I made my long post on the normal Cata forums, but really that was just a small tiny vain hope that a Blue would see it, not for any real discussion worth anything, it is the WoW forums after all.

So heres a link to it so that I dont have to double post alot of text here.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Enhancement Shaman PvP Concerns

This post is pretty much a compilation of concerns for the state of Enhancement Shamans for the coming Cataclysm expansion. I understand that things are constantly in a state of flux in a beta, and this post is not intended as a "the sky is falling i'm quitting my class if X isn't changed" type of post. It is meant as an exposition of how the overall changes in Cataclysm will relate with possible flaws Enhancement will have in PvP, especially with the focus shifting from the LK Burst towards longer games in arena, as well as a focus on BGs which naturally have the emphasis on larger scale, longer, and less CD reliant gameplay.

Thoughts? Differing opinions?


EDIT: Updated the Mega post for additional clarity through discussion fleshed out here, as well as for the current state of Beta.

While I'll definitely admit up front that Elemental Precision is more of an Ele Talent it may also be an tough decision in the second tier for Enhancement depending on just how hard it it ends up being to spell hit cap within the first tier or so through gear/gems/enchants alone.

Spark of Life in first tier Resto also looks to be a good talent for those fights where survivability is an issue because +15% healing taken seems rather useful.

The Enhancement talent that seems most misplaced, if it wasn't for the fact that there's nowhere else to put it, and least "interesting" in their parlance is Totemic Vigor. One presumes this talent is to address complaints about how easy it is to destroy totems in PvP yet that's neither an Enhancement specific problem nor does it seem to me that we'd be most affected by it given that we're more likely to be moving our Totems around anyways than the casters. I'd be kinda curious to hear why this made it through as a PvP Talent instead of Frozen Power - which seems more gameplay affecting as a talent - when they could have addressed the totem health issue across the board simply by letting them scale against base/total health in some way.

While totem killing isnt an Enhancement specific problem, it hurts Enhancement much more than the other classes specifically because we are moving our totems more than casters. In order to keep those totems in range of the constantly moving fight the totems have to be redropped at the melee, where they are considerably more vulnrable compared to an Elemental or Resto Shaman who can strategically place their totems out of LOS.



I was under the impression that the passive mastery system would be introducing the passive talents every other level, since they said it was a tradeoff thing you get a talent point this level the next an ability, etc, and thus when I first noticed Frozen Power gone, I assumed that was one of the passive functions being tacked on at a later level. Some Beta threads have commented that mastery seems to be untrainable right now so i'm thinking that these passive functions just havn't been enabled yet. If i'm wrong, then my whole perception of the system is off and we're in serious trouble.

I don't agree and I feel like this sentiment is brought up too often because people don't examine whether its true or not, they just accept it. Buff totems are spamable and generally aren't targeted in pvp for that reason (when they're used in pvp at all). Their overall effect on the fight is nominal which is another reason buff totems aren't a high priority of your opponents.

The totems shamans want protected are the utility totems. Mana Tide, Earthbind, Stoneclaw, Tremor, Grounding. Look at that list a second. Earthbind has a 12 yard range, you drop it in melee as any spec and the glyph effect happens when it's dropped. Stoneclaw is only cast for the glyph effect and no one attacks it because of the high chance of a stun. Tremor is effective against 2 classes, priests and warlocks (warriors have a long cooldown on their fear and they can heroic throw or charge the totem to kill it). A priest's fear is melee range negating any advantage resto or elemental has over enhance and both priests and warlocks can kill the totem from range making it just as important for the other specs to get protection on this totem. Grounding is a caster defense totem that is destroyed when it absorbs a spell. No caster is going to run up to it and hit it so the fact that enhance drops it in melee is negated here as well. Mana Tide is a resto only spell which means it will never see the Totemic Vigor effect.

