Matt’s Notebook: Mythic Nerub-ar Palace Cleared!
2 weeks ago
A World of Warcraft Blog
Shaman (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)A very nice buff, to what had been looking like an underwhelming ability.
Enhancement
•Windfury Weapon now deals 125% weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 40%.
Shaman (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elemental
•Elemental Reach now also increases the range of Searing Totem by 7/15 yards.
Enhancement
•Windfury Weapon now deals 40% of weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 20%.
We are seeing Enhancement at about the same dps they were at before at level 80, and are competitive with e.g. Fury warriors, Ret paladins and Unholy DKs at 85 as far as PvE dps goes. As always, it depends a lot on the encounter and the individual behind the keyboard.So I'm not on the beta, I dont know what things are like at 85, but at 80 my dps is lower on static fights, while its a bit better on dynamic fights. On average it may be about the same, but on the benchmark fights where I used to be top 5, I'm now bottom 5. As shown with my post yesterday with the worlds best players we are behind every other hybrid dpser. Now I know someone has to be last, but it seems like its us far to often.
If you find that is not the case for you, let us know, but it would be helpful to provide something more than anecdotal information.
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Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer
Level 85 caps
Melee Hit : 120.109 which means with base 6% from dual wielding we need 241 hit to cap our specials.
Expertise : 30.0272 which means with 2/2 Unleashed Rage we need 541 expertise to cap.
Spell Hit : 102.446 which means we need 1742 hit to cap for raid bosses (at 17%)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Enhancement
- Mental Quickness now reduces the mana cost of your instant spells by 75% instead of reducing the cost of shock spells by 60%.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)So I saw GC comment about how valuable WF/Imp Icy Talons buff was and so I figured this was coming but a 50% nerf really hurts.
Elemental
•Stoneclaw Totem now has 6186 health, up from 797. Shields your totems for up to 4143 damage, up from 664.
•Earth Shock now also reduces ranged attack speed.
Enhancement
•Dual Wield now also allows you to parry frontal melee attacks.
•Windfury Totem now increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 40 yards by 10%. (Down from 20%)
•Feral Spirit now lasts 30 sec, down from 45 sec. Cooldown changed to 2 min, down from 3 min.
Restoration
•Mana Tide Totem now has a 3 min cooldown, down from 5 min.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Which is them updating the scaling of imbues for level 85 and reiterating the freeing up of those 3 talent points. We do end up losing 1 expertise, which while not huge is still a loss especially considering how much rating you need per point at 85. That along with degrading hit rating at higher tiers, all adds up.
Enhancement
•Windfury Weapon now deals damage equal to two extra attacks with 4430 extra attack power. (Up from 1395 Attack Power)
•Flametongue Weapon now increases total spell damage by 750, up from 235.
•Primal Wisdom (Talent) is gone.
•Primal Wisdom (Passive) *New* - Your melee attacks have a 40% chance to immediately restore 5% of your base mana.
•Unleashed Rage is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks. Now increases Expertise by 4/8 (up from 3/6/9), increases all party and raid members' attack power by 5/10% (up from 4/7/10%)
Restoration
•Earthliving Weapon now increases healing done by 531, up from 167.
•Healing Wave base healing value reduced by 25%. Mana cost changed to 9% of base mana, up from 6% of base mana.
•Mana Tide Totem no longer restores mana, now increases the spirit of party members within 40 yards by 200%.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Enhancement Changes
In our current Cataclysm build, we have cut the Primal Wisdom talent (and give it as part of the Enhancement passive) and reduced Unleashed Rage from 3 to 2 ranks, but with the same overall effect. That should take care of the extra talent points that the tree seemed to have.
We are still working on making the Searing Totem a little smarter. (Source)
Bloodlust / HeroismThat's just mean! They might as well kick us in the nads while they are at it. That was after the latest build changes.
•Ancient Hysteria (Core Hound - E) - Increases melee, ranged, and spell casting speed by 30% for all party and raid members. Lasts 40 sec.
Allies receiving this effect will become Sated and be unable to benefit from Bloodlust or Time Warp again for 10 min. / Instant, 6 min cooldown
I'm not sure about the Stormstrike change. It looks like a dps nerf. 25% chance for an extra 50% damage vs. a flat 20% boost. But because of the change to Maelstrom Weapon we may be needed that bonus crit to keep Elemental Devastation up.
Elemental
•Stoneclaw Totem deal and absorb effect reduced by 50%.
