• Philondra

As Mek mentioned above, unless the new DW spec is shown to affect both spell and melee hit, it is worth less than 1% per point given that a non-trivial amount of our DPS is from spells. This is incredibly vexing, given that the rogue version is located early in the combat tree and specifically states that it also increases the chance for poisons to hit.

Anyone following this thread knew that our DPS was going to be adjusted downward. Our dual wield specialization, however, was likely budgeted properly given that it did not affect between 30-50% of our damage (depending on which sim you looked at and whose results you had confidence in) and is an odd talent to change if the goal is to decrease our DPS. If dual wield spec has, in fact, been changed to increase spell hit, then this nerf makes sense; if not, however, I hope that Blizzard can find a less perplexing way to bring our DPS in line.

 

Hothgor

I was right about the previous weapon setups, Rounced, trust me on this! Look at the post on the Shaman Beta Forums I made. Caster gear is again better than melee gear by leaps and bounds. Looks like its time to call MW a dud and ask them to try something else.

 

Inno

A more Generic, not just Shaman related item ... it seems that at 70 we'll only have 2 Major Glyph Slots open to us.

After Logging into 9014 I wanted to add a couple more Minor Glyphs as I couldn't find the ones I want prior and was surprised to see only 2 Majors. Hovering over the 3rd Said it was Locked with a Level 80 requirement.

 

Krim

Doing tests on the PTR my DPS is dropping from 2k~ to around 1400-1500. That's a huge drop; Maelstrom Weapon just doesn't work anymore... the RNG behind is flabergasting beyond belief, with a 1.8 speed MH and 1.3 speed OH I was only able to cast 2 more Lightning Bolts than when I used a 2.6 MH and 2.6 OH. This is at level 70 by the way.

My normal rotation now is Stormstrike > FS > LL > ES > repeat, I'll use a lightning bolt once every 2 repeats of this rotation perhaps? Not nearly as many Lightning Bolts as before... But here's the kicker; I still go OOM extremely fast. From what I think Maelstrom Weapon is now not really that good until level 80 where you recieve Lava Burst and Elemental Fury... At level 70 Imp Shields/Static Shock may do more damage.

 

Tornhoof

I understand the Maelstrom fix tbh, it was too good previously. at least they increased the stack time to 30s
What I don't understand is the hit reduction, they basically took 6% hit on our way to 3.0, I understand the resto part, but not dual wield spec.

Anyway I'm actually not sure about the use of maelstrom now at all, basically a 3% probability to get an instant lb/cl whatever now. We should see one instant cast every ~45s now (including misses and stuff). Someone said that a 7k lava burst crit is quite possible on lvl 80 and let's say a 3k crit lb on lvl 70, we're talking about 100-200 dps by maelstrom.

http://code.google.com/p/wowequipoptimizer/

 

Neithan

Duration of MW was buffed to 30 seconds but when questing in beta, I rarelly get more than 2 stacks. They usually fade till moving to next pack of mobs.
Not very happy about this.

 

Urgok

Your beta post is pretty funny, the situation looks to be exactly the same as it was before.
WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Enhancement in Caster Gear still the best...

 

Krim

Blizzard haven't really succeeded at all. As Hothgor says using a caster MH and a melee OH both enchanted with FT and just casting mindlessly to keep Elemental Devastation up is a much more viable means of achieving competitive dps compared to using a melee MH/OH and waiting for 5 MW stacks.

Really, 15% for a tier 10 talent giving only a 6% chance (30 [15% from 2 weapons] / 5 [number of stacks required]) to gain an instant cast spell is rather lackluster, it really has dissapointed me Blizzard couldn't take a different approach. Also, with decreasing haste on Flurry and reducing DW Spec's effectiveness (3% lost +hit%) I can't understand how they wish to achieve their goal of making us a melee hybrid; when they nerf the melee skills.

Also another problem.. and it's rather big, to be fair. We are now totaly based upon RNG to deal effective and competitive dps. Crits > Flurry, Flurry > MW Procs, MW Procs > Spell casts, Spell crits > Ele. Devastation, Ele. Devastation > Crits.

It looks like they want us to be using a slow MH (>=2.6) and a relatively fast OH (<=1.5) with WF/FT, but with these changes I cannot see that dealing good dps. Turmoil, perhaps?

 

fauxpas

Please do not ask them to reinstate Weapon Specialization. It was a great talent damagewise. But that was it. It was all numbers. Maelstrom Weapon at least makes for a different playing style.

 

Quaglia

Well,
while we know that enhancement spec was doing quite an amount of damage in raid environment, it seemed that in PvP environment the situation was not so shiny, even in the last weeks.
While I understand that some testers are more focused on the PvE aspect, I still feel quite puzzled with these new changes, even more looking at the efforts done by the devs for other classes/specs.

 

Pane

I'm quite dismayed by these kind of sledgehammer adjustments this late in the race (*). I know the devs been taken off-guard by the supreme damage that the spellpower-geared hybrid-thingy did, but now I get the feeling that getting us OFF the spellpower gear is the only important thing. I would have hoped that by now, we'd be getting polish passes and this doesn't feel like one; this feels like a massive 'oh snap!' move. Which hasn't apparently even brought the desired result.

