean, sure, the situations in which the elemental totems are useful are a bit limited, but that doesn't make them worthless. I've found the fire elemental quite useful on fights that need a lot of AoE (Illhoof and Tidewalker for example, not to mention many 5man fights) and the earth elemental allowed me to solo damn near every elite quest in Outland while leveling up. Are they the best spells ever, useful in every situation? Of course not. But that doesn't mean they're a total waste of space. Not every spell we get has to be incredibly useful in every part of the game.

Sentry totem you're absolutely right about, though. ^_^

 

Paladia