This would actually make Elemental Shaman ideal for a tanking group with a Prot Paladin, as they would get the benefit from all the Shaman's totems.

This might, however, exclude the Shaman from Boomkin and Shadow Priest buffs (unless they were thrown into the "tanking" group as well).

I came in here to say this. I'm glad to see that someone else already has.

Can't count on it working like that, firecane, If it's only your own Flame Shock, then we'll have to work that into our rotations.

I understand, but they made the change with Faerie Fire to effect spells, why not the reverse for ToW? Perhaps you could also use both Enh/Elem spec in a melee dps group depending on the benefit gained vs. personal damage loss. An extra shaman could fill in the void left by twisting being removed and I'm certain no one in the group would complain about the extra 'Lust/Heroism.

More to the point I guess is, that just because your current role as Elem spec is caster group buffer, doesn't mean it needs to remain the same in WotLK.

Wikidot now says that shamans have a new spell. It is in the section that usually has confirmed abilities but we can't say for sure that it is not just a mob ability.

Here it is; Hex - Transforms the enemy into a random critter, reducing the target's movement speed by 75%. While moving, the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells. Only one target can be hexed at a time. Only works on Humanoids and Beasts.

Sorta seems like polymorph without a heal... looks like shaman are gonna be very desired in pve + imagine this in pvp.

Heres the link WotLK Information Wiki: Shaman Abilities

The only thing I see benefiting us from Elemental Oath is since they're combining gear for healers as well as DPS, perhaps shaman gear won't have any hit on it? Leaving a 3/4% (depending on race) gap to fill with gems or some other form of item (necks/rings/trinkets maybe?) If that's the case though, it still seems very flawed and gives us a massive need to stack spell crit again.

Everything else that I feel towards this talent tree build has already been said at least once.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that it looks like we only get 3% hit from Elemental Precision (rather than 6%) to go along with the 30% threat reduction (rather than 10%). So the gap that is left could be 6/7% instead of 3/4% as stated above.

A note on Lava Burst incase people missed it, or it hasn't been stated already. 2.0 second cast, 8 second cooldown, 30 yard range.

It doesn't say it breaks on damage, so that may be the reason for the cooldown.

The target can still move, albeit at greatly reduced speed, and can't attack or cast spells, but seems to be attackable. Well, most CC in game breaks after 15 seconds in pvp - does this mean the target can be nuked for 15 sec if it isn't dispelled? Sounds a bit sick, tbh.

It basicly a Hammer of Justice with cast time then, however I'm most certain it will break on taking damage, the cooldown is some sort of "compromise" for the fact that Blizzard doesn't really want to give us any CC. I think.

Back to the new Elemental Talents, they're only PvP so I'm just gonna throw something out there, something is wacking away at you, you pop Thunder and during the time they're flying away (probably 20 yards) you have global cooldown. Since you're still slowed whilst your enemy is not, you only have time to drop a Fire Nova before he's right back on you., The Nova goes off, stunning him for 2 seconds, you get away perhaps 5 yards? Frost Shock is still only 50% slow whilst you have a 50%+ snare on you, so unless the 25% chance root proccs, he'll be back on you within 2 seconds, giving you about... 5 more seconds of living in a 1v1 situation, all for only 10 more talents, great!

I don't think it will be that bad. Frost shock, EM, Thunder, LB, Fire Nova, CL, Hex, LB, Flame shock, Lava burst, is going to be some crazy damage within a short period of time.
I think thunder and fire nova will do very well together, using each one should at least get you get a 2 second cast off.

I know this probably isn't the place for PvP discussion. I'm also aware that theorycrafting about PvP encounters is somewhat useless. However, looking at the new elemental and enhancement trees, would it not be worth a try to go something like 51/20/0? The biggest drawback with elemental shamans in PvP at 70 is that we are very easily locked down as soon as we start casting. The new Ghost Wolf and Toughness were nice additions for small bracket encounters, but elemental shamans were basically locked out of these talents.

In WotLK, if elemental is actually getting some nice small bracket abilities and talents, I'm wondering if 51/20/0 would actually be somewhat effective. It would give you the best mobility (Without Imp SR obviously), while sacrificing the 5% critical strike and the 30 yard totems.

Let's face it. Warriors aren't that hard to get away from with Improved Ghost Wolf. It's basically Rogue's that we'd be concerned about. Is anyone else thinking that elemental could be quite dangerous in 2v2 with the right partner?

