Ocyr

You might want to go read page 9 of the Elemental WotLK discussion thread. The highest PvE DPS spec of Elemental that is possible takes Lava Flow and Mental Dexterity+Quickness.

 

Tana Umaga

Actually, Str+Agi Totem needs to be an earth totem, since we have been complaining about burdening the Air slot with the best totems for years. It just doesn't make sense to make the load even heavier. Being an earth totem would make it useful for Elementals (according to what is being discussed in the Elemental WotLK thread), at least more than it is now (situational tremor, /spit on stoneskin).

As for the WF totem, I don't know what were they smoking when they designed it, but it takes a very wicked mind to think about a buff "that pulses every 9 seconds and lasts for that very same time". IMHO, a more logical mind would have thought from the beginning of a totem that grants wf buff while active, and stops granting it when destroyed/recalled, just like every other totem. So I believe they are going to change the totem and adopt this mechanic for unity.

Edit: Purgandus Postus Crapus

 

Rouncer

Sorry, I went and read it and before that didn't realize that it was possible to have Lava Flows and Mental Quickness in the same build.

I still don't understand why people discount Storm, Earth and Fire so much. It would seem to me that an elemental shaman will want to be in shock range to maximize their dps through Lava Burst guaranteed crits so giving that DoT double damage would seem to fit well within that formula.

Also going only 43 points in Elemental like that requires some serious sacrifices along the way.

Assuming that Lightning Mastery and Elemental Precision are sacrosanct that leaves the options between Storm Reach, Unrelenting Storms and Lightning Overload (assuming you would be dumping Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and Elemental Shields).

Since even elemental shaman will want to shock due to lava burst that means Storm Reach could be dropped easily enough. Placing 2 points in Unrelenting Storms and 5 in Lightning Overload would seem to make the most sense.

44/27 would seem to make the most sense in that context, giving ToW, 3/3 Lava Flows and 2/3 Mental Quickness so that would mean the comparison would end up being between 20% of Int as Damage versus double flame shock dots + Nature's Guidance and Tidal Mastery. Since both seem to be valid specs it will be up to the spread sheets and a glimpse at end-game stats to really determine which will be the highest PvE dps.

Alt mage - Rounce

 

Ston

I may be simply misunderstanding the line that says "Totems are being "condensed" into a smaller amount of totems, for example Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems will be merged into the same totem"

I read it as fewer types of totems up at once.

 

Ocyr

I don't want to go off-topic of the Enhancement changes, but it does tie in - yes, it will require a lot of sacrifices. Taking 27-28 points in the Enhancement tree, for Elemental, means spec'ing pure PvE. No Elemental Shields etc.

 

• Smithist

I think he was referring to the whole guardian / battle totem thing that I'm assuming you made up. Just because they're condensing a few totems into one, and I believe goa + soe is the only confirmed case of this by the way, doesn't mean we have to speculate about new non-sensical totem systems.

GoA / SoE helps eliminate twisting, and if they combine any others it will probably just be to trim the fat of a somewhat bloated totem assortment, that's all.

my paladin

 

Ston

Right. I saw smaller number of totems as fewer than the 4 we currently have, in regards to elements. The condensing of totems lead me to that, since mixing Strength of Earth and Grace of Air makes.......some unknown element. Likely earth, but no way to be sure, currently. I might be thinking just a bit too far outside the box, since it would require reworking quite a bit of the totem system. It would be easier to just modify the existing totems.

 

Urgok

So dirt being blown around? That sounds like a Dust totem to me, Mud totem's anyone?. This combination idea sounds like it will solve a design problem but it doesn't really make sense to combine total opposites.

 

Tana Umaga

Well it doesn't really need to make sense. Just forget about ol' agility totem, as though it never existed. New earth totem substitutes Strenght of Earth, and gives STR and AGI. Why does an earth totem give agi? Well why not, after all, see how the earth enchant gives +heal and the totem giving +heal is an air one. So?

OC, I am just making it up, but as I said before, it would make sense not to put all good totems in the air slot and leave the rest empty.

 

Illundai

Bumparoo, this was posted in the alpha forums;



He neglected to answer whether or not that cast will reset swingtimer or not. It will have to not reset it, or it'll be useless. I guess we'll see soon.

