shaman patch notes

[Taalyn]

About Glyph of Ghost Wolf:

It was shown that of the 30% of Shaman that do not take the glyph, 50% of them have a partner who can give them something equal, Hand of Freedom. So the question then is, does the use of Glyph of Ghost Wolf depend on those you play with? What do the other half play with? Do they have something equal to both Glyph of Ghost Wolf and Hand of Freedom? Regardless of the answer, 15% of those shaman have something equal to Glyph of Ghost Wolf. While the sample size of those cited in the example is small, are they at the level of play that is expected of most who play this game? If the answer is yes, then that 15%, to me, seems far too low to warrant no change to the glyph.

[shell]

About Glyph of Ghost Wolf:

It was shown that of the 30% of Shaman that do not take the glyph, 50% of them have a partner who can give them something equal, Hand of Freedom. So the question then is, does the use of Glyph of Ghost Wolf depend on those you play with? What do the other half play with? Do they have something equal to both Glyph of Ghost Wolf and Hand of Freedom? Regardless of the answer, 15% of those shaman have something equal to Glyph of Ghost Wolf. While the sample size of those cited in the example is small, are they at the level of play that is expected of most who play this game? If the answer is yes, then that 15%, to me, seems far too low to warrant no change to the glyph.

I went back and checked the teams. Lucky that I wrote them down cuz the arena ladders apparently get updated more than I thought.

-2 teams have a paladin
-4 teams don't have a paladin
-3 teams there was no way to tell because people left the team

So overall, I would say its inconclusive.

And I agree my sample size is teeny. But there's this if you want to check it out,

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...-0--0-0-0.html

It breaks down all the glyph and talent choices which means it has to be updated on a fairly regular basis since people now more than ever switch their glyphs and talents in and out. It was just updated today and it only looks at players 2200 or higher. There are probably other sites that do the same thing, if anyone knows of them I would be interested in seeing them, just to see how they compare to each other.

[Endus]

Pvp viability is not about quantity, but quality.

That's not what quantitative or qualitative mean.

"Quantitative" means you can quantify the value, put numbers or at least concrete facts on it. "Qualitative" means it's down to how it feels; you have no actual concrete proof of anything.

The longest stun is worthless, if it never hits. A 5 sec aoe stun sounds impressive, but most of the time you're hard pressed stunning a single enemy in pvp, let alone two. If it's numbers you want, look through all MoP arena videos you can find involving shaman and compare how much CPT actually hits in higher ranked matches vs. Deep Freeze, Cheap Shot and co. We both no you wont bother going to such lenghts just to prove yourself wrong anyway. We both know CPT is hard to make work and close to worthless in high ranked pvp. The higher the demands on an ability, the more worthless it becomes if it is heavily limited in usage.
I dont really need a factual argument to prove that CPT is at the bottom of the stun-barrel, but if you insist:A look at the tool-tip, the fact that unlike other stuns, CPT has the option of two glyphes and one talent to enhance it (if it were as powerful as you make it out to be, it wouldn't require those to exist, right?) and last but not least, common sense. With common sense, you will notice that CPT requires a baby-sitter. Unlike a Warlock's cataclysm though, it is our only stun.
Are there glyphs shortening cataclysm's charge up time? No, because it is useless anyways and nobody would bother glyphing it, since warlocks got a shitload of CCs and stuns even without cataclysm.

Again; other class' abilities are irrelevant, unless you factor in literally everything else about Shaman and literally everything else about the other class. Which you aren't doing. So stop ignoring relevant context.

I never argued that Capacitor Totem was "strong". Or that it was easy to use. My entire point was that abilities do not have to be either. That's a false presumption that, again, nobody has made any attempt to back up. It's not meant to be on par with other stuns, because that's not how class or ability design is done. There's nothing wrong with one stun being weaker than another, or one class' stun being the weakest of all stuns. It is simply not a balance issue. The only thing that matters is class balance, in aggregate. Not individual abilities.

Plus it is not really up to debate that enh lacks mobility compared to other melees atm. It is an aknowledged fact.

Well, no. It's a qualitative opinion.

And even if I were to agree with that, Enhancement makes up for it in greater functionality at range and better ranged CC/slows/etc that let them close the distance without relying on personal mobility.

Which is sort of what I mean when I say that you are deliberately ignoring relevant class utility and making an argument that simply does not hold up to any scrutiny as a result.

And the steps we need to take to get as near as possible to where others are a many here as well.
-Required to take UF for mobility, although it is a dps tier => less customisation
-required to take FP for mobility, having to pass up the critical aspect enh lacks for proper gap closing: freedom accompanied with movement speed (although WWT has to high a cd anyway) => customisation loss the 2nd
-required to glyph GW to get it to an competitive pvp level => again, customisation loss

None of those three are "required", and one of the high-ranked shaman listed a few posts ago proves that, as they're specced Enhancement and don't have Ghost Wolf glyphed (but do have healing storm, so they're definitely still glyphed for Enh PvP). UF I would suggest is the go-to choice in PvP because it doesn't rely on stacking MWx5 for EB (or hard-casting), or an elemental that only has partial uptime, not because of the Frostbrand unleash itself, particularly. And while FP is superior for locking down one target, it's not superior for mobility overall.

