5.2 Shaman changes

[Dundebuns]

Really confused as to why Blizz ar improving Ele's cleave when that's been at least ok, and not single target which is quite lacking :/

[Deleted]

Really confused as to why Blizz ar improving Ele's cleave when that's been at least ok, and not single target which is quite lacking :/

All fights will be AOE! We will rock.

/sarcasm off

[Kralljin]

Yea, dat 6k HPS from HTT is so crucial. Only reason other than Capacitator would be moving magma totem trying to get ppl out of stealth, which is something I definitely could live without.

Personally i'm using Tp for Earthbind as well, but i think your opinion is pretty much set in stone.

I do not agree because many decent Shaman i've seen play with Tp instead of TR, TR is superior if you think that capacitator cannot be used anyway.

[Nebria]

Really confused as to why Blizz ar improving Ele's cleave when that's been at least ok, and not single target which is quite lacking :/

perhaps this is our niche? or their way to fix the "multi dot issue" by letting us perform even better on cleave or the numbers on cleave was not that superior compared to "multi-dot-cleave".
There must be a reason why they did this. I don't think it was "we won't buff single target dps so shut up and take this cleave candy"^^

[Laurean]

5 target cleave was great, but 8+ not at all - so with the changes we are really great against 4-6 targets and still decent against more than that.
Personally I would have preferred 10% reduction per CL jump with a max of 10 jumps. Just for insane overloads

I think there still needs to be done something regarding single target dps.
We can't really count the set boni, because every specc has set boni - so we don't gain/lose anything (at least not a lot) compared to other speccs.
The only real buff are the changes to FS which results in almost nothing.
Since talents should be a choice I could still choose EotE and EB with 5.2 und would have almost no dps gain. So I guess Blizz "forces" us to choose PE when going for max dps; too bad, I like EB, it looks great and it crits harder than LvB, 300k+ crits just make my heart beat a little faster
With EM at 90 sec CD I am not sure it is even a dps gain for Elemental, 60 sec is a great time, just reduce haste to +20%, we have enough haste as it is and it just lines up great for an engineering Ork like me.

[rogas]

perhaps this is our niche? or their way to fix the "multi dot issue" by letting us perform even better on cleave or the numbers on cleave was not that superior compared to "multi-dot-cleave".
There must be a reason why they did this. I don't think it was "we won't buff single target dps so shut up and take this cleave candy"^^

Why? Because it's a 30sec fix ...

Yes, blizz just turns up our CL numbers, and hopes it will be enough to make us shut up ...

[Nebria]

Why? Because it's a 30sec fix ...

Yes, blizz just turns up our CL numbers, and hopes it will be enough to make us shut up ...

well a fix to the talents that change our coefficients would be even easier^^
perhaps something more is coming. still waiting for some statement from gc what blizzards opinion about our single target dps is.

[Sarevokcz]

perhaps this is our niche? or their way to fix the "multi dot issue" by letting us perform even better on cleave or the numbers on cleave was not that superior compared to "multi-dot-cleave".
There must be a reason why they did this. I don't think it was "we won't buff single target dps so shut up and take this cleave candy"^^

Do you really expect CL to remain the same damage on first hit? I call it now, CL is gonna get nerfed to like 75% of the original damage to keep the damage of 5target cleave in line, while nerfing our 2 target cleave

---------- Post added 2013-01-17 at 04:26 PM ----------

well a fix to the talents that change our coefficients would be even easier^^
perhaps something more is coming. still waiting for some statement from gc what blizzards opinion about our single target dps is.

Well he commented few weeks back that ele (and few other specs) might be a bit low, on twitter I think.

[Cai]

Notice the Mental Quickness and the CL/Lava Beam changes.

I am a little confused as to why we, Enh, needed shocks mana cost lowered? Is it a PvP buff? Are they increasing the base cost? Also I like the CL/LvBe change.

Also I actually kind of like our t14 it has a troll/witch doctor theme, kinda disappointed no lightning theme, pallys have it instead.

[Raiju]

I am a little confused as to why we, Enh, needed shocks mana cost lowered? Is it a PvP buff? Are they increasing the base cost? Also I like the CL/LvBe change.

Also I actually kind of like our t14 it has a troll/witch doctor theme, kinda disappointed no lightning theme, pallys have it instead.

Probably because bad RNG could leave you on low mana, and in pvp that meant any non-5 maelstrom cast is going to pretty much OOM you.

It doesn't help much, but i guess it is something.

[Omanley]

The only thing that applies for this homogenisation are Buffs

Buffs were a shamans' strenght once, now our strenght is to have 3 buffs, unlike another classes two? sounds awesome. We also suffered from homogenisation in terms of interupts, offensive dispells (mages, hunters, warriors...) and heals to say the least. We didn't benefit much from it in areas we lacked though, like stuns or CC.