You can argue that searing and magma totems need the health increases. However it still effects resto and elemental because magma is 12 yard range which places it among your enemies and the only class that can't kill a searing totem on the run is a rogue (Warriors can use heroic throw on the totem if they need it dead from range and all other classes have at least one ranged damage ability they can use).

In short, if enhancement needs Totemic Vigor then so does resto and elemental.

As far as trainable passive talents I think they were referring to training regular skills every other level. That you get a skill or ability and then the next level you would get a talent point etc. I also interpreted that to mean that some of the passive talents would show up on the trainers as base skills for your specialization but it doesn't seem that way so far.

After thinking about it a bit I realized that Booming echos and Frozen Power would both probably make excellent medium glyphs. I do however worry about the loss of astral shift (assuming it doesn't became a trained ability). I think it would make a fine cool-down for the entire class assuming it was something you activate. We'll have to see what happens. The word is they want to move away from "PvP" builds in the talent trees and have those pvp talents be available to the class so that your everyday raid spec would be functional as a pvp spec (but maybe not optimal).

You're missing the point I made entirely. I'm not saying that Ele/Resto dont want to protect their totems.
The primary totem that needs protection is Tremor Totem, because with the ease of totem killing, a priest or warlock can initiate a fear and instantly kill the totem before it ticks, thus completely negating the benifit of being able to constantly relay the totem.
When doing this, an Enhancement Shaman's totem is considerably more exposed to the instant SW: Death/Wand/Pet attack because this constant repositioning is done mostly in the open due to the target of the melee shaman making sure he is in LOS of said healer/etc.
Compare that to a Resto Shaman or Ele Shaman, whom due to the mere fact that they perform their function at range have the luxury and ability to strategically place their totem in a place out of LOS or a place that the Priest/Warlock/etc would have a harder time to manuever to kill it.
For an Enhancement Shaman to be able to do the same they would need to disengage from the target, move to place the totem, and then move back and recover the lost distance from the kiting kill target to achieve the same thing, which is not practical at all.


Similarly with Mana Tide, Resto Shamans strategically place it where it cannot be killed fast when they decide to use it. If an Enhancement Shaman used it (just an example, I know they cannot), because of his constant proximity to the LOS of the enemy, it is considerably easier for the enemy to kill it.


Would Resto/Ele benefit from higher hp on their totems? Of course. Do they need it as much as Enhancement does? No.


When I first heard about the passive mastery and how talent things would get alternated I first thought what I commented on, then after thinking about it thought that they could be talking about trained spells in general, but when thinking about that it did not make sense to me to be exclusive to just trained spells because of the removal of talents like Shamanistic Focus, Booming Echos, Frozen Power, etc.
I thought those were what they would consider interesting talents and that while Glyphs were still undisclosed why would they make previously key higher end talents into something every spec could get, not to mention attributing so many things only a glyph (like with Frozen Power, root + 10% dmg to stuff effected by Frostbranded etc). On top of that it also seemed odd because of what they were promising with the glyph system, it seemed strange to me that they would actually pull existing talents that you could get before with a talent into the glyph system. Essentially theres no gain right? We're promised this system to make abilities with exciting effects, only to find out that what we could do was the exact same as what we could do before, merely in a different way.


Commenting directly on something you said, regarding how you thought they would have some talents as passive trainables but reliant on your specialization to train it, why would they go through the hassle of putting it on the trainer when it could be instead (what i originally assumed things were going to be) that when you hit a level in between talents you automatically learn said passive into your Mastery's passive bonuses.
Ding I hit level 16, cool I got a talent point to put into this neat thing. Ding I hit level 17, oh cool "You have learned Shamanistic Focus, grants -45% mana cost to your Shock spells while Specialized Enhancement!". Ding I hit level 18 another talent point! Etc etc.

