tufy

True, but given mp5's item value, that's a huge tax to pay, tbh.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Phlis

Looking at current items, I think the T6 boots are probably the best example of what we're going to see:

[Skyshatter Treads]
[Skyshatter Boots]

Elemental Boots: 23 Crit, 30 Haste, 50 Damage, 7mp5
Restoration Boots: 16 Crit, 24 Haste, 95 Healing/dam, 12mp5

So somewhere in between there, probably:

Ele/Resto Boots: 20 Crit, 27 Haste, 50 Spell Power, 10mp5

So a little worse for us, a little worse for resto, but overall still a very good piece of gear.

 

tufy

In my opinion, the main question is what happens to hit. With Boomkin in raid, we'll be 3 to 6% short as elemental. I recon if Blizzard doesn't add hit on gear, we'll see A LOT of elemental shamans gemming for it, resulting in split of gear again.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Ocyr

My understanding is that spell healing is just being done away with, and spell damage is basically being renamed spell power. Healing spells are having their coefficients increased to compensate. Shaman healing is now able to benefit from the 11 point Elemental Focus talent, which will effectively offset a substantial amount of the new mana costs. But that belongs in the Restoration WotLK thread (and they have extensively discussed it).

Until we start seeing some level 80 gear no one can say for sure, but given the 12k mana regen water, it appears Intellect might get the same sort of treatment stamina did in tBC. So yes spells will cost a lot more, but probably mana pools will be a lot deeper.

Either way though, that first step up is too big even for T6 to cover, making Elemental not a very viable levelling spec from the looks of things (it typically has never been except in high-end gear, but those new spell costs make even T6 come up a lot short). So start getting your T6/Badge Enhancement set together imo, because spamming 685 mana Lightning Bolts = horrible way to level even in T6.

 

Ocyr

Question here is, what is the reason to go 3 into Lava Flow instead of 3 into Mental Quickness?

It seems to be a purely gear dependent question. If you have 1400 ap, the extra point into MQ gives 140 spell power. To gain the exact same benefit from putting the extra point into Lava Flow one would need 2800 spell power on their gear.

Making the cookie-cutter build 43/28/0, with 1 point for Totem of Wrath and 2 points in Lava Flow -- at least until the spell power to ap ratio is more favorable to Lava Flows.

I will acknowledge that the higher AP numbers bandied about in the last two pages are all assuming full raid buffs -- in non-raid situations / arena / pvp 3 in Lava Flow might make more sense.

 

tufy

Ocyr:

I believe 99.9% people writing here are aware of this In fact, if you'll read Phils' wording carefully, you'll notice he's fully aware of that.

Not really. Don't forget that MQ boosts Lava Flow too. At 1400 AP and 2000 +dmg, the difference in one point is merely 40 spell damage, not counting the benefit to Lava Burst and Flame Shock (which by itself cover those 40 spell damage). The tricky part is that we seem to will have considerably more than 1400 AP. Fully buffed up, you'll have around 1000 intellect, 150 base strength, 110 strength from strength of earth (total 286 strength with kings), 350 AP from Battle Shout, 300 AP from Blessing of Might. That yields 2322 AP grand total, which is well above anything even remotely compared to in our calculations.

If we assume we have 2000 spell power base, this will come up to a grand total of either:

(2000 + (3 x 232)) x 1.1 = 2965

or

(2000 + (2 x 232)) x 1.15 = 2833

spellpower. Not bad, is it?

In other words, this is a lost cause until we get specific numbers. However, it is something that Blizzard might want to look at in terms of scaling - top elemental simply doesn't offer enough to counter this build, or so it seems.

So let's leave this topic and focus on other things. We'll return to build specifics once Beta hits and we'll know the numbers precisely. The greatest issues I see right now:

1. spell hit on gear. Since we're unlikely to get any and since Elemental Oath is proc-based, we'll likely see hit being gemmed onto the gear. How will Blizzard address this issue, since gemmed hit means this gear will no longer be equally useable by restoration and elemental? Futhermore, what purpose does Elemental Oath have? Consider revising, perhaps.