•Chain Lightning now has a 3 sec cooldown, down from 6 sec.
•Earthquake base damage increased by 55%. Now has a 10% chance to knock down the targets (down from 20%). Lasts 8 sec, down from 10 sec. Mana cost changed to 60% of base mana, down from 86% of base mana. Cooldown removed.
•Storm, Earth and Fire renamed to Earth's Grasp - Grants your Earthbind Totem a 50/100% chance to root nearby targets for 5 sec when cast.
•Lava Flows now also increases the the periodic damage of your Flame Shock by 20/40/60%
•Totemic Wrath is now a Tier 5 talent, up from Tier 4.
•Elemental Precision now increases damage instead of your chance to hit.
Enhancement
•Stormstrike now increases your chance to critical strike the enemy with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield and Earth Shock spells by 25% for 15 sec instead of increasing nature damage by 20% on the target.
•Windfury Weapon - Unleash Weapon now lasts 6 swings or until 12 sec, instead of a flat 12 sec.
•Ghost Wolf speed reduced from 40% to 30%.
•Maelstrom Weapon no longer affects Lava Burst.
Restoration
•Cleansing Waters base healing increased from [ 1916 to 2075 ] to [ 2634 to 2970 ]
•Tidal Waves no longer affects Lesser Healing Wave. Now affects Healing Surge.
•Telluric Currents is now a Tier 5 talent, down from Tier 6.
•Improved Cleanse Spirit is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 5.
•Nature's Blessing is now a Tier 3 talent, down from Tier 5.
•Improved Chain Heal is gone.
•Restorative Totems renamed to Soothing Rains - Increases the amount healed by your Healing Stream Totem by 25%, and your Healing Rain spell by 15/30%.
•Blessing of the Eternals is now a Tier 6 talent, up from Tier 4. No longer increases the critical chance of your spells.
•Nature's Guardian is now a Tier 2 talent, down from Tier 4.
•Ancestral Awakening is now a Tier 5 talent, up from Tier 3.
•Improved Water Shield no longer affects Lesser Healing Wave. Now affects Healing Surge.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Well I'm not seeing anything that makes me think I'll be switching any of my major glyphs. There does appear to be some healing nerfs with chain heal and healing stream. Earthliving seems to be a boost, and the resistances from Healing stream look to be ok.
•Chain Heal - Increases healing done by your Chain Heal spell to targets beyond the first by 15%, but decreases the amount received by the initial target by 10%. (Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target.)
•Earthliving Weapon - Increases the effectiveness of your Earthliving weapon's periodic healing by 20%. (Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.)
•Elemental Mastery - While your Elemental Mastery ability is active, you take 20% less damage from all sources. (Reduces the cooldown of your Elemental Mastery ability by 30 sec.)
•Fire Nova - Increases the radius of your Fire Nova spell by 5 yards. (Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Nova spell by 3 seconds.)
•Ghost Wolf - Your Ghost Wolf form grants an additional 10% movement speed.
•Healing Stream Totem - Your Healing Stream Totem also increases the Fire, Frost, and Nature resistance of party and raid members within 30 yards by 150. (Your Healing Stream Totem heals for an additional 20%.)
•Hex - Reduces the cooldown of your Hex spell by 15 sec. (Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.)
•Lava Burst - Your Lava Burst spell deals 10% more damage. (Your Lava Burst spell gains an additional 10% of your spellpower.)
•Totemic Recall *New* - Causes your Totemic Recall ability to return an additional 50% of the mana cost of any recalled totems.
•Lightning Shield - Your Lightning Shield can no longer drop below 3 charges from dealing damage to attackers.
•Grounding Totem *New* - When your Grounding Totem absorbs a spell, it attempts to reflect that spell on its caster, but the cooldown of your Grounding Totem is increased by 45 sec.
•Arctic Wolf *New* - Alters the appearance of your Ghost Wolf transformation, causing it to resemble an arctic wolf.
•Shamanistic Rage *New* - Activating your Shamanistic Rage ability also cleanses you of all dispellable Magic debuffs.
•Water Shield - Increases the passive mana regeneration of your Water Shield spell by 50%. (Up from 30%)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)The increased range on UE will be nice for openers I guess. Otherwise its mainly for Elementals.
Elemental
•Magma Totem base damage increased by 33%.
•Fire Nova base damage increased by 33%.
•Rolling Thunder is now a Tier 3 talent, down from Tier 4. Mana regeneration increased from 1% to 2%.
•Improved Fire Nova moved to Enhancement.