As long as it remains constructive wishlisting I don't see a giant problem with it. Some of us can't post such concerns with our problem areas on the offical Beta forums

I definately agree with the buffs going to specializations. Theres soooo much problem solving they could effectively do with specializations that my fears of being left gimped are offset by my hopes for the future.
Directing regarding the totem buffs, the problem for me never has been that we've had the buffs tied to the totems specifically; it has been that we are balanced around having them. However in PvP theres 0 chance of getting SoE down with the three other earth totems to cycle between, and Windfury is a minor buff that can be cycled in between Grounding CDs, though that can be a hassle considering the general GCD lock that purge has us in for PvP.
With the general removal of anti-dispel talents (not counting the effect on Pain Suppression), that should let us purge less (though mana concerns will dictate that more than actual choice) and be able to keep WF down a bit more, SoE is still locked out. That is 341 AP and 1.85% crit i'm expected to have in PvE but am denied in PvP because I can't afford to lay it, compared to orn of Winter which is a free lol buff. In full S5 gear that is roughly -7.4% of my possible AP and -5.9% at s8. I'd love to see another melee class NOT complain that they lose 6% of their AP just by being in a PvP situation.
Frusterating to say the least.


Regarding their intention for our mana regen, yea i'm still worried for any kind of sustainability while kiting or being kited, not to mention the likely problem that will be it not proccing off absorbs. Nothing worse than being kited for 10-15 seconds, you burn 3/4 or more of your mana pool (especially with Shocks back up to 18% mana without Shamanistic Focus!!! I seriously hope that is an oversight) just trying to get back in range only to have to burn through absorbs first, which Enhancement damage never has been designed to do in the first place with our proc based nature.
That kind of regen works on live with a large mana pool because it provides the buffer zone nessecary for us to be able to get kited but then regen the pool through regained contact. We'll also have to see what % of our pool per 5 seconds that Water Shield static regen covers at the 85 pool numbers.
Just seeing the ret's specialization of 2% their pool every 1 second was also kind of sickening considering their model always worked because they never had the mana expenditure that we do and a ranged regen source, however we'll see how much their expenditure changes with the new revamp of their system with Holy Power and the like.

That is some positive news, hopefully it is indeed a change to costs as opposed to a bug. I've been using the wowhead & mmo-champion Cataclysm spell listings for base mana costs, not to mention the 85 values, which has Water shield at 900 mp/5 and 3852 per orb. This is why we'll have to see what the base mana pool numbers are looking to be for at 85, because thats a multiplier of 9x on the mp/5 and 9.63x on the orb from the currently available WS.
Your 82 numbers show a 2.7x on the mp/5, 3.18x on the orb, and 2.41x on the mana pool. If the ratio stays the same or if the 85 Water Shield gives a significant more return is important for judging how well mana when kited will work. Dunno if the data can be mined, otherwise kind of a waiting game.

I'm not sure where the mana concerns are coming from. Primal wisdom should be more than enough to sustain a full blue bar. If you consider that it procs off of all melee hits and will scale with haste.

Regarding sustainability while getting kited, I think that we have more tools at our disposal (given that all melee attacks can proc mana, not just SS) rather than less. I end up using WS more often in PvP than I do LS anyway. So no real change there as far as I can tell. As for not regening through absorbs, that's a limitation for ret paladins as well, and probably won't go away. The current state of the tree feels (and this is just a feeling, no proof here) like PvP hasn't been addressed yet, and it's being balanced for PvE first.



And on an unrelated note:

We might see a damage boost to our wolves?

The mana concern problem is with the costs of all our spells. I have no doubt the model will work fine for PvE. The problem is with PvP where absorbs and considerably less than 100% contact time exists. While this is the first iteration of the new talents, if there is no discussion about possible problem areas, then those areas can be overlooked and be unaddressed far into release. We don't want another ssituation where imbalances remain throughout a whole tier of content simply because no one wanted to speak up.