2. mana regeneration issues. Since Shamans don't use spirit, this will have to be addressed. mp5 is an expensive stat, meaning we're likely to see lower stats compared to other classes. Mana Tide as trainable perhaps, with Cleanse Spirit replacing it at 31pt resto completely? (p.s.: I have a hunch this is actually Blizzard's intent, but we'll see more later)

3. Range. Since Flame Shock is 20 yard range and Lava Burst range is not increased, Storm Reach effectively becomes a useless talent. Include Flame Shock and Lava Burst in this talent?

4. Top Elemental talents. Except for situational use of Thunder, the talents are pvp focused and don't give anything really viable in pve. The dot damage on Storm, Earth and Fire is easily compensated for by Mental Quickness in enhancement.

5. Talent conflicts. Both Eye of the Storm and Astral Shift are based on enemy's ability to crit. Elemental Shields directly reduce this ability (unlike resilience, which reverses it). This makes Elemental Shields an undesireable talent, unless the talent is modified to work like resilience does.

6. Elemental Shaman seems to have no reason anymore to go into Restoration. Perhaps Tidal Mastery should be extended to all shaman attack spells?

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

sjogren

I keep reading that mp5 is an expensive stat. Would anyone mind explaining that? Going by the numbers and formula on Spirit - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft you'd need 800+ int for 2.5 spi to give as much while-casting regen as 1mp5 given a 30% meditation talent.

 

Lucitron

I agree with your list, but I'm a bit sceptical regarding the 6th bullet. If the top talents in the Elemental Tree are changed to the degree that they offer a better deal than the Mental Quickness build, then automatically there is no big incentative to spec Enhancement ahead of Restoration. Nature's Guidance is still a good talent, especially now with 3% less spell hit from Elemental Precision.

Finally, I would personally add a quite subjective 7th bullet to the list, namely another or several talented raid/group buffs outside of Totem of Wrath.

 

Graze

It doesn't. You can still trigger EoTS even if you didn't get critted. Basicly it uss a 2 roll system; First "Did it critt?" Then "Did it actually critt, I mean he's got tons of resi!", only the first has to come out true for any "on critt" ability to trigger.
I can assure you Elemental Shields works like Resilience in this regard.

It's all about item stat points, every stat costs a set amount of these points. See bellow.

From: Formulas:Item values - WoWWiki
From this you can see, that 1 mp5 is almost three times the cost of one critt rating. (for example)

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

sjogren

Well, yes, I know about item stat points, though I thought 1 mp5 cost 2.5 (hence my remark about 2.5 spi), using 1mp5 costing 8/3 spi, you'd need
1 / (5 * 0.009327 * 8/3 * 0.3) ^ 2 = 718+ int for 8/3 spi to be more regen than 1mp5.

 

Mirranda

The second quote answers the first one, but there's actually information that it lacks.

Elemental Shields is factored in before Resilience has it's limitations. Currently I believe there's a 'soft-cap' on resilience where, even though you can obtain more, it doesn't do you any benefit. If I remember right, that number is 496, which is 25% critical damage reduction, and 12.5% reduced number of critical hits. Since Elemental Shields is factored in before resilience (or separate?), it actually allows you to bypass this cap and have a 17.5% reduced chance to be critically hit. I've actually spent quite a few hours testing this (though I don't have data to post proving this due to RL situations leaving me without my original computer). Basically went through 2 daggers for a Rogue without the talent in full pvp gear, then doing it again with the talent, and it did indeed reduce the number of crits.

The damage reduction from Resilience though is still capped at 25%, no matter what you do (though I don't think there's any talents that directly effect that to begin with).

Sorry, this isn't really related to the subject at hand, but I felt the need to clarify for some reason.

Pretend I typed something witty.

 

tufy

Key note: resilience. This is how resilience works, but unfortunately, it doesn't apply to Elemental Shields, or at least it didn't last time I checked two months ago and as much as I'm aware, last patch didn't fix it either.

Or if I use your analogy, Graze, this is what resilience does:

Did it crit? "Yes." Cool, proccing EotS. Did it REALLY crit (resilience)? "Nope."

Here's what elemental shields do:

Did it crit (elemental shields)? "Yes, I mean, no." Oh, snap.



