Doing the same thing as I've been doing for 12 months but now with earth shield casts every 10-15 seconds or whatever does not strike me as either fun or creative.
I am in strong agreement here. It appears that the Shaman have been given distinct raid roles but that they will not be overly fun to perform.
Reapplying Earthen Shield every 15-20 seconds with 1-2 heals inbetween does not seem super fun.
Spamming Rank 9-11 lb does not seem super fun.
Standing next to a mob with autoattack on and spamming stormstrike does not seem super fun.
It would be nice if there was more interactivity to the dps side of our class. On the other side of that coin though having boring dps roles provides better opportunity to watch health meters to perform as a healer still so it will all work out.
All characters get reduced to as few things as possible when it comes to raiding. Every character gets its optimal pattern and reapplies everything over and over, especially if they're DPS. Breaking the group down into smaller individual fights (C'Thun, any of the zerg fights) is the only real way to break the monotony.
As for Earth Shield, it looks like it's going to be the best HoT ever. The main question on its effectiveness is going to be how much of a boost it gets from +healing gear and what the base effectiveness is. It has to scale, otherwise the talent steadily grows weaker as time goes on.
Actively meleeing, and needing to keep meleeing in order to properly enhance your group's DPS, shocking for additional DPS where possible, maintaining totems, and remaining are enough to provide emergency healing, all at once, seems like a fairly involved raid role to me.
The main question on its effectiveness is going to be how much of a boost it gets from +healing gear and what the base effectiveness is. It has to scale, otherwise the talent steadily grows weaker as time goes on.
Sadly that sums up most of the resto abilities since launch.
Healing Stream/Mana stream no scaling. (Healing recently had it added but it is negligible)
Mana Tide no scaling.
Purification only modifies our base heals.
Healing way was finally a step in the right direction as it takes the final heal value and modifies that number.
Actively meleeing, and needing to keep meleeing in order to properly enhance your group's DPS, shocking for additional DPS where possible, maintaining totems, and remaining are enough to provide emergency healing, all at once, seems like a fairly involved raid role to me.
I agree. I am just worried when I see things like Priests and Pallies are the healers that people want to go from...
meleeing, shocking for additional DPS where possible, totems, and emergency healing to -> SS spam, shock spam.
It will always be the healing that separates good shaman from mediocre ones because the dps roles are simple and can be performed by a onebutton macro.
Actively meleeing, and needing to keep meleeing in order to properly enhance your group's DPS, shocking for additional DPS where possible, maintaining totems, and remaining are enough to provide emergency healing, all at once, seems like a fairly involved raid role to me.
It's the emergency healing that involves the shaman (and would seperate the good ones from the bad ones). If all they're doing is DPS, it's just a matter of watching cooldowns.
At least in Theorycraft the numbers look good to me.
Elemental shamans suffer from the same problem as enhancement shamans but to a larger degree: the abilities that increase your DPS power decrease your mana that you have available for healing. Shamans have poor mana regeneration and even with the new abilities they'll get in TBC they'll still be behind priests and druids (not sure about Paladins). The 40-50 mp/5 you get from Unrelenting Storm isn't going to be enough to do sustained damage over the course of several minutes. The only thing that I can dump my mana faster on than spamming LHW is spamming Frost Shock and Lightning spells. Enhancement's melee damage never goes away even if you run out of mana, though it does require some mana to be spent to be really effective. And naturally both of these suffer from missing out on 3 or 4 key Restoration talents (Healing Way, Purification, Nature's Blessing will add a ton of +heal).
On a side note, I totally missed the wording change on Stormstrike that says it attacks with all equipped weapons. That's a nice way to keep it viable for dual wielding.
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
It will always be the healing that separates good shaman from mediocre ones because the dps roles are simple and can be performed by a onebutton macro.
In regards to the dps role being simple, if elemental raiding ever becomes viable it will be quite involved seeing as how you would need to place searing in a good spot, drop appropriate totems for your group, keep an eye on when to switch to healing and manage your mana expenditure in case of emergency healing. It would basically involve all the attention healing would require since you would need to know when to switch to healing in addition to the previous points. Of course, there is really no way to monitor how well they would do this and thus your first point stands.
