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  1. #1

    Question What is up with just the constant Elem/Enha mana cost reductions?

    I did not actively participate in the WoD alpha/beta/PTR - i mostly just read about the changes.
    There were a lot of balance patches during the last few weeks before the WoD pre-patch was released onto Live servers.

    I was quite confused that pretty much the only shaman changes were constant mana cost reductions, no major damage tweaking (some EQ buff?).
    Which is rather strange since most other classes got dmg buffs/nerfs of up to 40% on certain abilities - and i am not convinced that Shamans just happened to be perfectly balanced even before the "number tweak" phase began.

    Then a few days ago, one of the blue devs tweeted on the whole "mana" thing:
    Q: "Any reason Ele has 0 mana regen whatsoever? Are they just intended to be horrible in WoD because there is really no reason."
    A: "Their damage spells have almost no cost."

    First i gotta say i am confused by that dev answer - by their logic, it is best to have no mana regen and no cost on damage spells?!
    What about off-healing and utility in PvP and PvE, most of those spells require quite a bit of mana?!

    Somehow i doubt that Druid/Paladin/Priest DPS specs are having these same mana regen issues that would prevent them from using off-healing and utility spells...
    And then today most shaman damage spells got their mana costs halved again in the october 23rd 6.0.3 beta build!

    I got no clue wtf is going on:
    - Why were almost all the changes that happened to Elem/Enha in the past month (or two) just about massive mana cost reductions?
    - If Elem and Enha have such awful awful mana regeneration, how are they to use off-healing and utility in PvP (and PvE i guess)?
    - How are Elem and Enha doing so far on the damage meters (or simulations)? Are they really in a fine place, or is blizz ignoring the issues?
    - Are the rest of the hybrid/dps classes also experiencing this "awful mana regeneration" issue, or is it a dps-shaman-only problem?

    I always liked the fact that my Elem and Enha can toss out a bit of healing and utility when needed - and not just through big cooldowns like AG.
    I dearly hope that blizzard is not forcing shaman DPS specs to play like pure DPS specs, where we just focus on DPS without the "hybrid" off-healing or utility...
    Last edited by Aleksej89; 2014-10-23 at 05:11 AM.

  2. #2
    If you've been reading the changes then you would know the answer to all of your questions. They probably think that shaman are in a good place and hybrid utility has gotten hit on every class.

  3. #3
    I know that utility has been greatly reduced on a lot of specs/classes, but i do not see any other class that is solely receiving massive mana cost reductions over the last few weeks.
    I do not mind having reduced utility - but i do mind having almost no mana regen, almost to the point where my mana will be a non-regenerating resource during combat!

    I also assume that blizzard "probably thinks" shaman dps is fine, so that is why i am asking fellow shaman about their experiences as Shaman dps in the 6.0.2+ patches.

  4. #4
    Pit Lord Protoman's Avatar
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    Man, blizz must be trolling us with all these mana changes. No mechanics changes at all.... which saddens me. The mana cost reduction doesn't even address the problem that Elemental was complaining about.... which was mana regen. They should give them some way to proc mana thru their attacks or boost their passive mana regen by a small amount or something.

    I want ES back for Enhance.... I hate how they took it away. Enhance plays alright, but it just feels like a mess with no real cohesive theme... atleast before we had various nature damage spells that worked with SS like ES and LS along with LB.

  5. #5
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    Mana regeneration out of combat is fine, but mana regeneration in combat will take a toll. Blizzard's philosophy on mana is offensive abilities costing barely any mana, but most of the mana usage coming from healing and/or utility. I think it's okay, since I'm able to use a lot more things instead of being really limited, but I will always miss Primal Wisdom.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Blithe View Post
    Mana regeneration out of combat is fine, but mana regeneration in combat will take a toll. Blizzard's philosophy on mana is offensive abilities costing barely any mana, but most of the mana usage coming from healing and/or utility. I think it's okay, since I'm able to use a lot more things instead of being really limited, but I will always miss Primal Wisdom.
    I agree that utility/healing should be costing hybrid-dps a lot of mana.
    But that mana also needs to regenerate during combat at a reasonable pace!

    I would hate to be able to cast only 5 heals during an entire 5 minute boss fight...