Ret Paladins work fine on their model because they dont constantly use alot of spells blowing lots of mana. They actively use Divine Storm (12%), Crusader Strike (5%), Judgements (5%), Cleanse (6%), and Exorcism (8%). With DS at 10 sec cd, CS at 4 and Judges at 7 in PvP gear, 1 Judgement restores their primary rotation while in melee contact to burn said rotation constantly. I'm not saying they don't use other abilities but they're not constantly spammed. If they are being kited they can use Judgement on another close target for the 25% regen without needing to turn to get in melee range with them. A paladin doesn't need to spam cleanse on his team without needing to remove key things like CC or Immolate against destro locks and Flame Shock against Ele Shamans. I'm not saying they don't use Cleanse alot, i'm just saying they're not constantly GCD locked by constantly using it etc.

On the other hand Shamans are constantly casting. Purge is used significantly more than defensive cleanses due to the sheer amount of HOTs/Shields/status effects/etc that are used by healers. More importantly though is totem cost associated with constant movement and redeployement.

In a typical PvP encounter, without being hit and triggering WS procs (which because of our issues with mana, WS is a requirement to use in long games, meaning Static Shock isn't even a PvP option since we can't use LS) we run up to engage a fight, drop a Stoneclaw totem for the initial shield (8%) while dismounting close enough, drop a set of Grounding/Tremor/Ele Resist/Searing (22% total), use Frost Shock (18% without SF), Unleashed Elements (7%), Wind Shear an incoming CC (8%), and 1 Purge for some preHOTs(14%). This totals for 74% of our mana pool for opening totems and the opening ranged snares for the start of the fight.

Even if Primal Wisdom was 100%, we'd need 15 melee attacks to regen that, and you can't really count SS and LL's attacks into that since after using both spells you'd only be up 3% (again given the 100% example). At a 2.0 swing speed after some Haste effects and Flurry, it takes 16 seconds of pure unabsorbed contact time to achieve. During which time you've likely needed to purge an absorb shield, shock a couple more times to either keep them slowed and in range or for damage, wind shear another CC or a heal, redrop a grounding, and cycle an earthbind/tremor, possibly even another searing totem under the new searing talent model.

In that 16 seconds of regen time you've added another 52% mana used, 1/3 of which you probably didnt have to use in the first place cause it hadn't regenerated by then unless you got hit by an attack and procced a WS orb. This example isn't even counting things like Wolves (12%), Bloodlust (26%), Ghost Wolf (6%), or Maelstrom instant LB (6%) or LvB (10%), of which BL and Wolves would also generally be used at the start of a fight. BG fights work for this example as well, since when you die Sated goes away, so BL is going to be used often and early to win confrontations and get the 5min cd rolling etc.

Under the old model of SS regen, at 35% per hit, while I was still worried, it wasnt as bleak an outlook as the current Primal Wisom is (though I prefer the procs on all melee hits, 40% for a mere 5% is really low). That same 16 second example to get back the 74%, with the old Imp SS, 70% would have been regenned in 12 seconds, with another 35% coming 2 seconds later, 100% of the time unless a SS got mitigated through an absorb. Though hurt more by absorbs than the Primal Wisdom model, the large chunk regen sustains the burst nature of our mana usage easier than the low proc model.

To summarize, our problem is the relative cost of spells to our mana pool. Our mana works on live purely because we have the buffer zone to allow the nessecary regen through WS and SS. If we have to burn half our mana pool to get back to a target that is ok, because we had the ability to regen it when in melee combat. But with our total mana pool being reduced from the current 3x base pool to just the normal 1x base pool, then if we burn all our mana just getting back into melee, we have to rely on 40% procs to get back any mana as well as hope we're the target for WS to get mana back.

That's why i'm making a big deal out of the mana issues. If they gave us +250% mana in our specialization (or % mana from stamina/agi) then we'd be perfectly fine with the situation, nothing would be changing essentially. But with the base pool and spells costing what they do, we'll essentially always be running on near empty and relying on Water Shield mp/5 to be able to do anything. Even popping SR for a full bar wouldnt be a giant fix because instead of a full 15k bar to work with we get 5k (using 80 base numbers) which is essentially gone again in a totem relay, frost shock and 3 purges.