Seriously; your own preferences are not facts. I don't know why I keep having to repeat that.

About Glyph of Ghost Wolf:

It was shown that of the 30% of Shaman that do not take the glyph, 50% of them have a partner who can give them something equal, Hand of Freedom. So the question then is, does the use of Glyph of Ghost Wolf depend on those you play with? What do the other half play with? Do they have something equal to both Glyph of Ghost Wolf and Hand of Freedom? Regardless of the answer, 15% of those shaman have something equal to Glyph of Ghost Wolf. While the sample size of those cited in the example is small, are they at the level of play that is expected of most who play this game? If the answer is yes, then that 15%, to me, seems far too low to warrant no change to the glyph.

In addition to shell's response above, there's nothing wrong with 70% of the Shaman playerbase using glyph of ghost wolf in PvP. Nothing whatsoever. There's only an issue if a glyph is mandatory.

"Mandatory" means if you're performing at higher rankings, you need it. 100% of the player base, or at least 98%+ or so to allow for the occasional outlier. And that's the argument; it's mandatory/required and therefore needs to be changed.

The facts are, it's not mandatory or required, and some people are getting by without it. Heck, it's even quite possible that part of the reason the use is so high is because of people parroting this idea that it's "required", without any actual justifiable quantitative argument as to why.

It doesn't matter that the sample size is small or that even in that small sample there's only a few that disprove the claim. The claim was "you need it to succeed". People are succeeding without it. Ergo, that claim was wrong. Even one person performing at high ranks without it disproves the claim.

There's nothing wrong with glyphs being popular. Just as long as it's not a cookie cutter that everyone is taking because it's the only effective layout.

[Mithgroth]

There was a thread just before MoP Beta asking players to provide quality of life improvements, which I'm doing the same in this thread.

While reporting and debating QoL issues, there is no 2+2=4 proof as you ask, this type of feedback is based on player experience and common sense. It is fairly unfair to ask for a mathematical proof or sort of evidance to consider it. It is even more unfair to call someone else's experience and opinions "falsehood", based on yours.

All your "we are fine" arguement will be disprooved on the first time we ever recieve a change. If we never ever get a class change, yeah we are fine, I'm just exaggrating it.

Last time I've done this type of feedback was in Cataclysm, reporting Maelstrom Weapon not working on absorb effects. It was fixed on 4.3 I think. Therefore this is not the type of feedback I'm unfamiliar with, as players all we can do is to talk about our experiences and how it feels. And hell, I'm not the only one thinking they don't feel/work as they should, it's a matter of perspective.

"We are fine" arguement isn't constructive at all, you are confusing;

"this ability should be buffed because it hits 5 whereas it should hit 10, here's why it should it 10" type of arguement with,
"executing this ability feels too difficult and demanding becuase I have to do A, B, C. Whereas when I combine my whole experience, compare it with other similar examples and justify it in the end, I feel like it should better function like this:"

and demanding proof to prove yourself right as if it can be done.

"We are fine" is also as subjective as "we are not fine, we require changes" in terms of this kind of arguements. However you act like you are based on some sort of proof, however you are based on your personal bias. All the blue posts you have linked backs up my arguement from my point of view, so they can be interpreted differently.

All these QoL feedbacks cannot be proved or disprooved, unless Blizzard states otherwise. Only Blizzard knows what is intended or not, with what's behind with all the design. Therefore it is pretty pointless to ask for a proof, making the whole arguement pointless. This is called derailing. You can disagree, and I can even disagree to your point, none of these make any of the arguements "falsehoods", but contrabution for the class design.

[Endus]

There was a thread just before MoP Beta asking players to provide quality of life improvements, which I'm doing the same in this thread.

Statements that an ability is broken/not working properly are not quality-of-life complaints, nor were you phrasing them as such.

All your "we are fine" arguement will be disprooved on the first time we ever recieve a change. If we never ever get a class change, yeah we are fine, I'm just exaggrating it.

No, it wouldn't; changes are made for a host of reasons, and fine-tuning the game balance does not demonstrate a game-breaking imbalance existed beforehand.

And besides; I haven't been saying "we are fine". I've been saying things like "basically fine, except for this and this", or "this particular ability is fine as-is", or "the class overall is fine, but some areas could use improvement".

I have never said the Shaman class is fine and shouldn't be touched. Never.

"We are fine" arguement isn't constructive at all, you are confusing;

"this ability should be buffed because it hits 5 whereas it should hit 10, here's why it should it 10" type of arguement with,
"executing this ability feels too difficult and demanding becuase I have to do A, B, C. Whereas when I combine my whole experience, compare it with other similar examples and justify it in the end, I feel like it should better function like this:"

and demanding proof to prove yourself right as if it can be done.

