Ezareth

It seems all of our discussions regarding the PTR are taking place in other threads not appropriate for the conversation so I'll make this thread to discuss bugs/changes/developments for Elemental in 3.1

Changes

• Bloodlust/Heroism: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes, but Sated and Exhausted now last 10 minutes.
  
• Frostbrand Weapon: Damage increased by approximately 20%.
  
• Poison Cleansing Totem and Disease Cleansing Totem have been merged into Cleansing Totem. Cleansing Totem pulses every 3 sec, down from 5.
  
• New Talent: Booming Echoes: Reduces the cooldown of your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 1/2 sec., and increases the direct damage done by your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 10/20%.
  
• Tremor Totem: Now correctly pulses every 3 sec, up from 1 sec.
  
• Toughness: No longer increases your armor. Instead, this talent now increases your total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.
  
• Thunderstorm is now useable while stunned.
  
• Lava Flows now Iincreases the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 6/12/24%, and when your Flame Shock is dispelled your spell casting speed is increased by 10/20/30% for 6 sec.
  
• Lightning Overload changed from 5 to 3 ranks, now Gives your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells a 7/14/20% (Up from 4/8/12/16/20%) chance to cast a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes half damage and no threat.
  
• Elemental Mastery has been changed to - When activated, your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst spell becomes an instant cast spell. In addition, your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage spells a 15% increased critical strike chance for 15 sec. Elemental Mastery shares a cooldown with Nature's Swiftness. Instant, 3 min cooldown
  
• Storm, Earth, and Fire : Earthbind Totem also has a 33/66/100% chance to root targets for 5 sec when cast and the periodic damage done by your Flame Shock is increased by 20%.
  
• Elemental Reach now also increases the range of your Flame Shock by 7/15 yards.
  
• Stoneclaw Totem has been changed to display the amount of damage absorbed. (990 damage for Rank 9)
  
• Totem of Wrath range has had both componenets set to 40 yards.
  
• Earth Elemental Totem: The summoned Earth Elemental should now have significantly more health and slightly more armor.
  
• Fire Elemental Totem: The summoned Fire Elemental should now have moderately more health and mana, and its damage scaling has been increased. In addition, the Fire Elemental’s spells now cost less mana.
  
• The damage threshold for Fear, Psychic Scream, Hex, Intimidating Shout, and Turn Evil to break early has been significantly reduced
  
  

Removed

• Condensing Mana Spring and Healing Spring Totem. Per GhostCrawler: "We have another idea for the mana totem."
• Storm, Earth, and Fire: Also affects the DD portion of Flame Shock by 20/40/60%
• Chain Lightning in 3.1
  We aren't changing Chain Lightning for 3.1. We originally wanted to make CL more clearly an AE spell, which meant improving the number of targets. But we think it has a decent niche as is. There are bigger fish to fry.
  
  CL has a shorter cast time, so it's fun (for some shamans at least) to try and use it to fill in short gaps based on haste, procs, movement, etc. even on single targets. Being able to mix and match LB and CL the right way is one manner in which great Elementals can distinguish themselves from good Elementals.
  
  After doing some more research, confab'ing with some pro shamans, and reading lots of forum posts, we decided this was probably a sufficient niche for CL and trying to push it into a purely AE role would mean a loss of fun for some shamans. The cost didn't seem worth the beneft any longer so we scrapped the plan. You can chalk this up to an example where your feedback counted in making that call.
  
  An alternative is something like encouraging more Flame Shocks after Lava Bursts or whatever to try and make the rotation more interesting. That's not something we're going to mess with for 3.1 but might be something to consider in the future.
• Storm, Earth, and Fire changed toReduces the cooldown of your Chain Lightning spell by .75 sec (on all ranks, down from 0.75/1/2.5sec),

Known Bugs

Shamanism

Currently not affecting Totem of Hex.

Glyph of Totem of Wrath:

Currently allowing dual spec users to swap specs, apply the buff, then change to another spec while retaining the buff.


Glyphs

• Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems. *not affected by Talent Earth's Grasp*
• Glyph of Thunder: Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 10 sec. *Now a Major Glyph again*
• Glyph of Totem of Wrath: When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem's bonus spell power for 5 min.

 

Infuri

Something worth noting is that the earth's grasp talent does not effect the Glyph of Stoneclaw shield. This makes sense as it doesn't actually increase the amount absorbed either.

Also of note for elemental pvp is the change to toughness being 10% stam instead of 10% armor.

 

• Juice

I've had a change of heart, thread opened. Keep it focused on 3.1 changes and PTR testing, PvE and PvP. Don't turn this into a "my spec will be" thread. For detailed PvP discussion, there's another Elemental thread on the topic.

 

Kelaserra

Am I the only one that am concerned about viability of loot for us coming out of Ulduar? Looking over the latest list over at MMO: PTR Testing, Compiled Loot List, Blue Posts , I only see a belt and a pair of gloves as caster mail without MP5. And just about all of the generic items (jewelry, trinkets, cloaks, weapons) are Spirit-based.

