[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Deleted]

I realy hope those earth elemental skills can be cast on other players .

[Teriz]

So because you feel one tier is good, which btw I never said it wasn't - though Judgement requires you to actually be able to HIT something and if you read my reasons I said default to LAotL just like you are saying so you didn't even discredit my point. They are all useful, but only in their particular situations. Besides, even if you disagree with my assessment of that tier, I would say our first tier is pretty well rounded too. Astral Shift for massive bursts of damage (like big bursts of movement through Speed of Light), constant damage reduction if your consistantly taking damage through Bulwark (like if your consistantly able to deal damage you get constant movement increase through Pursuit of Justice), else default to Nature's Guardian. The third option is not as strong as the first two in their particular situations, but it has none of their drawbacks either (no need to activate it so no wasted GCDs and no chance of wasting it by popping it when it wasn't needed, it will only happen if you hit 30%).

I agree that the Shaman tier 1 is very well rounded. However it is well rounded because all three talents have a similar theme and are equally useful. The same can not be said about every tier in the Shaman tree. That's my point.

If you think this tier of paladins is well rounded, then you have to think ours is too? And even if you disagree with my view of our t1, you also ignored my view of every other tier of Paladins because it didn't fit your view. You can't cherry pick things to fit your arguement and ignore the things that don't.

No. I do think Shaman tier 1 is well rounded. However, I feel that other tiers really aren't.

I'm sorry, but did you do ANY high end progression PvE before nerfs were put in on any HC bosses? 100% I've had to help out healing on fights, and 100% me doing so has gotten us kills. I remember our first Yor'sahj HC kill, literally the only way we could survive R/Y/B after we had used BL was for me to put Healing Rain down to help out. On fights like Ultraxion where healing is intense, buying your raid 10 more seconds by doing 10k HPS and losing out on one Lightning Bolt is far, FAR more powerful than the 50k Damage you lost, in the extra seconds you bought your raid, you alone likely outdid the Damage you would have done before.

Sure if all you care about is WoL rankings then healing talents are boring to you, but I for one and rediculously excited about HTT. Its vastly more powerful than Ancestral Guidance because Ancestral Guidance will cause so much overhealing. Its like a Resto Shaman casting Greater Healing Wave when he could be casting Chain Heal. Sure in Arena Ancestral Guidance is likely much better because its not a totem easily destroyed and there is only 3 of you, but HTT heals 5 people at once whilst AG heals 1. That alone is why HTT is vastly superior. I can't wait for it. Currently I have to use up 1.6 seconds to heal the raid for ~10k HPS over ~10 seconds, now I get to use just a global and it heals for 10 seconds for much more than Healing Rain does. I can't wait for it. And on fights I would already be using Healing Rain on anyway, Conductivity would be great. They want to make us feel more Hybrid like, and now we are actively encouraged to do so.

My issue with a DPS being forced to take a purely healing talent is that no other hybrid class is forced to make such a sacrifice. Paladins, Monks, and Priests get talents that benefit all three of their specs somewhat evenly. Talents like Halo, Cascade, Chi Torpedo, Light's Hammer, Chi Burst, and other spells combine DPS and Healing because the classes they are made for are HYBRIDS.

Sure, you could drop HTT as an Elemental shaman to help out your Raid, but is that optimal when Blizzard could have just given you an ability that benefits BOTH your DPS and your Healing at the same time?

As for taking the talent that 'best fits your spec', thats not how WoW works. You take the talent that is the best - at least you do if you want to be optimal. If your raid needs a defensive cooldown then you take HTT, if your raid needs more healing but can't fully sacrifise a DPS then you take Conductivity. If you don't like being a hybrid, then sadly your playing the wrong class, because unless your either 1 - In a World Top 50 guild or 2 - Not in high end progression PvE your using Heals like a hybrid already, or at least should be because their benefit vastly outweighs the lost damage.