Except, for the most part, people in this thread have not been saying the latter. They've been saying "I have to do A, B, and C for the ability to work, therefore it's broken and needs fixing, and the glyphs should just be default".

And that's a completely different, and unsubstantiatedly quantitative, claim.

Those suggesting a change could be good have been pretty adamant about NOT using words like "I feel", but trying to portray their feelings as if they had the weight of fact, and that's been my issue this whole time.

"We are fine" is also as subjective as "we are not fine, we require changes" in terms of this kind of arguements. However you act like you are based on some sort of proof, however you are based on your personal bias. All the blue posts you have linked backs up my arguement from my point of view, so they can be interpreted differently.

Yes, of course "we are fine" is subjective. I use that as a statement, and then provide direct links to evidence to contradict the claims otherwise.

I can't prove it's "fine" as that's not something quantifiable, but I can disprove the claims that it's not, which is what I've been doing.

And no, the blue posts DON'T back you up. The one I keep returning to very clearly states that while they want to try to keep glyphs from being mandatory in PvE, that's mostly a pure numbers game, whereas in PvP certain effect types typically are most advantageous and thus there will be a trend toward certain glyphs they cannot prevent, solely due to how PvP works. But as long as there was no single cookie-cutter PvP build, they were okay with that.

And that's exactly how the Shaman glyph layout is working out, in practice, as we've shown with multiple sources of proof.

[Mithgroth]

Statements that an ability is broken/not working properly are not quality-of-life complaints, nor were you phrasing them as such.

How clear should I be for you to stop derailing what I'm trying to point out?

And besides; I haven't been saying "we are fine". I've been saying things like "basically fine, except for this and this", or "this particular ability is fine as-is", or "the class overall is fine, but some areas could use improvement".

I am exactly doing the same thing, in addition to all this I'm just pointing out the areas I think that are open to improvements, to back up my main arguement, which is "we need changes/improvements, having none is unacceptable".

I have never said the Shaman class is fine and shouldn't be touched. Never.

Then why do you keep opposing my main arguement on we need changes? You are welcome to disagree the changes I'm trying to point out, but not in this rude manner that "my opinion is the fact, yours is falsehood". Feedback is feedback. You provided nothing at all other than "every issue you talked about is fine, go home" and claim that it is justified:

I can't prove it's "fine" as that's not something quantifiable, but I can disprove the claims that it's not, which is what I've been doing.

Double standarts on the same subject. As I mentioned on my previous post, if something is inspected around QoL improvements, you can't prove it being "fine". However, although it might be surprising, you can't also prove it being "not fine". These are opinions to be respected, this is a discussion which needs constructive comments. If you disagree, then disagree since these are all opinions.

This whole thing is a huge "fuck you" in the face Endus, where you put your opinion more valuable than mine on same conditions. I've made my point to the shaman community anyway, and this arguement is providing no more valuable content since you think any opinions not backing you up is worthless to be listened / considered and falsehood.

[Deleted]

What exactly is the issue with the Capacitor Totem?

I know a few people don't like the charge time it has before stunning, but it's kind of necessary. Without it, it becomes a renamed Shadowfury, which is dull and wouldn't work as a totem. Having the charge time allows it to be a more "dynamic" spell. You can for instance use Totemic Projection to port it under a target as it explodes, giving you the same effect as a Shadowfury. Or if you like doing big aoe pulls as elemental, you can pull the mobs, summon your totem, elemental blast and what ever else you might need to increase your aoe damage, and by the time your first chain lighting or lava beam lands, your totem will stun, saving you a global when it actually matters.

Tbh, Capacitor Totem is awesome.

^This, from a pvp standpoint, has helped me a s*t load as elemental,

[Endus]

Then why do you keep opposing my main arguement on we need changes?

I haven't.

I've been countering statements like, but by no means limited to, the following;

Ghost Wolf glyph is mandatory for PvP, no doubt.

That's where you step from "I think we could use some changes" to making claims that are not factually true.

This whole thing is a huge "fuck you" in the face Endus, where you put your opinion more valuable than mine on same conditions. I've made my point to the shaman community anyway, and this arguement is providing no more valuable content since you think any opinions not backing you up is worthless to be listened / considered and falsehood.

Let's recap something really quick;

Take this as honest critism, your view on PvP is pretty limited which is understandable, everybody has a starting point.

This is a made-up scenario which proves your limited PvP experience.


But as you did with Dark Soul, feel free to ignore this part.

You've been pretty condescending and free with the personal jabs. I've overlooked it, because I have a relatively thick skin and it really doesn't bother me. But it's a bit galling to have you claim that I am being unfairly rude, when the worst thing I've said has been along the lines of "no, that's false".

