Shaman specs 5.4 Arena

[Deleted]

Hi all

I have geared up my Shaman this season full Enhance gear and have enjoyed the spec although the burst could be ridiculous if lucky.
Seeing how things are on the Ptr aswell as tested, Enhance seems in a rather poor state in arenas if these changes goes live.

I have never enjoyed the Ele playstyle so that is not much of a option, rather go resto then.
But Resto is already behind priests and druids on live and with the removal of totemic restoration, how will Resto perform or will everybody wants a priest or a druid to heal?
Still think Resto shamans will be needed for Rbgs..but meh rbgs..not too much fun tbh.
Tried resto some bgs, but found it rather hard to survive against good melees and hunters.

Summary, is Resto going to be viable arenas next season or will I get shit on by other healers (replaced)

[Snuggli]

Resto Shamans will still have a handful of viable comps, but I imagine nearly all of them will be better run with a Druid or Priest, as you said. The problem being that Druids and Shamans fight for the same position in most comps (wizard comps), RLD v RLS, MLD v MLS, Shatterplay v Shattreeplay. Whichever is the stronger healer out of Shaman or Druid will push the other one out of nearly every comp, because people will be looking for Resto Druids instead of Shamans (or vice versa). Considering how strong Druids are looking on PTR right now, it might be worth either playing Enhance or Ele (although it depends on your partners, or what style of comp you want to play).

Enhance shamans sustained damage and burst damage in 5.4 has been nerfed*. Ele shamans have had a 10% nerf to lava burst but everything else is mostly the same. All specs get healing tide baseline now, but lose 30s tremor.

Overall, if you've got guaranteed partners; i'd see what they wanted to play and make a comp around that. If you don't have partners yet, Resto or Ele are probably the safer choices.


(* = Edit)

[Deleted]

The above is a pretty good post but unless I'm mistaken stormblast also got nerfed from 450% weapon damage back to 380%. Or did they revert that all ready?

[Deleted]

Enhance shamans sustained damage in 5.4 has been nerfed, but their stormblast (ascendance) damage hasn't changed.

No, that was nerfed as well. It was mentioned specifically in the last build.

[Snuggli]

The above is a pretty good post but unless I'm mistaken stormblast also got nerfed from 450% weapon damage back to 380%. Or did they revert that all ready?

It's stormstrike that got nerfed, not stormblast. :P

Enhancement

• Lava Lash now deals 260% weapon damage (down from 300% weapon damage).
• Stormstrike's debuff now also affects Elemental Blast, and now deals 380% weapon damage (down from 450% weapon damage).

[Deleted]

It's stormstrike that got nerfed, not stormblast. :P

Enhancement

• Lava Lash now deals 260% weapon damage (down from 300% weapon damage).
• Stormstrike's debuff now also affects Elemental Blast, and now deals 380% weapon damage (down from 450% weapon damage).

It is directly tied to stormstrike.

Shaman (Forums, Talent Calculator)

Stormblast now does 380% weapon damage, down from 450%.
Stormstrike now does 380% weapon damage, down from 450%.

Thought was on the actual notes, but it's the datamining. Ascendence turns stormsrike into stormblast. It's exactly the same spell in terms of coeffs, but is ranged and nature.

Trust me it got nerfed, try it on the ptr for yourself.

Just to put the record straight btw. Shamans don't disagree our burst was stupid if we got a mastery proc ele blast that crit into a crit stormblast, but losing a bunch of consistant damage that we didn't even have anyway, and then losing another 10% on 5min cd was what pissed us off.

[Drench]

It will be more or less the same as live... Healing got easier for shamans but now we have twice the cd on tremor...

Still be 2.2k+ with certain comps and rough with out good partners. At least will have the chance to find some if your on a dead server.

Also I don't really think enh is gutted because you can't 2shot people.

There was some interesting changes that affected enh.

[Deleted]

Also I don't really think enh is gutted because you can't 2shot people.

That isn't what anyone's saying. We lost a lot of burst, but also lost a sizable chunk of our damage out of cd's. So our already rather low pressure just got lower.
They changed the 4 set bonus on the pvp set to be worse if you're playing without ele blast, as you lose the sprint from UF.

The changes are mostly shit. It's still 2.2k viable, anything is, but it'll just be far harder than it used to be as you can bring several other classes and gain more than bringing a hance shaman.