Yeah, but that isn't the design goal of the new talent system. The new talent system is designed to what the player wants to play like, not what will benefit the Raid on a given fight. That's exactly why Blizzard changed the talent system in the first place; to avoid cookie-cutter specs. Now Shaman are going to pick up HTT for X raid boss, Conductivity for Y raid boss, and AG for PVP.

So you're asking for a defensive ability with no cooldown/a cooldown less than 30 seconds, one that doesn't require a totem to use (as a Shaman who are iconic users of totems) and which can be used when CCed? Find me a defensive ability that has no drawbacks, is useable when CCed and has such a low cooldown? It just doesn't exist.

Um no. I was just responding to Rahd taking my words out of context.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 12:26 AM ----------

The LotL buff only lasts 3 seconds, and Judgements are typically not used for the speed buff currently, meaning you'll have paladins debating whether to use it now for DPS/threat/mana, or hold off so they can use the speed boost to get out of a fire. It's not a perfect talent.

PoJ only stacks to 40% if you've got 3 stacks of Holy Power, and all three specs don't want to hold on to HP; it's dumped ASAP.

I'm not saying these are "bad", but they've got serious drawbacks. Both require sacrificing your normal performance slightly to maximize your mobility, and it's possible to get "locked" out of it.

What you miss is that the Shaman tree is no different.

LotL is currently on the Ret talent tree in Cataclysm. So Ret paladins have been utilizing that talent for a very long time.

And sadly yes, the Shaman tree is very different. Retribution Paladins aren't forced into taking healing talents, and Holy Paladins aren't forced into taking DPS talents. Furthermore, there aren't talents that seem to be afterthoughts or simply out of place, like Totemic Projection, and/or Windwalk totem.

Certainly you can find uses for such talents, but of course, people found uses for Sentry totem and Rockbiter.

Absolutely 100% false. I already drop HR when it's warranted, as Elemental, if my raid needs healing more than it needs DPS, which is often the case on heroic progression, depending on the fight. Conductivity just makes it that much more appealing.

In heroic progression, fights often have a focus. If the focus is on beating the Enrage timer, healers are expected and required to help out with DPS and find gaps to contribute while keeping up with healing. If the focus is on heavy healing and survival, DPS hybrids are similarly expected to help out with healing where they can, to improve raid survival, since losing a tiny amount of DPS does not risk running into the Enrage timer. The idea that DPS Shaman don't "need" healing boosts is just incorrect, even just with regards to PvE, and when you bring in PvP, it's even more obvious.

The idea that Elemental Shaman don't ever drop HR in raids is simply not true. At all.



HTT has a 40 yard radius, HR has a 10 yard radius. HTT also heals for significantly more per tick, has an extra tick, and is an instant cast, not a 2s cast. So no, an Enhancement Shaman is NOT better served with just casting Healing Rain. Especially since he can do both, if he takes this talent; it's not either/or. Again, your claim is simply untrue.

It really makes me wonder, combined with your also completely mistaken impression as to how Nature's Guardian works, if you've actually checked any of this yourself, or if you're just making wild assumptions based on third-hand impressions without mentioning your source. Because whatever source you're using does not understand how most of what you're commenting on actually works.

Like I said before;

My issue with a DPS being forced to take a purely healing talent is that no other hybrid class is forced to make such a sacrifice. Paladins, Monks, and Priests get talents that benefit all three of their specs somewhat evenly. Talents like Halo, Cascade, Chi Torpedo, Light's Hammer, Chi Burst, and other spells combine DPS and Healing because the classes they are made for are HYBRIDS.

Sure, you could drop HTT as an Elemental shaman to help out your Raid, but is that optimal when Blizzard could have just given you an ability that benefits BOTH your DPS and your Healing at the same time?

[Endus]

I agree that the Shaman tier 1 is very well rounded. However it is well rounded because all three talents have a similar theme and are equally useful. The same can not be said about every tier in the Shaman tree. That's my point.

And you've provided absolutely zero evidence that held up under even a modicum of scrutiny, to support that claim.

Your own personal preferences are not 'evidence', and that is quite simply all you've actually brought, other than statements that were outright factually incorrect about how abilities worked.