As for my own experience; I'm a history teacher. Whether or not I actually fought in the Hundred Years' War, or crossed the Atlantic in one of Columbus' ships, has basically nothing to do with my understanding of those events. First-person experience is useful, but it is by no means necessary for understanding something. Yes, I haven't personally played in high-ranked WoW PvP. That doesn't mean I don't understand it.


Also; stop trying to back-seat moderate the thread. I'm a Moderator. That's my job. The thread isn't being derailed. It started with a discussion about what the implications of the lack of patch notes meant for Shaman class design, and we're still discussing Shaman class design and what we feel/don't feel should be in those notes. It's on-topic.

[Embermoon]

I'm still amazed at the number of folks who complain about enhancement's dps, especially in AoE. I realize that my experience is subjective, but I'm routinely topping damage and dps on boss fights, and fairly often on AoE situations.

Is it because I drop magma in a better spot, and try to precede fire nova with a UE? I dunno. Perhaps it's because I favor mastery and crit over haste, in my reforging (simply accepting what wow-reforge advises me to do, and being pleased with the results).

For me, I'm extremely pleased with enhancement (note that I'm PvE only).

[zenga]

As for my own experience; I'm a history teacher. Whether or not I actually fought in the Hundred Years' War, or crossed the Atlantic in one of Columbus' ships, has basically nothing to do with my understanding of those events. First-person experience is useful, but it is by no means necessary for understanding something. Yes, I haven't personally played in high-ranked WoW PvP. That doesn't mean I don't understand it.

Always figured you were a teacher. What you are saying is true for the history part in your example, but that is absolutely not true for many other things, most notably many games/sports.

- There is a reason why people who graduate cum laude still have to do an internship in a company to gain hands on experience. The theory is different from the day to day reality.
- having watched 1000's of soccer games is still no substitute with regards to understanding the game for having played several years yourself, yes you'll know a lot about the game, but it's so easy to see if someone played it himself or only watched based on the comments. I've played it myself at a high level and I can discover with a nearly 100% accuracy if someone has played or only watched soccer in his life. It's complicated to explain, but everyone who has played the game knows what I'm talking about. There is hardly a good trainer who hasn't played the game himself (I don't know a single one). There are so many situations where intuition is needed and it takes hands on experience to understand that intuition, in order to correctly judge a situation (I'm not talking about the rules, but about the actual gameplay).

My point being: understanding history facts and seeing the big picture is a totally different thing than understanding a game.

[Omanley]

What does this even mean? That makes no sense at all.

1.) CPT has a lot of drawbacks, unlike most other stuns. If it were fine from a balancing POV, why are there glyphs improving those drawbacks?
If we assume CPT being powerful and competitive with other stuns, there'd be no need to further enhance it.
That is why we have glyphs/talents to "fix" our stun, but not others (because it is not "fine" blizz knows about the issues, but decided to make it glyph/talent exclusive).
While a DK has ramp up, RW is undestructible and mobile, making a hp increase and the option of throwing his stun redundant. The ramp up time cannot be glyphed, but not having those other drawbacks goes a long way.
A warlock has fear, charm if succubus and other stuff like aoe fear, shadowfury and the like. With all those tools, it becomes MUCH more easier to make their stun work. That aside, I dont know if that is still up to date, but I've heard Cata cannot be interrupted and the warlock cannot be killed while it channels.
So even if your enemies' get to escape that stun through running out, it is a 5 second breather against melee dps.

All in all CPT is the worst stun ever and there's no justification as to why it should remain as is.
2.) It's other 5 sec aoe versions dont have glyphs, they dont need to.

Again; other class' abilities are irrelevant, unless you factor in literally everything else about Shaman and literally everything else about the other class. Which you aren't doing. So stop ignoring relevant context.

Other classes do matter. I refrained from including the whole deal of abilities and talents because it would derail the threat. In short a shaman has few CC. There's hex and now CPT. Neither of the two is particularly strong when compared to other CC/stuns.
Hex does not work against druids (which are popular) and can be removed if they are resto (mostly the case). It has a cooldown, a cast time and allows moving around. All of that considered, I always considered it the weakest of CCs together with a paladins repentance and a warriors IS (both of which got hardcore buffs in MoP). So we scream for more cc, preferably a stun because everyone nowadays has them anyways, and us needing a way to pressure healers, and what do we get?
Even more of a crutch than hex, that's what.
So CC considered as a whole, CPT is double-crap. Once for itself, second because to a weak CC an even weaker one got added.
Old FNT required a fast reaction every what 12? 15? 20? seconds. CPT allows for loooooots of times once a minute. I cant even begin to compare the two, let alone in favor of CPT (and I was never hoping for FNT's return either, I merely critisized it's rmeoval without compensation).

And even if I were to agree with that, Enhancement makes up for it in greater functionality at range and better ranged CC/slows/etc that let them close the distance without relying on personal mobility.

