Enhancement WotLK Talents and spells discussion. - Page 2

guldburkan · 06/13/08, 9:00 AM

Originally Posted by Illundai

Fist - Attacks from your fist weapons have a 5% chance to reduce the enemies armor by 20% for 6 seconds.

This talent raises some questions:

Does the armor debuff affect only the shaman's own strikes? Or does it leave a debuff on the target just like sunder armor?

Is the -20% armor applied before or after other static armor debuffs such as CoR, Sunder Armor, Faerie Fire etc.?

Does it stack with other armor reducing debuffs?

Malan · 06/13/08, 9:03 AM

Ancestral Knowledge definitely appears to be a teaser talent for Elemental and Resto, not for Enhancement as Exewut pointed out. A full suit of T6 has less than 200 int on it, so that would 12 Int from 3 talent points. The Int to AP conversion talent by itself though is a definite boon. Go to LootRank and try it out, just change Int to a weight of 1 using the sunwell values, every armor slot except legs and chest gain an Intellect item (feral or mail) as the best in slot over the normal rogue leather items.

Pintofbrew · 06/13/08, 9:09 AM

It is also much more in line with the paladin equivalent Divine Intellect. Lest I be remembering wrongly, many a shaman signed on the Blizz "what you want changed for wotlk?" thread that they were miffed 5% mana did about as much as licking one's keyboard to performance, while paladins got a nice, rounded, double that effect at the same talent position, with added BoK scaling and a little dash of crit in too.

From first glance there are a few interesting points: The fist effect notes "reduces armor" not "ignores" implying it's raid-buffing. Unless I'm mistaken too, elemental devastation is shallower in the pool too; I'm starting to see good value in fast OH fist to proc the armor pen, enchanted with Flametongue (which does something else too now, I understand? spellpower is it?) keeping up Devastation and the armor pen.

As a mage, however, I'm most excited about the aoe knockback. When needed, the ability to clear mobs of poor'ol aoe can be quite significant.

Eltorronado · 06/13/08, 9:32 AM

Am I to assume there is no new aggro reducing talents for us to play with?

Malan · 06/13/08, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by Eltorronado

Am I to assume there is no new aggro reducing talents for us to play with?

What the heck would we need with another aggro talent?

peer · 06/13/08, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by yts

Might also add the lava burst since it seems to give a free crit. And there for free elemental devastaion proc.

Lava Burst Rank 1 You hurl molten lava at the target, dealing $s1 Fire damage. If Flame Shock is on the target, Lava Burst will consume the Flame Shock, causing Lava Burst to critically hit.

Depending on its cooldown this spell let alone could make elemental devastaion sub build worth it. That is ofcourse assuming its instant.

This is very interesting, in my opinion. It should be instant as otherwise you'd have a hard time timing it with Flame Shock, and as long as the cooldown is ten seconds or less, you should be able to have near 100% Elemental Devastation uptime (at the cost of the final Flame Shock tick).

Ronboar · 06/13/08, 9:39 AM

Has anybody got a link to the talents?

And I can't really see if this is somehow "confirmed" or just speculations.
Thanks

Stopokingme · 06/13/08, 10:04 AM

Originally Posted by Eltorronado

Am I to assume there is no new aggro reducing talents for us to play with?

Whatever for? Apart from the handful of token fights designed around it, aggro really isn't an issue anymore. <edit> bleh, already beaten to it

I'm personally hoping that the fist weapon spec talent proc is a self buff. Based on 1h itemization in TBC we could be stuck with some really crummy weapons for quite some time if so. Though based on the fact that the effects for the other weapon types are also self only buffs I don't that'll be an issue.

It does make me curious on how the various effects of this talent stack up to each other.

Doing some quick back of the napkin math, using 2 axes should be a 10% damage increase. Tried to calculate the rest, but the complexity along with not knowing if the buffs stack/refresh is a bit to much for my mathematically challenged brain.

<edit>

Originally Posted by peer

This is very interesting, in my opinion. It should be instant as otherwise you'd have a hard time timing it with Flame Shock, and as long as the cooldown is ten seconds or less, you should be able to have near 100% Elemental Devastation uptime (at the cost of the final Flame Shock tick).

I highly doubt it'll be an instant, seems much more likely to be another element nuke for our elemental brethren for the WOTLK Hydrosses. <yet another edit> Strike that, seems it has a 8 sec cooldown

Vernichter · 06/13/08, 10:12 AM

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe that the AoE knockback ability (Thunder) is elemental-only, which makes it a bit less exciting for protecting other aoers.

As to the enhancement tree, I am generally thrilled with the changes. The spellpower/healing/crit changes are a mammoth boon to shamans before talents even come into play, and mental agility and (theoretically) flametongue weapon will further ensure that DPS shaman can land non-trivial heals in a pinch. The rearrangement of early enhancement ensures that no talent points are wasted (woohoo!), and Mental Dexterity is the obvious gear solution that needed to be implemented. Improved Stormstrike is great for synergy, and another huge opportunity for synergy comes from the Flameshock/Lava Burst mechanic. If elemental shaman can consume the flameshock dots from enhancement shaman, then there will be a boat load of theorycraft and dynamic gameplay to optimize damage from stormstrike charges, flameshocks, and Lava Bursts. I actually hope that Lava Burst is not insta-cast for precisely this reason.