My issue with a DPS being forced to take a purely healing talent is that no other hybrid class is forced to make such a sacrifice. Paladins, Monks, and Priests get talents that benefit all three of their specs somewhat evenly. Talents like Halo, Cascade, Chi Torpedo, Light's Hammer, Chi Burst, and other spells combine DPS and Healing because the classes they are made for are HYBRIDS.

Paladin Tier 3 is all purely healing talents. Free supercharged FoLs, an HP-powered HoT, or a healing-boosting shield. So your claim that "no other hybrid class" has a purely healing tier is false.

Monks and Druids both have more utility talents rather than throughput talents, where Shaman already have a great deal of utility, and are in return getting three throughput talents. Druids in particular have also been much more capable of hybrid-healing than Shaman, at the least because of how strong Tranquility was even in an off spec. The emphasis was to make hybrids more "hybrid-y", meaning DPS hybrids should be contributing more to healing than in WotLK/Cataclysm.

Yeah, but that isn't the design goal of the new talent system. The new talent system is designed to what the player wants to play like, not what will benefit the Raid on a given fight. That's exactly why Blizzard changed the talent system in the first place; to avoid cookie-cutter specs. Now Shaman are going to pick up HTT for X raid boss, Conductivity for Y raid boss, and AG for PVP.

The intent, as per Ghostcrawler, is to provide "interesting choices".

And you pretty much can. There's advantages and disadvantages to each. We've explained them.

That you have a preference does not mean the system isn't working. You've stated you couldn't see any DPS shaman taking anything other than Ancestral Guidance. I probably won't be for the most part, because I see the other two as stronger contenders in PvE. System working as intended; we can take any of the three. You're still mistaking "I have made a personal, subjective choice" with "the other options are bad/irrelevant", and that doesn't make sense.

[Madcap]

I realy hope those earth elemental skills can be cast on other players .

I'm not in beta so I don't know for sure, but the tooltip refers to the master, so I assume they can only be self-buffs.

I wish they were targetable spells, though, that would make those abilities much more interesting. I've previously posted in this thread how underwhelming I think Primal Elementalist is for Resto (not that the talent is underpowered or undesirable, just uninteresting). But as the abilities function now, making them targetable would be game breaking. Specifically with respect to the Earth Elemental, you'd be making a ridiculous tank CD available to not just resto but every shaman spec. Blizzard would have to redesign the damage reduction ability to make the elemental channels targetable. And if that gets redesigned, all the elemental abilities might have to be redesigned. Personally, I would actually like that to happen, but I doubt it does at this stage.

[Teriz]

And you've provided absolutely zero evidence that held up under even a modicum of scrutiny, to support that claim.

Your own personal preferences are not 'evidence', and that is quite simply all you've actually brought, other than statements that were outright factually incorrect about how abilities worked.

Are we really going to pretend that Totemic Projection is as useful as Call of the Earth? Howabout Windwalk Totem versus Earthgrab and/or Frozen Power? Are we going to act like a DPS Shaman is going to look at tier 5 and see tons of overwhelming choice, or just grab something to move onto the next tier? Let's be serious here.

Paladin Tier 3 is all purely healing talents. Free supercharged FoLs, an HP-powered HoT, or a healing-boosting shield. So your claim that "no other hybrid class" has a purely healing tier is false.

They aren't purely healing talents. Selfless Healer procs through DPS (Judgements), Eternal Flame comes from Holy Power which again is mostly produced through either DPSing or Healing. Finally, Sacred Shield isn't a heal at all. It's a shield that gives a chance to enhance a heal.

In other words, if I'm a Retadin, I'm already either using Judgements, building Holy Power, or placing Bubbles on myself to stay alive. That tier doesn't break that playstyle.

For comparison, imagine a Shaman talent where you could cast shocks that stack up to give you an instant cast Healing Wave at 100% improved effectiveness. That is what Paladins get with Selfless Healer.