As far as i can see, spells like "stuns, sap, gouge, blind and the like" work as well against Melee, if you compare those tools now against Wind shear you are comparing Apples and to an entire crate of Oranges.

They still do their thing in shutting down casters, like wind shear. Just because the latter is more specialized doesn't make my point any less true. A rogue could shut down casters much better than a shaman, and suffered much less than them through that interrupt nerf. Interrupts aren't the only way to, well, interupt spells. That's why a class who has the ability to utilize many tools to do this wont be hurt as much a s one who has only one to it's disposal when the interupt only spell is nerfed.

Yeah, Warlocks cannot lockdown targets as Rogues can, now what? Comparing interrupt spells to Stuns and full CC's doesn't make any sense at all.

There isn't that much a difference between a caster being permanently interupted/silenced and one who's CCed all the time. Both wont be able to support their mates much. Obviously there'll be situations in which a CC will have disadvantages over an interupt, in case you'll want to kill your interupt target. Still, a large chunk of CC can indeed replace an interupt, at least to a degree.

Again, is this a "only Shaman" issue, doesn't this Polymorph immunity apply to mages as well? Resto Druids can now dispel Poly as well.
CS is nearly worthless against a Resto Druid as well with 5.2 coming live, it is even weaker because it allows to interrupt a single cyclone every 20sec.
Is dispelling hots a only Shaman "weakness" as well? I think Priests and Hunters could dispel things as well.

-You've essentially avoided my point about shamans not being brought for CC.
-Plus we talked about wotlk-times, where resto druids could not dispell magic yet. Even now that they can, Hex is hit worse than poly against druids, as feral/guardian/balance still cant dispell magic, so while poly is the only other CC hit with that weakness and much better through not having a cooldown and taking the target's control, it at least works against a feral's or moonkin's allies, whereas Hex does not.
-CS will still allow for a safe poly, which was what it was about, not it's usefulness against a resto druid.
-The part about purge-spam not being that good aside, it was, again, to show that shamans weren't brought for control. Plus hunters having dispell is yet another example how homogenisation benefits mostly others, not us, but tahnk you for providing me with examples to prove my point anyways.

You see however not the problem that their sole burst relies on a sucessful Frost Bomb.

Uuum, so they dont have shatter anymore or what? Frost can put of nice burst even outside of FB afaik. Plus they were made much more pve comtitive, which also benefitted their pvp output. Also people using trinkets/cooldowns to avoid burst is just normal pvp play, it happens everywhere, for example when popping ascendence as a shaman (which isn't among the thing I complained about).

What people do not realise about Capacitator is that it's a baseline skill.

I prefer a good talented aoe over a bad baseline one. I'd trade a lot of our talents for a shadow fury or shock wave stun. Namely the entire tier 1, the totem tier, conductivity and probably also some of the actually good ones. A good stun's worth is hardly describe in value. A bad one like CPT is hardly worth the trouble of setting it up. And to become half-way useful only, you require one talent and two glyphs, so your argument is void totally.
Plus even if stuns like a warlock's cataclysm have similar drawbacks (they still win out overall over CPT), they are tools in addition to a decent CC toolkit, whereas CPT is a bad stun in addition to a bad CC.

Wind Shear is still strong because of it's range and short CD.

True, but as explained before, not enough to make up for the lack of as many tools as a rogue or now also warriors have to shut down a caster. 12 secs compared to 15 doesn't sound like much of an edge as 5-6 vs 10 did. We could kick twice as often as others did as compensation for not having stuns, real silences, good CC or stuff like gouge. Now we can interupt 5 times in the time a rogue can interupt four times. Wooooo. And the range aspect existed because it was utilized by 2 caster specs, as well as enh not having good gap closing. Wind Shears design by itself was a band-aid fix for us apparently not being worthy of getting stuff like the other melees.

I was talking about spells that specifically work against Melees.
What you are counting up here is any kind of CC available to a Warlock, regardless of Spec or Pet.
If you are trying to say that Warlock has more CC overall, then yes this is true.

And all of that CC can help getting casts of, hence they're relevant. What does ele have? Thunderstorm, Hex, two snares of which one can be a root and CPT. Position yourself well to avoid thunderstorming of an edge, trinket Hex, destroy CPT and the ele cant do much anymore. Try that easy cornering against any warlock.

However this is Iconic to Warlock as well as Mages to have a big control over the enemy, that's why many people always said that these 2 Classes have a high skillcap because you need to use those CC's properly else you will fail.

