Just say no to Caster Weapons.

Enhancement Shamans in WotLK
We view Enhancement as a melee class that should be wearing melee gear. However, one of the interesting things about the shaman is throwing out some spells with that melee too.

Our view of things is that some smart theorycrafters started wondering if using two fast caster weapons with two flametongue enchants would end up being the right way to go. The way the discussion sort of ended up was "maybe, but it might be close" but a lot of the community took that as a mandate. Or maybe they were just shocked by the supposition because it felt wrong for a melee class. We agree it feels wrong, so we're doing some tweaks to make it even less likely to be the most optimal set up. If you are saving up badges or arena points or whatever for your enhancement shammy, I would definitely NOT go out and get two fast caster weapons. (Source)

Moar Changes

Skills
Elemental Combat

Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc ...)
Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old - 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn't increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Stoneclaw is a buff. sort of. The totems you want to protect most are earthtotems however. So it also mostly pointless. In PvE you will use SoE so you arent dropping Stoneclaw. In PvP you want Tremor or perhaps Earthbind. I don't see this being used much.

Riptide. Making a crappy 51pt talent a bit less crappy. Good I guess, but it doesnt reduce the bitterness resto feels over removing spirit link.

Nerf to Mana spring a loss of 15 mp5.. pretty substantial imo.

Huge nerf to Storm earth and fire. CL is a mana hog, reducing the cd at the expense of spellpower boost on your main nuke hurts a lot. So we get 2 small semi usless buffs at the cost of two large nerfs. Yay Blizz!

Undocumented changes

Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8970))
Skills

All totems have been changed to last 5 minutes instead of 2. (This only affects totems that previously had a 2 minute timer, obviously, totems with a shorter duration didn't get any increase)
Restoration

Earthliving Weapon Rank 1/2/3/4 now increases healing done by 26/32/42/70.

Talents
Elemental

Lava Flows doesnt increase the amount of bonus spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon anymore and increases the range of your flame Shock spell by 5/10/15 yards instead.
Enhancement

Static Shock now increases the number of charges of your Lightning Shield by 2/4/6 (up from 1/2/3)
Elemental Weapons moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3. Now Increases the damage caused by your Windfury Weapon effect by 13/27/40% increases the spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by 10/20/30% and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 10/20/30%.
Mental Dexterity moved from Tier 3 to Tier 5.
Restoration

Spirit Link has been removed.
Blessing of the Eternals has been changed to Increases the critical effect chance of your spells by 2/4%, and increases the chance to apply the Earthliving heal over time effect on the target by 40/80% when they are at or under 35% total health.
New Talent/Skill - Riptide (Tier 11) - Heals a friendly target for 481 to 519 and another 500 over 15 sec sec. Your next Chain Heal cast on that primary target within 15 sec sec will consume the healing over time effect and increase the amount of the Chain Heal by 25%. (21% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown)

Glyphs

Glyph of Flame Shock - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 3 sec. (Old - Increases the range on your Flame Shock ability by 10 yards.)



Hallelujah on the Totem duration. Best change I've seen in a long time. Managing our cooldowns just became a hell of a lot easier. Static Shock change will help as well. I might have to think about trying that one out now.


The spirit link changes sucks hard for Resto. A 51 point talent is a mediocre HoT?

Newest Talent Changes

Enhancement
Talents

Maelstrom Weapon (Tier 10) changed to - When you critically hit with a melee weapon, you have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Lesser Healing Wave or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 15 sec.
Spectral Transformation removed.
*New Talent* Earthen Power (Tier 9) - Your Earthbind Totem has a 50/100% chance to also remove all snare effects from you and nearby friendly targets when it pulses.
*New Talent* Lava Lash (Tier 8 ) - You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 100% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. Instant Cast. 6 sec cooldown.
Unleashed Rage moved from Tier 8 to Tier 6.
Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects Frost and Fire damage as well. Will now only affect your own spells.
Mental Quickness moved from Tier 6 to Tier 8.
Weapon Mastery (Tier 6) is now 3 ranks and increases damage you deal with all weapons by 4/7/10%. (Previously 2/4/6/8/10%)
Toughness (Tier 4) now reduces the duration of movement slowing effects on you by 6/12/18/24/30%. (Previously 10/20/30/40/50%)
Thundering Strikes (Tier 2) now affects spells as well as melee attacks.


These Elemental Changes will effect A\Enhancement Builds as well

Elemental Fury moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3. It is now 5 ranks and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Searing, Magma, and Fire Nova Totems and your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 20/40/60/80/100%. (Previously did 100% with 1 talent point)
Call of Thunder moved from Tier 3 to Tier 5. It now only costs 1 talent point and increases the critical strike chance of your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Thunderstorm spells by an additional 5%.


Finally they made a change to Lava Burst

Lava Burst mana cost reduced, damage increased, and it will now only consume your own Flame Shock.

