The 5.4 Shaman Thread

[Deleted]

Might as well start the ball rolling, given the first PTR news post is up:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...7#post21419307

Looks like UF and AS are getting buffed, SS debuff now includes EB as well, Riptide costs less mana, FE glyph is being rendered useless, and CH/Riptide glyphs are getting buffed a bit.

And we have preliminary T16 bonuses:

Item - Shaman T16 Elemental 2P Bonus (New) Fulmination increases all Fire and Nature damage dealt to that target from the Shaman by 4% for 2 sec per Lightning Shield charge consumed.
Item - Shaman T16 Elemental 4P Bonus (New) Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells have a chance to summon a Lightning Elemental to fight by your side for 20 sec.
Item - Shaman T16 Enhancement 2P Bonus (New) For 10 sec after using Unleash Elements, your attacks have a chance to unleash a random weapon imbue.
Item - Shaman T16 Enhancement 4P Bonus (New) When Flame Shock deals periodic damage, you have a chance to gain 5 stacks of Searing Flames and reset the cooldown of Lava Lash.
Item - Shaman T16 Restoration 2P Bonus (New) When Earth Shield heals a target, the target will gain 100% of the amount healed as an absorb.
Item - Shaman T16 Restoration 4P Bonus (New) Spiritwalker's Grace will also summon a spiritual version of yourself that will mimic all cast time targeted spells for 15 sec.

I'm somewhat disappointed with the Enh ones (looks like I'll be keeping 4xT15 for some purposes at least depending on ilvl inflation), the others look cool though.


Mod Edit: In the interest of keeping things in one place, I'm adding the class changes in this first PTR patch as well;

Far Sight - Range limited to 500 yards from "unlimited".
Astral Shift - 1.5 minute CD, down from 2 minutes
Unleashed Fury - Unleash Flametongue increases enemy damage taken from LB by 30%, up from 20%
Healing Rain - Radius increased to 12 yards, up from 10 yards

Enhancement:
Stormstrike - now adds 25% crit to EB as well as CL/LS/ES

Resto:
Riptide - Cost dropped from 16% mana to 12%

Glyphs:
Glyph of FET - Reduces cooldown and duration by 50%, up from 40%
Glyph of Chaining - Adds a 2s CD, down from 4s
Glyph of Riptide - Reduces initial direct healing by 75%, down from 90%

[Oryxx]

That ele 4P looks amazing.

[BennyZee]

Item - Shaman T16 Restoration 4P Bonus (New) Spiritwalker's Grace will also summon a spiritual version of yourself that will mimic all cast time targeted spells for 15 sec.

I wish they would stop tying extra things into our Spiritwalker's Grace. It's should be only for movement and not a throughput CD. A double Ascendance would greatly increase the usability of that cooldown.

[Jotaux]

And farsight is getting nerfed

[Rafal]

I wish they would stop tying extra things into our Spiritwalker's Grace. It's should be only for movement and not a throughput CD. A double Ascendance would greatly increase the usability of that cooldown.

Oh boy....lets make resto shaman's one good mobility spell a lousy throughput CD. Though to be fair...maybe it will help us cast and move...maybe... But considering the amount you move in heroics the 2 min CD will hold it back from ever truly being useful.

[edit] Oh! and chain heal glyph was buffed! But since chain heal hits like a wet fish sprinkled in our healing waters...can't say I'm excited.

[Romeothecat]

I wish they would stop tying extra things into our Spiritwalker's Grace. It's should be only for movement and not a throughput CD. A double Ascendance would greatly increase the usability of that cooldown.

Couldn't agree more. It makes the spell itself seem underwhelming. "Woah! A personal heroism!..oh hey I can cast while moving too, cool." or "Woah! A clone that copies all my single target heals!?..oh right this spell is for cast while moving."

[The Crapster]

The enh 2 piece seems kind of strange. I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works. the enhance 4 piece on the other hand sounds really cool. Lava lash procs where we get to use it off CD? yes please! I just hope the chance is reasonably high. No PPM is listed or anything, so only time will tell I guess.

[stomination]

I wish they would stop tying extra things into our Spiritwalker's Grace. It's should be only for movement and not a throughput CD. A double Ascendance would greatly increase the usability of that cooldown.

Yea i dont see this being allowed if we give a big enough complaint about it being linked to SWG. Horrible flaw to have a hps boost linked to our only spell that helps us heal while moving.