Ele doesn't have those tools and doesn't even has the chance to fail due to "high skill cap". It fails because of insufficient toolkit. Hardly a good argument.

I solely talking about the Uptime of Melees on Shaman and Warlocks.

And as explained, CCs, knockbacks, snares, stuns and the like will all reduce the uptime of a melee on a warlock. Again, hence they are relevant.

And some things you named are just silly, such as Voidwalker Disarm, i don't know if i saw a serious Warlock with a Voidwalker or GoSac with Disarm.

I named what I found, nothing more. Not using a Voidwalker may entail using a succubus instead (who has both whiplash and seduce), or a felguard as demo (with it's stun). It just means you choose other CCs instead of a felguard's disarm.

[Emophia]

Probably because bad RNG could leave you on low mana, and in pvp that meant any non-5 maelstrom cast is going to pretty much OOM you.

It doesn't help much, but i guess it is something.

Mana cost isn't a problem in PVP as enhc mana regen is.

[NPSlow]

I am a little confused as to why we, Enh, needed shocks mana cost lowered? Is it a PvP buff? Are they increasing the base cost? Also I like the CL/LvBe change.

Also I actually kind of like our t14 it has a troll/witch doctor theme, kinda disappointed no lightning theme, pallys have it instead.

In a situation in PVE where I'm forced out of melee range, casting Lightning Bolts, Ele Blasts and Shocking my target with no autos in between would OOM me fast.

Now maybe I'll just oom slightly less fast? I'll take what I can get.

[Nitwit]

In a situation in PVE where I'm forced out of melee range, casting Lightning Bolts, Ele Blasts and Shocking my target with no autos in between would OOM me fast.

Now maybe I'll just oom slightly less fast? I'll take what I can get.

Clearly you just need to glyph telluric currents!

[shell]

Ele doesn't have those tools and doesn't even has the chance to fail due to "high skill cap". It fails because of insufficient toolkit. Hardly a good argument.

Elemental has the tools, they're right there in our spellbook. The problem, in my opinion anyways, is our ability to use those tools. I like my toolkit against casters, especially now with the changes coming in 5.2. And if I had better access to my shocks and weapon imbues, tools we already have, I'd like my toolkit against melee a lot more.

Do you really expect CL to remain the same damage on first hit? I call it now, CL is gonna get nerfed to like 75% of the original damage to keep the damage of 5target cleave in line, while nerfing our 2 target cleave

If they felt it was too strong, couldn't they just further nerf the glyph?

[Deleted]

If they felt it was too strong, couldn't they just further nerf the glyph?

I'd rather have them nerf the initial damage and remove the target cap to give us a legitimate mass aoe option (which should be Earthquake, followed by a target capped CL, but oh well).

[Deleted]

I'd rather have them nerf the initial damage and remove the target cap to give us a legitimate mass aoe option (which should be Earthquake, followed by a target capped CL, but oh well).

In short a Multi-shot/Howling Blast cone effect for CL? That would require a mastery redone to a elemental mechanic like what was done for Fire Mages and Ignite.

Something like every 3 successfull CL(?)/LvB(? - Ascendance)/LB/EB/Fulm you cast, a copy of that spell would trigger, sending a duplicate that hit for atleast 3x the original damage of the spell, modified by your mastery rating?

You wouldn't see people complaining much about damage in PVP at least and would be far less RNG for that and PVE.

[Omanley]

Elemental has the tools, they're right there in our spellbook. The problem, in my opinion anyways, is our ability to use those tools. I like my toolkit against casters, especially now with the changes coming in 5.2. And if I had better access to my shocks and weapon imbues, tools we already have, I'd like my toolkit against melee a lot more.

It is true that dps shamans could be much better if blizz just removed some of those many restrictions. Shared shock cooldown is obviously one, unleash swaps being clunky would be another, yes, gw gylph, UF FB giving a 2-3 sec freedom, better Hex and CPT another. The problem with shaman utility/mobility/surkvivability isn't quantitiy, but quality. Just with what we have in terms of abilities, blizz could make dps shamans awesome in pvp easily.

[demoncleaner]

They are making steps making all three specs viable in pvp things like the sham rage change are a step in the right direction. But honestly I think most of the overdue changes remain over due because of resto. Resto has been and most likely will be again, an absolute monster in high rated pvp play. The combination of restos mastery and high synergy with other classes just made it silly at some points. So like most classes I think blizzard is ok with just having one great spec in pvp. Not that they wil ignore the other ones, but I think it's a lower priority when one spec is performing so well.

Off topic. Omanley I don't think I've ever seen you say anything positive about Shammys. Did one steal your lunch money as a child?

