I never had a flurry axe so I can't comment on how good it is and the procrate or whatever, but Lifestealing has never struck me as very good shaman enchant. I'd get Unleashed Rage talent asap and just double crusader so you can scale your AP higher, faster.

However, I can't see DW being very good until you can get to level 50 (seeing as hit gear is very rare until at least level 60 and you can't finish the DW talents until then).

I'd just get a big 2Her and crusader it, but that's just me. Kang the Decapitator would work well.

I have some questions (that can probably not be answered)

You would probably do more damage if you optimized your mana pool by calculating how long a fight will last, then downranking to a lightning bolt that you can cast non stop, and run out of mana exactly as the fight ends, because 96 lightning bolts over 5 min makes me sad to think about, because that means you are spending 108 seconds twiddleing your thumbs, and mumbleing about mana problems. Also if you down rank and cast more, that means you get more clearcasts and more JoW procs. Clearcasts mean free max rank lightning bolt, and more JoW means you can probably step up a rank from what you are using. I mean, currently (for me at least, my damage gear is kinda so-so) I can downrank to rank 4 lightning bolt, hit for 600, and do this just about forever (at least as long as it takes to kill any boss currently in the game.) I'd be interested to see some numbers crunched with that in mind. Because when 108 out of 300 seconds are idle time, why even spec for 2 second lighting bolts? You could cast the same amount without it.

The basic issue is that Shaman Elemental DPS (like Druid Balance and Priest Shadow/Holy) is limited by their mana pool. Properly specced, any of those classes can compete with a frost Mage, ignoring the potential the Mage has for burst damage. But they run out of mana in less than two minutes, so those classes have to figure out various ways of extending the length of their mana pool, thus lowering their DPS.

There's no easy answer to the problem either. DPS specced healers do have the DPS of a frost mage. If they somehow gain the sustainability of a mage, then they become arguably a better DPS option than various other classes. If they don't gain the sustainibility, then all those points spent in making their spells go boom are wasted on raids. They have their special gimmick (2% crit totem or Improved Faerier Fire) and spend the majority of the raid healing anyways.

Agree with copernicus.

They have made elemental a viable raid build but have not done anything to encourage you to actually nuke in fights. I think elemental will be a load of fun for grinding and pvp and there will be no shortage of shaman who want the build. However it still seems like elemental shaman will lean towards healbots except for the encounters where there is low healing burden.

Also I think it is imperative that people stop looking at dps alone, it is completley absurd to think that a shaman will never heal. There is no such thing as 'clutch dps.' A clutch heal though can keep a dps class or your tank alive. If you focus only on your dps you are not going to be an asset to any raid. Shaman can change what they are doing on the fly. We have no combo points or rage bars or forms to worry about, you just do it. If you do not embrace that flexibility then you will be playing below your potential.

I will be our enhancement shaman come expansion and I very much expect to keep full raid bars up on my screen and heal when it is needed.

There are actually a few easy answers copernicus, one would be a caster dps buff on casting that forced the shaman to nuke in order to buff casters. Another answer would be a 41 point talent that heals the target's target for 10% of the damage on every bolt would be another possible alternative.

They should chain something off of clearcast down in row 7 or 8 that lets clearcast get applied to the whole group. That would be a pretty popular. If not clearcast a group buff similar to the 3pc SC set would also be pretty decent.

The issue is that Shaman Elemental, Druid Balance, Priest Holy, and Priest Shadow can start competing with the DPS output of other classes. By competing, I mean dealing the same DPS as those classes, assuming the same gear. Now, the rebalancing of the DPS classes (Mage fire DPS is now insane compared to other trees and water elemental could be really good) could push them up another level past those classes' potential DPS, and my argument becomes moot. But beta is in flux, I can't see fire staying at the level it is for very long, and water elemental is so variable now.

So if a talent mechanic encourages those classes to spam a DPS spell, then they need the mana regen to support that spam. And if those classes maintain their current talents, then they become very comparable to a standard DPS class if they can sustain a long string of spamming a spell. So if those conditions exist, bringing the DPS/healer hybrid becomes more viable than bringing a standard DPS class, and we get the current warrior DPS/tank issue again. You get a class that can heal or DPS at almost the same level as a DPS-only class.