Why did you not list the caster DPS support as a viable build? Even though I have just simulated a DPS support Shaman in Excel, it looks more than viable to me assuming enough mana/5. Even DPS looks extremely nice to me (surprisingly nice tbh). So, what is your opinion about a Shaman that heals his/her caster party, casts Wrath of Air, casts Totem of Wrath, triggers Heroism and DPS on the mob(s)? At least in Theorycraft the numbers look good to me.
The dps potential of an elemental shaman is definitely good. Especially if they can snag stormstrike charges. 700 sustained dps I believe is a very realistic target at level 70 for a 41/0/21 or 40/0/21 build. Note: Sustained = roughly 5 minutes and the 700 assumes that over half of the bolts hit a stormstriked target.
Currently the 41 point elemental talent seems underwhelming with only a 20 second duration. The synergy with this talent and bloodlust seems pretty impressive for getting a pretty beefy ignite started which could be a nice perk. Right now the only thing 'hurting' the elemental shaman is that a healbot shaman can drop the same +110 spell power totem as the elemental shaman which makes little sense. Aside from the 20 second 41pt totem the elemental shaman gives nothing to his group that is unique.
That said, rows 6/7/8 are pretty thin in the elemental tree and could easily have an improved spell power totem talent added. Say row 8 had 3 ranks for 10/20/30% improvement that would equate to 33 additional + damage to the group which would immediately justify the elemental shaman in that group.
I know what you mean jubelio but we have been dropping totems of completely random durations for years. Now that they are all (almost anyways) fixed 2 and 1 minute durations it is a pretty simple task.
For the sake of absurdity a few patches ago, I filled an entire action bar with totems of different durations that had no real reason to be different. The tool tips were so absurd too. Some were in seconds some were in fraction of minutes.
45 seconds
55 seconds
1 min
1.15 mins
1.25 mins
1.5 mins
2 mins
All in all this is a much more pleasant problem than it used to be. Searing totem is still a jerkass though.
I'm still to this day not even sure which totems they realigned to the same durations. I'm annoyed daily that the totems can't all be redropped at one time.
both elemental and enhance do have their drawbacks though in regards to adding dps to the raid not only from totems, but also the shaman.
in regards to elemental, it's easier to gear for elemental and still have a good healing setup, but any dps you do will take from your mana needed to heal. also with a strong elemental setup, you'll have plenty of +heal but your mana pool and regen will suffer, and without a wand you'd have to melee to gain any benefit from judgement of wisdom.
enhance seems to add quite a bit more dps (with the added benefit of being mana free!) but in order to maximize your dps, you'd likely have to gimp your healing stats quite a bit more. if expansion itemization goes more towards the direction of Stormcaller though I can definately see this being a very very strong choice.
regardless of going elemental or enhance though, I can't see putting 41 points into a tree because nature's swiftness is too strong for me to give up.
regardless of going elemental or enhance though, I can't see putting 41 points into a tree because nature's swiftness is too strong for me to give up.
I can see your point here, but I forced myself to play without it for a couple months and realized that if I was really paying attention to my target that I didn't need to rely on pure reactive healing and that I didn't see as many 'oh shit' moments as I thought I did. Also, after reviewing fraps' of some of our fights (and damage meters overhealing stats) and realizing that a large portion of my NS heals were going to overhealing I figured it was time for a change. I have since spec'd back into NS in my current build but I dont use it nearly as much in raids for healing and I don't overheal nearly as much with it. I find that it gets used more often than not on trash pulls to keep some low HP rogue from going splat.
'Oh Shit' moments in general lend themselves to overhealing in my experience. It relates to the 8pc DN bonus where the safest place a tank can be is < 20% HP since that is when he is likely showing up on every healers crit list and therefore is about to get tagged with a whole lot of Flash Heal's and LHW's. So, from my perspective, when BC comes out, NS is going away. That way I won't be competing with the Druids for who can land a large heal instantly :)
Enhancement is most definitely NOT mana free. An enhance shaman burns a LOT of mana using SS and shocks. Now, in the future he'd hopefully be doing fewer shocks because he'll let an elemental shaman use the SS debuff since the elemental has more dmg potential, but that depends on how selfish and/or self controlled the enhance shaman is.
I'm excited about these changes. This is exactly what I wanted the shaman class to be like when I decided to play one two years ago. I am glad they decided to give both factions access to paladins and shaman, because I don't think they could make these changes otherwise.