This isn't what I was referring to. What I was referring to is that if you have 0 resilience and Elemental Shields reduces the crit to a normal hit, EotS won't proc, whereas, if you had resilience and no Elemental Shields, the resilience would reduce the crit to normal hit, but EotS would proc.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Vair

As I understand it resilience doesn't cause a second check on those talents it just gives a flat chance to proc them equal to the crit reduction %. That's why you can get procs off NPC spells which have no crit chance.

 

tufy

Whatever the case, the end result is the same

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Graze

I have experienced it. With Elemental Shields, 0 Resilience and a normal bird from skettis, EoTS proccing from what looked like a normal hit.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Jonny_Monroe

If you don't mind standing a bit closer to the melee group, you can get unleashed rage on top of that. If you're factoring in battle shout then you're in UR range anyway. Pretty sure in your example that puts you over 3k spell power

OMNOMNOM.

 

Daidalos

It has been my understanding that the chance to proc on crit mechanics were not reduced by talents or gear. So I am fairly sure graze is correct. However, if you have something indicating otherwise can you post your data so we can see it? Otherwise arguing about how everyone thinks the game works is kinda pointless.

Restoration Shaman calculations:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWv3sPmcYnEJUg

 

tufy

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Eye of the Storm, Elemental Shields and PVE

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> [Bug] Elemental Shields / Eye of the Storm

[Warlock/Shaman] Share some stories about this arena combo

(post no. 10)

WoW Forums -> <Bug> Eye of the Storm (Shaman)

Shaman Builds and Talents

And so on. Note that all posts I've selected come from after the resilience fix patch. There's been a whole lot of tests and blue responses on top of that, just google it, tbh.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

Ocyr

I have a feeling all three are intentional. The entire top of the Elemental tree appears to be directly intended to benefit PvP, PvE be damned.

Lava Burst as well appears to be directly intended to benefit PvP. What has always been a point of contention for Shaman (besides spell push-back, which WotLK ignores)? Single-school magic, and namely Shaman vulnerability to all silences / counterspells as it locks them out of both their primary offense and defense abilities. So now we get physical totems, a new fire spell on a long CD, and improvements to our fire totems and shocks. Basically, all the improvements went to PvP, in the Elemental tree.

And yes, interestingly, there seems to be zero overwhelming reasons for any Elemental Shaman to take Restoration points, at all, unless they are building a Hybrid healer (30/0/41 or whatnot). For PvE and PvP I think Blizzard is giving us a roadmap away from restoration, for better or for worse.

 

Miaxi

I just wanted to say that I am totally disappointed that our spell pushback problem does not get addressed at all.

 

Phlis

Well, keep in mind guys, shaman are the most likely to get a substantial rework of talents during beta, just because of Totems going raid wide, a lot of talents are going to need to be changed. I also really doubt the mental quickness/mental dexterity combo is going to still be available

 

Darian_TruBlade

It's a tough issue to be sure.

The argument for removing the combination is obvious. A 400-900 spell damage baseline is a hideous advantage over other casters.

The argument for keeping the combination is a little trickier. The first thing to realize is that this advantage only reaches the truly obscene values when properly buffed. In solo/5-man and even 10-man situations that isn't always the case. You won't always have Warriors for BS, Paladins for BoM, Marksman Hunters etc. So in those smaller-scale situations, the Shaman scales down considerably. In 25-mans is where the ability reaches its maximum potential, right as other classes do as well.

My biggest concern is what Shaman scaling will look like if this ability is kept, or if it isn't.

 

Tana Umaga

Well, that is actually something to use if they want shamans to be "team players". Maximum potential reached when surrounded by allies, gaining full spellpower advantage and being of maximum raid usefulness, with totems raid-wide giving nearly all casters spellpower, manareg, hit&crit, and Bloodlust to party. Then this would explain why top-tier talents from elemental tree are more pvp oriented, so as to give pvpers a chioce of performing a bit better than now without enhancing too much the potential of a pve shaman (which would better rely on enhancement tree as stated). Wether or not this is Blizz's idea we will begin to glimpse when beta talent trees are out.

