Weapon Imbues and WoD

[Sylar Hao]

Now that Windfury is only for Enhancement, Earthliving only for Restoration, Frostbrand gone, Flametongue on-hit damage only available for Enhancement, and finally Unleash Weapon not dealing any damage , what's the point of having weapon imbues anymore? They can be turned into passive effects for each spec.

One of the things I've always liked about shaman, specially for enhancement, is the weapon imbue choice, that adapts to situations, but blizzard seems to want us to use a specific set of them, which is sad.

In my opinion, an overhaul of them would be best and make them available to all specs. This is what I've come up with:

- Windfury: your spells and abilities have 25% chance to launch a tornado towards the target, striking him 3 times for XXX nature damage if enemy or YYY healing if ally.
- Flametongue: your spells and abilities have a 25% chance to spew a flame tongue at your target, dealing XXX fire damage over 8 secs if enemy or fire healing YYY over 8 sec if ally.
- Frostbrand: your spells and abilities have a 25% chance to splash icy water at your target, dealing instant XXX frost damage or YYY frost healing. This effect is doubled on snared targets and will always be a critical strike on frozen targets.
- Rockbitter: your spells and abilities have a 25% chance to grant an absorbing shield at your target, absorbing XXX healing done if enemy or YYY damage done if ally.

I think these would fit a lot for each spec. You can adapt your weapon choice to situations, as if you need bursty healing or damage you prefer Windfury or if you need a more constant output you choose Flametongue. And Frostbrand and Rockbitter would be really handy in specific encounters and pvp.

And all of them may be affected by each spec mastery, like 2 tornados at once for Elemental if dealing damage, wouldn't that be pretty awesome?

What do you guys think?

[Blithe]

I think weapon imbues are fine as they are, maybe a tweak here and there but it's Unleash Weapon and its related talent - Unleashed Fury that need to go.

[Deleted]

They can be turned into passive effects for each spec.

According to a tweet i got from celestalon in which i asked him about this, Weapon imbues are becoming passives due to pruning. We also asked him about Lightning and Water Shields going passive, leaving only EarthShield, but got no response. He seems to want to tread lightly with us, giving us as little info as possible and only say something if it was already decided.

... but that tweet didn't make it to the front page. Well. Can't have everything

[Blithe]

According to a tweet i got from celestalon in which i asked him about this, Weapon imbues are becoming passives due to pruning. We also asked him about Lightning and Water Shields going passive, leaving only EarthShield, but got no response. He seems to want to tread lightly with us, giving us as little info as possible and only say something if it was already decided.

... but that tweet didn't make it to the front page. Well. Can't have everything

Can you provide us with a link as a reference point? The imbues are already in a sense "passive".

[Deleted]

Here you go:

https://twitter.com/JanEisenkolb/sta...29222090358784

scroll up and you see my first post

[vykas]

Hmm, that's interesting. Probably for the best. I asked but never got a reply, but I wonder if we'll ever see the imbue visual supersede enchant visuals.

[Blithe]

Here you go:

https://twitter.com/JanEisenkolb/sta...29222090358784

scroll up and you see my first post

Ah, thank you. Very interesting.

[Nebria]

... but that tweet didn't make it to the front page. Well. Can't have everything

wait 2 weeks. mmo-champion is always a little bit behind^^

[Shockeye]

Glad to see imbues becoming passives. Hopefully shields will follow for the same reason. If a Resto Shaman casts ES on themselves for PvP, then have it over-write WS. Simple.

[Deleted]

I honestly don't get why casting EShield on yourself should overwrite WS, especially since EShield passive healing is nerfed for WoD. Currently, casting it on yourself penalizes you three times. 1. You cannot cast it on others (as that removes the shield) 2. You loose WS. 3. If you decide to cast it onto someone else, you loose a gcd for casting WS on yourself again. Their design philosophy was "choose from those two/three elements". Now that Ele and Enh only have LS and WS replaces LS for Resto, the design philosphy makes little sense anymore.
It is the same design philosophy as "choose from those three elements" as in EShock, FS and FrostShock. With FrostShock being off this cd and "Windshock" (Windshear) being off it for ages (I seem to recall that it was once on the shock cd). As well as "Watershock" = Riptide, compare with FS in terms of CD, instant dmg/heal plus dot/hot - as well as synergy with LvB/CH - for understanding why i say it is a shock - or was meant to be one - only being off the shock cd.
This design philosphy does not make sense anymore.

What about a priest who casts PW:S+Renew on themselves? (They do not sacrifice anything for it) What about a paladin that casts BoL onto themselves? (They sacrifice putting it onto another target) What about a resto druid placing as many hots onto themselves as they can? (They sacrifice putting Lifebloom onto another target)

How is putting ES on ourselves obviously so broken we are penalized so much for doing it? (<- slight sarcasm inside)

[Shockeye]

I was just erring on the side of caution, to ward off any LOL OP type of comments.
I agree, a WS/ES combo would hardly be overpowered and so ES would not need to overwrite WS for balance purposes.