Making talent points lackluster won't help switch us back to AP gear. It just makes you feel uninspired when you spec.



(*in so far as I can truly get dismayed by a computer game)

 

Wundorn

(My first reply got eaten by the bug that forgets you're logged in :-( )

They had two goals, reduce overall damage and make melee a larger part of our total dmg. As usual it looks like they had two separate teams that didn't talk to each other.

The right solution is easy: Reduce the AP->SP conversion that MQ provides from 10/20/30% to whatever works. You can't reduce it too far or the talent will be worthless so for the rest of the way, reduce the spelldmg coefficient on FT, and possibly on LL or shocks. If this still doesn't get them all the way there, reduce the SS buff from 20% to something less. Revert the stupid changes just made, which massively screw with playability and flexibility (ie, fun) to no useful effect.

They could also use this as an opportunity to fix the problem with UR being massively inferior to the DK version: They could make it a 3-point talent, and make MQ a 5-point talent.

I don't like reducing MQ since it makes our healing less useful for solo and backup/emergency situations, but this does seem fair (and it'll still be better than the mess it's devolved into with MW's decreased usefulness).

 

Wundorn

While our current problems are large, there are two other things I'd like to see fixed that either haven't been raised or that got lost in the shuffle. It would be great if someone could post about these on the beta forums.

1) Ghost wolf should work indoors. Druids got theirs, why can't we get ours? Not that there was ever a good reason for the indoor restriction anyway. (Hunters could always use their aspect indoors.) It's just a massive annoyance.

2) Hex only at lvl80??? It's ridiculous. The one thing I *don't* feel I need when raiding is CC- we've got plenty of that already. (Yeah, I know PvP is different.) On the other hand, leveling to 80, especially if you're starting a new toon, totally sucks without CC since nobody wants you for instances unless you're guilded with a bunch of friends. (And yes, all of us are probably OK here, but we are a minority.) What the hell is the downside of giving shams hex at 20?

Both of these are major playability issues, easily fixed, that would not change our power relative to other classes significantly, especially in the end game.

 

Ranghar

No, travel form doesn't work indoors.

 

Krim

I believe that Blizzard can solve this problem with the following, others may disagree but that's the debate we must face I guess.

Change UR to a 3 point talent:
"Causes your critical hits with Melee attacks to increase all party's or raid's melee and ranged attack power by 4/7/10% without 20/30/40 yards."

Change Stormstrike:
"Instantly attack with both weapons. In addition, the next 2 sources of Nature, Fire or Frost damage dealt to the target are increased by 6%. Lasts 12 sec."

Change Improved Stormstrike:
"Increases the amount of charges by 1/2, decreses the cooldown by 1/2 seconds and increases the damage taken by 2/4%."

Change Maelstrom Weapon:
"Causes your critical strikes to displace you, giving a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Healing Wave spell by 20% but reducing the coefficient of these spells by 35/30/25/20/15%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec."

Swap Elemental Fury and Lightning Mastery. Change Lightning Mastery:
"Reduces the cast time of your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Burst spells by .2/.4/.6/8./1 second and increasing the damage bonus gain from spell effects by 1/2/3/4/5%."

These changes would do well, I think, but of course - I may be wrong. What do you guys think?

 

Groombah

While reducing the conversion of AP to SP would reduce the magical damage component, wouldn't it only mean that the relative gains from AP as a stat would diminish and hence do not much good for creating more rational reason to choose melee gear? My basic instinct would be that if anything, they should increase the conversion rate and more importantly, as you say, reduce spell damage component to create rational reason for choosing melee stuff. I also wonder why don't they simply make our dual wield spec talent uniform with warrior/rogue one. That would enhance melee damage component in a simple yet efficient way.

 

Kletha

I would suppose he means the feral swiftness talent. On live it only works outside but I read somewhere that it would work inside aswell.

 

Afabar

I don't think that reducing the AP to SP conversion is the way to go.
That just would make caster gear even more valuable.

Reducing the spell coef on flame tongue ? We would use WF instead.
Reducing coef on shock ? You nerf elemental shaman. They don't deserve it.


I know it's not the place to make suggestion, but to fix the MW I would have change to something that allows to launch spell instant but would do half of the damage at cost free.
It could fix the mana problem and reduce the spell damage output of enh shaman.

 

• Raut

Stop posting about how other classes get better talent counterparts. It has been stated that you cannot compare talents one on one and expect them to be equal. Classes and specs are fundamentally different and most classes/specs have some of these types of talents.

Personally I was hoping for a slight FT nerf to bring the coefficient in line with weapon speed. Pretty much anything to get rid of the reverse OH situation where we now have to hunt for the lowest possible speed regardless of stats. This fast OH thing is a classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don't IMO. SS and LL suffer from a fast OH, but Mael and FT is buffed. Reverse with a slow OH. A FT nerf could perhaps bring the OH speed issue to a minor one(at least less than it is now). Saying that the sim showing ~3-400 DPS difference is minor will not fly here as we're all hunting for the perfect spec, gear setup and rotation.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

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

 

Jheherrin

From most of the sim results I have seen here, it is LvB that is heading the damage list and skewing the numbers towards spell damage gear.