 

Graze

No the pvp talents are there because Blizzard is only concerned about their eSport business (more money).

And if it was their intentions for us to specc like this/that we'd see alot better talent setups than 2/3 out of this/that talent. I think they're still intending us to specc 20 down into Restoration.
To clarify, Dra's specc and it's advantages was not seen and is not intended by Blizzard. I am certain it's a mistake from their side.

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Ocyr

I think that's only true in a vacuum. Other casters have significant scaling advantages, and I don't think that a semi-static spell power buff will overpower them. True, at freshly-minted-level-70-in-green's Elemental Shaman might have an advantage, but other class' scaling will compensate very shortly thereafter.

Let's compare a Mage(Fire) / Warlock(Destruction) / Druid(Balance) and a Elemental Shaman without the benefits of MD+MQ:

Fire Mage scaling:
1. Ignite (+40% points to critical damage)
2. Improved Scorch (+15% damage)
3. Playing with Fire (+3% damage)
4. Critical Mass (+6% critical chance)
5. Firepower (+10% damage)
6. Pyromaniac (+3% critical chance)
7. Molten Fury (+4% damage, basically)
8. Hot Streak (+4% crit chance, basically)
9. Burnout (+25% points critical to damage)
10. Curse of Elements/Shadow (+10% Fire damage)

vs

Destruction Warlock scaling:
1. Improved Shadow Bolt (+15% damage)
2. Devastation (+5% critical chance)
3. Ruin (+50% points to critical damage)
4. Backlash (+3% critical chance)
5. Shadow and Flame (+400 spell power)
6. Kindling Soul (+25 spell power)
7. Demonic Sacrifice (+15% shadow Damage)
8. Curse of Elements/Shadows (+10% Shadow damage)
9. Shadow Weaving (+15% Shadow Damage

vs

Balance Druid scaling
1. Focused Starlight (+4% critical chance)
2. Vengeance (+50% points to critical damage)
3. Lunar Guidance (+72 spell power)
4. Moonfury (+10% damage)
5. Wrath of Cenarius (+431 spell damage)
6. Nature's Fury (+6% damage)
7. Master Shapeshifter (+83 spell damage)
8. Curse of Elementals/Shadows (+10% damage)
9. Moonkin Aura (+5% crit chance)
10. Improved Moonkin Aura (20% spell haste bonus on crit)

vs

Elemental Shaman scaling without MD+MQ
1. Concussion (+5% damage)
2. Call of Thunder (+5% critical chance)
3. Elemental Fury (+50% points to critical damage)
4. Lightning Overload (+10% damage)
5. Lava Flow (+300 spell power)
6. Totem of Wrath (3% crit chance, 3% hit chance)

MD+MQ benefits: somewhere in the +300 to +450 spell power range, depending on raid buffs and overall gearing. (keep in mind that this benefit can not be taken in full conjunction with Lava Flow talent, there aren't enough talent points to have them both 3/3 & 3/3).


Elemental Shaman will come up way short of other casters without the MD+MQ benefit. So it isn't a matter of how over-powered is that combination, it's a basic matter of Shaman being viable or not, depending on whether they get it or not. If beta sees MD+MQ nerfed/removed from the range of Elemental talent reach, and the top of the Elemental tree remains devoid of PvE talents, Elemental Shaman will not scale viably. If things remain as they are, Elemental Shaman will be fairly powerful early on, and taper off in power relative to other classes as better gearing becomes available (T8/T9).


[note: I did leave out of the listing shared benefits that affect all classes equally, e.g. Misery, ToW, Moonkin Aura et cetera, for the sake of briefness]


edit response to #301: I don't think I am alluding that Elemental Shaman won't scale as well as other classes -- I think it is apparent that in WotLK Elemental Shaman flat out won't scale anywhere near as well as any other caster, including Balance Druid -- what I am pretty much flat out saying is that without MD+MQ Elemental Shaman will be dead in the water as the talent trees currently stand. Which is pretty much in opposition to the NS that was stating MD+MQ would make Elemental Shaman too powerful and give them too much advantage. If anything, it will really be just a band-aid that will start to wear off by T8, and get ripped completely off (hairs and all) by T9.