Mists of Pandaria Buff Changes

[Manu9]

It's in there.

Actually, I can probably run direct sims. I'll go smack simulationcraft around until it does what I want and post the results.[/FONT]

But the thing is Ele did not lose SP to gain Mastery, they may have lost crit, but it's not attractive to them, and AP is the counter-part to SP anyway.

No doubt it is a good thing for enhance. My concern lays with why they switched our AP aura to a haste aura, when haste is one of the worst (if not the worst) scaling stats for us. I can only hope that they are tweaking how haste will affect us scaling wise in MoP, considering a lot of talents in the talent tree deal with haste. My major problem is; the buff/debuff choices that shamans have (or have had) seem to be getting more and more limited with every expansion. [/FONT]

We always had Haste, it's just an Aura now instead

[Endus]

No doubt it is a good thing for enhance. My concern lays with why they switched our AP aura to a haste aura, when haste is one of the worst (if not the worst) scaling stats for us. I can only hope that they are tweaking how haste will affect us scaling wise in MoP, considering a lot of talents in the talent tree deal with haste. My major problem is; the buff/debuff choices that shamans have (or have had) seem to be getting more and more limited with every expansion.

They didn't switch the AP aura to a Haste aura, they changed Windfury Totem, which has been a melee haste buff since WotLK, into an aura.

This is the first time Shaman have really "lost" buffs, unless you're getting wistful of the days when we had Windwall Totem. And this is more of a system-wide overhaul; we aren't losing buffs any more than anyone else is. Most of the buffs we're losing nobody else has either; that buff no longer exists. That's not a change to Shaman, that's a change to the basic game systems. We have more buffs than anyone else now. We continue to have more buffs than anyone else in MoP.

But the thing is Ele did not lose SP to gain Mastery, they may have lost crit, but it's not attractive to them, and AP is the counter-part to SP anyway.

So what?

The two aren't in any way connected, nor does Elemental keeping spellpower mean Enhancement should definitely keep attack power.

[Deleted]

May I remember that the 5% haste bonus for resto is still available via talent Ancestral swiftness - T4.

I wonder how this will interact with the spell/melee haste buffs...

[Stand]

I've just checked the MoP talent Calc. for the third time because I have this thing that bugs me a little since I've seen the buff/debuff post.

Right now, our Earth Shock put Weakened Blows on the target, which is 10% physical damage dealt reduced.

Earth Shock: Instantly shocks the target with concussive force, causing 1,030 Nature damage and applying the Weakened Blows effect.
Weakened Blows: Demoralizes the target, reducing their physical damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec sec.

The Devs didn't say that in their post, and Blindlad didn't post it either (Shaman debuffs - Mop - None).

Weakened Blows
Effect: -10% physical damage done
Example: Previously Demoralizing Shout; now Thunder Clap
Brought by: Blood death knight, Feral and Guardian druid, Brewmaster monk, Protection or Retribution paladin, any warrior (any tank)

Who is right? The talent calculator or the latest blue post?

[Radux]

Who is right? The talent calculator or the latest blue post?

Always go with the most recent information.

That would mean that the Blue Quote is far more likely to be accurate opposed to the talent calculator. This is especially true considering they really have only give 2 updates to the talent calculator since Blizzcon (nearly 6 months time).

[Protoman]

Personally, I also think Enhance should be able to give the AP buff. Considering we have little or no debuffs, and have always been known to bring buffs and fill in gaps. They could simply have it so we can only have 2 buffs out at one time, and have to make a decision between say AP or Mastery.

Enhance: AP, Melee haste, mastery
Ele: SP, spell haste, mastery
Resto: SP, mastery

Let us always give AP (fire element), but choose between haste or mastery (air element). Seems fair to me.

[Chult]

It looks "okay" overall. I'm glad Rogues finally bring their own haste buff, however, bringing 8% SP buff for a Rogue is borderline retarded. That's like Warlocks bringing 4% physical. They should change the 8% SP to someone who cares more about it, such as a caster, and let Rogues keep the 4% physical.

I was initially excited we were gaining a buff which we need, but apparently it's at the expense of an equally important buff. DK's can bring these, a Brez, and Tank when necessary.

[DrakeWurrum]

I am very disappointed that I no longer bring the AP buff. I really... liked bringing that. :|

I can understand losing Strength of Earth since that buff is just gone, period... but I'm not at all sure why we're losing Unleashed Rage. I would gladly give up the Spellpower to have UR back as Enhance.