Thanks to new talents like Totem of Wrath and new spells like Bloodlust and Wrath of Air Totem, we will now be desirable in most group types. We also get some nice buffs to our current roles of healing and enhancing melee groups. I think most raids will see one shaman in a rogue/rogue/rogue/warrior/shaman group, one shaman in a mage/mage/mage/warlock/shaman group, and then probably the last shaman in either a hunter group or the MT's group.
It will be interesting to see what they do with Earth Shield. It could either be great or it could be weak, depending on the amount it heals for. We also need to know how often Shamanistic Rage procs before we can judge how good it is. I'd be interested in seeing the numbers on Totem of Wrath, and what it can do for a group of fire mages.
The spells/abilities I'm most curious about are probably the summon earth/fire elemental totems. When these were leaked I thought they were fake. They just seem so... weird and out of nowhere.
If these changes went live today I would respec to full blown Enhancement. Abusing my orc racial by dual wielding two axes with Windfury, Flurry, Stormstrike, Unleashed Rage, Elemental Weapons, Weapon Mastery, Bloodlust and Dual Wield Specialization, all while providing a group of rogues the best buffs anyone has to offer AND providing spot heals where necessary just seems like a really fun and effective way to play. I think if these changes go live like this, shaman dps will be fairly crazy. Dual wielding two weapons with Windfury and using Stormstrike in combination with JoW on the mob cannot be overlooked.
That said, with these changes I honestly wouldn't mind spending my talent points in a heavy restoration build or a heavy elemental build. They all look good, and I imagine many guilds will aim to bring one shaman of each type to their raids.
Lastly, Elemental Mastery combined with Lightning Overload should cause some pretty hilarious nerf posts, since it's basically deathtouch. ;)
That's how I read it as well, but at a cost of 600 mana whoever's responsible for keeping it up probably won't be responsible for too much else. If it's scaled to be really worth having on your MT, some poor sap gets to be the Earth Shield bitch who can't even get as far as elemental fury or improved windfury and thus has no role in any raid besides Earth Shield bitch and Mana Tide and whatever healing they can spare the mana for. And having to keep up with level 70s in pvp or soloing will be horrible for that person, a current mana tide shaman taking 10 more points in resto will have little more ability for anything besides healing than he did at level 60. It's not even an interactive ability to use, just fire and forget.
First off, it has 10 charges, and there's a cooldown on expending those charges. If something is autoattacking you, how long does it take to go through 10 lightning shield charges? That's how long I'd expect an Earth Shield to last. That's a pretty long while. I don't see how that makes anyone an "Earth Shield bitch." So you cast one really useful spell on the MT every 40sec or so, and otherwise play as normal? A 41 Resto shaman in TBC seems like it'll play much like a 30+ resto shaman does today, with a few more tricks available. Useless in raids? Hardly. A shaman who specs that way is one who wants to spend most of his time healing. My raiding spec will probably be 0/20/41, with Toughness and Earth Shield. Not too different from what I have now. Just a better healer.
I do, however, think that DPS support class is a very viable alternate role for shamans who want to spec that way. Something like 0/43/18 where you are in there full-time with a group of rogues and warriors, healing when needed but otherwise contributing, directly or indirectly, an incredible amount of DPS.
Just with the potential for a few points to be moved around in the resto tree. We're suppose to be getting another rank of MTT, but I highly doubt that it will be that fantastic of a buff, but the additional mana from such a cheap totem helps none-the-less.
The problem I see with alot of people saying
"Oh man, dual wield? I can get The hammer of the twisting nether and c'thun mace with healing on both!!!!"
yeah but you have to spec 35 enhancement, you'll get more from purification and the various other talents down in the resto tree.
That being said, I hope blizzard still decides to "improve" the totem system in the expansion like they had said they would. But another thing that is bugging me, is how are weapon enchants going to work? Do you get one mainhand enchant thats it, or can you put Windfury main and Rockbiter offhand, and get the benefits of the extra attacks on your main and the global AP bonus from rockbiter on both weapons? And will the offhand proc less with Brand/Fury or will its only downfall for procs be the reduced hit rate?
Just so you guys know (and of course this mechanic will probably change before TBC, but who knows) you CAN presently enchant multiple weapons and a windfury proc from your offhand would make you hit with your mainhand. The spell just makes you hit again with bonus AP, it doesn't matter what procs it (much like the HOJ proc).
