Oteb

I respect all your work in EJ forums bringing enh shaman mechanic disscusion but for love of god stop posting about pvp.
Shamans are not a viable arena class right now. Enh shamans even less so. I have been over 2.2k rating with every spec (ele s1 and s2. resto in s2 and s3. enh in s3 and s4) and I can tell you that shamans in comparison to almost every other class just blow. It does not mean they are unplayable but they are unfitted for competitive play. Our weakness are to easy to exploit by any half competent team. Arena statistics show that, pvpers say that, tournaments show that.
Its as obvious as saying that feral druid cant tank illidan. It doesnt mean its impossible. Its just done 10x easier with a warrior tank.
The difference tho is that in pve you can wipe once or twice but you dont "lose" in arena if you have a class unfitted for its role you do.
Most of your posts about pvp and in particular arena play are misinformed or just outright wrong. I am mostly pvper and reading beta forums where you argue about pvp makes me emo rage as i am unable to post reply.

PS. Ppl do spec into resto just for totem range. If you dont belief it check out a discussion on arena junkies forums on toughness spec for ele shamans and a general consensus that losing totem mastery totally gimps you arena wise. (Tremor totem at 40yards is simply a must have)

 

Hothgor

They announced that they are going to lower the cost of all shaman spells. See my post a page back or the beta forums for details.

 

Skreekins

Also, there was some theorycraft earlier in this thread that showed that even with the lack of water shield and the higher spell costs, our mana consumption was still less when compared to twisting, which we will not have to do anymore. That coupled with the now mana free lightning shield and lower mana costs, we should be fine without it.

Also keep in mind that judgment of wisdom will be up much more reliably with ANY type of paladin in the raid. Blessing of Wisdom is also higher on our blessing priority (3 or more pallys and you should have BoW). If Judgments of the Wise selects raiders by proximity to the paladin, enhancement shaman and protection paladins are likely to be the only mana users in range. Then there is hunting party... Basically, mana really shouldn't be an issue at all if things don't change too much.

 

Vaeys

Adding Ghost Wolf indoors onto the Spectral Transformation talent makes the most sense.... eg "You can transform into a Ghost Wolf indoors with a 15/30% speed increase, have a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects... etc etc". Or just making it base, or just having it work indoors by default without a speed increase.

On a different note, one thing I haven't seen is any changes to -threat talents? Spirit Weapons still shows it only affecting melee attacks - and while tank classes may be getting overall increases to how much threat they generate, how much more damage are we generating via spells in Wrath? Have they given any reason why there isn't a -threat talent for *all* enhancement shaman damage? (don't want it to stack with other -threat talents, especially if elemental are picking up MQ?)

 

NeuroMedivh

Point #1: We don't spec into resto for totem range, we spec into resto for Nature's Guidance. Totem Mastery is simply an extra bonus.

Point #2: It doesn't extend Tremor Totem to 40 yards.

Point #3: In WotLK, all friendly totems will be 30 yards, and Totem Mastery (along with NG) will be gone.

Point #4: Yes, currently Enh Shaman aren't very good in PvP. One of the purposes of this discussion is to come up with ways to MAKE them viable in PvP, not just assume that they will suck and ignore PvP.

 

Malan

For the love of god, can you not see the contradiction there in your own post?

Guess you should hope that a key gets mailed to you then.


I don't even care one way or the other, i just can't stand seeing the illogical conclusions people are drawing.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Dragonhoof

Without Totemic Mastery:

Summons a Tremor Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that shakes the ground around it, removing Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from party members within 30 yards.

On my shaman tooltip with Totemic Mastery on live servers:

Summons a Tremor Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that shakes the ground around it, removing Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from party members within 40 yards.

Conclusion: Your point is wrong and the tooltip on Totemic Mastery crap as all Blizzard tips.

 

Dragonhoof

From Kalgan aka Tom Chilton, a lead designer from WoW:

Do you guys get payed for counter-arguing every time? All you do is trying to find logical mismatches in posts from people that think otherwise, but never come up with hard facts to support your claim that (enhancement-)shamans are balanced in 2vs2/3vs3.

 

Malan

Who said balanced? Nobody said balanced.

By the way I have been informed that kollektiv (?) is playing a shaman in the tournaments.


Cute edit buddy, still doesn't prove anything. Nobody said balanced at any time, we said viable. 2345 team maybe ring a bell?

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Dragonhoof

Ok, I see thats a tough one, I change my post (the underlined word), curious what your reply is now:

Do you guys get payed for counter-arguing every time? All you do is trying to find logical mismatches in posts from people that think otherwise, but never come up with hard facts to support your claim that (enhancement-)shamans are viable in 2vs2/3vs3.