You're saying FrS/Purge is making up for the lack of gap closing? Lol? While I am chasing my enemy with a spell every now and then, the warrior is already in the opponents' face, wreaking havoc. W/o uptime in the enemies' face, we lose MSW stacks, which hurts our selfhealing. It hurts our mana as well, threating to be oom by the time we closed the gap. There's no way a spell or two can make up for something like a rets' freedom or a warriors' charge. They are essential tools to a melee that an enh simply does not have, even now.

1)They could've made Spiritwalk a 15sec cd ability with 3sec freedom, 5sec sprint (or something similar)
2) They could've given us our wolve's leap
3) They could've added freedom to UF:FB
Many possibilities, none used. Enh has even less mana than they did in cata. Every second we dont have melee uptime hurts us, hardly less than other melees.

[Endus]

My point being: understanding history facts and seeing the big picture is a totally different thing than understanding a game.

Which would be why I'm getting involved in PvP, and deliberately playing Elemental regardless of whether it's FoTM or not.

Experience has value, but theorycrafting and experience are only somewhat related. While good coaches/trainers are often players, you don't need an ex-NFL player to coach an NFL team.

1.) CPT has a lot of drawbacks, unlike most other stuns. If it were fine from a balancing POV, why are there glyphs improving those drawbacks?

Why are there any glyphs?

To provide you with certain situational advantages to choose from. There is no functional difference between the CPT glyph and any other glyph.
Is Cyclone deliberately left with a gimped range, just so you can glyph out of it with Glyph of Cyclone?
Is Evasion deliberately left with a reduced duration, to force rogues to glyph Glyph of Evasion?

No. That's ridiculous. Glyphs aren't fixes, they're improvements.

If we assume CPT being powerful and competitive with other stuns, there'd be no need to further enhance it.

The idea that CPT should be equal to other stuns is itself a false premise. It is not true. There are no grounds on which to base such a claim. The goal is not to give every class carbon-copy abilities, it's to make every class different, with different strengths and weaknesses. This requires abilities to not be equal to each other.

Other classes do matter. I refrained from including the whole deal of abilities and talents because it would derail the threat. In short a shaman has few CC. There's hex and now CPT. Neither of the two is particularly strong when compared to other CC/stuns.

Crowd Control is more than polys and stuns. We also have multitudes of slows and roots. You're also ignoring our other available stun. And again, you're trying to compare class abilities 1:1, which can't be done. We don't have the same CC as other classes. And that's fine. That's what class differences mean. It's not a flaw, it's a necessary feature of a class system.

You're saying FrS/Purge is making up for the lack of gap closing? Lol? While I am chasing my enemy with a spell every now and then, the warrior is already in the opponents' face, wreaking havoc. W/o uptime in the enemies' face, we lose MSW stacks, which hurts our selfhealing. It hurts our mana as well, threating to be oom by the time we closed the gap. There's no way a spell or two can make up for something like a rets' freedom or a warriors' charge. They are essential tools to a melee that an enh simply does not have, even now.

And yet, it does. Enhancement is doing fine in PvP and PvE right now. Checking multiple 3v3 arena ladders, plenty of them have teams with Enhancement Shaman in their top 100.

Which means your entire argument is not only based on false premises, it's an attempt to support a predetermined conclusion that isn't even true. You don't like Shaman, so you start from there; because you don't like Shaman, they must be doing poorly. Particularly Enhancement. Even if any examination of the actual facts shows that Enhancement is highly competitive as it is, you're still here posting that they are lagging behind everyone else at some mechanical level. It's getting tiresome.

Enhancement is performing just fine, despite missing these supposedly "essential tools".

[shell]

1.) If it were fine from a balancing POV, why are there glyphs improving those drawbacks?
If we assume CPT being powerful and competitive with other stuns, there'd be no need to further enhance it.
That is why we have glyphs/talents to "fix" our stun, but not others

So.... a) glyphs/talents fix broken abilities, b) if the abilities were fine on their own, there would be no need to further enhance it with glyphs/talents. c) therefore, capacitor totem is broken and the worst aoe stun ever.

That's your argument in a nutshell, a+b=c.

/sarcasm on

So...I guess we have bigger problems than I thought. Apparently, water shield, earthquake, chain lightning, spirit walk, purge, fire elemental totem, fire nova, flame shock, wind shear, frost shock, healing stream totem, healing wave, totemic recall, lightning bolt, grounding totem, spiritwalker's grace, chain heal, purify spirit, healing surge, thunderstorm, feral spirit, riptide, shamanstic rage, and hex are all broken in addition to capacitor, ghostwolf, and our totem's health. Not to mention all the other classes that have glyphs and talents. I should ask ghostcrawler why warriors even have glyphs and talents.

Lightning Bolt has 2 glyphs, telluric currents and unleashed lightning...and a talent UF, so apparently its just as broken as you think capacitor is. Works for me since I want them to buff lightning bolt. Now I have the perfect argument to justify buffing lightning bolt.

