5.2 Shaman changes

[Griffeth]

I dont think it is one whole expansion worth of buffs that we need, but just a little nudge here and there to help even us out.

[Devious009]

- We overshot the mark on DKs and hunters a little, and we think warriors need that Execute nerf after all. All of this may change tomorrow as we look at different situations, so don't overly freak out about anything.

Death Knight
- Might of the Frozen Wastes to 15% melee damage (down from 20%).
- Icy Talons increases attack speed by 25% (down from 30%).
- Blood Plague and Frost Fever damage +15% (down from +30%).
- Howling Blast damage to primary target +8% (down from +23%).
- Scourge Strike damage +3.8% (down from 7.7%).

Hunter
- Chimera Shot damage +25% (was +50%).
- Black Arrow and Explosive Shot damage +10% (was +15%).

Warrior
- Execute damage -25%.

some classes got some hefty nerfs there

[Griffeth]

NVM found it...

here is hoping they increase our numbers a little bit more.

[Shockzilla]

Well, its really funny to observe how expansion after expansion we start more or less behind majority of other classes; anyone remember how bad we were when TBC hits? Then WoTLK? Then Cata? And now MoP again?

Actually, the best time for shamans by far was vanilla. We had 2 great pvp specs (enh and ele), and 1 great pve spec (resto); resto was bad at the start compared to paladin counterpart, but still in high demand cause of mana tide and other totems and after chain heal change (smart 'jumping') that spec became probably the best healer in the game.

One would think development team learned something during the time span of 7 years (ie - to take a closer look at shamans), but that just doesn't happen.

I disagree I was a bad ass healer during WoTLK and at the start of that xpac. I was top 3/5 dps (enhance) in most 25 mans until later in the xpac. During Cata I dpsed as elemental and for most of it was in top 3 in 25 mans until they jacked with or tier set and spells. Healing sucked at the beginning but was much better at the end. Healing right now is a little behind if you look at meters but I don’t feel weak just a little slow. I dps as enhancement again and I am doing very well.

Does this mean that I don’t think that some changes could be made, nope. Blizz could make some adjustments to increase our dps for sure.

PvP ing in Enhancement right now to me just sucks ass, really bad, this is my opinion.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 04:14 PM ----------

I think Blizzard looks the other way when it comes to fixing shaman issue because as a community all we do is complain and bitch about everything. Provide some meat to your complaints about our dps should be this or that, or our healing is not scaling and here is why. We need to be more positive and explain or point of view better if we want to be taken seriously. I’m on the way out the door, sorry if this is poorly put together or if I miss spelled a lot.

[SamoTray]

I disagree I was a bad ass healer during WoTLK and at the start of that xpac. I was top 3/5 dps (enhance) in most 25 mans until later in the xpac. During Cata I dpsed as elemental and for most of it was in top 3 in 25 mans until they jacked with or tier set and spells. Healing sucked at the beginning but was much better at the end. Healing right now is a little behind if you look at meters but I don’t feel weak just a little slow. I dps as enhancement again and I am doing very well.

Does this mean that I don’t think that some changes could be made, nope. Blizz could make some adjustments to increase our dps for sure.

PvP ing in Enhancement right now to me just sucks ass, really bad, this is my opinion.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 04:14 PM ----------

I think Blizzard looks the other way when it comes to fixing shaman issue because as a community all we do is complain and bitch about everything. Provide some meat to your complaints about our dps should be this or that, or our healing is not scaling and here is why. We need to be more positive and explain or point of view better if we want to be taken seriously. I’m on the way out the door, sorry if this is poorly put together or if I miss spelled a lot.

People complaining about DPS are complaining about Elementals dps because its a little behind you're doing well as enh now because enh is at a very good place right now.
If elemental dps was on par with enh right now you would be seeing alot less QQ about how bad Elemental dps is.

[shokter]

Spirit Walk CD reduction to 1 min! I feel like this will be a huuuge mobility/survivability boost for us in PvP. Really, really hope this makes it live. This is a great change. I'd almost say it's a bit OP, except we are Enhancement shams...we need it.

[Lavindar]

Spirit Walk CD reduction to 1 min! I feel like this will be a huuuge mobility/survivability boost for us in PvP. Really, really hope this makes it live. This is a great change. I'd almost say it's a bit OP, except we are Enhancement shams...we need it.

Yes I was pretty happy to see that line of text, hehe, it's even better with the glyph we have it with 45 seconds

[Northy]

I believe that shaman isn't being ignored by the developers team, at all. We do get some buffs and improvement, but at the time we gain buffs, other classes keep getting double the buffs shaman get, thus giving shaman players the feeling that the class didn't really get anything. (Hope that made sense).