I am very curious to learn how Weapon Specialization will be implemented. With a 1.4 speed flame-tongued OH and permanent flurry, a mace OH should give roughly a 50-55% uptime on the haste; whereas, a fist OH would give a 26-28% uptime on the penetration. If the buffs only affect the hand that applied them, then axes easily win for the MH and probably win for the offhand unless increased spell crit makes a fast OH with flametongue competitive with a slow, windfuried OH. If the buffs from one hand affect the attacks from both hands, then MH axes appear to pull ahead when supported by either a fast mace OH or a fast fist OH.

The only talent I am concerned with in terms of enhancement is actually Stormstrike, and my concern isn't about the shaman talent as much as it is about rogue assassination talents. In this incarnation of the Alpha talents the synergy between an elemental shaman and an enhancement shaman is just about perfect. Enhancement provides enough Stormstrike charges for elemental to get the buff on just about every cast, provided that the elemental shaman rotates in Lava Burst to eat the shaman's Flameshock every 10 seconds or so. There might even be an extra charge for a wrath every 8 seconds, which will work out well if Moonkin cycle an occasional wrath to boost their Starfire damage. However, that amazing synergy goes down the tubes if assassination rogues use fast OHs with high IP poison proc-rates as a way to maintain DP on the target and get energy regen. If mutilate rogues eat charges with envenom, its not that big a deal, but I hate the idea that 240 damage IP applications will eat more of the charges than 1500 damage lightning bolts or wraths.

Edit: Static Shock poses the same dilemma as IP.

Duilliath · 06/13/08, 10:45 AM

Mental Agility is simply there to make Shamans use Hunter loot instead of Rogue loot.

There won't be any Druid leather anymore to snap up, instead Blizzard is trying to merge things into one big lump. Leather goes to Rogues and Druids and should be equally good for both. Mail will go to Shamans and Hunters and should be equally good for both. Big emphasis on should.

Stormstrike Cooldown with 2 additional charges should be sufficient uptime I would hope. I doubt there'd be a serious rotation issue as I can't possibly see them lettting totem twisting exist.

I have my doubts about the Weapon specialisations affecting other weapons. It doesn't work that way for other classes either, most notable with Rogues. I'd be inclined to think they only affect the (attacks made with the) weapon of that type.

Exewut · 06/13/08, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

What the heck would we need with another aggro talent?

Aggro problems should be a thing of the past, unless things in the warrior/druid trees change dramatically. Druids are receiving quite a huge aggro boost (and dps boost) when compared with current numbers.
Unless of course this means that they'll be introducing special tanking only leather (without dps stats), but this would go against every kind of gear homogenization they've done this far.

Greven_ · 06/13/08, 10:53 AM

It seems that the talent calculator link is broken... as of Friday 13th - makes sense, doesn't it?

Waagaa · 06/13/08, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Ancestral Knowledge definitely appears to be a teaser talent for Elemental and Resto, not for Enhancement as Exewut pointed out. A full suit of T6 has less than 200 int on it, so that would 12 Int from 3 talent points. The Int to AP conversion talent by itself though is a definite boon. Go to LootRank and try it out, just change Int to a weight of 1 using the sunwell values, every armor slot except legs and chest gain an Intellect item (feral or mail) as the best in slot over the normal rogue leather items.

Excuse me if I'm horribly wrong, but don't we assume BoK when ranking loot, thus making the weight of Int 1.1 instead of 1?

Rhaegal · 06/13/08, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Duilliath

I have my doubts about the Weapon specialisations affecting other weapons. It doesn't work that way for other classes either, most notable with Rogues. I'd be inclined to think they only affect the (attacks made with the) weapon of that type.

Yes and no. The Axe bonus will almost definitely only affect the weapon that the axe is equipped on, because it's a passive buff like rogue fist +crit% spec. The fist and mace bonuses, on the other hand, sound suspiciously like personal buffs, not weapon buffs. Again, taking rogues as an example, sword spec procs give you an extra hit with your MH regardless of what kind of weapon that is, which is why MH Fist/OH Sword is a reasonable combination for them. It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't weapon specific, but it'll be extremely easy to test by just going out and buying a 1h axe for your main hand and a 1h mace for your OH. Hit something until the mace spec procs and see if both weapon speeds change. We'll know extremely quickly if mace proc affects both weapons, and it'd be a fairly safe assumption that if the mace proc does, fist proc does as well.

And no, you're not horribly wrong, Waagaa.

Kings will be increasing our DPS through three stats now, instead of just two! I'm interested to see if all hunter/shaman gear gets rolled into one, or if there's enough shaman-specific gear to make it so we have enough strength for Kings to end up a better buff than Might, given the option. I wouldn't complain.

ChaguraED · 06/13/08, 12:00 PM

I just wanted to ask this: Right now the Weapon specialization talent looks pretty busy. Is there any risk that they will split the three of them out into separate talents to fall inline with Warrior and Rogue talents?