The Es one will be meh.

[Protoman]

Might as well start the ball rolling, given the first PTR news post is up:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...7#post21419307

Looks like UF and AS are getting buffed, SS debuff now includes EB as well, Riptide costs less mana, FE glyph is being rendered useless, and CH/Riptide glyphs are getting buffed a bit.

And we have preliminary T16 bonuses:



I'm somewhat disappointed with the Enh ones (looks like I'll be keeping 4xT15 for some purposes at least depending on ilvl inflation), the others look cool though.

I don't see anything special for Shaman really....little disappointing so far but I'm assuming more updates will be coming soon. The only interesting stuff is the new set bonuses...

-Elem looks pretty good, interested to see what the lightning elem looks like just hope its targetting has no problems.

-Enhance 2set bonus looks kinda crappy and boring, I hope they change it since WF proc is good but FT is horrible, I would want a more consistent damage buff. The 4 set bonus is very interesting though, alot like Elem's lava surge proc and similar to an idea I have suggested in the past to give Enhance some more burst (my version of a LL cd reset was for an execute).....my guess is they are testing this as a set bonus and it could become a permanent enh passive later on. My only suggestion would be that instead of a proc off flame shock it be something more reliable and controllable like after 3 SS or 3 shocks (a stacking buff, after 3 you instantly gain 5 searing flame and LL resets, this way you can time it so you use LL> (third SS or shock)> LL again.

-Resto 2set I really like since we don't really have any way to apply an absorb shield and this gives us one, hopefully becomes a permanent resto passive in the future. The 4 piece is also interesting, although having a copy that mimics your heals is rather redundant since thats what ascendance does kinda....and tying it to SWG means you will be split between using for purpose of healing while having to be mobile and just healing during crunch time as a healer cd.


Decent start but I hope to see some more improvements. I really want to see some glyph changes, including some glyphs being baseline esp for Enhance like imp ghost wolf, and mebbe healin storm or LS glyph for elem+enhance). The CHL glyph change red cd to 2 sec makes it more practical, but I think they should just remove or redesign the glyph and buff CHL jump range baseline up to ~18yds....its long overdue and trying to make us do it thru a glyph is lame. Resto needs buffs to spread healing, so CHL jump range will help with that, plus I would add a brand new 0-30yd heal on a 10-15 sec CD for Resto only to heal a spread out raid in a pinch. I really want to see a mobility buff also....they said they are gonna change one of the totem talents, hopefully they just remove the whole totem tier....give us totemic projection baseline and make that a mobility tier.

I hope the next wave on patch notes has some real cool updates in em.....Shaman need something fresh and exciting!!

[Halsynd]

So if i read the Elemental 2P bonus right, everytime i fulmination i gain 4% damage for (max) 14 seconds, seems like a very poor set bonus...

I dont believe the 4% stacks as well, because up to 28% more damage would be too rediculously OP (for a 2piece bonus atleast). Then again, one can dream.

[Tiberria]

Yea i dont see this being allowed if we give a big enough complaint about it being linked to SWG. Horrible flaw to have a hps boost linked to our only spell that helps us heal while moving.

The Es one will be meh.

Part of the problem is, they did the exact same thing with the T13 4pc bonus as they are doing with the T16 4pc and tied it into SWG. The only reason there wasn't complaints back then is probably because DS required so little mobility that it didn't matter.

[Roboctopus]

Very interested to see what Enhancement 2PC turns out to be. The 4Pc is drool worthy.

[Protoman]

The enh 2 piece seems kind of strange. I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works. the enhance 4 piece on the other hand sounds really cool. Lava lash procs where we get to use it off CD? yes please! I just hope the chance is reasonably high. No PPM is listed or anything, so only time will tell I guess.

I think the 2pc will randomly proc WF or FT in those 10 sec...dunno if its just one time or multiple procs in 10 sec but its kinda lame since WF is good but FT procs are not, FT is only good cause it procs everytime your OH swings, one FT proc doesn't mean much. I like the 4pc also and like I said its alot like lava surge and could possible become a permanent enhance passive in the future, but I would also like it to be more predictable so we can use it to time burst in PVP so we can do something like LL>SS>proc>LL.....big burst in a small window.

Yea i dont see this being allowed if we give a big enough complaint about it being linked to SWG. Horrible flaw to have a hps boost linked to our only spell that helps us heal while moving.