Would it not be a worthwhile suggestion to make the guaranteed crit from LvB rely on a talent deep enough in the Elemental tree to make it mutually exclusive to MW.

We would lose a pretty big chunk of dps from LvB, but it would mean that most of the other mechanics could be left in place and possibly even buffed to make up for it.

We would still be looking to cast LvB on MW stacks, but would only be getting crits (and the resulting Elemental Devastation proc) on say 20%-30% of them rather than on close to 100% of them.
It would also make LB a more competitive option for an instant cast.

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree totally with this?

 

Karok(EU)

Some preliminary numbers from the latest patch: (LEVEL 70!)

MW takes roughly double the time to stack now, between 8 and 16 seconds for 5 stacks.
Went from 2.2k solo dps to 1.6k with a ret pally in group (no blessings, just aura + replenishment)
Said ret pally (mostly in pvp gear) pulled off 2.5k dps which I guess was part due to totems/UR. A second test had said ret pally at 2k dps solo (without totems/UR)

Generally the changes feel somewhat counter-productive, they remove 5% haste, while making MW more haste relient then before. Imp SS will be up for discussion aswell as our charge-usage will go down a lot, basically its smallish dps upgrade is now its main thing for the talent.

The loss of another 3% hit means capping for spells is that much harder. We should (in theory) still be fine to cap SS/WF. Capping white damage was never one of our concerns, however the MW change might change that in some way. I lack the numbers to properly support that claim though.

Ghostwolves now auto-cast the healy thingy they had as soon as they are used. The skill itself got removed from the action bar which leaves the taunt, bash and spirit walk.

Bash is autocast on summon, taunt and spirit walk arent.

On the bright note, Alteast I dont go out of mana just as fast as before. I only had a ~10s wait for SR in my test and replenishment kicked that back to a point where using LS might be an actual option at 70 :P

 

Pane

Actually I'd say these are both minor issues, if issues at all. Not being able to ghostwolf indoors to me is not all that different from not being able to ride mounts indoors. It's just the way it is, and I can't get worked up about it. Druids can cat and bear indoors, but forms are an essential part of their game play. Wolf is just travelform and druids don't have that indoors either.

Hex at 80? 90% of gameplay takes place at max level for most people. I doubt sincerely i'll need hex for leveling, but I know (well hope) I'll come to adore it for PVP. But I do think it's a little too close to the mage iconic ability, and should be replaced by a 'totem of hex' instead, which turns all enemy players in its range into random critters ;-)

 

Skiace

I think this is quite an elegant fix for Maelstrom Weapon. It keeps the mechanic and new play-style that people have come to enjoy, but nurfs the scaling to keep the damage inline. Obviously the % reduction could be tweaked to balance appropriately.

 

ZeroWashu

Actually it is a PvP nerf. Before this I could almost always maintain a stack because of 30+ crit for the instant heal. With a heal on focus using alt key I could pretty much pop him if he needed it without breaking from my target. It also provided me a measure of security should he lose LOS or get CC'd. Basically it allowed me to erase one non-crit attack I received. In BGs it was more useful for self heal as its easy to gain focus of multiple players and slip through the cracks of the healers who are in trouble themselves. If anything it was annoying for the other side similar to what they faced with my druid (though not as hard as killing my resto druid).

 

Orlgin

This is quite a nerf. Assuming a 1.4/1.4 FT setup to maximize the new effect, with Naxx 4 piece bonus, you can achieve with a touch of haste rating: 2.3 attacks per second. That's a lot. However, it's not enough. This is assuming you geared to spell hit cap and expertise capped yourself.

2.3 * 0.15 = 0.345 procs per second. Since we need 5, 5/0.345 = 14.49 secs to achieve a 5 stack on average.

Using Flame Shock/ Lava Burst is tricky here. It doesn't get the stormstrike debuff for Lava Burst. It necessitates using Flame Shock which does less DPS than Earth Shock. So the opportunity cost is quite high. You nail a 3.5k Lava Burst and you go over the numbers. That is 241.546 DPS which is 48.31 DPS per talent point in Maelstrom.

48.31. Static Shock gets better DPS numbers. This is with an ideal setup.

If you use slow WF/slow FT, you are better off not speccing Maelstrom Weapons at all.

I agree, this pushes Enhance toward the Lightning Knives model in a hurry. Going slow costs you both Maelstrom Weapons and Static Shock. What do you replace those with in the Elemental tree? Reverberation isn't going to get you the DPS you need. Other points in Elemental won't add much DPS. Going Feral Spirit means wasting a huge number of talent points with slow.

As it stands with these nerfs, it is my opinion that slow is dead. I hazard a guess that two melee 1.4 speed weapons will be the only way to go. Which is a great disappointment when you look at how many of those are available.

This is, of course, my opinion. Waiting for the sim to update so I can check it.