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blithe View Post
    Mana regeneration out of combat is fine, but mana regeneration in combat will take a toll. Blizzard's philosophy on mana is offensive abilities costing barely any mana, but most of the mana usage coming from healing and/or utility. I think it's okay, since I'm able to use a lot more things instead of being really limited, but I will always miss Primal Wisdom.
    Then tell me, why is it always shamans?

    Enhancers are oom after 5 heals, but ferals can heal for eternity, their heals cost less mana than their mana costs.

    And their heals are even stronger...

    Their heals cost only 3k mana @ 2.5 sec cast time, without talents it's @30k non crit/non MS with 1.2k mana per second costs, about their mana reggen.

    Elementals aren't that bad in that way, they still have a lot of mana. They don't go oom that easy. But enhancers go. After 5 heals, they are oom.

    And additionally, druid heals are stronger hps than shamans. And talented - well, talented, druid heals go up like crazy.

  8. #8
    yes, Enhance gets 5 hardcasted heals, but their heals are meant to be used with MSW. When used then, they're instant, uninterruptable, massive, and cost nothing.

    Feral has to either come out of form to heal, or pick a talent that they might not otherwise want to take..

    look at the whole picture, not the one that lets you cry the hardest.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    THey are to cheat you

    Blizzard wants to avoid buffing Shamans, so they just play around with mana

  10. #10
    "and not just through big cooldowns like AG"

    Oh laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawdy are you in for a surprise come WoD

  11. #11
    they need to nerf the mana cost of purge because with the old playstyle where you had near infinite mana you could purge for days and right now your oom in 2 min and have no way of getting mana back but to just not do dmg or try to get out of combat and drink.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Velthari View Post
    they need to nerf the mana cost of purge because with the old playstyle where you had near infinite mana you could purge for days and right now your oom in 2 min and have no way of getting mana back but to just not do dmg or try to get out of combat and drink.
    This is one of the major problems with the "no mana cost & no mana regen" philosophy.

    Both elem and enha need to have a proper way to regenerate substantial mana DURING combat.

    Honestly the simplest solution would be to make them regenerate a % of their maximum mana per second.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksej89 View Post
    Honestly the simplest solution would be to make them regenerate a % of their maximum mana per second.[/B]
    Mana doesn't scale with Intellect anymore (hasn't for a long time now), so essentially all mana regen is a % of maximum mana. I'm assuming you are actually refering to something like 1-5% mana per second or something, but just thought I'd point this out, we technically do already have % of maximum mana/second.

    I agree with others though, playing my Ele Shaman feels so weird ooming myself trying to help healers out, then having no way to recover mana in any reasonable way. On the other hand, being able to cast Chain Lighting a few times on like 3 or 4 targets and instantly going from 0-100% mana was also really dumb, our mana regen before basically made it so that we didn't have mana in PvE. I think the approach Blizzard are trying to go for is that you should never not be able to cast offensive spells, but should be in situations where you can't cast heals.

    In my opinion, having such low mana regen is actually fine. I just want 10% Mana back on Thunderstorm. Thunderstorm is pretty much useless for Elemental in PvE now, unless there are a significant number of targets (7+) and they are already stood on top of you, its not worth using. At least if it gave mana back it would be useful in PvE ("Crap healers need help, spam heal spam heal spam heal, thunderstorm, heal once more") and you're likely always going to be below 90% mana in PvP so it wouldn't be counter-intuitive in PvP to have to choose between knockback and mana regen, because you would always make use of the mana regen.

    tl;dr - Don't mind low mana regen, I get what they are trying to do. Just give me back mana regen on Thunderstorm and I'd be happy.

  14. #14
    I am not a fan of Thunderstorm being our mana recovery spell.
    I do not like tying defensive spells like Thunderstorm (primarily used in PvP) to also have a different crucial purpose (mana restoration, also needed in PvP due to off-healing).

    Often you might want to knockback people away with Thunderstorm (interrupts are bad), heal a couple of times AND THEN restore mana - too bad you just used Thunderstorm ~5 seconds ago...

    Currently, Elem/Enha have BY FAR the worst off-healing AND the worst mana regeneration in combat.
    Elem/Enha off-healing and mana regeneration needs to be just as good as feral/balance druid, ret paladin and shadow priest.
    There is no shaman-dps-only utility in WoD that can justify making Elem and Enha be unable to do proper off-healing...