I agree, it works if they tied the 4pc to some 2min cd ability that is rarely used but SWG has a specific purpose for healers and its timing is (sometimes) different from when you need bonus heals. They have done this in the passt with the haste cd tied to SWG so they might just keep it, but I think a simple solution would be to add a "joke/fun" spell on a 2-3min cd that does something arbitrary like a cool animation but can be used by set bonuses to turn them into useful cd's for your spec.

So if i read the Elemental 2P bonus right, everytime i fulmination i gain 4% damage for (max) 14 seconds, seems like a very poor set bonus...

I dont believe the 4% stacks as well, because up to 28% more damage would be too rediculously OP.

Doesn't Elem get 6 LS charges, not 7? So it would be 12 sec, and possibly 24% damage buff? You are prob right about the 4% not stacking cause I would assume that fulm can be stacked fully fairly often....atleast every 15-20 sec (I'm just guessing, don't play elem)....but since all elem damage is nature or fire that is basically an overall 4% more damage which I guess is pretty good.

[Deleted]

So if i read the Elemental 2P bonus right, everytime i fulmination i gain 4% damage for (max) 14 seconds, seems like a very poor set bonus...

I dont believe the 4% stacks as well, because up to 28% more damage would be too rediculously OP (for a 2piece bonus atleast). Then again, one can dream.

4% for 14 seconds aint too bad. Assuming you earth shock twice a minute, this will have almost 50% uptime so almost 2% dps increase which aint too shabby for a 2pc. Thing that is bothering me though is that this may push elemental blast as weaker due to less lightning bolts being cast and therefor less fulminations and less uptime on 2pc.

[Jinryu]

Might as well start the ball rolling, given the first PTR news post is up:
Looks like UF and AS are getting buffed, SS debuff now includes EB as well, Riptide costs less mana, FE glyph is being rendered useless, and CH/Riptide glyphs are getting buffed a bit.

The new FE glyph makes the totem under 3 minutes now. Hopefully, this will work with Call of the Elements.

[Advent]

I don't like the FE glyph change. And I would honestly prefer if they changed the enhance 2piece to only work with Windfury.

[looorg]

Resto2: So something that heals for a pathetic amount will now also absorb for a pathetic amount, awesome ... not. Earthshield is from just quickly looking thru last weeks logs around 2-4% of most fights total healing by itself. This is not impressive at all for a set bonus; it's almost as shit as that spirit trinket with the absorb proc from megaera. Come to think of it -- this probably is that trinket but in tier set form ... blah ...

Earthshield increases other healing spells by 20% -- if it was that heal that became an absorb then yes awesome; ie you cast ghw on your es target and you get a massive absorb on your target, if it was even half or 25% of that then it would be fantastic. The earthshield proc alone ... not so much.

Resto4: So it will be like a second mini ascendance when you move ... /eyeroll. So it won't copy healing rain (not sure -- it is targetted but not at a player so i'm guessing it is not included), riptide (no cast time) or any totems (no casttime and no target) -- there went a large chunk of the total healing. I guess haste levels will increase a bit but best case scenario is something like 5-6 spells which I guess will be a nice extra thing. But who is going to save this for movement now. Perhaps nobody used it and they are just trying to find something new to do with it. It just feels somewhat underwhelming. Certainly so when you look at the other healers set bonuses ... thousands of points of free secondary stats, multihundred% increases to healing, monkhealballs now also absorb ... whoooo ...

[Axelond]

Set bonuses looks shit compared to the other healer set bonuses and some minor buff to glyphs/talents to help spread out healing but it still wont help http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...00000000111111

It looks like they want Rshamans to spam riptide on everyone not on full health and then use chain heal almost on cooldown with glyph for spread out healing and that sounds very boring to me

[mmines]

Every tier bonus so far for shaman I haven't been too enthusiastic on. This one has a few cool ones like the enhance lava lash proc and kind of the ele thunder elemental proc. I guess it depends on the proc rate for enhance and how much damage/what kind of moves the thunder elemental will use.

[Nitwit]

I think the 2pc will randomly proc WF or FT in those 10 sec...dunno if its just one time or multiple procs in 10 sec but its kinda lame since WF is good but FT procs are not, FT is only good cause it procs everytime your OH swings, one FT proc doesn't mean much.

The 2p says that it "unleashes" a random imbue, not that it procs an imbue (i.e. unleash wind / unleash flame / maybe unleash frost / hopefully not unleash rockbiter)