/end sarcasm

Do you see how everything I just wrote doesn't make sense? It's because your argument doesn't make sense.

Take a look at
http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...-0--0-0-0.html

World of Wargraphs looks at all players 2200+ and breaks down the glyph and talent choices of the different shaman specs. These include 2200+ in 2's, 3's, 5's, and Rated bg's. The talent and glyph breakdown isn't as cookie cutter as many think.

There's also this
http://www.guildox.com/go/g.asp?c=7&r=&w=&a=23&n=&e=pvp

and this

http://www.guildox.com/go/g.asp?c=7&r=&w=&a=24&n=&e=pvp

I'm not 100% sure but I think Guild Ox is breaking down top rated rbg player's talents/glyphs.

If you want to look at a certain bracket there's always the arena ladders. But again if someone knows of any other sites that do breakdowns of talents and glyphs link them here. I would be very interested to see them.

[Omanley]

@ shell: I guess my point about CPT and glyphs/talents was not as precise as I intended it to be.
There are ways in which glyphs are improvements on abilities that are already comfortable in use. There are also those that actually make an ability usable to begin with. That's what's wrong.

A glyph reducing CPT's cooldown would be type 1, one that is needed to reliably make it work is type 2.
CPT baseline is crappy in pvp, simple as that. I want it to be comfortable to use baseline. Glyphs for CPT which I could see as profitably implement (as it would be optional, not required)

reduced cooldown
increased range
increased stun duration (assuming a lowered baseline duration)
adding something completely new (like a debuff on stunned targets)
etc.

None of these would feel forced to take. Undestructable CPT with 3sec charging time is what I feel would be a fair baseline outlook for a spell that is not out of the ordinary in its benefits. None of the above glyph suggestions would feel required. They'd be in the same league as hex, purge and co.

---------- Post added 2012-11-13 at 11:09 PM ----------

To provide you with certain situational advantages to choose from. There is no functional difference between the CPT glyph and any other glyph.
Is Cyclone deliberately left with a gimped range, just so you can glyph out of it with Glyph of Cyclone?
Is Evasion deliberately left with a reduced duration, to force rogues to glyph Glyph of Evasion?

Evasion w/o the glyph works exactly like it does without. You can just use it more often. The ability works perfectly fine either way. The same goes for cyclone. Range can be an issue at times, but it is not even worth comparing to the issues of CPT. Again, your examples are of type 1, CPT is of type two (same with GW).

Most glyphs aren't fixes, they're improvements.

Fixed. Hex and Purge? Improvements. GW and CPT? fixes.

The idea that CPT should be equal to other stuns is itself a false premise.

I didn't ever say "equal", I said "competitive". However it works, the end result is the same: the enemy is stunned (or not, mostly the time for CPT)
So what is important is wether or not CPT can compete with other stuns in pvp. If you make all stuns like that, sure why not, nothing for me to argue over then.
However, they're not. It's the same with our 4.1 aoe, where you said everyone's aoe should be like that.
Well, they were not, and still aren't. Blizz made that experiment 1.5 years ago, why do they have to it again (and again with shaman?). Why do we have to be their guinea pig for wacky mechanics? Why not give us something simple, yet effective?

I dont wanna be different in the sense of being disabled. Sometimes being normal is all you need.
Normal buffs > old buff totems
Normal aoe > 4.1 aoe
Normal stuns > CPT
Normal CCs that take away control from your character (that's right, no root/snare) > hex
Normal absorbs > SBT

Always the same...

Which means your entire argument is not only based on false premises, it's an attempt to support a predetermined conclusion that isn't even true. You don't like Shaman, so you start from there; because you don't like Shaman, they must be doing poorly.

Soooo someone who
-instead of rerolling, quits the game
-continuously gives feedback on the class (f he hated it, wouldn't he ask for nerfs instead?)
-doesn't bother arguing about his experiences and insights while playing the class from early vanilla pvp (started with enh lvl 19wsg pvp btw)
does all that because he hates the class? Wow, that's some logic. And of course 6 years of enh pvp dont count for anything, because you say so.

Arena ranking are no good way of determinging wether or not a class is designed well.
Elemental in wotlk was basically BL+FS/LvB bursting, nothing else. They were widespread, but totally plain. They sucked at everything except at being a bloodlust bot and bursting. Same with enhance and wolves, which made for beastcleave, giving enh one niche compensating for all those lacks, whereas rogues, warriors etc had dozens of viable comps.

[shell]

- There is a reason why people who graduate cum laude still have to do an internship in a company to gain hands on experience. The theory is different from the day to day reality.
- having watched 1000's of soccer games is still no substitute with regards to understanding the game for having played several years yourself, yes you'll know a lot about the game, but it's so easy to see if someone played it himself or only watched based on the comments. I've played it myself at a high level and I can discover with a nearly 100% accuracy if someone has played or only watched soccer in his life. It's complicated to explain, but everyone who has played the game knows what I'm talking about. There is hardly a good trainer who hasn't played the game himself (I don't know a single one). There are so many situations where intuition is needed and it takes hands on experience to understand that intuition, in order to correctly judge a situation (I'm not talking about the rules, but about the actual gameplay).