 

panny

A few amazing players of a class don't make the class "strong". Any idiot can see that.

And yes, PvP enhancement specs resto for the totem range more than anything else. You can gem/enchant spellhit, you can't gem tremor/poison cleansing/grounding range.

 

Aezoc

...Seriously? Someone mentions that shaman are weak in PvP. You disputed that, and then claim 'not weak' doesn't mean you were arguing they were balanced? I'd expect that crap on the WoW forum, but not here.

Anyways, I'd say Blizz failed miserably in making enhancement competitive for 2.4, which I believe is when Kalgan made that quote. In a way I'm kind of glad, since their proposed fix was the flametongue MS nonsense. Hopefully enhancement as a competitive arena spec is still a goal with WotLK, since with the additional freedom that a new expansion gives them, I expect they could do a lot better. I'd love it if they went back to maelstrom weapon giving instant heals too, and just tried it for a while, since - correct me if I'm wrong - but I think they changed it from it reducing all cast times to only offensive nukes before it even went live. The balance might need tweaking (maybe LHW only?), but if done properly I think that might be a good way for us to bring something unique and desirable without just slapping a MS effect on another class.

 

testthewest

I ask myself: Why do we always get nerfed in advance. So, what is so strong about being able to combat heal for 3k max. all 15-20 sec (in arena with resilence, CC and whatnot, don't expect your maelstrom weapon to be ready sooner)?

Honestly, I say: Let's risk it! I doubt we would be more OP, then turning into a demon with FULL health and 360% more armor, as soon as I get into execute range.
Remember: With the current spellcosts, you will be OOM after 3 heals in PvP due to the fact that our offensive spells will manadrain us well.

 

Oteb

There is no contradiction. There are ppl that broke 2k with fury warrior. That doeesnt make them good in pvp.

The infuriating part is that i do have a key but for for euro beta thus i am limited to posting to a forum nobody bothers to check or reply to and i cannot post the tottaly incorrect statements you make in US beta forum:P

 

LazyJoe

A lot of people here seem to fail to understand the difference between "viable" and "balanced".

There are shamans in the highest ratings, so they definitely are viable.

There are a lot more of the other favorite arena classes in the highest rankings, so they probably are unbalanced.

Reading Malan improves my english

 

Jheherrin

Is there any chance we can get back to discussing WotLK rather than arguing about the current viability of Enhancement Shaman in arenas ?

Edit: and yes, I'm aware I will get an infraction for backseat moderation for this.

 

Tana Umaga

Erm... I don't know about you, guys... but I do spec into Totemic Mastery for PVE...

 

Gorlan

My largest gripe with the way the enh changes are shaping up is the lack of a distance closer talent/skill present. The hoax "leak" Lightning Lash was exactly what we needed, it seems. Any chance we could mention that to the beta peoples?

Also, the Air elemental pet. Any news on that? Even just a revamp of our existing pets and the addition of an air elemental from an air totem as a PvP debuffer/snare pet would be very nice, in their current implementation they seem to serve as little more then super skills that don't really pack the OOMPH of shield wall or others similar.

And yea, the idea that ghostwolf indoors would be overpowered in WSG is kinda debunked with feral swiftness supposedly going that route. It's fine for druids but not for us?

 

Mejiro

This would be my first post here so I'll try to make it a decent one. (though point out things I'm missing)

Reference: Shaman - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information

Based on this info my build for PvE raiding would look something like this:

Enh. Shaman PvE: 8/63/0

I didn't really have a nice spot for the 2 points in imp. ghost wolf but the others are mainly aimed for DPS in a raiding environment. (elemental focus wouldnt be bad but then I'd need to sac something else in the enhancement tree)

Though so far this is all just subjected to change.

I do still have some things that are unclear to me.

Maelstrom Weapon:

My main question here is more of what spell to use for single and multiple targets.

Options: (these numbers belong to the highest ranks for these abilities)
- Chain Lightning: 973 to 1111 Nature damage, 1695.
- Lava Burst: 888 to 1132 Fire damage, 655 mana.
- Lightning Bolt: 715 to 815 Nature damage, 685 mana.

For multiple mobs it's rather obvious that I should use Chain Lightning.

But on single targets I get a little confused.

I see 2 options for single targets:
- Chain Lighting
- Lava Burst

Lightning Bolt seems to lose to both of these meaning I'll scratch it from my list. If something is immune to fire then CL will be the choice.