I kinda feel like our spec has been somewhat forgotten about with itemization.

 

Ezareth

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as well at first glance but I'll give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt and wait for a more complete list.

Ghostcrawler has already stated the loot is far from complete and we have a somewhat unique itemization as most other classes benefit in some way or another from Spirit.

I've had little hope for seeing loot above the 226 item level being perfectly itemized for us much like it is now with items above 213 Ilvl.

The new gemmed 226 gloves look amazing for us so far but of course the socket is blue which I was hoping would give way to yellows and reds. Of course we didn't see gemming like that until Sunwell in BC so I suppose it is too much to hope for now.

If I see too many more pieces of elemental gear with blue sockets, I'm going to drop leatherworking for jewelcrafting while the prices on goods are still cheap. I shudder to think of all the spellpower I've missed by waiting on a switch to jewelcrafting, and I was hoping the with the release of epic spellpower gems we'd (23 spellpower instead of 19) be able to bridge the gap between Jewelcrafting and the rest of the crafting professions.

 

lrdx

This is not of our concern, only of our enhancement friends, as it is damage done while smacking things in the face, not a spell power change. I have just logged in the PTR, and it gave both on my Wraith Strike (2.6 speed) and on the first white vendor weapon I found in Dalaran (a 2.0 speed staff) the same 211 spell power (untalented).

 

Ezareth

Thanks, I missed removing that.

 

shellfish

Thank God. I was pretty upset about that.

I'm willing to wait and see on the shield (what other option do I have?), but I'm skeptical. If it's a minor tool in the toolbox, then sweet. But as of yet every change proposed to elemental shaman to "fix" us for PVP competitiveness has been a swing-and-a-miss. I remain skeptical.

 

Eleven

I've been following the mined items they've been showing on mmo-champion, and there's somethings that don't make sense, like totem of hex being exactly the same as: Thunderfall Totem but I'm sure that's going to get fixed/changed.

Aside from that it looks like we're going to have a small selection of mp5-free mail but might have to rely on some of the sparse but attractive spirit free cloth like Bracers of Unleashed Magic to fill in our non-set slots.

On a different note, does anyone know if the glyph of thunder is major or minor?

 

tufy

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that we're still being fed CL/LB totems as top of the line, when they could have included a cool new totem akin to Lightning Rod (boosting Lava Burst) or something similar. Guess it's a balance issue and they're trying to prevent LvB from hitting too hard.

Glyph of Thunder is major.

As for the gear, we're used to it, not like armor matters in pve for an elemental anyway.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

 

wonqu

Its not just the elemental totem, every class unique item is exactly the same as naxx level gear with improved stats.
Even the trinkets dropping are improved copes of the t7 level gear, all that remains now is to see the set bonuses being the same.
The lack of creativity is quite disappointing,

 

LITTLER0TT

I'm kind of curious how the Stoneclaw glyph works.

When you use stoneclaw totem and it gives you the shield, does the shield stay on you when you drop say, Tremor.

also 2 other things.

If stoneclaw is destroyed (by some pet-totem-stomp-macro) does the bubble stay on you.

And lastly does getting out of range of the totem make the shield go away.


Oh and how long is the duration. Most of my questions are basically asking the same thing but oo well

(went on the ptr by the way..no glyphs up on the AH)

 

Shiyo

If you've ever seen the loot on any ptr regarding totems (or wotlk beta), you would realize that they use placeholders.

I'm pretty good at parroting others and doing simple algebra.

 

Katalyna

As the poster above me has said, all the loot is essentially placeholder loot. The Thundercaller totem is the exact same as Hex, except for the icon. I'm pretty sure Blizz will fix it. At least I hope so.

In regards to the mail/cloth dealie with the datamined loot - I hope and pray that they'll give us more. Otherwise, we'll be fighting with mages for the non-spirit stuff. I'm almost afraid our guild is going to have to make a rule: Mages/Kat (as I'm the only Ele in my guild) get priority on cloth non-spirit loot due to blizzard hating us. (None of our mages want the spirit gear either.)

 

Mmootimus

Isn't it a bit early to complain about loot?

Ele itemisation has been at least halfway decent since patch 2.3 when we got the badge items. I can't believe Blizz just forgot a specc or decided to deliberately sideline it.

It is a little disturbing that Ele loot may be put into the game later than other speccs, and its also not ideal that we still don't seem to get decent Emblem loot, but I really think planning for a "loot apocalypse" is foolish and a little premature.

 

Katalyna

Nah. The sky is falling, haven't you heard? :P It's -never- too early to complain about loot...!

While I'm sure that Blizz didn't 'just forget a spec' it's pretty obvious in the past that Blizz -has- made mistakes. Obviously, as a concerned tester/player, on the PTR I've already said "hey, where's our loot!?". (And the mages are panicking more than I am... for now...)