Sorry for getting off topic.

Yeah, Gravytrader. The main reason elemental shamans don't spec into enhancement is the fact that we get 5% crit to lightning spells and an instant heal from it, which massively overweights 41pt totem in elemental tree. However, with Thunder, it's reasonable to assume that most elemental shamans will go 51pt into elemental for pvp. This would leave 5% crit and 10 yards on totems against instant ghost wolf, 50% shorter snares, better Lightning and Water Shield and fairly good AP boost from Mental Dexterity. Combined with +dmg change, we get a caster with good maneuverability, control and fairly good healing, as well as pewpew burst. Could be fun.

I don't think this was pointed out before but EM is now on a 10 sec CD according to some to the trees. Not only does it add great burst potential it also make Elemental oath much more viable.

10 sec CD? Not happening, you can't have every 2 out of 3 spells guaranteed critt in PvP (*cough* Icelance), that's just too sick, and in PvE that would give you a great crittboots and mana efficiency boost, but unless removed from the gcd a pretty hefty loss to you active casting time.

I've heard some talk about Blizzard trying to make Elemental a PvP only tree, from the looks of it, the future (my pve one) doesn't look too bright. E-sport shit...

EM could be a passive buff for the heck of it, and still it wouldn't fix us.

I wonder if not the 10sec cooldown on Elemental Mastery is just a shared cooldown that EM has with other possibly powerful talents (such as Nature's Swiftness).

What comes of Spirit hasn't been told yet, I suspect shamans might get a passive (ie. lvl 7X trainable) skill that allows 30% of mana regen to continue while casting (based on the absurd mana cost changes we get and the changes to all the other classes) - though nothing is said yet, or that attach that to the next rank of Water Shield - we just can't be left behind on this.

I also belive that haste is an end-game stat and we won't be seeing that much of it untill that comes, however to answer your question I'd suspect a 15k Mana pool and 15-20% haste.


I don't get it, why not just make EM "grey out" NS and the other way around, no real "shared cooldown" but just make them "non stackable", I think there's some skill that works that way already. It would only limit burst a certain amount.

To clarify what I meant, is that Elemental Mastery will still have a 3 min cooldown. However, upon activation, it will "grey out" Nature's Swiftness (perhaps it will grey out other spells and talents) for 10 seconds. Likewise, if you use Nature's Swiftness it will disable Elemental Mastery for 10 seconds. This is what I meant with a shared cooldown.

This change was something that Blizzard toyed around with a bit before on the test realm, so it is not that surprising if it is re-introduced in WotLK.

I understood that, I just don't understand Blizzard, putting a 10 second cooldown on one after activating the other? Overkill in my eyes, I know about the previous plans of this - they revoked it due to all the complaints.
Just greying out the other (0 seconds cooldown after actually using it) would fit much more in my eyes.

Well, a no-cooldown greying out would still allow EM-CL followed by NS-LB followed by ES (or whatever the appropriate burst gib sequence is). I assume the shared cooldown is in place to limit burst in PvP.

Which was ruled unnecessary due to the fact that it took all controlled burst away from a shaman if they had anyone even looking at them. I'm not sure how many people pvp here as a shaman, I'm guess it's closer to a major minority rather than a majority, but being in a 2200 5s for the first two seasons and being 2100+ at the beginning of s3 (no teams now, *sadface*) I found it next to impossible to cause any real burst damage as soon as a pet/rogue/warrior/enh shaman/CoTongues, etc. was placed on me. Without the NS+EM+CL -> Shock I really wouldn't have been much for my team other than a damage sponge, and there's a lot better specs/classes to do that.

I must say that elemental oath very powerfull talent if you just look it from right perspective.
Spell power change add up resto and elem gear. So no spell hit from mail gear. But resto new crit talents make sure that there will be lots of crits.
So basic example 50% effective crit(lots?). So elem focus uptime is (1-0.5)^2 = 0.75 and you get 9% hit from talents so (1-0.17+0.09) change to miss. 8% change to miss and 25% change to be out of elem focus. (1-0.08*0.25) so 98% change to hit with no hit from gear. So how bad it is?

Edit: Formula for spell hit% in Wotlk. 1 - [(1 - crit%)^2] * miss%
So we got hit scaling from crit.
Edit2: I know that spells are two roll system but that would be pretty complex way to calculate spell hit% if you need to know spell hit%