•Elemental Reach no longer increases the range of Thunderstorm, now affects the range of all your Shock spells. (Old - Just Flame Shock)
Enhancement
•Unleash Elements now has a 40 yards range, up from 30 yards.
•Totemic Vigor is gone.
•Improved Fire Nova is now a Tier 4 Enhancement Talent - Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova by 10/20% and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 sec.
Restoration
•Improved Water Shield now also procs from Greater Healing Wave.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)The trouble Enhancement Tier one is that I cant afford to take all of the talents.
Tier 1 Enhancement
Right. The problem with tier 1 Enhancement is you have Focused Strikes, which clearly is for Enhance and nobody else. Then you're left with Elemental Weapons, a good talent for all 3 specs, and Improved Shields, a good talent for Enhance and Resto. That leaves Elemental with only 3 points they want to spend in tier 1 and a strong desire to get to tier 2. But, as I said above, if Elemental did care about shields, then presumably they could care about Improved Shields. (Source)
Making Shaman fun
Fun is obviously very important to us, but it's also a really difficult thing to talk about. I read these forums constantly, and it's pretty typical to see the class who had exciting changes a few weeks ago now bored of those and eager for new changes. The grass is greener mindset is huge around here, perhaps understandably since it's hard to stay in touch with the changes going on for all classes at once. When you drill down sometimes on what players are looking for to make their class fun for them, you often get a list of ideas that would be terribly overpowered or just not work in our game, or both. That doesn't mean it's not a goal. It just means that delivering what is fun for one player means something very different than what is fun for another player. (Source)
Fire Nova
We'd like to downplay Fire Nova in lieu of Earthquake (in addition to Chain Lightning of course). We also agree that Fire Nova should be used for true AE situations and not against single targets. (Source)
Elemental Rotation
We didn't set out with the goal of change for the sake of change though. Most of the new rotational abilities we've added were to fix problems with the class. Prot warriors for example are going to be hitting the same buttons they hit in LK because we think that works. Elemental is getting Unleashed Weapon (and Earthquake), and beyond that we think you have the right number of buttons to hit, so we're hesitant to cram a new button in there. Nor are we excited about giving you "Super Duper Lightning Bolt" that lets you take Lightning Bolt off your bar just for the sake of having a new button. I'd characterize the Elemental playstyle as closer to a mage, who isn't managing a ton of different nukes, but does have to react to what is happening in terms of procs, short cooldowns and movement. Lava Surge, Elemental Mastery and Unleashed Weapon are examples of those respectively.
We'll definitely take the feedback under advisement though. (Source)
Feral Spirit Scaling
Feral Spirit should scale like all pets. (It doesn't yet). Losing Parry was a consequence of losing Spirit Weapons, but we'll give it back somewhere. (Source)
Thunderstorm
I agree that Enhancement's choice at level 10 is transformative. I disagree that Resto similarly plays very differently at level 10. I also think you're downplaying Thunderstorm. Now you can Lightning Bolt and when a target gets closer to you, Thunderstorm them back and then Lightning Bolt them again. (Source)
Unleash Weapon
Elemental's range talent needs to affect Unleash Weapon too. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elemental
•Magma Totem now costs 18% of base mana, down from 27%.
•Lava Burst damage has been increased by 25%.
Restoration
•Totem of Tranquil Mind *New* - Summons a Totem of Tranquil Mind with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 5 min, causing party or raid members within 30 yards to lose 0% less casting or channeling time when damaged. (Value NYI, Concentration Aura)
Enhancement
•Maelstrom Weapon now also reduces the mana cost of the spell.
Relics class requirements gone in Cataclysm
You are looking at existing, Wrath of the Lich King, items. Those are currently only used by those classes, so there isn't a great motivation or need to change them.Cataclysm-level relics can be used by any paladin, shaman, druid or DK, though there may still be some class-specific ones from time to time. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Shaman Q&A (Source)
Lots of questions. I don't have time to answer them all, but I will hit a few.
When will ele not have to run into melee to do aoe?
When you're casting Earthquake?
1) Are resto shaman now the only healer being forced to spec into a hit talent to supplement their active mana recovery ability? Paladins now apparently get the hit that was in enlightened judgements for free?
Our goal was to not have all of the healer talent trees to be mirror images of each other. So a priest might get one thing for free and have to talent into something else. As long as the end result is pretty similar (e.g. the priest can't get everything for free and just be able to spend talent points on candy) then it should be fine.