PTR 3.0.2 patch notes

Shaman
All totems are now considered on the "Physical" school, and no longer magical spells.
Anticipation (Enhancement): Now is a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point talent and now reduces the duration of disarm effects on you by 16/25/50%.
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 Devastation (Elemental) is now a tier-2 talent, up from tier-4.
Elemental Focus (Elemental): 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.
Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
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)
Healing Grace (Restoration): Healing Way and Ancestral Fortitude are now affected by the dispel resistance portion of this talent.
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 Improved Shields, and is in Tier-2.
Nature’s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
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.
New Talent: Tidal Force(Restoration): Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
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.
Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman’s total health.
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.
The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
Tidal Focus (Restoration): Now works with Earth Shield.
Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.
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.


Items I consider a positive for enhancement are bolded. Items I consider a negative are italiced. More positives than negatives I guess, but There isnt a lot of zing.

I don't see anything about the change to Str/Agi AP or about the nerf to Agi's crit contribution. That is the biggest change right there. The elimintation of natures guidence means we need additional Hit as well. Mental Dexterity makes Int usefull as well, and makes the change to Ancentral Knowledge a good one. Plus the talent now makes sense in the Enhancement tree.




Also here are the latest comments from Blues on Beta Forums

Enhancement

- Mental Quickness and Unleashed Rage have swapped places.
- Spectral Transformation renamed "Earthen Power". It causes your Earthbind Totem totem to have a 50/100% dispel all snare effects when it pulses.
- Weapon Mastery: Now a 3-point talent (4/7/10%)
- Stormstrike - New animation, also now increases all Fire, Frost and Nature damage done by the Shaman instead of just Nature.
- New Talent (Tier-8) - Lava Lash: You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 75% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. 3 second cooldown. 4% base mana cost. (Also note: Lava Lash does Fire damage, also procs Maelstrom Weapon)
- Maelstrom Weapon: Can now be used for Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave.
- Feral Spirit - Many bugs with Spirit Wolves fixed, also increased the damage done by the Spirit Wolves

I'll admit it.

I'm dreading 3.0
I'm very sure in knowing what gear is good for me. What stats I want, How to enchant, how to gem, I've got it down pat. Once 3.0 hits though... I've no idea. Do I want to gem for AP? Crit? Agi?

They are making huge changes to the core mechanics of my class, and they arent done tinkering. In Beta atm, you actually want a fast off hand with Flame Tongue for max dps. How am I to plan for this? They claim that using a caster weapon gives you better dps. They are taking out any reason to subspec resto. They are taking out Nature's Guidence and its 3% hit. Totems are going to 30' untalented. Improved Ahnk isnt gonna get me into resto, as handy as it is. None of my gear has Str on it, so in theory It should still be good. My gems though are almost all Bold Crimson Spinels. Its going to hurt replacing about 15 of those.

sigh.

Latest Beta changes

Spectral Transformation replaced
We're going to be dumping Spectral Transformation. We decided we weren't cool with the Shaman's Ghost Wolf being too close to a core Druid iconic ability. What will replace it is a deep Enhancement Talent that will cause your Earthbind totem to clear all snares each time it pulses on you and all nearby friendly targets.

Terrible change. Totems get killed, outranged etc. If they buff the totem then maybe its ok, but I don't see that happening

Shaman DPS a lot lower than expected
A lot of tuning still has to be done, but it's safe to say your DPS is a lot lower than what should be expected. All DPS classes/specs after we are done tuning should yield a pretty similar DPS with similar gear 'min/max' speccing. It's going to take a bit of time until we reach that goal, though.

I hope they get this figured out before the patch. I'm already upset that not only will I need to replace 5K worth of gems, and enchants, but that re itemization on the shaman tier gear makes them 10% weaker in a raid setting, by converting str to ap.

Maelstrom Weapons changes
We will have it proc from Windfury soon. Also we're going to allow it to also allow you to cast heals with Maelstrom procs
Reportedly they are changing this to not reset the swing timer. Could be fun.


ETA Spirit Wolves update

Feral Spirit (Tier 11) is now implemented. Pet skills include :

Bash - Your Spirit Wolves stun the target for 2 sec. (45 sec cooldown)
Twin Howl - Your Spirit Wolves howl, forcing all enemies to attack them for 6 sec. (15 sec cooldown)
Spirit Walk - Removes all movement impairing effects and increases the movement speed of you and your Spirit Wolves by 60% for 15 sec. (25 yd range, 32 sec cooldown)
Spirit Hunt - Your Spirit Wolves' attacks heal them and you for 5 sec. (10 sec cooldown)

A Real Live Sunwell Kill!

Well We finally got a new progression Kill. seems like it took a long time, but with our quick progression through T6 we are still lacking a lot of gear on some of our raiders. Our Warrior Tanks were still using the Aldori Defender's Legacy for their sheilds. Our drop luck seems to be changing though, as we went to Hyjal after Kalecgos, and got a Hardened Heart off of Kaz'rogal. Our first T6 tank sheild! Hopefulling Illidan will finally Drop a Bulwark. Death Group, the only other Horde Guild to down Illidan on Quel'Dorei is giving them out to Shamans!