Keep in mind that we haven't seen how much mana the level 85 water shield and mana spring totems are going to return. Considering that ele and resto are going to have massively larger mana pools then us it wouldn't surprise me if they ended up being enough to keep us working in pvp.

40% for 5% really isn't that low considering our attack speed. It's basically a constantly active JoW and that's enough regen on live, when combined with judicious SR usage, to allow us to drop magma totem constantly in a raid as well as using fire nova on cooldown which is a lot more mana then throwing out the occasional heal or purging when there is something worth purging on your target.

I'm not saying it won't necessarily be a problem. I'm just saying your outlook is far more pessimistic then warranted at this time.

Edit - hopefully they fix the previous talents still being active with the new build tonight. Hard to really see how mana is going to be when we still have shamanistic focus active along with primal wisdom. Improved stormstrike could even be active too since I didn't really do any specific testing to check on it.

I know we havn't seen the WS levels and the base pool for 85, thats why I commented on them in previous posts, and that last post was simply to go more in depth to why I keep focusing on mana issues because Cochice couldnt see why I kept on that issue.

As I said, 40% for 5% should be enough for a raid, but that's because in raids you have 95%+ contact time without worrying about absorb shields negating procs, nor the requirement for multiple uses of Purge or the need to use SR for defensive purposes. For PvP the situation is drastically different, and I was trying to elaborate on why. This is why I think we have to wait for those final 85 numbers to judge how much the water shield mp/5 contributes per second to an 85's mana pool, but should it scale like it does currently then all my concerns illustrated are valid.

Yea, our tree is top heavy with nessecary PvP talents, its unfortunate that we can't even get into Elemental Warding cause it's tier 2. For PvP its pretty much everything except Static Shock and Imp Shields, since the 15% isnt to the mp/5, it is to the orbs, and if an orb procs that's more than enough on its own. The 3 that you put into Imp Shields, move into Spark of Life for the +15% healing recieved, and that leaves a possible 2 points to move from Toughness to Concussion, depending on how the stam situation is, if the extra 7% is really worth much compared to more output.

I really like how the Ret tree is turning out, and hopefully the design aspects they used forming that tree (only 1 talent above tier 2 has 3 points for it, totaling 5 talents that are 3/3, compared to Enhancement which has 9) get translated into the other trees once they move on from their current Paladin revamp focus. Talenting Ret doesnt feel chlostrophobic at all like ours currently does.

Seriously? You're happy? Seems an odd reaction for what is essentially a nerf in total instead of them splitting the functions off into 2 mechanics. The only way this change really helps compared to the old version is in PvP for the first 20 seconds of a fight IF you are the main target, as you'd be popping it immediatly and already be at full mana. However every other situation where you'd use it, the change is not a welcome one.

Instead of allowing for your pool to be refilled, it nessecitates confining high cost spell spam only to this duration. If the situation calls for you to end up kiting, or chasing a pillar humper, after it is popped, then it goes to waste (especially since you can't use it to self heal), compared to being able to do a quick target switch for the regen. I'd prefer the mechanics split to seperate spells, however if they can't/won't split them, i'd greatly prefer the old functioning. Never know though, perhaps this is just the first step in their mana fixes, so it may turn out ok in the larger picture.

Somehow I missed the "offensive" qualifier on the spell tooltip.


Yes, I'm happy that we're seeing a change in an ability that has been serving two (and since ICC, three) very unrelated purposes. Yes it would be great if they split it into two separate abilities, however IMO, this is a step in the right direction. I think the goal is to have us not worry about mana as long as we have 2/2 Primal Wisdom. Rather than worrying that the sky is falling, we can assume that Blizz will balance and tweak accordingly throughout beta and we will end up with a mana situation that is sustainable. Pushing us towards utilizing SR's damage reduction over everything else lets us use it and not worry that we're going to go OOM 30 seconds later.