  15. #15
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    I wouldn't be against an increase to our current mana regen, it is incredibly low. I'm just saying that I understand what Blizzard are trying to do with the mana cost reductions on offensive spells. They are essentially making them free, so that our mana pool is almost 100% dedicated to limiting our utility and never impacts our ability to do our primary roll (DPS).

    I also realise that this is why they removed the mana regen from Thunderstorm, because it was primarily used for "Crap I'm oom from spam healing/dying/whatever, thunderstorm so I can get some Lightning Bolts off and kick off my mana regen", which shouldn't be the case anymore because our offensive spells are so cheap that they are actually mana positive to use. I just wish we had some kind of cooldown based burst mana regen, and seeing as Thunderstorm already had it, and people are used to it doing that, it seemed like a good choice to put it back onto. If you desperately need to get mana back to get that heal off then maybe being forced to 'waste' Thunderstorm isn't such a bad trade off. However, I would obviously prefer it to have no draw back.

    I'm basically saying I don't think a large increase to flat mana regen fixes the issue with offhealing. You either have mana regen low that you oom and have a significant wait until you can heal again, or you have mana regen high enough that you can basically weave in heals forever (which is what we had before, and what Blizzard clearly don't want to be the case anymore with the nerf too offhealing across the board). As such, passive always up mana regen buffs don't really help (a little would be nice to help reduce that time we have to wait, but they really can't buff it too much). A cooldown based burst mana regen tool is the better solution imo. Its waaaay too late to give us a completely new spell, so putting it back onto Thunderstorm seems like the best option.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksej89 View Post
    - If Elem and Enha have such awful awful mana regeneration, how are they to use off-healing and utility in PvP (and PvE i guess)?
    It's the big question on everyones mind, currently they can't. In a PvP scenario you will go oom if you try to heal for a short period of time. The only way to get this mana back is to try and drink. I'm amazed by this currently, but there hasn't been any budging so far.
    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksej89 View Post
    - How are Elem and Enha doing so far on the damage meters (or simulations)? Are they really in a fine place, or is blizz ignoring the issues?
    Latest sims:


    Patchwerk standing still in T17.
    I don't care much, I won't be playing Shaman in WoD.
    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksej89 View Post
    - Are the rest of the hybrid/dps classes also experiencing this "awful mana regeneration" issue, or is it a dps-shaman-only problem?
    It's mostly shaman only.
    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksej89 View Post
    and not just through big cooldowns like AG.
    I'll let someone else break it to you...
    Last edited by Anzen; 2014-10-24 at 12:33 PM.

  17. #17
    Current state as it seems:
    - no actual mana regeneration during combat
    - one of the lowest DPS for both specs
    - no elem/enha unique utility in WoD
    - can cast up to 5 heals before permanently out of mana (until combat is over)
    - weakest off-heals out of all hybrid dps specs
    - seemingly we lost our "big" healing CDs like AG and HTT

    Okay.
    That could have gone a bit better...

  18. #18
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    There's no strength any more for Ele pvp. No multidot damage, weak off-healing with unsustainable mana regen. They lost their strong burst, cc is mediocre. Okay defensive cooldowns but they're no iceblocks or dispersions. Whats the plan blizzard? Sit in an earthquake and hide, hope your mastery tickles them to death?

    I feel like ele was improving step by step each patch and expansion since mid cata. Then they took it all away...

  19. #19
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klatar View Post
    Then tell me, why is it always shamans?

    Enhancers are oom after 5 heals, but ferals can heal for eternity, their heals cost less mana than their mana costs.

    And their heals are even stronger...

    Their heals cost only 3k mana @ 2.5 sec cast time, without talents it's @30k non crit/non MS with 1.2k mana per second costs, about their mana reggen.

    Elementals aren't that bad in that way, they still have a lot of mana. They don't go oom that easy. But enhancers go. After 5 heals, they are oom.

    And additionally, druid heals are stronger hps than shamans. And talented - well, talented, druid heals go up like crazy.
    Healing Touch is a much longer cast than Healing Surge so they have to put more effort into using it. Druid healing in general has always been lot higher than Shaman though, and any other class for that matter.

    I agree we do need a way to regenerate mana better in combat, because once you run out you're kind of useless as far as off-healing goes, and this is very noticeable as Elemental as well. Still, I'd kill to have Primal Wisdom and Rolling Thunder back.

  20. #20
    I just hope ele shamans are better at 100.

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