That's what I honestly feel after (almost) each patch.

Ya, I'm watching a PTR raid test stream and the Shaman is getting hammered in DPS. Sad sight to see.

[Eruionmel]

Ya, I'm watching a PTR raid test stream and the Shaman is getting hammered in DPS. Sad sight to see.

Is he a good shaman? Is his gear comparable to that of the other DPS? Is it pure single target, or with cleave? Is he flasked and pre-potting? Do they have every buff, and if not, which ones are they missing?

You can't make a blanket statement like that and expect for it to fly.

[Forsedar]

Is he a good shaman? Is his gear comparable to that of the other DPS? Is it pure single target, or with cleave? Is he flasked and pre-potting? Do they have every buff, and if not, which ones are they missing?

You can't make a blanket statement like that and expect for it to fly.

Most people getting front page fame when testing the new content aren't "bad and in bad gear." I, too, noticed shamans being hammered on most fights (especially single target). The streams I watched was of Affiniti and crew.

[Eruionmel]

Most people getting front page fame when testing the new content aren't "bad and in bad gear." I, too, noticed shamans being hammered on most fights (especially single target). The streams I watched was of Affiniti and crew.

Which boss?

Also, just looked up a quick stream of Affinitii on Horridon and the ele was consistently fighting for the top spot with the hunter, beating plenty of others, including pures. Sounds fine to me.

[Endus]

You also need to recognize that the PTR streams coming in are of people who are testing the bosses. They're also learning the boss, trying to bugtest, etc. They have more on their mind other than just trying to execute their rotation at max performance.

Single examples are really, really bad as sources of data. That's why we use services like WoL and Raidbots, to get a reasonable amount of data to extrapolate from.

[Northy]

Is he a good shaman? Is his gear comparable to that of the other DPS? Is it pure single target, or with cleave? Is he flasked and pre-potting? Do they have every buff, and if not, which ones are they missing?

You can't make a blanket statement like that and expect for it to fly.

I play Ele Sham main and am on PTR as well. I destroy my Ele Sham with my alts which I have less experience with. It's a spec flaw. Inb4 "You're bad".

[Eruionmel]

You also need to recognize that the PTR streams coming in are of people who are testing the bosses. They're also learning the boss, trying to bugtest, etc. They have more on their mind other than just trying to execute their rotation at max performance.

Single examples are really, really bad as sources of data. That's why we use services like WoL and Raidbots, to get a reasonable amount of data to extrapolate from.

Very much agree with this. I think people are just desperate for some cold, hard numbers since WoL and Raidbots don't monitor the PTR. That's why I did some dummy comparisons I posted in the ele discussion threads to try to quell some of the worry. They're not super in depth, and I only used one iteration per test, but they're something to at least contemplate.

I honestly think we're a lot better off than most people are making us out to be. I certainly destroyed everyone other than the occasional arms warrior in my very brief PTR raid testing, and arms got nerfed back down. But then it's hard for me to know whether to take that as worthwhile information, since I didn't know any of the people I was raiding with, I don't know what consumables they were using, and I have no idea how we would compare on live. Our guild's been a bit flaky with the PTR tests so far, and I haven't gotten to compare myself with the people I know.

[korlach]

Bring the player not the class.

Those Utility things may be nice for some Encounter, but no reason to bring a lower Dps.

Secondly that Utility can be brought by other classes as well, but your argument about healing tide and mentioning warlocks at the same time is pretty funny.

You play a Dps Spec to do Damage, the times are over when you could justify your raid slot with utility.

Your "support" arguement are pretty moot anyway.

Curse -> Mage can dispel as well, i picked mages because you mentioned them
CC -> Warlock got and Banish, which will work in any situation where Bind Elemental / Hex works, i picked Lock because you mentioned them
Stormlash -> At best your dmg will be even with the rest of the raid and i thought the time of Classic and BC are over
Tremor -> How often was Tremor required for an Encounter in the near past? Sheek'zeer but that's about it, in ToT there isn't a single Boss that is using a fear spell.

Those arguement overall are situational at best, Hard CC is rarely required for Raid Encounter, Curses are rare in Raids as well and fears are not very common.

I love how your reply ignores the fact that i stated i am aware other classes can bring some of these utilities. My point is that these things would make a shaman more valuable if we had equal dps to every other class. Also, claiming that these utilities wont earn a player a raid spot may be justified for some of the best guilds out there, but a casual raiding guild such as mine (16/16 normal, 3/16H) has benefited much by having them available. Breaking fear on Grand empress, bind elemental on Lei shi, and Healing tide for any damage spikes are all examples of things I have done to turn a wipe in to a kill. You can say the people I raid with should be doing better if you want but keep in mind the guild I play with is 4th-5th best on my server which means we represent a very large portion of the player base. If a guild like mine benefits from the utility I bring I'd bet its a safe assumption to say many others would as well.