As a side note, if there's any heavy mana-regen talent in the DPS tree, then it almost becomes a must have for the healers. Primary healers are currently looking at speccing to get the int -> mana/5 talents that are way deep in the elemental/balance trees.



There are a lot of assumptions in this, and stuff has changed since the initial talents were released. But the issues of somehow figuring out a way to encourage the DPS trees for raiding basicly comes down to "Well, you'll toss out this buff/debuff and sill be healing the majority of the time." Which is a poor solution overall, as those players spent many points on how they wanted their character to play, and then a ton of their talent points just aren't being used.

By the way, was anyone else a little dissapointed that we didn't get any new dmg spells? (Elemental totems aside, and we still have no numbers that I've seen on what they're capable of) I would have liked to have seen some sort of short cast nuke that would establish a casting cycle between lightning bolts, shocks and a newer spell.

Yeah Malan. It sure seems as though it will be, by a wide margin, the least interesting build available from a variety standpoint.

I figure it will be spamming a slightly deranked lb with the only variation being casting max rank or CL on a clearcast. All of the pertinent totems are 2 minute timers so it will be relativley easy to juggle those.

It would be nice if they added some more variety

Fire Mages will be self-nerfing in BC as far as I can tell. The ignite mechanics rely heavily on having an appropriate number of ignite specced mages mages in your raid and come 25-person caps, you simply won't have enough to make it nearly as viable as it is now. My money is that it actually won't be worth trying to field even three fire mages (due to Slow or desired frost functionality) but time will tell.

I do agree Copernicus that it is a tricky line to walk. I've played quite a number of classes by now and although my mage is certainly the best-geared of them all, I can extrapolate their offensive capabilities pretty easily. I think it's great that an elemental-specced and properly geared shaman can rival both my burst and sustained dps but is constrained by mana for long fights. The problem of course is that when there are ways to remove or heavily mitigate that constraint, we have a bit of a breakdown. We are already at a point where a properly geared and specced shaman could easily compete with a warlock, hunter or frost mage on many encounters through consumable usage. I'm not sure if that's good, bad or neither here nor there.

I personally like the idea of on-cast procs or debuffs (in TBC preferably) that benefit other casters. That way raid dps goes up, the proccing player is content and the epeens of 'core' classes are safe and happy. For example, we recently made two Nightfalls and stuck them with shaman. As a result, we have a couple of shaman now with a non-traditional raiding spec and you could argue that on many fights they are less useful than they would be with loltide specs. Still, on other (and likely more important) fights they can provide a sexy indeed debuff and by flexing equipment to suit the situation they can actually play like a true hybrid. If there was something elemental shaman could do that was similar, it would likely be popular indeed. I would say that sPriests already have this niche filled out in many raids through VE/SW and such while balance druids can go hump a log for all I care really.

Re: Improved Healing Wave & Healing Way

We're having a discussion on our guild forums as to the PVP & PVE usefulness of these talents.

One player thinks Lesser Healing Wave is the way to go, for PVP & PVE healing alike. Keep in mind, this Druid is used to 3 second large heals. He's convinced that Tidal Focus is better than Improved Healing Wave, and he's completely against Healing Way.

I personally believe Improved Healing Wave is a must and 2.5 second heals are very viable in PVP. Keep in mind that I'm a Warlock right now. I know how long 2.5 seconds is. That said, I'm not convinced that Healing Way (especially since it doesn't work with LHW) is worth 3 talent points. This is how my Shaman in TBC will be setup. Mind you, I'm making a support resto PVP & PVE Shaman.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...51055013515321

..and with 3 talent points leftover, I'm torn between Healing Way and possibly 3 pts in Totemic Focus.

Healing Wave is good when supporting a tank or a team in PVP. It doesn't work well with squishies or 1v1 unless it's after a fight since so many classes have interrupts and CCs. Healing Way is godly in PVE. Priming a tank with a 3-stack and Earth Shield is all kinds of delicious. I have no experience with it in PVP, but I guess it depends what kind of PVP situations you find yourself in. If you think you'll use HW enough in PVP, I'd wholeheartedly suggest Healing Way, as it will serve you VERY well in PVE. If not? Up to you. Nature's Guidance! ;)

Healing Wave is not good for PvP. You're begging to get interrupted if they're paying attention to you, and if they're paying attention to the person you're healing, that person might die before your heal lands. It's fine for topping people off after a skirmish or whatever, but I'd never rely on it in active combat, regardless whether it's 2.5 or 3.0. (NS/HW on the other hand, is obviously good.)