Personally, I'd like to know the rationale behind the fact that the Elemental Shamans did not recieve any spells that alter their rotation on 'primary' targets. Their level 10 effect was something halfway between a mana restore, an AoE, and a pvp gimmick. Our capstone of the talent tree is an AoE. I can't think of any other dps spec that doesn't get something 'unique' that changes their rotation from the other specs.
That's just part of the shaman design though, namely that Enhancement still cares a lot about spells instead of being a 100% melee weapon class. I'd argue that Enhance and Elemental still play fairly differently (such that you do have to adjust when respeccing). I'm not sure the mage design, where there is virtually no overlap among talent trees, is a superior model. It's just a different model.
Mana - I've heard mana has recently begun to be an issue for Enhancement in the last few beta builds. Will the ultimate solution just be to tweak Primal Wisdom s'more? Oh, and what about all that discussion about moving Primal Wisdom to being part of Enhancement's lvl 10 skillset? It's going to be hellish on new Enhancers not having their primary mana restoration technique until much later. Also on the table here, and I'm sorry it touches on totems again - a full set of totems or an AoE rotation kills Enhancement's mana very very quickly. It'd be nice if the mana cost got reduced on some of these abilities.
It's not the intent that Enhancement has to worry about mana a lot. Generally you should have enough mana to do what you want to do. It's a model we're still adjusting. We haven't quite established a base regen for the casters and healers that we're happy with and every time we tweak that, it affects the Ret paladins and Enhancement shaman, who aren't really supposed to be mana-constrained.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Tier 1 of Enhance is one of the bigger culprits. While tier 2 has one talent that's really attractive (nigh on required for Elemental and Enhance), tier 1 is pretty bland. People would prefer to skip over Imp Shields, and Elemental Weapons is a flat spell power buff that scales with level rather than gear.
The model we're trying to use for all the classes is that you can't just soak up no-brainer talents in the first few tiers. Often there is a dps talent, and then a survival talent and then maybe an efficiency talent. You definitely get the first one, but you often need to get one of the others to progress down. This is what we mean about not being able to cherry pick just throughput-oriented talents and skipping everything else that is utility, etc. It's an evolving process though. I'm not sure I could point to a class yet and say "There. We nailed it."
Also, Enhance has 9 "required" points in Elemental - would be 10 if it weren't for Ancestral Swiftness - on top of their own tree being filled up, which highly limits their utility options (well, to be more specific, limits them to 0). Even if an additional point or two were freed up, they may feel obligated to spend those to grab the third point in Acuity (which I don't like as 3 points to start with - it creates a 'floater' point in Elemental specs rather than getting us stuck around tier 4 needing to pick a full utility talent, which I think is a good thing. But I digress), or Improved Shields, even though all three are fairly marginal DPS gains.
Yup. This is a challenge. As I mentioned above, Enhancement likes spell damage so it's hard to put anything in Elemental that Elemental wants that Enhancement also doesn't want.
Lightning and Water shield do not seem that useful for Elemental in many ways.
Agreed. This is something we're discussing. A new shield doesn't have to be the answer though.
- Nature's Blessing doesn't feel like a bonus when healing earth shielded targets, it feels like a penalty when healing targets without it. If the intent is to make shamans better tank healers, perhaps make it work in some other way. Perhaps change it to Earthliving or Riptide instead of Earth Shield?
This is the kind of feedback we struggle with a lot on most classes. As soon as something grants a bonus, it feels like a penalty when it's not up because players are very efficiency-focused. If it was say Riptide, wouldn't it feel like a penalty whenever Riptide wasn't available? Or a penalty because every heal cost that extra GCD for Riptide in order to behave at maximum efficiency?
Honestly GC when our dps is competitive with the other hybrid specs you barely ever see us whine. We just really want to be as good as others. It's when it isn't that we come out in masses to whine about everything. Since our totems are our thing they are what is an easy target for our QQ. I guarantee you that if we do competitive DPS and never fall behind the endless Shaman crying will be puddles instead of rivers.
I agree with that. I think a lot of the complaints about "we're the only class" or "are buffs aren't awesome enough" only come to bear when dps is low. As I said recently, we think Enhancement dps was competitive when there wasn't a lot of movement involved and when you weren't competing with guys using orange weapons. We can fix the movement problem. We don't think we need to fix the legendary "problem" because those Shadowmournes will all be banked at level 85.
I honestly don't see how healing rains AND chain heal are needed. Both are AoE heals fill the same role (heal people grouped together).