As an Enhancement Shaman who has chosen Conductivity, I have to stop what I'm doing, cast Healing Rain, and then cast lightning bolts to heal a group of people. Something that I normally don't do as a Shaman that is geared towards mainly melee combat. This is why AG is so much superior. As Enhance I'm doing damage, and AG is healing me based on the damage I'm doing, which will be primarily from melee.

Just a side note, Conductivity would be FAR better if the heal came from any damage, not just LB.

Monks and Druids both have more utility talents rather than throughput talents, where Shaman already have a great deal of utility, and are in return getting three throughput talents. Druids in particular have also been much more capable of hybrid-healing than Shaman, at the least because of how strong Tranquility was even in an off spec. The emphasis was to make hybrids more "hybrid-y", meaning DPS hybrids should be contributing more to healing than in WotLK/Cataclysm.

That's pretty easy to do when you get talents that allow you to DPS or Heal at the same time like Monks, Paladins, and Priests have.

[Endus]

Are we really going to pretend that Totemic Projection is as useful as Call of the Earth?

Pretend? I'm not pretending.

Yes, it's as useful. Differently useful, but that's true of every talent in every tier for every spec.

Howabout Windwalk Totem versus Earthgrab and/or Frozen Power?

Yes. That's a bit odd since it's anti-CC rather than CC, so it's not as obvious a comparison, but there's absolutely uses for it.

Are we going to act like a DPS Shaman is going to look at tier 5 and see tons of overwhelming choice, or just grab something to move onto the next tier? Let's be serious here.

If you don't, then you're wearing blinkers.

Those three are each strong contenders for DPS shaman. Easily. I've already explained how, you're just ignoring it.

They aren't purely healing talents. Selfless Healer procs through DPS (Judgements), Eternal Flame comes from Holy Power which again is mostly produced through either DPSing or Healing. Finally, Sacred Shield isn't a heal at all. It's a shield that gives a chance to enhance a heal.

They are pure healing. Stop being disingenuous. The only purpose to any of those three talents is to boost the healing you provide, they provide zero DPS benefit, and no utility. Pure healing.

And I said Sacred Shield was a healing-boosting shield. Don't pretend I said otherwise, anyone else can read my post and see that. It's still purely healing oriented.

[Manu9]

I was thinking, I'd love shorter CDs on our main attacks, So what if SS and LL went down back to 6 seconds, with their damage adjusted accordingly, SS would sync nicely with WF and make SF 3 stacks max, hell the current damage of 3 stacks would probably be enough to justify the shorter CD, I just don't like how our CDs are quite long, even if we don't hit as hard with them.

Also someone said, I'm not sure who, on this thread that haste isn't as bad for us, as it is now, is that because of Ascendance, because that really doesn't count since it's only 15 secs every 3mins + procs would be still as useless if it did not proc at the right time.

Something else was I was hoping to get the "new expansion" feeling but Enha is pretty much the same. Other than a bunch of new CDs, perhaps it will be changed though if there is a MW rework in there somewhere, but shouldn't a core thing about a spec like that be out by now, or do they add major changes like that mid beta as well?

[Cakala]

If you are talking about haste for enhance...

Some of the increased value of haste comes from the UF talent ( If you chose to spec into it ). Allowing white hits to proc Static Shock for a duration after using Unleashed Fury while having one of your weapons imbued with WF.

[Manu9]

I know about that, but it's dependent on a talent to be worthwhile, which people may or may not take. But I guess that's still a way to go about it.

[Wataurenyew]

They are pure healing. Stop being disingenuous. The only purpose to any of those three talents is to boost the healing you provide, they provide zero DPS benefit, and no utility. Pure healing.

And I said Sacred Shield was a healing-boosting shield. Don't pretend I said otherwise, anyone else can read my post and see that. It's still purely healing oriented.

I'm just adding to this because I see the point that he's trying to make though he doesn't keep focused on it which unless I've missed it has caused you not to address that particular point.

