a more constructive cata enhancement post

[Vargarii]

If you are interested this has been said in beta forum by GC

"We're fine with totem health given how easy totems are to replace. We also think it's fine to have to (sometimes) choose between a buff totem and a non-buff totem given how many different things a shaman can do.

However, we are going to increase buff totem range (and possibly other totem range) and we have figured out a way to make Searing Totem attack your target, instead of a random and probably inappropriate target."

Just woke up and made a topic about the same thing, seems I was beat to it.

---------- Post added 2010-07-30 at 06:38 PM ----------

@ spaceshshuttle


There are some people who QQ, but a lot of shaman posts are much more constructive than that, and it isn't as bad as some of those posts may make it appear.

/edit

To be a little fair to them, though. It is completely true that other classes were forced to give something up for situational utility, and that we are the only remaining class that has to do that now.

[aether99]

a way to make searing totem attack our target eh? well at least they answered that issue.

[Kob]

Isnt it so that in smaller groups/raids you might have to use flametongue totem instead of searing totem and thus lose the benefit of that talent?
I'd rather just see totems used for buffs and gimmicks than damage.

It would also be nice to see msw and but atleast static shock become less erratic, i.e. make it proc off shocks instead of melee swings.

[Tides]

a way to make searing totem attack our target eh? well at least they answered that issue.

Somehow i hope they fail in this and we get some other talent instead. Imp Lava Lash and Searing Flames just doesnt quite do it for me. Boring and another "combo point" to monitor. Only interaction i will be having with it is placing the totem in range and clicking LL when S&A tells me to.

[aether99]

thats a fairly good point Kob, i remember in vanilla our totems were directed by the raid leader of what to have down (admittedly there was other differences,like them only affecting your party and not the raid).

right now if there are any buffs that are not being covered i would try to cover them. Searing totem would mean we "might" have a noticeable dps loss when needing to put down a diff totem (if its a small amount of dps im gonna be upset quite frankly, dont need so many small damage sources!).

It would streamline us a bit better to make this work off of flameshock imo, unless someone could explain why it wouldnt.

Another post I really liked was to take out the randomness of static shock by having it proc on activated abilities, it would increase the contribution of damage it provides without feeling random.

Id like to figure out a way to make maelstrom weapon feel better in pvp and a little less proccy. Only thing i could think of thus far is adjust how it works slightly. When you enter combat the stacks automatically start generating, but it will be slower then if you were in combat and hitting someone. This would mean we could still generate stacks when we have to move away from targets in pvp/pve, but at a decreased rate.

---------- Post added 2010-07-30 at 07:07 PM ----------

Somehow i hope they fail in this and we get some other talent instead. Imp Lava Lash and Searing Flames just doesnt quite do it for me. Boring and another "combo point" to monitor. Only interaction i will be having with it is placing the totem in range and clicking LL when S&A tells me to.

i pretty much am in the same boat with you on that. though im trying to not be too vehement about disliking new abilities. I think righ tnow it might be serviceable if uninteresting and maybe even overly complicated with having to watch 2 combo systems on top of a priority list). I think it would make more sense to streamline the classes damage sources that we have now, slim them down a bit (as in maybe cut some out) while buffing others to make up for it, then it would be easier and less overwhelming to provide more synergy for our priority/rotation to work off of itself and could be easier to make us feel less like a proc based dps class.

I know some people like the idea of us being proc based, it makes us different, but from my point of view i want to be effective in pvp as well (not with same spec, but the same tree) and all this randomness only hurts that.

[Gàara]

Well thought post... And I must say it realy got my eyes open on the searing totem situation because I saw it as a awsome new change but it will clearly have a poor chance on large pulls.

[arcangel1337]

I'm assuming there is going to be a glyph or something to make LL not consume the DOT off ST. If not, it seems a little meh.

Also, I've heard some people argue that "it will be awesome in pvp" I disagree to a point. First you have to make sure they stay in range of your totem for however long it takes to stack to 5, second, you have to survive that long against an arms warrior with 100% MS crit and penetrating all of your armor

[aether99]

I'm assuming there is going to be a glyph or something to make LL not consume the DOT off ST. If not, it seems a little meh.

Also, I've heard some people argue that "it will be awesome in pvp" I disagree to a point. First you have to make sure they stay in range of your totem for however long it takes to stack to 5, second, you have to survive that long against an arms warrior with 100% MS crit and penetrating all of your armor

who said it will be awesome in pvp? it will be crap in pvp, lavalash is weak as it is all this will do is make it mediocre in terms of damage. sure it will hit nice in raids with all the buffs flying around but in pvp it will still be unimpressive.

[Vargarii]

Isnt it so that in smaller groups/raids you might have to use flametongue totem instead of searing totem and thus lose the benefit of that talent?
I'd rather just see totems used for buffs and gimmicks than damage.

It would also be nice to see msw and but atleast static shock become less erratic, i.e. make it proc off shocks instead of melee swings.

mages, locks, and shaman all bring the sp buff, and unless it's a 10 man group with a fairly weak comp, you should at least have one of these classes or another shaman in your group.

My guild will likely continue 25s and break into 10s if there is any reason for low attendance, so this is not an Issue I will face often.

[Leafen]

I just thought of 1 thing, why are both prot and retri going to get there spell hit passivly and we need to gear/ sacrifice valueble talent points. Cant it be given passivly as we chosse to play enh. What would be the problem with that?

[conscript]

I just thought of 1 thing, why are both prot and retri going to get there spell hit passivly and we need to gear/ sacrifice valueble talent points. Cant it be given passivly as we chosse to play enh. What would be the problem with that?

The main reason is that hit only gives the one benefit to Ret after they reach the 8% mark for their 2-hand strikes. Everything else up until they hit spell cap only affects their spells whereas for Enhance we still get massive benefit from that extra hit as a dual wield class.

[Kob]

I was browsing a bit and found that warlocks were getting their stronger demons as a guardian class pet which made me slightly curious. So I googled and stumbled on this blue post conserning the warlock class previews April this year:

"We did mean to cover doomguards and infernals, but they didn't make it into our preview. Our plan is that you can summon a doomguard or infernal as a cooldown-based pet, much like the shaman elementals, without having to give up your current, permanent demon."

Now wouldnt this guardian class pets be perfect for shamans, where you wouldnt have to give up your current totem to summon an Elemental. Seeing how horde shamans and warlocks share a similar past as well.
This might have already been posted on these forums but I've never been comfortable with these pets, even more so them being tied to a totem which made the placement of the totem even more important during certain fights.

[Shamzeus]

honestly i think blizzard should just roll elementals into a permanent pet for shamans while keeping out important totems such as searing/magma.

[arcangel1337]

honestly i think blizzard should just roll elementals into a permanent pet for shamans while keeping out important totems such as searing/magma.

Definitely not a permanent pet, but cooldown one. Up for 30 sec every 3 min or something. but have it proc off an ability we use alot