They are different spells with different niches. Chain Heal excels when you have a small number of players injured and Healing Rain is more for those big bursts when everyone takes damage. There are enough occasions when you need to heal say more than just the tank that we think healers can stand to have several different strategies to deal with it.
(4) Any chance that the stoneclaw glyph can become baseline or something? I'm mostly fine with the totem utility vs. buff thing, but it seems fairly weird to have this non-scaling bubble as a secondary effect of a totem. If it can't be baseline, is it being compensated for? Hance isn't exactly a survivability powerhouse.
We are changing a lot of glyphs. It's too early to know which ones we are keeping. If this one dies then we might consider putting in the functionality elsewhere.
At this point tho, after getting the current tier hit/spirit cap, I'm pretty much forced to handpick items with no or little crit rating however. Mastery and haste just seem so overwhelmingly better.
That's not the intent. Hit / spirit can be capped, but if you start viewing haste, crit or mastery as junk compared to another stat, then we need to change something. It's fine if one stat is slightly better than another. Remember that crit values overall are going to be far lower than the 70%+ that some players can reach in current content. Lava Burst crits, sure, but you cast a lot of spells besides Lava Burst.
3. Whether it will continue to attack stuff we are not in combat with (especially if it's range is increased).
This is something we are trying to fix. We already have the totem choosing your target. Next we need to make sure it doesn't "helpfully" grab additional mobs.I'm the first to admit, that I'm not the greatest player out there, but I'd occasionally top the meters back in Ulduar. I cant even come close now. I was doing some WoL comparisions and looking at Saurfang fights. Kresh, the top Enhancer in the US on that fight is a bit over 2kdps ahead of me. I can deal with that. the discouraging thing though is that the best Shaman in the US is only 7th best dps in his guild. GC says not to worry about our damage, as Shadowmourne is being reset. Well what happends when they get new Legendary Weapons? We fall behind again as im guess they aren't going to be giving out any Slow 1H melee weapons.
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elemental
•Shamanism is now a primary skill.
•Elemental Mastery no longer shares a cooldown with Nature's Swiftness and now also increases your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage by 15% for the duration of the spell.
Enhancement
•Shamanistic Rage reduces the mana cost of your skills, totems, and offensive spells by 90 for 15 sec.
•Ancestral Swiftness is back as a Tier 2 talent
Enhancing Totems will be changing to provide an additional shaman-only buff when the buff totems are down. Technically that implementation is tricky so we just haven't finished it yet. In general you are correct that there should not be "buff my buff" talents. There are a few exceptions where a buff is elevated from a minor bonus to a more serious bonus (Elemental's spell power for instance).
Mental Quickness is something Enhancement and Retribution need in order to be a mana-using spec without mana on gear. In general you won't see stat conversion talents, though warriors and DKs might keep their armor conversions. We'll see.
We may need additional mana restore mechanics than we have now for Enhancement, but that will take some more testing.
We're not sure what we'll do with Ancestral Swiftness. We made that talent before you could wolf indoors, so it may be less attractive now.
The Searing Totem mechanic is obviously something new and will take some iteration.
Someone mentioned Imp Windfury Totem. I think you're looking at an old talent tree.
Enhance is intended as a dual-wield tree. We aren't going to support a competitive 2H spec. We aren't going to prohibit it, but it won't be competitive.
There are going to be some hard choices in all the trees. It's not our design intent that you scoop up every single talent in your tree
ShamanSo with a 51 point Enhance build we are looking at 8% Physical damage, 8% Melee Haste, and 20% Nature Damage. I'm still hoping for that last bonus to be changed to elemental rather than nature damage.
Elemental
Spell Damage % 0.157 51 8.01 Increases the damage done by your spells by a percentage.
Spell Crit % 0.157 51 8.01 Increases your spell critical strike chance by a percentage.
Elemental Overload % 0.5 51 25.5 Grants a percentage chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes half damage and no threat.
Enhancement
Physical Damage % 0.157 51 8.01% Increases all physical damage you deal by a percentage.
Melee Haste % 0.157 51 8.01% Grants a percentage of melee haste.
Nature Damage % 0.393 51 20.04 % Increases all nature damage done by a percentage.
Restoration
Healing % 0.157 51 8.01 Increases all your healing spells by a percentage.
Meditation 0.981 51 50.03 Grants a percentage of your out of combat mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat.
Deep Healing % 0.393 51 20.04 Increases the potency of your heal over time spells by up to a percentage