The issue he is stating is not a problem with the tier being pure healing talents but rather how they are implemented.
He's stating that the healing from the talents for Pallies is coming from continuing to do your normal rotation and then adding in some healing.
Where as Shaman are being thrown out of their rotation to get benefit from any talent other than AG.

The way I see it HTT is one GCD and it heals while you continue with your normal rotation, I don't see the issue here.
AG was already stated as heal by doing your normal rotation.
Conductivity is the tricky one, I don't see much issue for Ele as casting the already chain cast LBs and casting HR would be the same as the Pallies using their gained procs, now I don't play enhancement, but I'd think that having conductivity proc off some ability that they use a bit more often than LB would round out the tier for all specs. That's just my opinion though.

[Endus]

I'm just adding to this because I see the point that he's trying to make though he doesn't keep focused on it which unless I've missed it has caused you not to address that particular point.

The issue he is stating is not a problem with the tier being pure healing talents but rather how they are implemented.
He's stating that the healing from the talents for Pallies is coming from continuing to do your normal rotation and then adding in some healing.
Where as Shaman are being thrown out of their rotation to get benefit from any talent other than AG.

They aren't.

It costs paladins a GCD to cast those heals. It costs shaman a GCD to cast HTT and AG. It costs us a 2s cast time to dump a Healing Rain for Conductivity, but it costs Paladins Holy Power to use Eternal Flame, which if anything is a more significant sacrifice for the effect for DPS Paladins.

Plus, the two instants for Shaman have cooldowns. None of the three Paladin talents do. For a Ret Paladin to match the healing done by the Shaman abilities, he would likely need to use multiple GCDs; that's offset by the fact that they can be used more often and potentially for greater healing done, but only by using even more GCDs and thus sacrificing even more DPS.

I'm not saying ours are better, but they're definitely not worse, nor do Shaman have to "spend" more to use them, by any measure.


Lastly; the issue was we were originally talking about the effects of the talents. Teriz pulled the "it's procced by Judgement/uses HP which you generate via DPS" as a completely irrelevant and disingenuous straw man. Their effects are still pure healing. You can see the issue clearly in this quote;

And sadly yes, the Shaman tree is very different. Retribution Paladins aren't forced into taking healing talents...

[...]

My issue with a DPS being forced to take a purely healing talent is that no other hybrid class is forced to make such a sacrifice. [...] Talents like Halo, Cascade, Chi Torpedo, Light's Hammer, Chi Burst, and other spells combine DPS and Healing because the classes they are made for are HYBRIDS.

Sure, you could drop HTT as an Elemental shaman to help out your Raid, but is that optimal when Blizzard could have just given you an ability that benefits BOTH your DPS and your Healing at the same time?

I removed some extraneous comments and added the ellipses, for clarity and brevity, but there's a link to the original post there too; I'm not removing necessary context.

You can see the issue;

• He said Ret paladins aren't forced into taking healing talents; tier 3 is all healing, so yes, they are.
• He says no other class has to make such a sacrifice, and then clarifies that other talents boost DPS and healing, twice. He's absolutely clearly talking about the effect of the talents.

So trying to talk about what makes their use available is a completely different and irrelevant point. A straw man. Rather than defend his original statement, he moved on to a completely different one and acted as if I hadn't disproved this entirely new and unrelated point, as if that somehow meant his earlier comments therefore weren't disproven either.

[Taalyn]

Stop acting like Conductivity is bad for Enhancement, Teriz. It takes 1 MW5 to cast Healing Rain and then you continue with your normal rotation using, guess what, Lightning Bolt, with MW5. The only deviation from your DPS is the instant cast Healing Rain, and if you really need the extra healing at that time, you're going to cast Healing Rain anyway. You also need to stop your DPS rotation to cast Ancestral Guidance. Either way you spent 1 GCD out of your DPS rotation in order to heal. The only thing you need to worry about is if one talent gives you more healing while doing the same DPS than another, at any point during a fight.