[Omanley]

Not among the top of my wish-list for WoD (making imbues passive), but glad they're doing it.

Sorry, Leyri-lao, I think most are just happy about imbues finally getting this treatment. Historically, every spec had their designated imbues save enh during wotlk/cata pvp, where there was always the strife between FT/FB. No one enjoyed that strife, and your suggestion would ask this decision of every player, in both pve and pvp. Imbues aren't meant to be switched regularly, nor do I see much excitement in simming the best imbue for different fights to have it active from beginning to end-.

On another matter, they should get rid of UE. I dont think it ever felt as an exciting spell to me (enh), and from what I've heard, ele never put it to use much either. In WoD it is a buff only, and can simply be incorporated into the according imbues (WF procs additional haste, FT can proc (upon casted spell) a dmg buff to next fire spell (maybe include LL this time), and EL procs it's effect from casts also. The chance could either be high and have an internal cd, or low, with the goal to have it proc on average every 15seconds.

[Shockeye]

Yep. UE is not at all interesting. I never use it as Elemental, and I just use it as Resto before casting Healing Rain. And sometimes I just slip and miss the key and cast HR without UE, which then hurts my healing done, which is daft. Just bake the damn bonus in to our spells, it's a dumb little instant-cast buff that serves zero purpose other than to eat a keybind and penalise you if you miss a cast.

An "interesting choice" it most certainly is not. I know that we're "intended" to be able to choose to use it before casting certain spells to buff them, but given that we're forced into casting HR on CD, and it's one of our top three healing spells, using UE before it is pretty much the only way to use it. So it's changing in WoD to move from HR to CH, it's not a change for the better it's just learning a new spell cast combo.

[Blithe]

Not among the top of my wish-list for WoD (making imbues passive), but glad they're doing it.

Sorry, Leyri-lao, I think most are just happy about imbues finally getting this treatment. Historically, every spec had their designated imbues save enh during wotlk/cata pvp, where there was always the strife between FT/FB. No one enjoyed that strife, and your suggestion would ask this decision of every player, in both pve and pvp. Imbues aren't meant to be switched regularly, nor do I see much excitement in simming the best imbue for different fights to have it active from beginning to end-.

On another matter, they should get rid of UE. I dont think it ever felt as an exciting spell to me (enh), and from what I've heard, ele never put it to use much either. In WoD it is a buff only, and can simply be incorporated into the according imbues (WF procs additional haste, FT can proc (upon casted spell) a dmg buff to next fire spell (maybe include LL this time), and EL procs it's effect from casts also. The chance could either be high and have an internal cd, or low, with the goal to have it proc on average every 15seconds.

It was much better in Cataclysm. As far as it goes now, Unleash Elements, and Unleashed Fury aren't really worth it now. I'd be happy if both were replaced, but with what? I don't know.

[Deleted]

With weapon imbues becoming passive do you think that potentially means that Enhancement shamans will be rocking the equivelent double windfury as their passive? Windfury for enhancement, flametongue for elemental and earthliving for resto?

[Futhark]

Step 1: Remove weapon imbues.
Step 2: Change Lava Lash to not be based on offhand.
Step 3: Design some Agility 2Handers
Step 4: ??? (some sort of Frost DK or Monk math/trickery)
Profit

[Omanley]

With weapon imbues becoming passive do you think that potentially means that Enhancement shamans will be rocking the equivelent double windfury as their passive? Windfury for enhancement, flametongue for elemental and earthliving for resto?

I think even with the msw perk and removed wf icd that wf/ft will be superior. Dunno how passive will be implemented in combination with dw though. Hope there's no problem implementing wf passive on mh and ft on oh, once you choose enh. Other than that, since ft is avaiable from lvl10 or or, and wf from lvl 30 or so, would we run with ft on oh only, or have it twice, or would we get wf avaiable earlier...

@Futhark: Dont primary stats change depending on spec come WoD? Or are weapons excluded from that? Step 3 should be already done, I think.

[Lavindar]

I Bet that Imbues will still be castable, but will not be temporary weapon enchantments, just buffs, like how Rogue's poisons work now.

Edit: I was wrong, per the last alpha build, they just baked the effects, at least for Enhacement.

[Futhark]

@Futhark: Dont primary stats change depending on spec come WoD? Or are weapons excluded from that? Step 3 should be already done, I think.

I was going to say weapons were excluded, but after reading this, I don't know anymore:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10703970357

if this is true:

our current thought it to keep primary stats on weapons so that they continue to feel iconic and special.

I don't know if this means the Primary Stat will change based on spec like armor does or not. Since weapons are in a different section in that post from armor, I would still guess that Primary Stats will be fixed.

[Recom]

They stated that stats on weapons won't change at all when changing spec so no ago 2h axe!