[Laurean]

I honestly think we're a lot better off than most people are making us out to be. I certainly destroyed everyone other than the occasional arms warrior in my very brief PTR raid testing, and arms got nerfed back down. But then it's hard for me to know whether to take that as worthwhile information, since I didn't know any of the people I was raiding with, I don't know what consumables they were using, and I have no idea how we would compare on live. Our guild's been a bit flaky with the PTR tests so far, and I haven't gotten to compare myself with the people I know.

Well, since you didn't know the people you were raiding with, let me help you: Elemental destroying everyone is a joke. There are only two encounters where we are actually competitive, Tortos and Horridon, due to the CL buff.
In any fight with oppurtunities to multi dot we are pretty much useless (we are just designed that way), especially if shadows, boomkins or locks have Unerring Vision of Lei Shen. Chaining Starsurges for ~20sec is stronger than Ascendance. Not that boomkins burst is already way stronger then Elemental's anyway.
Pure single target: We did get some buffs and some QoL changes, that's nice, but which spec out of the lower half didn't?

I am not crying wolf, I am just telling as I see it after almost clearing normal and 5 heroics.

We don't have enough data yet - just wait till we have.

[Nebria]

I saw the mid winter stream too. On Council where you have a lot off adds it was warlocks, druid and shadowpriest on top.
I understand the argument they are testing the boss and learing the fight but well it doesnt explain why so much other people were on top. they had 5 warlocks 1 shadow and 1 druid which are really strong on multi dot fights. However it looked like the shaman did not spam cl all the time insted focused one target and sometimes added some cl.
I'm not sure about the gear but I guess they are all equal geared.T14 Heroic or T15 normal as you can buy it.
It was the same picture on some other bosses to. didn't watched all.

What I don't like is that some people seem to trivialize this situation.
The test raids is the only comparisions we will get. And you can tell me what you want if in almost every fight the elemental is behind the others it is a bad player or something is wrong with elemental. of course we would need more streams with elementals to see if everywhere there is the same picture.
We had the same situation on beta. Testraids didn't look very well and a lot of people said "calm down we are fine". Same people now realized in the last months that we are not fine. Don't make the same mistakte again please.

[SenSayNyu]

Sadly I have similar experience with my guild. We are still lagging behind at single target and without strong dot we fail to compete in multidot fights.

[Kralljin]

I love how your reply ignores the fact that i stated i am aware other classes can bring some of these utilities. My point is that these things would make a shaman more valuable if we had equal dps to every other class.

Why is a Shaman more valueable if he does the same dps as other specs?

Again, if those bring the same utility you aren't more valueable than those.

but a casual raiding guild such as mine (16/16 normal, 3/16H) has benefited much by having them available. Breaking fear on Grand empress, bind elemental on Lei shi, and Healing tide for any damage spikes are all examples of things I have done to turn a wipe in to a kill. You can say the people I raid with should be doing better if you want but keep in mind the guild I play with is 4th-5th best on my server which means we represent a very large portion of the player base. If a guild like mine benefits from the utility I bring I'd bet its a safe assumption to say many others would as well.

Yeah, if Blizzard wants to turn Elemental into a Spec for Casual Raids, then i would like to know it.

Specs should work in a Hardcore as well as Casual enviroment, that's why an argument "That Utility is great for Casual Raids" doesn't adress the issue of a spec as a whole.

[Deleted]

You also need to recognize that the PTR streams coming in are of people who are testing the bosses. They're also learning the boss, trying to bugtest, etc. They have more on their mind other than just trying to execute their rotation at max performance.

Single examples are really, really bad as sources of data. That's why we use services like WoL and Raidbots, to get a reasonable amount of data to extrapolate from.

That's the same talk like in beta. Nothing changed. You always argued that beta data wasn't good enough because they were only testing or somewhat like that.

Now you repeat your own quotes. Again and again.

5.2 will we bascially like 5.1 and 5.0.

Elmental lacks multidotting, that's why it will never be competitive, unless it's somewhat better on single target than those speccs that can multidot. Which simply isn't gonna happen, as ptr data and 5.1 data suggests. MAybe it'S now only 10% behind on some fights behind affli, but it's still 15-20% on other fights.

Elemental will only work if they gave them the ability to multidot so they don'T fall that much behind on a good third of all fights.