Ancestral Swiftness now has a 1.5 min cooldown, up from 1 min.
In an effort to nerf Resto a bit, they hurt an already weak Elemental spec dearly.
Ancestral Swiftness now has a 1.5 min cooldown, up from 1 min.
In an effort to nerf Resto a bit, they hurt an already weak Elemental spec dearly.
Id say its mostly a Resto nerf because this Talent was the obvious choice for the Spec
Elemental has other options in this tier so im not sure how this effects Ele
Its Echo for Elemental at all times, except when you've burn phases - in which you'll use Mastery. Ancestral Swiftness was never a viable option, except you were a Troll or something.
Although I don't play Elemental enough to put much effort into looking into theory crafting, I think I remember seeing people regarding the 4th tier talents as near equal, bar when you'd want the burst from EM, might have changed since I was looking just before the MoP launch however.
As for Resto, I'd mainly taken the talent for the 5% haste and considered AS to be a nice extra.
Although it has a longer cooldown, the passive still makes it the obvious choice to take for Resto Shamans.
I think it was the choice for pvp dps specs, since the haste was a constant and the insta cast was useful for hexing. Yet another resto nerf that has hit the other specs harder.
RETH
It also let's you get an instant elemental blast off w/o fear of getting locked out of everything.
I'm surprised. I didn't see this coming. Didn't really think either spec needed throttling in either pvp or pve.
Actually, he's right. I did a check on world of wargraphs and the arena ladders on the official sites for EU and US, its not a given that every ele picks up AS. There's some that choose elemental mastery instead. So it's not the "pick this or you suck" kind of talent that your post seems to suggest.
Most notable are Zeiyo(EU) and Novoz(US), there's more but those are the recognizable names.
The majority do pick up AS, so I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just pointing out that its not quite as clearcut as you and others are making it.
If you were referring to the resto part of the post, then yeah, it is the clear cut winner for pvp. The odd thing is, even with this change its still the clear cut winner for resto, so I don't understand blizz's decision on this.
Last edited by shell; 2012-11-08 at 07:06 PM.
These words in my mouth... where did they come from? I don't think I'm the one that put them there...
Yea it was kinda equal... EM in 20 sec gave you about 4 extra LB's, AS gave 2 instant LB's plus the 5% haste gave cast time of 1.9sec and like 3 extra LB's over 2 min and Echo has that 2 or 2.5ppm so overall in 2 min all 3 talents gave you like 4-5 extra casts.
If this nerf was meant for Resto they could have made the AS talent a 1.5min cd for Resto only and 1min cd for Enh/Elem, they have not utilized the ability to make talents work differently based on spec at all for Shaman which is a shame considering how different the 3 specs are from each other and how much easier it would be to balance individual talents, stuff like conductivity could work differently based on spec but instead they try and make one talent work for 3 different specs.
Shaman haven't gotten many updates in recent patches at all, not too surprised there, but its a shame that when we do get a big update its a nerf to AS without a buff somewhere else.
Whew good thing Resto got nerfed for PvP even though Rdruids kept theirs and have a significant PvP advantage a long with Holy Paladins over Rshamans.
They don't need to make the talents work differently, because the specs use different spells to capitalize on them, which means they're used differently in practice. Each spec gains different benefits from Unleashed Fury, in practice, since each has a favored set of imbues. Primal Elementalist is used differently by Resto than by Ele/Enh. Conductivity adapts to healing or DPS, as needed. Etc.
But that only applies to certain talents. What about the talents in our first tier? A few days ago you suggested that perhaps they should change Astral Shift so that it lasts 8 secs and is usable while stunned. But what is the likelihood of the devs doing something like that if they don't make the talents work differently for each spec? As much as I would like the change, its doubtful they would give something like that to resto or enhancement, for that matter, because resto's toolkit is strong enough as is and enhancement already has a similar ability in shamanistic rage.
That leads to me to why I don't like this AS change. If resto is too strong, they should look at their passives or the abilities that are explicitly for their spec and adjust them accordingly. Similarly, if elemental/enhancement are not strong enough they should look for ways to make them stronger through their passives or abilities that are specific to their specs. Whether resto/ele/enhance are underpowered or overpowered, whatever issues exist should be handled on a spec by spec basis rather than through talents or glyphs. Hell, for all I know they're considering getting rid of the glyph of purge because its too strong for resto.
It's not a good feeling when my spec is impacted because of another spec. They should find an alternative.
These words in my mouth... where did they come from? I don't think I'm the one that put them there...
The difficulty with that is you seem to be suggesting it should have different strengths depending on spec, and that's not really the design anywhere that I know of. Perhaps with a survival CD being stronger for a tank than DPS, but that's about the only place I'd think you'd see that kind of effect. For the most part, multispec talents are either like ours; providing an A+B+C benefit where one spec will gain A+B, another A+C, and a third 2B, or they have completely unrelated benefits.
Example of the latter; Incarnation for Druids.
Shaman don't really have much need for those kinds of talents; they exist primarily for classes who have something restricting their ability usage by spec; druids and their form restrictions, for instance, or priests who cannot use most shadow/holy magic in the alternate spec and thus need a thematically-appropriate alternative.
I agree there. That's why we have spec differences and such. However, we also need to be aware that this is just a datamined change. It hasn't reached the PTR patch notes yet, even, and even then, that only means it's being pushed to the PTR for testing. That we're getting Shaman changes now at this later date makes me suspect they were iterating other classes first, and are now starting on the Shaman stuff. Just because this is the only change yet does not mean this is the only change planned at all. It's not torches-and-pitchforks time, yet.That leads to me to why I don't like this AS change. If resto is too strong, they should look at their passives or the abilities that are explicitly for their spec and adjust them accordingly. Similarly, if elemental/enhancement are not strong enough they should look for ways to make them stronger through their passives or abilities that are specific to their specs. Whether resto/ele/enhance are underpowered or overpowered, whatever issues exist should be handled on a spec by spec basis rather than through talents or glyphs. Hell, for all I know they're considering getting rid of the glyph of purge because its too strong for resto.
Your right about the different strengths thing. I went through the talents and there's something like 8, including Unleashed Fury, out of 198 talents that have a different effect because of those restrictions you mentioned. But if this ends up being the only change...ima gonna figgur out where I can get me a torch and a pitchfork.
These words in my mouth... where did they come from? I don't think I'm the one that put them there...