 

Skiace

Image is down in your post as well as on deathknight.info, what did it say?

 

Wotnot

I was kind of dreading the thought of having to find *that* axe for the left hand and *that* mace for the right hand so that Weapon Specialisation would work to it's full potential, dropping that talent could make hunting down particular weapons a little less restrictive.
As you mentioned with the swing timer, it was the first thing that came to mind when I read the new suggested replacement. On a ret paladin with a ~3.5 swing time you can slot in casts with minimal impact to swings, but with dual wielding faster weapons it's a different story and probably impossible to get right for most people without the use of swing timer mods.
In general though, moving enhancement closer to a caster/melee hybrid with the idea of slinging lightning bolts and lava around from melee sounds fun, but it also sounds dangerously close to the old days of mixing spell damage stats on to our enhancement gear which worriers me.

 

Illundai

Confirmation that the weapon spec talent will make your next spell 20% faster, stacking up to 5 times. Anyway, beta notes up, here's the shaman bit:

Shaman

* All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
* Ancestral Knowledge (Enhancement): Now increases your Intellect by 2/4/6%, instead of increasing your total Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.
* Call of Flame (Elemental): Now also increases the damage of your Lava Burst spell by 2/4/6%.
* Call of Thunder (Elemental) now also increases the critical strike chance of your Thunder spell.
* Concussion (Elemental) now increases the damage of your Thunder and Lava Burst spells.
* Convection (Elemental) is now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. Now lowers the mana cost of Thunder and Lava Burst.
* Earth's Grasp (Elemental) is now a tier-1 talent, up from tier-2.
* Elemental Detestation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
* Elemental Focus (Restoration): Now also can proc off Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave, and can be used on all healing spells.
* Elemental Fury (Elemental) now requires Elemental Focus as a pre-requisite
* Elemental Precision (Elemental): Chance to hit reduced to 1/2/3% from 2/4/6%, but threat reduction increased to 10/20/30% up from 4/7/10%.
* Enhancing (Enhancement) Totems is now a Tier 1 talent, up from Tier-2.
* Flametongue Totem is now a flat spell damage totem. All ranks have been modified.
* Frostbrand's snare effect has been increased to 50%, up from 25%.
* Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 13% base.
* Grace of Air Totem has been removed. (Agility has been rolled over into Strength of Earth Totem)
* Improved Fire Totems (Elemental) is now (again) Improved Fire Nova Totem. It now has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets for 2 sec.
* Improved Lightning Shield (Enhancement) is now Elemental Shields, and is in Tier-1.
* New ranks have been added of Water Shield, starting at level 20. (Level 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62, 69)
* New Spell: Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by x and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additionaly over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes.
* New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Restoration) - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect.
* New Talent: Elemental Shields (Enhancement): Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield orbs by 5/10/15%, increases the amount of mana gained from your Mana Shield orbs by 5/10/15% and increases the amount of healing done by your Earth Shield orbs by 5/10/15%.
* New Talent: Mental Dexterity (Enhancement) - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.
* Rockbiter ranks 5 through 9 have been removed. Windfury Weapon is intended to replace Rockbiter at level 30.
* Shapeshifting will no longer cancel Water Walking.
* Shield Specialization (Enhancement) - Now a 2-point talent, and increases the chance to block with attacks by 10/20%, and increases the amount blocked by 5/10%.
* Stoneskin Totem now increases armor instead of reducing physical damage.
* Storm Reach (Elemental): Now also increases the radius of your Thunder spell by 10/20%.
* Strength of Earth Totem now also increases agility.
* Tranquil Air Totem has been removed. (Threat is being addressed by modifications to the base threat of players and/or "baked" into tanking abilities.)
* Unleashed Rage is now raid wide.
* Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
* Windwall Totem has been removed.
* Wrath of Air is now a flat 10% spell haste totem.

 

Mowen

Does anyone know if the change to windfury totem adds 20% melee haste to the existing effect of it, or does it replace the extra attack of windfury as it is now?

 

impossible!

The wording strongly suggests the effect is gone.

 

Atren

Hmm, i am rather worried.