In addition, while I hate being "that guy" ... if they're going to take the time to completely redesign buffs and debuffs and who brings what, would it kill to give us just one debuff? :S
I believe, according to that post... Shaman, Mages, and Priests don't bring debuffs... We've never been debuffers before, but I wouldn't see anything wrong with changing that.
For that matter, wasn't Earth Shock going to do Weakened Blows? Could our Shocks at least cause Magic Vulnerability, since both Enhance and Ele benefit from that?

Also, @Endus: your OP is slightly wrong. GC specifically said there no longer is a 6% spellpower buff, only 10%.

[Endus]

Also, @Endus: your OP is slightly wrong. GC specifically said there no longer is a 6% spellpower buff, only 10%.

The only place I mention the 6% spellpower buff is when I'm describing the live servers.

I included it there because some people were taking issue with the idea that Mages would bring that buff, when it's basically just making Arcane Brilliance competitive, and for Shaman allowing it to not be spec-specific.

[Volbian]

Only one class really loses out, here. Hunters. The suggestion is that pets will no longer provide raid buffs like they did for Cata.

They never said Hunter pets wouldnt give raid buffs. Dont see where you read that.

This is what is says on the Blue Post: "We are still likely to use the design that hunters, especially Beastmaster hunters, can fill in for missing buffs or debuffs by using certain pets."

[Endus]

They never said Hunter pets wouldnt give raid buffs. Dont see where you read that.

This is what is says on the Blue Post: "We are still likely to use the design that hunters, especially Beastmaster hunters, can fill in for missing buffs or debuffs by using certain pets."

Fair enough, I just missed that line in my first review. Editing the OP to reflect it.

[Whoopsa]

I said this in the official feedback thread, but I'll echo it here. The 5% Spell Haste buff is extremely scarce, and it's kind of odd that it's only on 3 specs. I hope they spread it around a bit, otherwise itemizing for haste plateaus is going to be a nightmare when you don't know if you'll have that buff or not.

[gwenners]

The spell haste buff changes are asinine, especially since they are all on healer off-specs. No reason why all priests and resto shaman/druids shouldn't have access to it, especially given how sparse priest buffs are. My raid doesn't run with any of the caster specs that give spell haste in MoP.

[Sarevokcz]

The spell haste buff changes are asinine, especially since they are all on healer off-specs. No reason why all priests and resto shaman/druids shouldn't have access to it, especially given how sparse priest buffs are. My raid doesn't run with any of the caster specs that give spell haste in MoP.

yeah, just as we dont run with rogue/lock and we would be missing CoE.

there is still a lot of room for improvement

[Endus]

That does not mean the system is broken. "Bring the player not the class" philosophy was never about being able to have any raid comp you wanted, only that you weren't shoehorned into needing, say, four specific specs in your 10-man raid for necessary buffs that only those four specs brought, like when Elemental shaman was the only spec providing a 10% spellpower buff, or Enhancement had the old Windfury Totem that was unique and ridiculously powerful in a melee group.

Class is not intended to be irrelevant, just flexible.

[Volbian]

I foresee, with these changes, 15man raids across the board. No more 10/25s.

[Protoman]

That does not mean the system is broken. "Bring the player not the class" philosophy was never about being able to have any raid comp you wanted, only that you weren't shoehorned into needing, say, four specific specs in your 10-man raid for necessary buffs that only those four specs brought, like when Elemental shaman was the only spec providing a 10% spellpower buff, or Enhancement had the old Windfury Totem that was unique and ridiculously powerful in a melee group.

Class is not intended to be irrelevant, just flexible.

I don't think anyone said its broken, but it needs improvement. Being able to have any raid comp goes hand in hand with not requiring a specific class/spec in your raid.....you should be able to have a rag tag group of players, pref one of each class, and get all the buffs needed.

One thing that I'm noticing is that they say they are getting rid of spec specific buffs, so you don't feel pidgeonholed into playing a certain spec to provide a certain buff, yet Shaman have that with melee/spell haste. What if I'm in a 10man group and I'm enhance, our druid is feral, and our priest is healing? Who is supposed to give 5% spell haste? We either raid without it, or one of us has to play a spec we don't normally use. Before, as Enhance I could still drop 5% haste totem. This is why I feel that 5% haste should be given to the class, not a spec.....so all shaman, druids, priests.