Healing Way is also thus a useless PvP talent.

For PvE, however, Healing Way and Imp HW are what make shamans competitive as main healers. If you want to spot heal with LHW and Chain on a raidwide level, that's fine. But for tank healing, HW is the spell of choice, and Healing Way is what makes that spell good. Get a 3-stack Healing Way and make HW 2.5sec, and now shamans compare favorably to priests and druids in terms of heal/sec and heal/mana at similar gear levels. That's really all there is to it.

Healing Wave is a great spell and Healing Way is a great talent. In comparing single target healing, a 2.5 second Healing Wave does more heal/time with more heal/mana than LHW. Just taking examples from the first half of Naxx (with which I have experience), Healing Way is great on Anub when I'm healing the MT, on Faerlina when I'm healing the MT or an off-tank, on Noth if I'm healing the MT or a corner tank, on Razuvious when I'm healing an offtank, and absolutely on Patchwerk. Shaman heal per time and longevity is not as good as a priest's or druids, so an extra 18% efficiency on top of our most efficient single target spell is extremely welcome.

I don't think anyone doubts the merits of IHW and Healing Way, but rather whether it has any place in PVP as well for that particular person's intentions.

Who cares, both sides would be getting it now. No such thing as overpowered now. ;)

Ah, I stand corrected.

Healing Wave is good for the times when you can get behind line of sight (say, at the side of the Stables or in a bush at Mine in AB) and stay at max range from the action. As you point out you're certainly at risk for interruption, but if you can stay out of the main focus of the enemy then its not *horrible* per se, just more situational.

There's not many better 3-point investments in the resto tree than effectively an 18% boost in your power to heal tanks. I think your friend who likes Tidal Focus is not wrong- Tidal Focus is effectively 5% more heals, it's far far better than 5% more mana because it's basically an extra 5% of the total mana pool you use in a fight on healing spells, it's an underrated talent if a little weak point by point.

Improved Healing Wave is an interesting call. If you're just spamming downranked HWs, in theory it hardly matters whether it's 2.5 second cast or 3 second cast (a couple of things like Patchwerk aside) since the reaction speed isn't so important, you just need to spam slightly more often instead. In theory if you need to react quickly to a spike you turn to LHW. In theory improved HW is unnecessary. In practice I wouldn't feel comfortable without it, but YMMV.

I don't think either is a good pvp talent, though.


Since this is thread is revived, what sort of talent (presumably replacing lightning overload / totem of wrath) would make it desirable to have an elemental shaman DPSing in raids?

It occurred to me while alternating chain lightning and chain heal on phase 1 nef the other night that a healing proc might be nice, alone the lines of:

Lightning Overload
Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning criticals heal all friendly targets within 8 yards of the target for 10/20/30/40/50% of the damage dealt.


That also has the advantage of letting raids get away with feeling that it's not a waste to have a potential healer DPSing, since at least he's covering some of the healing just through his DPSing (and an elemental-mastery chain lightning into an AOE zone is probably the best group heal in the game with that talent).

Here is a question: at what point does purification factor in: 1) base 2) after +healing from gear or 3) after healing way effect?

Purification only impacts base healing right now (10% pre-gear). In the 2.01 patch, it's post-gear though, so we should be seeing a buff even after the imp. chain heal and ES talents are included.

/boggle.

As far as healing way, can't say whether or not it'll work with purification. Should have someone on the PTRs work out the numbers maybe. I'm not healing way specced but I leech off my guildmate's buffs when I use healing wave. :) As far as using it in PvP, LHW all the way. Any non-retarded group will have someone waiting to interrupt your heal and 2.5 is just too long to cast a heal against a good DPS group. PvP isn't about efficiency the majority of the time, it's about burst healing, and that's what LHW excels at.

healing way and purification are percent-based, so they must stack. ignoring gear for a second, you have either:

base heal * (1.10) * (1.18) or
base heal * (1.18) * (1.10)

i.e. its the same thing either way.