I don't particularly see my stance as the sky is falling, just based on the available data i'm a little pessimistic. I've stated a couple times before how with the current model of base mana, that I dont think the primal wisdom regen function will work well in lengthy PvP, unless the regen numbers were tweaked to absurd values like 100% proc of 15% mana, due to the nature of being kited by casters combined with CC. It is a good thing to see that they wanted to split the mana regen from the DR function, and I can see your point about them balancing the mana situation to have us sustainable by the end of the beta, however if that is the goal, then what is the purpose of a mana emergency cooldown?

The spell was initially designed as our mana solution, since our regen was essentially designed as using your spells that slowly burn mana down and eventually when you get to a low point, you pop SR to regen back to full and rinse repeat. The DR was added for PvP survivability concerns to really our only on use utility CD. If it is their intention to seperate all mana related functions from SR, and balance our mana situation on constant relatively reliable regeneration, then they need some kind of survivability function onto SR in place of this mana reduction. The fact that the mana reduction exists implies that there are going to be situations where we will require it, and thus it completely overshadows the DR aspect entirely. Still dual function.

Based off of the current build, the way I see it being used is for combining with Spiritwalker's Grace, to mitigate the mana concerns of spamming costly abilities without seeing returns from PW (especially since it would be used while you're moving, for whatever reason the encounter calls for). To keep them in sync you'd have to use it again on CD for the 2nd one, and how is that using it for the DR functions. Naturally, we'll have to see how the fights play out, but based on them returning to the BC model of healing (and thus raid damage), I really can't see how the 30% dr function would be saved specifically for areas of a fight. Not saying that it wouldnt be useful in areas of mass expected damage (say Gruul's shatter, etc), but I dont see see Blizzard designing a fight that required everyone to have said DR function or they would die., nor do I see raid leaders saying "Everyone use your survival functions at X time even if it skimps dps". The burden is likely to remain with the healers.

So in the end, SR would be used for it's mana properties primarily, unless mana regen functions made it inconsequential. However if that was the case, with regen functions making it inconsequential, then why even bother having the function there in the first place?

I absolutely see that happening. It happens now. Take heroic XT or Festergut for example. In an effort to ease the pressure on healers, it's very common to have your paladins divine protection, rogues feint, DK's AMS (iirc, AMS mitigates aoe damage?), or even have cats go bear form for the predictable aoe portion. None of those abilities, though, have been essential for those classes to use on cooldown in order for them to maintain their rotations/priorities. My point is that, as a class with already very little defensive capabilities in PvE, it's nice to see them moving it towards something we use in emergencies, as opposed to something that's required to use on cooldown.

I agree that the current implementation has great potential combined with spiritwalker's grace, and the new greater healing wave. The new nature of it supports it's use as an emergency tool, or something to help out healers.


With all that said, I think this discussion has started to move towards bickering and I think the mana aspect of SR should be examined more closely when we have the ability to see level 85 content. We don't really know the full design intention of SR, and it's possible that the Devs aren't really sure yet either.

Taowth, your logic is flawed and pointless.

There are many situations where mana can become a concern without it being designed into the class that way. Mana burn, heavy totem usage, AoEing, throwing out heals there are a lot of reasons why a shaman could end up running low on mana unexpectedly. With the new SR you should get to maintain your normal rotation and drop your normal complement of totems for basically no mana costs while regaining an even more positive mana flow through our normal expected regen mechanics.

There is nothing wrong with a spell having both offensive and defensive functions. That is interesting game play where you have to make choices and the choices can have consequences. If a spell has two functions, survival and dps, and is always used solely for the dps, as you suggest, then the user is a friggin retard who will die significantly more then one who utilizes the ability more optimally. Also dead shaman do no dps so survival contributions equal dps contributions anyway.