* Windfury Totem is now a flat 20% melee haste totem. All ranks have been modified.
I guess foremost question is what *exactly* do windfury weapon and totem give and do they have combined effect. I hope they do not actually, because then shaman dps would be balanced by the combination of them and i do not really want to use totems in grinding as it is way too irritating. Also for pvp it is rather constricting.

* Ghost Wolf's mana cost is now 13% base.
Why was ghost wolf form mana cost increased to 13% base mana? There is no mentioning of changes to it so it won't remove snares and is dispellable. Not to mention windfury weapon will not proc in ghost wolf form. So why?

About the instant cast and weapon spec -- it is not that good if that instant cast resets your swing timer. Furtheron unless spirit weapons got changed we generate full threat on elemental damage. BoS is removed so something needs to be changed about spirit weapons too. Up its physical damage threat reduction or finally add elemental one too. I guess problem with latter is elemental shamans getting it on top of their own one. Yes it mentions threat changed, but unless i remember wrong all other class specs got threat reduction for all the damage they do instead just part of it.

 

ayb

Extremely disappointing that blizzard wants enhancement shamans casting spells but feels that stormstrike and shocks are an "interesting rotation" Have they not noticed that enhance shamans are wearing crap tons of leather with no intellect on it? Removing weapon specialization also removes any hope of making unique choices when it comes to gear. There will always just be 1 weapon that's best in slot and raiders will ignore the rest.

 

Gelder

Afaik the shaman only imbue aka windfury weapon isn't changed and i've seen somewhere that the totem version is supposed to be a buff, not a weaponenchant, in WotLK. So my conclusion is that they will stack as they're two different buffs both mechaniclly and type of buff.

As for the Ghostwolf. The updated talents show that imp shamanastic rage is changed to imp ghostwolf which expains and justifies* the change in mana.

 

Skiace

Have you not noticed this new talent?

Mental Dexterity - Increases your Attack Power by 33/66/100% of your Intellect.

 

Ardonomus

I guess it depends if the LB/CL/LvB will reset your swingtimer or not. If it does, it means Maelstorm Weapons is a waste of time, unless we have insane amounts of AP and Int at level 80 making the spells deal more damage than the swings would. It seems stupid.

With regards to PVE I'm highly disappointed.

 

Malan

* Windwall Totem has been removed.

Best patch note ever.

NDA was lifted today so I'm allowed to tell you all that I've been in the Alpha for the past 2 months providing Enhancement Shaman feedback.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

• Raut

There will always be just one weapon in each slot that is best. Min/max, remember? I'm thinking Axe in MH and Mace in OH given the old talents. Shame to see it left out. I liked how Blizz buffed enhance by making shocks stronger after the WF nerf. Hybrids and all that jazz.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

13:17 < Kalroth> gays on men tv? I love that channel

 

• Raut

(Sorry for the double post)

So what I'm thinking is something like this:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...13353115201051

You will need 9% hit(if it will affect both melee and spells) for this to be reliable.

FS, Mael stack, LvB, get 9% melee crit. No point in resto sub-spec with the talents as they are now bar +10 yards on totems. No twisting so no need to cheapen totems. ES/FS/SS like now, but you either spend the last FS tick or use LvB when CD is up for constant ElemDev.

Gemming hit. Hahaha.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

13:17 < Kalroth> gays on men tv? I love that channel

 

Malan

The screenshot off the Alpha forum that you guys are commenting on was actually a compilation of a series of posts in response to my feedback on Enhancement talents after the first shaman push. (That screenshot was faked though, those comments were posted over a month ago and the forums had been wiped yesterday)

Anyways I had raised the issue that the talents didn't give us any sort of new unique attack. The CM responded that the devs felt we already had a good system going and then noted that Weapon Spec was going away to give us the insta cast talent instead, which they felt would add something more unique and fun to the mix. I agreed.

I did note several times in feedback that they needed to ensure it did not reset the swing timer.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Redback

Can Malan or someone else in the beta/alpha confirm or deny raid wide totems?

It was in a lot of the leaked info, but it wasn't stated in the patch notes, whereas pally auras and UR were explicitly stated to be raid wide.