[Kralljin]

Buffs were a shamans' strenght once, now our strenght is to have 3 buffs, unlike another classes two? sounds awesome. We also suffered from homogenisation in terms of interupts, offensive dispells (mages, hunters, warriors...)

Tell me more about this "interrupt homogenisation" or "dispel homogenisation"

referring to the general interrupt nerf? well that's not really homogenisation, it's just a across the board nerf.

Talking about that more classes have interrupts than they used to have? Paladins and Ferals, these classes / specs got a solid interrupt.


And Dispel homogenisation, the only classes that can still dispel properly are Priest and Shaman, they always could that.

Spell steal has a huge mana cost, currently it takes a few spells steals to oom a mage, you cannot spam it like the Priest / Shaman version.

Hunters can dispel but it it costs 20focus and a 1sec GCD or with a 10sec CD.

And Warrior...as far as i know only prot warrior can dispel if they got the Glyph for it, Shield Slam nor the dispel effect are baseline.

Btw. you forget Dk, they can dispel if they got the Icy Touch Glyph.

They still do their thing in shutting down casters, like wind shear. Just because the latter is more specialized doesn't make my point any less true. A rogue could shut down casters much better than a shaman, and suffered much less than them through that interrupt nerf. Interrupts aren't the only way to, well, interupt spells. That's why a class who has the ability to utilize many tools to do this wont be hurt as much a s one who has only one to it's disposal when the interupt only spell is nerfed.

You see, a rogue can shutdown almost any character down for a certain amount of time, however they cannot throw Interrupts at range that easily, that's where they run into a problem, if they cannot shutdown one person any longer, they are open for burst.

That's the Rogue thing, they can piss off the target they are currently focusing with stuns and such, Shaman can piss off an entire Caster Team, obviously not every single person as a Rogue can do, but Shaman can throw stones into the way of the entire team, while rogues often can only block one person for a limited amount of time.

-You've essentially avoided my point about shamans not being brought for CC.

Yeah, but why should you? If you lack CC you take a Mage or a Warlock.

-Plus we talked about wotlk-times, where resto druids could not dispell magic yet.

We are switching bit often between situation in terms of expansion / spec, don't we?

-CS will still allow for a safe poly, which was what it was about, not it's usefulness against a resto druid.

Then again, are talking about Wotlk or MoP now? Totems could be used while silenced during Wotlk, you could get the 1st Poly with Grounding.

Or about the fact that CS no longer silences with 5.2?

Uuum, so they dont have shatter anymore or what? Frost can put of nice burst even outside of FB afaik. Plus they were made much more pve comtitive, which also benefitted their pvp output.

Not really.
You can cast Frostbomb, if you get interrupted you just try it again in 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 Seconds, then you cast Frost bomb again, apply a freeze and got burst.
If you freeze someone, cast Frostbolt, get interrupted, your freeze will be wasted.

And to become half-way useful only, you require one talent and two glyphs, so your argument is void totally.

Again, there are people out there who use Capacitator even without Tp or the Glyph, they just combine with Earthgrab and such.

Seen some Restos that use it lengthen a CC Chain, Hex him, root him shortly afterwards and put down Capacitator, this works with other CC from your Mates as well.

Also, using the Totemic Vigor is is just fail, Totems will have around 19k hp, Melees will still kill if they target it.

Plus even if stuns like a warlock's cataclysm have similar drawbacks (they still win out overall over CPT), they are tools in addition to a decent CC toolkit, whereas CPT is a bad stun in addition to a bad CC.

Cataclysm never made it into the game, outside of Zor'lok but Destro Locks in PvE are rare anway.

True, but as explained before, not enough to make up for the lack of as many tools as a rogue or now also warriors have to shut down a caster. 12 secs compared to 15 doesn't sound like much of an edge as 5-6 vs 10 did.

Warriors can lock down Caster that good?

Interrupt, Spell reflect and Mass Spell reflection, those are the 3 "anti caster" tools of a Warrior, Gag Order Glyph now longer works against player.

And all of that CC can help getting casts of, hence they're relevant. What does ele have? Thunderstorm, Hex, two snares of which one can be a root and CPT. Position yourself well to avoid thunderstorming of an edge, trinket Hex, destroy CPT and the ele cant do much anymore. Try that easy cornering against any warlock.

If you are a Ranged Dps with a Knockback and stand on a position where Melees can easily nullify this knockback AND you even use it while you are still there, then you deserve to get owned.

The general advantage of Ranged in PvP is that you can choose your position unlike Melees, if you don't use it that's your fault.

Also, those "virtual situations" hold nothing because it is comparing oranges to apples, mostly because they ignore a core thing of arena, namely that you play in a team.