Primal wisdom is a positive mana flow under our expected single target priority list while in constant melee. From less then 1000 mana it took me 50 seconds to fill up to full while doing a full single target priority list with water shield and mana spring totem in place. With lightning shield, no mana spring, only windfury totem in place and just using stormstrike and lava lash it took me 33 seconds of constant melee to fill back up to full.

Throwing out chain heals and even greater healing waves off 5 stacks of maelstrom weapon shouldn't be much of a problem provided it isn't constant. Dropping multiple sets of totems could become a problem, but that seems to be one of the purposes of SR. Although can't test SR too much at the moment since the mana reduction is only affecting magma and searing and only when cast separately. If cast as part of a Call then there is no reduction at all.

The only thing you are missing, is that the concerns are primarily for PVP and not PVE. PVE will be fine when you're on your target for a "long" time to regen while you go. For PVP on the other hand I dont remember the last time I was able to stay on a caster for more than 15s, unless there were being stun locked by a rogue in a BG; and even then it only happened like once. What we as a "class" and "spec" need to do is put these concerns in the proper thread where the Devs can read them and either write them off, fix, or otherwise address them.

Also, if an ability is for Dps and survivability then your right a dead shaman does no dps, but your locked into saving said ability for that purpose, and your target doesn't die and the fight goes on and on. On those fights you will end up dead from your healer finally going Oom, keeping you on your feet as well as themselves since you can't kill your target. We are based around our buff totems which we cannot afford to drop for the other totems survivability or kite mechanics they offer. Which neither has yet to be picked up by Blizz or is some sick joke. Take a look at the other "hybrid/utility" classes, their damage AND survivability, which is better then ours. Not to mention their giving our "buffs" to other classes and increasing their potential Dps output, while leaving ours in the dirt.

During those 15 seconds you would potentially hit them 20 times with white hits and specials returning roughly 40% of your mana pool. Which is roughly the equivalent of improved stormstrike in the current model except you won't get shut down if your stormstrike misses or is absorbed.

Grounding is cheap, tremor is cheap, earthbind is cheap and you can have water shield returning 10% of your mana pool every 3 seconds when you are taking damage along with a nice bit of passive regen. If you are casting heals on yourself, you are doing it wrong but if you are using maelstrom weapon charges stacked up to 4 or 5 to cast even greater healing wave then you shouldn't really be having mana issues.

The new SR works a lot better in pvp then the current model since the current model you would get nothing back if stun locked or kited during SR and our other regens wouldn't be able to keep up. New model is that the regen can keep up but when you get behind you can pop SR and do all your normal offensive things for basically no mana costs.

All that said I am a little worried about primal wisdom since we aren't getting a true picture of the mana situation on the beta. Any shaman who had shamanistic focus specced before the tree change or when they transferred to the beta is keeping it even though it is no longer a talent. Meaning they may need to either adjust primal wisdom up a bit or incorporate the old shamanistic focus into our specialization or just reduce the mana costs of shocks to compensate when they finally get that fixed.

I don't know about you guys but the new SR + Spiritwalkers Grace screams LB spam to me.

Been busy with a heavy work trip and aftermath, so I couldn't really take the time to write up a coherent reply til now :-)

Flawed logic? Hardly. My logic is based on the fact that they cannot design fights that require everyone to activly pop a defensive dr cd or else they will get 100% guarenteed death. However I was also talking about the general statement of survival and dps on the same active use cd, not specifically only at SR, as the way SR and Shaman's mana was designed, there weren't really consequences for saving it for a survival function for PvE. If shaman's mana restore situation was at a place where popping SR early could lead to significant time at 0% mana while waiting for SR to come up, it never would be used early for the purpose of easing healer burden. My whole point was that they changed it, yet left the dual funciton. The discussion is pointless though, I agree on that, since the topic is pretty much regarding designer intent, which we're not privy to.