Vitae and I tested it and while this does not work with the totem (for obvious anti-twinking reasons, etc) the shaman weapon buffs function identically to poisons in that once you buff a weapon, it retains the spell until it wears off, regardless of whether you unequip it (or theoretically place it in your offhand).
So if you did dual windfury, your offhand procs (hi2u 1.5 spd dagger?) would trigger mainhand hits. You could also go with dual rockbiter + talent for something in the neighborhood of 1400 AP.
Just with the potential for a few points to be moved around in the resto tree. We're suppose to be getting another rank of MTT, but I highly doubt that it will be that fantastic of a buff, but the additional mana from such a cheap totem helps none-the-less.
I don't know about Tidal Focus over Improved Healing Wave, and Focused Mind over Healing Way. I also think Nature's Guardian is a great talent and would swap Totemic Focus for it.
Just so you guys know (and of course this mechanic will probably change before TBC, but who knows) you CAN presently enchant multiple weapons and a windfury proc from your offhand would make you hit with your mainhand. The spell just makes you hit again with bonus AP, it doesn't matter what procs it (much like the HOJ proc).
Vitae and I tested it and while this does not work with the totem (for obvious anti-twinking reasons, etc) the shaman weapon buffs function identically to poisons in that once you buff a weapon, it retains the spell until it wears off, regardless of whether you unequip it (or theoretically place it in your offhand).
So if you did dual windfury, your offhand procs (hi2u 1.5 spd dagger?) would trigger mainhand hits. You could also go with dual rockbiter + talent for something in the neighborhood of 1400 AP.
If this mechanic persists then there is really very little doubt that enhancement shaman dps will be just fine. In fact it would be good enough that perhaps rockbiter would be out of the question from aggro concerns. The interesting thing I guess then will be can the shaman apply their weapon buffs to the offhand or do they have to apply to mainhand and then switch. If it is the latter then offhand only weapons will have no value at all.
Personally I am not thrilled at the prospect of being an enhancement shaman, I have always preferred the caster side of things. That said, there is a really impressive amount of synergy in the enhancement tree right now. They have really done a great job. 4-5 months ago the Enhancement tree was a trainwreck with totally nonsense and unrelated talents. Now it is a giant chain of talents that all work in unison.
is the build I am planning on using for my shaman in BC.
The numbers I ran gave me a figure of 277 mp5 from JoW/BoW/mana spring (at level 60 values). Obivously this changes alot based on weapon speeds, but it does mean that shocks / stormstrike / spot heals are very much sustainable in melee gear.
Now, I assumed Shamanistic Rage as 50% proc (since its similar enough to JoW in wording) this would give you 1500 mana per use (at 350 str). Clearly the proc rate (and once again weapon speeds) make a big difference here. Working at 85 hits per minute and an assumed 50% proc we get 10 str = 1.8 mana/5 with this talent. So it seems very much worth it to me.
Whether or not offhand windfury works will clearly make quite a difference to this build as it would generate alot of extra attacks. But it does seem to me at the moment that the buff based damage done by the rest of the group + the direct damage from the shaman will be greater than a 'normal' dps class therefore easily justifying the raid spot.
As far as the other trees go, Earth Shield looks like the worlds best HoT and if it scales well it will be even better as it only heals when damage is actually taken (ie very low overheal).
After looking at all the new talent trees unveiled to us the Shaman ones excite me the most. I'm seriously thinking about going back to my shaman and speccing 19/42.
And I think out of all three builds, Enhancement shaman burn through mana the fastest. Lightning Bolt and Healing Wave are both limited by their casting times; a Shaman refreshing Lightning Shield, spamming Flame/Frost Shock and Stormstrike when they're up, as well as dropping totems(possibly Searing for some bonus dps) and emergency healing definitely needs that JoW and Shamanistic Rage to keep up.
One point I have not yet seen mentioned here is the danger of increased threat. While shaman may be getting the -20% or even -29% threat from melee, Iv'e seen no indication of it and this makes a pretty significant difference.
Being able to only do 70% of dps in threat means that your additive dps has to grant each person in your group 7.5% more of thier dps, and I'm not convinced that merely 10% AP + new ranks of totems will pull that off.
This only applies to Enhance of course, but taking from all the new aggro talents that aggro will be more of a tight fit, does anyone else see this potentially becoming an issue?
08/29/06, 11:50 AM
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