Patch 3.2 notes - PTR

Big changes.

First for Orcs ( and all good enhancement shamans are orcs now aren't we?

Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.

Then the class changes.

Shaman

* A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.
* All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
* Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
* Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.
* Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.
* Talents
o Enhancement
+ Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman's attack power, down from 30%.
o Restoration
+ Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
+ Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
+ Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
+ Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
+ Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
+ Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30 second internal cooldown, and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
+ Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
+ Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
+ Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.


The Resto changes are nice and well needed, but as this is an enhancement blog, lets talk about those.

Range on Shocks increased to 25 years is nice. Nit a biggie for PvE , but nice when switching targets none the less. Really good PvP change.

Shamanistic rage, effect halved, usable twice as often. Double uptime on mini shield wall. Really nice in PvP, situationally useful in PvE.

Totem bar changes are a nice buff

And Finally 7% more health. THANK YOU!. Having less health than clothies bothers me. 2k less than lesser geared rogues, as much as 8-10k less than DK's, Warriors, and Retadins sucked. Now perhaps I wont always die on every Trash pack that includes whirlwinding mobs!

Change is gonna come

We have changed these spells for 3.2. And yes, there are some other changes. The main buff to Chain Heal is likely to come in increasing the jump distance to 10 yards and buffing the amount of healing decrease with subsequent targets to 40% down from 50%. CH, HW and LHW should all be doing bigger numbers when you consider all the talent changes.

We'll try to get the full notes out soon, but even then remember that this is a major "new tier" patch and is likely to have more iteration due to PTR feedback than the last few patches.


We have changed Healing Way to work better with HW and we have changed Improved Water Shield to also work with CH. We also dropped the cooldown of NS to 2 min so that you can HW more often. We'll try to make a post of all of the Resto changes soon.

[...] Improved Water Shield procs will not consume Water Shield charges. The tooltip says something like "as if you had consumed an orb.


There comes a time in all shaman’s lives when they must learn to harness the power of nature and wield powerful totems. As they grow in power, so do the opportunities to use these instruments of healing, protection, and destruction. In the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, the shaman will be able to quickly place totems of each element, aiding them in managing these powerful focuses of nature.

We wanted to provide some insight regarding the upcoming shaman-specific interface addition, the Totem Bar. Shaman will be able to utilize this new bar to manage their fire, earth, water, and air totems in a more accessible and convenient way. This bar will appear on the left-hand side above the standard toolbar, similar to warrior stances or druid forms. The bar contains space for four totems of the player’s choice, one of each element. Clicking the respective button will drop that totem. To the right of the four totems is a button for Totemic Call, which we have renamed Call of Earth. To the left of the four totems is a new ability named Call of Fire which will drop all four totems on the bar at once. The mana cost is the same as if the shaman dropped all four of the totems one at a time. However, it takes but a single global cooldown.

Questing shaman will be able to quickly move their totems of choice forward, while a shaman in an instance, Arena, or Battleground will be able to replace their totems if they have to move or if the totems are destroyed.

Shamans will also be able to customize their bar to set Call of Fire to drop less than four totems if they choose. Access to this functionality is made available at the same level as Call of Earth (currently level 30.) At higher levels, Shaman will gain two additional spells, Call of Air and Call of Water. These function exactly the same as Call of Fire, essentially giving the shaman three different sets of totems that can be placed at once. New key bindings will also be made available for all of these slots.

As with all new content under testing, we want to caution players that, as a new part of the interface, there may be additional changes during the period of the PTR until the release of the Call of the Crusade content patch. We look forward to constructive feedback once it is available for testing.

Some nice resto changes. Longer jesus beams healing for more? Awesome. Reduced CD on Natures Swiftness? Nice. Some watershield stuff is ok as well I suppose.

But the big thing is totem changes. Perhaps not all that they hinted at, in fact no where near that, but still one GCD to drop all 4 totems is still pretty damn awesome. Now I just need to make sure I don't land a triple WF crit right away and pull agro. Dropping 4 totems kinda kept threat down at the start. :p

Shaman Q&A

The Developers have posted their Shaman class Q&A here