 

Torquestomp

Elemental Shamans are HORRIBLE in pvp. Throwing it out there.

 

B-Dawg

Wow thanks! Like everyone, their mother, and her expecting child doesn't know this. ToW glyph is definitely major for us, haven't had a chance to troll these forums and see what the unknown timer on the buff was. I do wish they would change the flat spell damage bonus to the appropriate scaling %, or do they plan on just boosting the spell power come each expansion? The blue sockets on our gear are a big disappointment, as is the lack of +hit and overabundance of mp5, but we haven't seen our t8 stats yet so all is not yet lost in regards to itemization. On the comment of dropping LW for JC - LW just isn't what it used to be, and dropping it for JC might just end up being a status quo for Elemental Shaman.

 

Cragen

I saw a pretty badass 226 Ilvl hit ring on worldofraids, and a 239 Ilvl bracers from hardmode.

So I'm going to guess that it will be pretty much the same as with the current raid instances. There will be one mail item per slot without MP/5 that is made for elemental shamans, and the rest is made for resto and enhancement/hunters.

But I really hope they spice the items up a bit. Kinda boring to just get more items with a minor stats upgrade.

I'm also waiting like a kid on christmas to find out more about the legendary mace. I hope that they make a great proc for elemental shamans, and not just something for healers. Would be a real shame to be taunted with a proper shaman legandary weapon, and have it just be for healers :P

 

Ezareth

Two Great ilvl226 rings added that are perfect for us but the one I'm drooling over most is the one with hit/haste/spellpower on it since the other ring is a copy of Signet of Manifest Pain except with less int and more stamina.

We also as you mentioned have a nice set of elemental bracers added with once again a blue socket with a spellpower bonus. This is the second blue socket for Elemental I've seen, the other is the gauntlets. The belt is socketless, but I'm sure our Tier pieces are going to include a few more as well so we know at very least we are going to be able to gain 15 spellpower just from socketing blues with prismatic gems.

The Epic gems that are anticipated in ulduar are 23 spellpower which is 9 spellpower short of the JC spellpower gem. 15+27 spellpower gives you 42 spellpower as a minimum bonus, without the cost/wait of getting three epic spellpower gems. Since they added the 40 Stamina bracer enchant and made the 30 spellpower enchant cheap, Leathworking has no advantage to anything.

Note with the addition of Epic gems Blacksmithing becomes the best profession due to adding two sockets for a total of 46 spellpower.

Enchanting is 38 spellpower
Leatherworking 37 spellpower

I don't know how many people are willing to spend 3-5K on leveling a profession for another 5-9 spellpower but it is there for the min-maxers and there isn't much else to spend gold on these days.

One thing I've been trying to calculate is the best way to max on hit with the new gear. At least the spell hit ring will be a net loss of 3 hit over Signet of Malevolent but overall I'm worried about having too much hit with not enough replacing hit gems by other gems to make sense.

The other interesting thing to note on the epic gems is the half/half gems with spellpower are now more than half of the pure spellpower gem instead of less than half. I don't see us using any pure hit gems any more as +10 hit/12 spellpower are 1 spellpower net increase on the combo now than a single +hit gem and a +spellpower gem.

 

Topround

One thing that never seems to get factored in when making these comparisons is that if you weren't a JC, you wouldn't be using all red gems. You would need to socket a couple purples to meet your meta requirement. So, given items with a single blue socket and +5 spell power bonus, and new epic gems, the difference is still quite big comparitively. It looks like this:

Item 1: Purple 12 spellpower/whatever gem & +5 socket bonus
Item 2: Purple 12 spellpower/whatever gem & +5 socket bonus
Item 3: Red epic 23 spellpower gem & skipped bonus

TOTAL: 57

VS:

Item 1: JC 32 SP gem & +5 socket bonus
Item 2: JC 32 SP gem & +5 socket bonus
Item 3: JC 32 SP gem & +5 socket bonus

TOTAL: 111

Meaning JC nets you 54 spellpower, making it still the king even over BS with 2 epic gems.

 

drock903

nevermind topround beat me to it.

 

Ezareth

Good Point, I keep forgetting the meta requirement....it would be nice if Blizzard introduced some new metas in the next patch, it is rather boring and pointless that every DPS caster has had the some meta since Burning Crusade and just continues get the upgraded versions.

Why even bother with different Meta's if there is no real choice involved.

Has anyone looted the new Totem in PTR yet to determine if it is also affected by the Shamanism Bug? I'm sure it will but the confirmation would be nice.

Also everyone be sure and report both Shamanism and Totem of Hex on the PTR. The More bug reports we get the better the chance have at someone looking at it and correcting it.

 

drock903

I had heard that the epic gems were unique so you could only have 1. Can anyone else confirm?

edit: looks that way.

 

Ezareth

Those are from a fishing daily quest from what I've read. There should be a new set of cuts for JCs similar to the BT drops.

Remember the Kharazan Epic gem that was the same as the first round of regular epic gems in BC?