[Wataurenyew]

Lastly; the issue was we were originally talking about the effects of the talents. Teriz pulled the "it's procced by Judgement/uses HP which you generate via DPS" as a completely irrelevant and disingenuous straw man. Their effects are still pure healing. You can see the issue clearly in this quote;

• He said Ret paladins aren't forced into taking healing talents; tier 3 is all healing, so yes, they are.
• He says no other class has to make such a sacrifice, and then clarifies that other talents boost DPS and healing, twice. He's absolutely clearly talking about the effect of the talents.

So trying to talk about what makes their use available is a completely different and irrelevant point. A straw man. Rather than defend his original statement, he moved on to a completely different one and acted as if I hadn't disproved this entirely new and unrelated point, as if that somehow meant his earlier comments therefore weren't disproven either.

You are absolutely right, I misspoke and the original defense of his argument in that iteration of his argument was that no other dps was forced to take a pure healing talent. However, the original argument was the usefulness of each talent in a tier in comparison to each other and the usefulness for each spec, which goes back to him complaining about NG in tier 1. This argument has been shifting around and evolving spanning across different tiers and to other classes. That is why I said he was straying from the point in that he felt that all the healing talents for Pallies were acceptable because they got the effects from doing dps, where we only got one talent that gained the affects from doing dps. And you have since refuted that stance as well.

I'll just have to say that it seems like his defense of his argument is all over the place and moving on to the talents of other classes served to further distort where this whole chain started which was that he felt that talents in the tiers were either not equal to each other see NG, or not equally useful for particular specs see HTT and Conductivity.

I was just trying to point out that the whole point that started this on going conversation got derailed, however it did somewhat sound like an attack on you missing the point which I didn't intend.

[Barky]

I don't see why there's so much hate about some of the talents, we don't know the utility of the raids to know how great we 'could' be, and have the options to be

For example, say some boss does an AoE slow, then goes to channel a massive explosion and the only way to get there is to LoS it or jump in a giant chi shield or you die. An Enhancement's Windwalk totem would be invaluable to all the people in melee range. or a boss that spawns a few adds with the ranged that hurt a lot and need to be nuked down asap, an Ele shaman's Earthgrab totem could be incredibly useful.

Or say there's a moment where a healer is stunned / CC'd / Dead and being CR'd and there's a spike damage phase on the tank. A shaman could pop Ancestral Guidance and lust / wolves / stormlash totem and heal for an insane amount very quickly. It's a great talent.

Personally as long as they fix the numbers we dish out (which they are going to near the end of the beta.) and they make bosses require our utility options / make the fight much easier with them, I'm fine with these talents. It's nice having utility and being able to do decent dps too (hopefully)

[Deleted]

Priests and Monks - the rest by the wayside.. Endus I'd love you to quantify how priests have zero pure healing tiers and all their tiers offer a proper hybrid mesh of talents?

[Arinnaya]

Then use up your MW stacks and then cast Hex? I can't possibly see how having it on MW is bad. If you don't want to waste time using up your MW stacks first before using your Hex then that means your in a hurry to use Hex and thus having it on MW is a benefit.

Did I say it was bad? Are we not allowed to express preferences now?

The situation I want to have is where I can cast Hex from distance and keep my 2/3 stacks of MW for when I enter combat to use for healing - since the 1.5 seconds cast time (at most) is usually less than the time it would take to build the stacks back up.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 11:02 AM ----------

I also believe that some of the criticisms of Shaman talents as less "hybridy" than other classes hold some weight - look at Elemental Blast for example - it's only damage, whereas ALL of the T6 Priest talents do damage and healing, Chi Torpedo for Monks does both damage and healing, ALL of the T6 Paladin talents are capable of damage or healing. All of those make for interesting talents for healers of those classes. For Shaman however, our bonuses are limited to: 50% extra bonus healing on Unleashed Life (pretty boring), the ability to channel +20% healing while FE is active and +20% healing and +10% damage reduction while EE is active or some bonus haste/mastery/crit if we cast Elemental Blast. All of those are pretty boring for Resto, even if they do provide some nice bonuses.