I found it odd, why do you compare the regen of Primal Wisdom with 2 scenarios that are completely different? How does the water shield and mana spring regen even compare to the lightning shield and no mana spring regen when you're using completely different testing methods for each? You wanted to compare having regen to not having it, yet you then selectively stopped using spells that burned mana. Were you trying to compare "full" pve mana usage gains to just the passive gains? Or were you trying to show that it indeed takes a long time to regen at 100% contact time using nothing but things that generated melee attacks, and thus only showing net PW gains? That wasn't meant as a jab, I'm actually curious of your intent with the statement.


Now, regarding some of the new stuff from the last couple beta builds since I was last free to browse/comment on them, it is all love hate for me. I loved the idea of Static Shock when it was first introduced, but when the proc rate went live at its dismal amount, it was immediatly not worth using for PvP, especially because we really needed Water Shield for sustainability. The low proc rate wasn't worth gambling going OOM significantly faster on. Now they've boosted Static Shock to less of a passive, and I love its concept. However, at the same time, they've removed our mana overhead by reducing us to base mana, and thus we will likely need Water Shield for mana 100% of the time and cannot effectivly juggle between shields (this could change as beta progresses, but as of now thats the case), and so we can't use it!! The worst part is that it isn't even a choice. We HAVE to use Water Shield. On top of that, it is so expensive to talent into, we can't even just drop a single point in for rare occasional circumstances of full mana bar shield switching.

On that note, i've been thinking about the shield thing since I first saw the talent change. I've always loved the idea of Enhancement being able to talent into the ability to have more than one shield active, after all, the premise of our class is self enhancement through the elements. Would be a great Tier 4 single point tie in from 3/3 static. It would also make Improved Shields a better talent just on the merit that its boost isn't a single thing.

I don't understand the addition of Totemic Reach. Why is this not either just flat out baked into totems, or put onto an already lackluster talent? It is similar to the range increase on Earthen Grasp. No one took the talent at all until the CD reduction was added onto it. While this particular application of totem range applies to all totems and is thus more useful, there aren't really many situations where if I wasn't being lazy in repositioning totems that I actually said "damn, I just ran out of tremor range!", nor were there many PvE situations where relocating totems was difficult (just a hassle). If this talent was meant to ease the whining i've seen on the forums about how other people have 100yd auras, and the like, I frankly don't understand why something like this was put in on a talent, and not only that but a tier 2 talent!

Regardless, things are looking up overall, so hopefully the changes keep trickling in. I'd love to see Totemic Vigor merged into Earthen Power. For what they do, and the nessecary elements of them to just how Enhancment plays, the costs are large. Choice isn't a choice when one of the choices is a nessecity. Its not like the choice between Toughness or Static Shock. I could choose either one, for whatever the playstyle is, and either choice could be lived without. But a choice between any of the Tier 4 talents and Searing Flames just flat out isnt one. All 3 other talents are required for PvP functionality, which essentially blocks out all choice.

My last comments are regarding Toughness. After the numerous iterations i'm curious why its movement slowing reduction effect still exists. We have 2 seperate functions that effectivly eliminate movement slowing functions (Earthen Power and GW not reducing speed below 100%) from being major concerns. This funciton was put on there before the GW change was implemented, and yet it has endured this long in the beta. We have many ways of dealing with slows, it's roots that screw us. The movement slowing reduction doesn't even choss my mind in wanting to choose the talent, so it's effectivly just +stamina to my eyes as is. Anyone else see it this way or is it just me?

I agree, dispels like this will be more often chosen over heals (if that isn't how it works right now, I never healed in pvp).
Though I think one other change will make the choice even easier for the healer, and that is Cleansing Waters, now I don't know if the other healers have something similar, but it seems that this is the way for Blizzard to make dispels more attractive, even with their high cost, as long as you really have something to dispel.