My point being: understanding history facts and seeing the big picture is a totally different thing than understanding a game.

I get what your saying but at the same time I hope that you don't mean that the only people who should be allowed to share opinions have to be 2200+.

The way MoP PvP is right now, as far as I'm concerned, if you have 10k honorable kills or 1550 rating and didn't bot or exploit to get it, you're golden.

@Omanley, and others for that matter...

I think people aren't clear on my stance as it relates to capacitor totem. It's true that I don't think the glyph is an issue just like I don't think the talent is an issue in terms of people saying they're "forced" to take one or both because its 'useless' otherwise. Also, I don't think that there's anything wrong with having to set up cc. I also don't think they should increase the health. This has to do with blizz's stance on increased health on totems.

This doesn't mean however that I feel that capacitor totem is fine as is. This is because, IMO, even if the glyph and the talent were baseline people would still be complaining about the totem. I also don't think having an instant stun would solve anything because of the way tp works; plus it means that I wouldn't have any choice but to use it in melee range which enhancement could probably live with but my elemental likes having the option of using it at range.

I suggested it before but I'll say it again, I think they should increase the range. Nothing ridiculous but maybe up it to 12 yards or so.

Going back to the change they made to AS. If they made the change based on the prevalence of restos(pve/pvp) taking the talent, then that has me a little worried about the future of healing tide totem.

I would much rather they take a look at Primal Elementalist and Conductivity and I hope they are, whether they make changes in 5.1 or not. Those two talents are avoided like the plague. At least resto uses PE for pve but Conductivity hardly gets used by anyone. I understand that the talents are meant to be situational but they should broaden the talents so that they can be used in more situations.

[Endus]

@ shell: I guess my point about CPT and glyphs/talents was not as precise as I intended it to be.
There are ways in which glyphs are improvements on abilities that are already comfortable in use. There are also those that actually make an ability usable to begin with. That's what's wrong.

A glyph reducing CPT's cooldown would be type 1, one that is needed to reliably make it work is type 2.
CPT baseline is crappy in pvp, simple as that. I want it to be comfortable to use baseline. Glyphs for CPT which I could see as profitably implement (as it would be optional, not required)

reduced cooldown
increased range
increased stun duration (assuming a lowered baseline duration)
adding something completely new (like a debuff on stunned targets)
etc.

None of these would feel forced to take. Undestructable CPT with 3sec charging time is what I feel would be a fair baseline outlook for a spell that is not out of the ordinary in its benefits. None of the above glyph suggestions would feel required. They'd be in the same league as hex, purge and co.

---------- Post added 2012-11-13 at 11:09 PM ----------


Evasion w/o the glyph works exactly like it does without. You can just use it more often. The ability works perfectly fine either way. The same goes for cyclone. Range can be an issue at times, but it is not even worth comparing to the issues of CPT. Again, your examples are of type 1, CPT is of type two (same with GW).


Fixed. Hex and Purge? Improvements. GW and CPT? fixes.

You're inventing a distinction that doesn't exist. You like a glyph? Then it's an "improvement". You don't like having to use a glyph slot on it? Then it's a "fix" and it's bad.

There's no actual quantitative basis for the distinction. You just made up what you think an ability should be, in your mind, and you're insisting that if it's not that, it's broken and the glyphs that get it there are somehow magically different than other similar glyphs.

There's no difference. There's just improvements. Your argument here is entirely circular; you start from the premise that the ability is broken, therefore the glyphs are "fixes", which proves the ability is broken and the glyphs should be baked in. Circular reasoning.

I didn't ever say "equal", I said "competitive". However it works, the end result is the same: the enemy is stunned (or not, mostly the time for CPT)
So what is important is wether or not CPT can compete with other stuns in pvp.

No, where you move to compare it to other stuns is where you start talking about equality. You're measuring it against the others to see which is "better". That's not how ability design works. Some abilities are better than others, and somebody is going to have the "worst" stun. And that's not just okay, it's intended.

Soooo someone who
-instead of rerolling, quits the game
-continuously gives feedback on the class (f he hated it, wouldn't he ask for nerfs instead?)
-doesn't bother arguing about his experiences and insights while playing the class from early vanilla pvp (started with enh lvl 19wsg pvp btw)
does all that because he hates the class? Wow, that's some logic. And of course 6 years of enh pvp dont count for anything, because you say so.

I didn't mention anything about whether you were currently subscribed, or whether you'd played PvP in the past.

I say you hate the spec because you have hundreds if not thousands of posts here, and almost every single one is talking negatively about the spec.