Curse of elements I suppose could be problematic, it looks like it was done to give an incentive to bring pure dps like rogues/locks....just like 5% haste is incentive to bring hybrid caster like ele/balance/spriest. I suppose the debuff could be given to another class, maybe hunters (or on Earth shock hehe).

I foresee, with these changes, 15man raids across the board. No more 10/25s.

Hope not. 10man is the perfect amount of people, still can get enough challenge and complexity out of raids, but small enough to keep things organized and distribute loot easier.

[TenDance]

We heard it all four years ago... "you're no longer a support class, therefore we can make you stronger"...
and what went live?
"We can't bring you on par [with pure DPS[ because your utility is too high [for PvP reasons]"

Just choose which [] you want to read.

I'm honestly still pissed that they nerfed the best interrupt in the game for our DPS-specs because it had been too powerful for restoration in PvP. They could discern the usage of WoG for paladins but a similar coding for windshear would be too difficult? Crap...

Sure, it is still pre-beta and we don't know how things play out in the end, but given the experience I made during the past six years when changes like these had been announced, I'm not overly optimistic. And stripping enhancement of the AP-buff feels awkward.

[Protoman]

I'm honestly still pissed that they nerfed the best interrupt in the game for our DPS-specs because it had been too powerful for restoration in PvP. They could discern the usage of WoG for paladins but a similar coding for windshear would be too difficult? Crap...

Sure, it is still pre-beta and we don't know how things play out in the end, but given the experience I made during the past six years when changes like these had been announced, I'm not overly optimistic. And stripping enhancement of the AP-buff feels awkward.

Yea, Wind Shear nerf was one of the laziest and poorly thought out changes I have seen Blizz make. Wanted to nerf Resto but nerfed the whole class, forced enhance to spend 2 more talent points for same interrupt other melee have baseline and killed off resto subspec for PVP. They handled similar nerfs to specific specs like dispels for priest and rootshift for druids thru their spec passives, and also crusader strike cd between prot and ret as a hidden change.....but could not do the same thing for Shaman.

New ratios for the interrupts make Wind shear slightly worse then the other classes. But the biggest advantage WS had was it's short 6 sec cd, at 12 sec its only advantage is the range now.

Wind Shear.... 12 sec cd, 3 sec lockout (.25) old was 5-6s cd, 2s lockout (.33 or .4)
Warrior.... 15 sec cd, 4 sec lockout (.267) old was 10s cd, 4s lockout (.4)
Rogue.... 15 sec cd, 5 sec lockout (.33) old was 10s cd, 5s lockout (.5)

Suppose its not a huge deal, we still technically have a shorter cd then the others. But I wonder if it would have been better to keep our 2 sec lockout, but give an 8 sec cd....that would still give the .25 ratio but we could use it more often. Although, I don't think Blizz wants any interrupts at 10s or less.

[banan163]

The Mastery buff is an aura. It's even on the talent calculator as an aura. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Tier 6 talents.

As for value; looking at the BiS profile (which isn't how things will scale in MoP, but it's all I have to work with for now), the unbuffed AP value is 15137, meaning 10% is 1514 AP. The scale value on AP is 1.597, so the buff provides ~2400 DPS. 5 more Mastery would translate, at 179.28 points of Mastery rating per point of Mastery, to 896.4 Mastery. With a scale value of 2.522, that means the new buff would be providing ~2250 DPS.

And there's some further complications in that both feed into each other and all that. But basically, yes, the Mastery buff does make up for the AP buff, especially since this is before the effect of armor is taken into account in PvP, which reduces AP's value, and that Resistance does not exist in the MoP model, so that damage that Mastery is boosting not only penetrates armor, but can't be passively reduced by resistances either.

Plus affects most of the abilities you use while kiting and such.

And in raids, you'll have someone else providing the AP buff, almost guaranteed, so you're not "losing" it there, just not providing it.

Heck, from a purely PvP perspective, this looks like an overall gain for Enhancement, IMO.

i really hope you are right that's why i always come to mmo-c to read about stuff of shaman i'm worried about in official forum it's more whine, here it's more ppl providing facts and good assumptions thats gets my hope up.
love reading your and radux posts cause you usually clear things up. but yeah on topic lets hope you're right and we dont get screwed in anyway in MoP