This should be the average damage output for the 2 options that are left (min + max devided by 2):

Chain Lightning: (973 + 1111) / 2 = 1042
Lava Burst: (888 + 1132) / 2 = 1010

Based on this Chain Lightning would still be slightly better on single targets but it will cost 1040 more mana as well.

So basically this comes down to how often we get to use this instant spell cast and how our mana situation is in WoTLK.

So does anyone have some extra input on this? I'm kinda stuck since I don't have a view of how things will be in a practical situation.

Shocks:

I take it that the current rotation will still be the best DPS wise? (Flame Shock -> Earth Shock)

Hex:

Will this break on all damage or can we take the description text literally that it may or may not break upon taking damage?

Inscriptions:

I saw it mentioned in one of the posts but is there more information about inscriptions for the shaman class? (I can't find more info then there is on this page: Inscription - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information )


Well, thats about the things that are unclear to me atm. Hopefully I'll get Beta access at some point, then I'll be able to test these things myself. (I know the air elemental is still uncertain and that the feral spirit is still not yet implemented, but thats for when blizzard gives more info or implements it)

If you made it this far, thx for reading

 

Krim

Please, can we stop with the PvP talk? No matter if Enhancement is God Mode, or not, in PvP doesn't change the fact that WoW PvP always has, and always will be an unbalanced pile of tripe that favours X Y Z and A B C get screwed: if we look at PvP pre-tbc; the top classes and specs were: Combat Rogue (daggers), Enhancement Shaman and the Marksmanship Hunter - granted only BG's existed at this point. However, as we're now in depth with S4 we can clearly see that PvP (arena, anyway) favours Resto Druids, Arms Warriors and ShS Rogues. It's always going to be like this - you have to accept being at the bottom of the food chain in PvP.

Anyway. Back to a more PvEish question: when you cast Lava Burst, Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt with 5/5 Maelstrom stacks (the cast is instant, basically) and the spell is resisted are the stacks still used up? Obviously this wont matter as much come WotLK as hit is affecting both spell and melee hit, but I'm just wondering.

Also: do we know exclusively what totems affect people raidwide and whether or not certain totems stack outside of groups, keeping an updated list would be helpful as my scanning through the [Enhance Shaman], [Elemental Shaman] and [Resto Shaman] WotLK discussions was varied in it's answers to the question.

Thanks :-).

 

Mejiro

I havent read anything about the totems in raids yet so I can't really give input on that but for Maelstrom I expect it to be used the same as e.g. Cold Blood for rogues.

If you miss / it gets resisted / blocked or what not means that after casting the ability the oponent did something to prevent damage but the ability is still used meaning you have to wayt for the next oportunity.

*edit*

Although this is what WoW Wiki says about totems:

Totems will now effect all nearby raid members instead of being confined to party members.

So if you take this litirally then all totems will affect everyone in the raid thats in range.

 

Malan

Not at all the case. Its a very short list of which ones are raid-wide right now, with no indication that its going to change.

As for Maelstrom, the buff has nothing to do with whether the spell lands or not, its a reduction in cast time. Even if the spell resists you still got the benefit of the reduced cast time, so yes it always consumes the stack.


No, someone said "not viable" and myself and several others dispute that. Weak and strong are relative and subjective analysis of a class in arena. Viable in arena doesn't mean its easy, it doesn't mean that the class is highly represented, it means that it is entirely possible for the class to participate and succeed. There are plenty of 2k+ rated shaman teams of every spec at every bracket. We are viable in arena.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Gorlan

Meh, Krim, as far as I'm aware, this thread was for all the changes to enh in WoTLK, both PvE and PvP. And as we're already great in PvE and it only looks like we're getting better, PvP is where I'm most interested in seeing big changes.

Also, another question that isn't quite specific to enh but will affect us nonetheless, is hand of salvation debuffing the target's damage dealt? I read that it was intended to do that, but never saw mention of it in any of the tooltips.

 

Malan

Yes. You get a reduction in your total threat (accumulated threat) and suffer a reduction to your damage dealt at the same time. Basically applies a small penalty for having a paladin save your butt if you were climbing too high. Or you can use it to force tank transitions.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Mejiro

Took a look at wowwiki for the abilities that are raid buffs now:

- Heroism/Bloodlust will affect all nearby raid members.
- Unleashed Rage: Now affects raid members.
- Mana and Healing Stream Totems: Will no Longer give a Buff, but instead "pulse" Health/Mana to raids members.

But this is all that I could find