Why can Elemental Blast not do damage AND healing, when Priest T6/Paladin T6 talents can?

A lot of the talent tree apologists are making the case that the new talent paradigm is to increase hybridisation, and that's great, I'm all for increased hybrid ability. The problem is that the other hybrids are given hybridisation options PER TALENT, whereas we're given them OVERALL. Look at Druid talents - lots of them provide spec specific bonuses, or are useful to any spec, whereas there are some Shaman talents (e.g. Elemental Blast) that are simply no good for a particular spec (before someone says about EB being potentially useful for the buff, it's an 8 sec buff on a 12 sec cd/2 sec cast, meaning you're spending 1/6th of your time to maintain a 75% uptime buff, and it doesn't even benefit from our +hit% talent). I don't know whether it counts as a Nature spell either, so there's also the potential problem for PVE Enhancement - if it's got a 2 second cast time, then casting it will reset our swing timer, meaning that although the spell might be nice, it's going to reduce our white damage and Maelstrom stacks. If it counts as nature (therefore is reduced by Maelstrom) then fine, but although I agree with Enhancement being able to hard-cast, it's not something that I feel we should be doing rotationally (hence the nerf of spellpower weapons to eliminate LvB hard-casting rotationally). If it's for a utility spell or in a specific situation (SWG + running) then fine, but rotationally, I don't think it should be there.

There are also other classes whose talents augment their most-used spells - look at Paladins and a LOT of their talents focus around Judgement and Holy Power - this means that they've got talents working synergistically - as an example, they can talent for movement speed AND a slow effect AND a healing buff all from their judgement - and that's a rotational ability for them as well, so they'll be using it regardless of these talents. If you look at some of our augmented spells (that aren't long cooldowns ofc) - we've got Frost Shock, which is hampered by shared shock cooldown, meaning that we'll hardly ever be able to use Frozen Power in PVE, Unleashed Elements, which is only rotational for one spec (Enhance), although the talent looks would make the spell rotational for Elemental if they took it. Conductivity is nice in that it's based on Lightning Bolt and our healing spells (although it would be nice to add something a little more for Enhance since they'll only do 1/2 LB max in the time it takes for HR to run out, compared to several from Elemental, e.g. Stormstrike or Lava Lash).

Another thing I feel about some Shaman talents, when combined with spec abilities, is that we've got a lot of things that do the same thing. Take healing distribution as an example. We're already one of the best classes at healing grouped up targets with CH and HR, yet most we have several talents/cooldowns which make us even more powerful at that, but don't add anything else to our repetoire - conductivity basically increases the healing to anyone standing in HR (but is useless if everyone's spread out), Ascendance causes all healing to be distributed to "nearby targets" (could do with someone providing me the range on that nearby thing). It's like we've been giving a healing niche where we can outperform the other healers, but are being given more and more ways to do that, when really, we could do with a defensive cooldown to cast on others, rather than MORE ways to heal up a group of people standing close together. Don't get me wrong, Conductivity would be amazing for fights like Ultraxxion, but a fight where everyone spreads out, we start losing a lot of our tools: healing rain, chain heal (unless glyphed), Ascendance. To me, Ascendance, as our "this is awesome" spell of the expansion, should provide a throughput boost in all situations - not just ones where everyone's stacked. If I'm wrong with the Ascendance range and it will hit everyone in the raid then perfect, but otherwise it's limited in its use.

The thing for me is that, all things considered, it seems like they've added a lot of "cool talents/abilities" to Shaman, but there's no overall feel to the talent trees. There's a lot of disjoin, which doesn't exist in a lot of other trees. I'm hoping that's just because Shaman are still further behind than a lot of other classes in terms of talent design. I feel there's definitely room to make more of the Shaman talent tree, by making stuff work together better, and by ensuring that stuff caters to all three specs - a healing tier is fine as a hybridisation point - totally happy with that, what I'm not happy about is talents like Elemental Blast, which is terrible for Resto, and the other 2 tier 6 talents are both very boring for Resto.

Here's hoping there's going to be another pass on Shaman talents.

