Thursday, June 18, 2009

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!

2 comments:

Nomasun said...

Cure toxins is a nice change for enhance too. Restos use Cleanse and would never use cure disease or cure poison anyways, so cure toxins is mainly a ele/enh change.

I like the chain heal too, there are times when using my Maelstrom5s on chain healing the melee helps the healers alot, although not the ideal situation of course

Mike ... said...

Hate whirlwind. We got hit with a patrol while taking down trash in the Military quarter in 10-man Naxx the other night.

All four triggered whirlwind at the same time. I was dead before I could blink.