For instance; one of the few where you were relatively positive, but listed areas you still thought could be improved on;

Well, they are unquestionable buffs, aren't they?
The only buffs we got since 4.0. aside from those are the flat buffs to WF, UE:WF and LL (which of course were great as well).
What i like most is the change to enh AOE and then the getting-rid-of of spellpower.

Enh took a huge step forward undeniably, so of course i am happy.
The only thing left they could still improve in pve enh dps would be to make feral spirits more interesting again (way of scaling change), maybe an improvement of crit/haste or something to make SF/ST/LL more comfortable a mechanic.

They still have a lot of work to do when it comes to pvp. Totems took several blows same as GW and purge.
Improving hex would be nice and i wouldn't say no to a gap closer and/or stun as enh
Oh and the absorb thingy.

But pve i'd say...98% content.

That was a little over a year ago, well before MoP info started to hit; you were discussing the state of the spec in 4.3.

Since then and in MoP, they;
-> Significantly improved Feral Spirits scaling (about double)
-> Improved Crit and particularly Haste scaling
-> Fixed totems by removing buff totems
-> Returned a stronger glyphable Purge
-> Added multiple new speed increases
-> Added one baseline stun and one talented stun
-> A bunch of other stuff but those were the ones you'd specifically mentioned as issues.

Normally, when they address a host of someone's concerns like that, I'd expect them to be happy, or at least improve in their outlook, but you instead found new flaws to complain about, even if it meant reversing your prior stance; you said in that post there that you liked the 4.3 Enhancement AoE. It's the same basic model now. Yet, you've been complaining about it.

I have never seen you post positively about the class. It's ALWAYS lacking, to you. That's the issue.

Arena ranking are no good way of determinging wether or not a class is designed well.
Elemental in wotlk was basically BL+FS/LvB bursting, nothing else. They were widespread, but totally plain. They sucked at everything except at being a bloodlust bot and bursting. Same with enhance and wolves, which made for beastcleave, giving enh one niche compensating for all those lacks, whereas rogues, warriors etc had dozens of viable comps.

Arena ranking IS a good way of determining PvP competitiveness, though, which is what we were establishing.

Enhancement is competitive in 3v3s. That's a simple fact, as anyone can see by checking the ladders.

[shell]

I thought I should write why I think they should increase the range of capacitor form 8 to 12 or so yards.

One reason I think it would be a good idea is because people don't like the way tp works. More than likely they put the green circle under their opponents feet which is fine but my best guess is that the totems drop about 4 yards from the center of the green circle; which means your opponent doesn't have to move as far from the totem to avoid the stun as they would have if the totem just dropped in the green circle. This would make it so that they have to move 8 yards to avoid the stun.

The other reason I think it would be a good idea is I think it would help with the timing. I don't know whether most people use addons or not but whether they do or don't I certainly wouldn't expect them download one just so they know when the stun is about to go off. I use weakauras so its not a problem for me but for others it might be. So what may be happening is the person projects the totem a little too early which gives the opponent time to move the 4 or 5 yards necessary to avoid it; or they project it way too early which gives the opponent not only time to run away but also time to stomp it.

[Endus]

Honestly, I think the only real change they need for TP is to change the targeting reticule for us, and make it four small color-coded circles at the appropriate spots. Then you know exactly where the totems will appear.

[Devious009]

Honestly, I think the only real change they need for TP is to change the targeting reticule for us, and make it four small color-coded circles at the appropriate spots. Then you know exactly where the totems will appear.

This, a million times this. It would make it much more effective and actually fun if I know exactly where my CPT totem will appear when Im trying to stun my target. I dont mind the discharge timer or the low HP, all I need to know is where exactly will my CPT appear when Im trying to project it on my opponent. Also I wouldnt mind increasing its radius to 12 yrds like Shell suggested on top of what Endus suggested too.

I also wanted to bring up something that Im not completely satisfied with which is Earthquake, I know theres alot of other things that are more important to look at but for me personally all I want addressing the targeting of CPT totem, Earthquake, and maybe a damage buff somewhere hehe :P

Now, dont get me wrong I DONT HATE Earthquake but I would love to see it improved because I would like to use it more even if it is designed to best cast it for 6+ targets. The knock down utility is unique to earthquake no other aoe does that. I would love to see Earthquake either turn into an instant cast (lower the damage if that justifies it being instant) or lower its cast time and keep the 10 sec CD.

What do you guys think ?

[zenga]

Now, dont get me wrong I DONT HATE Earthquake but I would love to see it improved because I would like to use it more even if it is designed to best cast it for 6+ targets. The knock down utility is unique to earthquake no other aoe does that. I would love to see Earthquake either turn into an instant cast (lower the damage if that justifies it being instant) or lower its cast time and keep the 10 sec CD.

What do you guys think ?

Glyph of earthquake: double the cd and make it an instant cast. (or whatever cd is needed to balance it out dps wise)