[Snuggli]

It is directly tied to stormstrike.

Shaman (Forums, Talent Calculator)

Stormblast now does 380% weapon damage, down from 450%.
Stormstrike now does 380% weapon damage, down from 450%.

Thought was on the actual notes, but it's the datamining. Ascendence turns stormsrike into stormblast. It's exactly the same spell in terms of coeffs, but is ranged and nature.

Ah okay, I thought it was a miss-datamine as it still wasn't on 'real' notes. Makes sense if it's the same coefficients being used. My bad! (I'll edit my first post).

[Deleted]

Ah okay, I thought it was a miss-datamine as it still wasn't on 'real' notes. Makes sense if it's the same coefficients being used. My bad! (I'll edit my first post).

No worries, it's not something you'd generally know unless you played it

It's most of the reason we're complaining in PvE. We're designed around doing high damage during cds, and low damage outside. So we had cds nerfed, and then constant nerfed, and our raid assisstance via healing rains nerfed.

[Beefkow]

Why would they nerf sustained dmg and leave burst dmg alone? that doesn't make any sense.

I would rather stormblast get nerfed and SS stay the same, also lava lash should stay the same as well.

[Deleted]

As others have said, toning down the burst damage was fine, necessary even. But why give all other classes buffs, also in the burst damage department and gut Enha's sustained damage as well? Together with the removal of totemic restoration 5.4 will be a lot harder for us than 5.3.
Admittedly the new purge glyph looks interesting enough, but I'm not sure if it's worth picking it up over some of the other glyphs.

[Beefkow]

As others have said, toning down the burst damage was fine, necessary even. But why give all other classes buffs, also in the burst damage department and gut Enha's sustained damage as well? Together with the removal of totemic restoration 5.4 will be a lot harder for us than 5.3.
Admittedly the new purge glyph looks interesting enough, but I'm not sure if it's worth picking it up over some of the other glyphs.

An on demand malestrom wep proc would be really nice! i can actually get up more instant healing surges (arghh, another glyph to use to increase healing with maelstrom wep procs) but then again, the more malestrom wep procs, the better.

Again... when did lava lash and stormstrike get so scary? i can crit up to 40-50k with SS on players and prob 70k crit with 5 flametongue stacks (which is hard to get with searing totem, it almost never seems to respond). And stormlash, i cannot agree more that it indeed need a well justified nerf, but SS and LL nerf... really?

I actually never pve so i can't say anything to that, if any1 knows SS and LL are actually op in pve, please inform me.

[Deleted]

An on demand malestrom wep proc would be really nice! i can actually get up more instant healing surges (arghh, another glyph to use to increase healing with maelstrom wep procs) but then again, the more malestrom wep procs, the better.

Again... when did lava lash and stormstrike get so scary? i can crit up to 40-50k with SS on players and prob 70k crit with 5 flametongue stacks (which is hard to get with searing totem, it almost never seems to respond). And stormlash, i cannot agree more that it indeed need a well justified nerf, but SS and LL nerf... really?

I actually never pve so i can't say anything to that, if any1 knows SS and LL are actually op in pve, please inform me.

That's the funny/sad thing really, by the looks of it these nerfs have completely broken Enhancement shamans in pve as well. They seem to be doomed to the very bottom of the dps meters if this patch goes trough as it is now. Blizzard isn't making any sense atm when it comes to the shaman dps specs.

[Stormspellz]

That's the funny/sad thing really, by the looks of it these nerfs have completely broken Enhancement shamans in pve as well. They seem to be doomed to the very bottom of the dps meters if this patch goes trough as it is now. Blizzard isn't making any sense atm when it comes to the shaman dps specs.

they wanted to buff enhances damage, buffed the wrong thing making enhance gimmik kings in pvp and then reverted the buff with no offsetting change, typical blizz. Maybe they will do what they should of done from the start, buff searing, lightning bolt, and flame shock for both dps specs.

[Deleted]

Cheers for all the posts, seeing how I don't like Ele and enhance seems to get gutted to the floor I think I will go back to my mage so I can have some fun in bgs, icicles looks interesting

Will def gief Resto another try, have a friend who plays Moonkin, maybe we could find some working comps there. Spicy chicken cleave looks fun on paper atleast. Perhaps lock will be best for Moonkin/Rshaman.