[mrinvisable2]

for enha problem now is they are screwing with with MW it generates to slow because now we must cc with MW , dps with MW , Heal with MW , and maintain buff with MW if use elemental blast that is too much for 1 mechanic
and 9 of all talents are something we already had at some point but now its NEW and fresh stuff

and something i notice resto depends on crits to regain mana ( resurgence) now passives are removed that increased our crit chance

[Deleted]

I'm just adding to this because I see the point that he's trying to make though he doesn't keep focused on it which unless I've missed it has caused you not to address that particular point.

The issue he is stating is not a problem with the tier being pure healing talents but rather how they are implemented.
He's stating that the healing from the talents for Pallies is coming from continuing to do your normal rotation and then adding in some healing.
Where as Shaman are being thrown out of their rotation to get benefit from any talent other than AG.

The way I see it HTT is one GCD and it heals while you continue with your normal rotation, I don't see the issue here.
AG was already stated as heal by doing your normal rotation.
Conductivity is the tricky one, I don't see much issue for Ele as casting the already chain cast LBs and casting HR would be the same as the Pallies using their gained procs, now I don't play enhancement, but I'd think that having conductivity proc off some ability that they use a bit more often than LB would round out the tier for all specs. That's just my opinion though.

Unlike Teriz's flat "I dont like it", this is something I can get behind. I'd be all for Conductivity say also spreading healing based on your Stormstrike damage as well as Lightning Bolt? Or maybe Shocks and Lightning Bolt? Just so Enhance get a little bit more benefit out of it rather than getting maybe 2 LBs per Healing Rain whilst Elemental gets like 6 (if they choose to spam it to get heal). I'd 100% be behind adding a couple more damaging abilities to the Conductivity proc.

[Unoriginal]

has anyone had any experience with the tier 4 of shamans?
Does echo of the elements proc often?
Elemental mastery feels nerfed so im thinking of grabbing echo.

[Teriz]

Stop acting like Conductivity is bad for Enhancement, Teriz. It takes 1 MW5 to cast Healing Rain and then you continue with your normal rotation using, guess what, Lightning Bolt, with MW5. The only deviation from your DPS is the instant cast Healing Rain, and if you really need the extra healing at that time, you're going to cast Healing Rain anyway. You also need to stop your DPS rotation to cast Ancestral Guidance. Either way you spent 1 GCD out of your DPS rotation in order to heal. The only thing you need to worry about is if one talent gives you more healing while doing the same DPS than another, at any point during a fight.

How are you going to stack MW5 so quickly after you spend it to cast HR? Also, even if you are quick enough to restack MW5, how many LBs are you going to be able to instant cast to make Conductivity worthwhile as Enhance? 1? 2 maybe?

I need to spend a GCD to cast AG. I need to cast a spell for 2 seconds (without MW5) to cast HR. Then I need to continue casting lightning bolts afterwards to make this talent worth my time. Again, we're talking about an Enhancement Shaman here, a spec that is specialized towards using melee attacks to stack instant cast spell buffs. Not hard-casting lightning bolts.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 11:30 AM ----------

Unlike Teriz's flat "I dont like it", this is something I can get behind. I'd be all for Conductivity say also spreading healing based on your Stormstrike damage as well as Lightning Bolt? Or maybe Shocks and Lightning Bolt? Just so Enhance get a little bit more benefit out of it rather than getting maybe 2 LBs per Healing Rain whilst Elemental gets like 6 (if they choose to spam it to get heal). I'd 100% be behind adding a couple more damaging abilities to the Conductivity proc.

I'm pretty sure I said that Conductivity would be a lot better if it procced off of ALL damage, not just LB. That would allow Enhancement to throw up a HR off of MW5, and then do what they do best, which is melee damage. The same sort of applies to Elemental Shaman. They could cast HR, and be free to cast Shocks, LvB, and Chain Lightning.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 11:32 AM ----------

Here's hoping there's going to be another pass on Shaman talents.

Great post, and I fully agree.