New Shaman info in Cataclysm - General Info

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New Shaman Spells

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave, we're adding another spell to the class's direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent is for the 'new" Healing Wave to be the shaman's go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we're considering for this ability:

* Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.
* Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%.
* Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman's next healing spell by 20%.


Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to adding new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

* Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to mana more than they've had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the Restoration shaman's primary mana-regeneration stat.
* We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.
* Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming 'just in case.") We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.
* Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock's Demonic Pact, so you can't benefit from all of them at once. We're also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.
* We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We're considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.



New Talents and Talent Changes

* Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
* We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.
* Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.
* Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.
* Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.
* Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.
* With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

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[epard]

I don't like enhances special mastery it's just boring.Even when blizzard said they're trying to get rid of passive stuff and the third mastery is supposed to be special and we get increased nature damage.Also trying to free up enhance globals by taking one of our lowest priority attackas and giving it a longer cd while giving us more abilities won't the just make our rotation even more gcd locked?

[romant]

nice little buffs shams are getting, i the the spirit walkers grace spell thing. It seems like it is needed for an o shit button which u guys needed

[Gunwolf]

Hmmm, my thoughts....


Primal Strike. We definetly needed another ability while leveling to Stormstrike, curious what this will do....I have a feeling it will just be Lava Lash for the main hand.


GC about making our rotation less complex.....I don't think increasing the cooldown on our lowest dmg ability while adding a new strike will help there, hopefully they rework shields and totems so we don't have to waste gcds on them anymore.

I absoultuey hate the Enhancement Mastery though. Nature is not our only source of damage, I would much rather prefer overall spell power....we got flame shock dot, fire totems, flametounge....and in pvp frostbrand and frost shock. We use about half the nature damage in PvP as we do in PvE so really hope they rework that.

And yea, flame shock, unleash weapon, lava burst while still autoattacking via spirit walk looking very forward to that.


Was hoping to see some mention about what they plan to do with STr of EArth and Windfury totems as well.

[Peacemoon]

Earthquake = Siege damage? Make it so! :-)

[ScorchHellfire]

I'm just wondering why Earthquake will not be baseline... I mean Hurricane is baseline (used to be a balance talent) and so is mind sear, etc... So why make only shamans have to spec into an AoE?

[Barky]

Was hoping to see some mention about what they plan to do with STr of EArth and Windfury totems as well.

Str of Earth is going to provide the same Str and Agi as DK's Horn, therefore stopping our SoE overwriting it.

WF totem looks interesting. they will probably buff it to just being 20% haste like DK's Improved Icy Talons thing allowing us to choose more interesting talents.

personally im chuffed to bits with the new changes, Unleash Weapon looks awesome, Primal Strike is cool, means 2h enhancement will be nice to level with up to level 40 when you get Dual Wield.

[Gunwolf]

once again enhance gets the shaft, they get Earthquake and Healing Rain and we get guts. >

Lol, little too early to complain but hard to help it. I have a feeling that our mastery will be more like "increase effect of nature spells", which will kinda buff our earth shock, bolts and lightning shield.....but really the mastery is there so when resto or elemental subspec into enhance they can also benefit from more dmg or healing via nature spells.


IMO they should make it increase the damage of shocks and strikes, or even just our shocks. Shocks for an enhancement shaman are probably the most consistent and reliable way to deal damage, it would make sense to buff this.

More nature damage is too much like what Stormstrike gives us already, unless that buff is changing too. I would actually prefer the ret's lower gcd on abilites even just so we have an easier time w/ rotaiton.

[anti-wow]

Update:

"Last but not least, it's the intention of Primal Strike to let shaman play as an Enhancement at low levels. Currently when leveling in this spec, you end up just using Lightning Bolt a lot so you feel like an Elemental shaman instead. At a higher level, Primal Strike gets replaced by Storm Strike. They share a cooldown so Enhancement just won’t ever use Primal Strike after that, in the same way that Prot warriors don’t use Sunder Armor once they have Devastate or Feral druids don’t use Claw once they get Mangle."

[Augrelle]

YOu never know about earthquak just yet thought. It might be that it is a 20-26 point talent that will make enhancement have to choose between spirit wolves or it.

Also I am happy with primal strike being an enhancement leveler. Really you don't level as enhancement untill level 30-40. You are just an elemental shaman who melees a bit more.

[Norgul]

So I have mixed feelings about this. A few of the spells look just like flashier version of other classes spells.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Most would probably think oh look a new spell but if you think about it it's just a heroic throw, fire blast and half of a holy shock imo. It just adds a boost to different things afterwords to make it look different.

Healing Rain (level 83): Now when I see this I'm thinking it must be very strong in order for it to have diminishing returns and I can see why it would need it due to pvp. Though I'm pretty sure if you saw one healer casting a huge aoe healing spell then they'd be dead in no time. It also seems like it would just be a similar tranquility spell but I'm guessing it's way stronger.

Unleash Weapon (level 81), they want to add a longer cd to LL. I do hope they increase the dmg it does if that's the case cuz we only had 2 melee abilities. In Cata it looks like we have 4 now but that just adds to the gcd wait unless it's more balanced where when you push one thing the next one is ready. Just seems to make it more cluttered imo.

Earthquake: This looks alright but in WC3FT it was more of a building destroyer than a mob dmger. Seeing as there's no more explanation to it I'm guessing it will be a frost trap/aoe mix but I'm just taking a wild guess. I don't really have an opinion on it though. I never really got into ele. I found enh and resto more fun.

Spiritwalker's Grace: This looks pretty good but I'm not entirely sure what to think. Now I see a lot of QQ with this tbh lol. Instead of ele turrets or resto staying in one spot to toss off a few heals and run off it'll be run cast lol as you frost shock/earthbind them to get away faster. Don't see much use for it for enh though. We'd be too busy with our 3 melee abilities, maelstrom procs, lightning shield, magma totem/firenova and flame shock to worry about tossing lava burst.

Spirit Link: They said they were gonna add this in WoTLK so I guess we will just have to wait and see. Looks like more of a soul link but for players. In the preview before it was between the shammy and the one he linked too so I'm guessing it will be the same and it might be good but depends on how much dmg is shared I guess. Wouldn't want the tank to take a huge hit to the face and end up killing the shammy lol.

As for cleaning out the talent trees and letting them provide passive buffs, I just hope they get rid of toughness cuz we aren't tanks and even the pvp spec only takes it as a filler. And we don't even use anticipation. So we've got about 7 passive things and 2 useless ones.

Kinda funny how they changed the Primal strike. You'd think they'd mention that so we wouldn't get our hopes up for another melee attack.

((Moved since the thread I made got locked.))

[Stormbringer]

Update:

"Last but not least, it's the intention of Primal Strike to let shaman play as an Enhancement at low levels. Currently when leveling in this spec, you end up just using Lightning Bolt a lot so you feel like an Elemental shaman instead. At a higher level, Primal Strike gets replaced by Storm Strike. They share a cooldown so Enhancement just won’t ever use Primal Strike after that, in the same way that Prot warriors don’t use Sunder Armor once they have Devastate or Feral druids don’t use Claw once they get Mangle."

I know I'll be the unpopular one by saying this, but thank god. Enhancement needed some more leveling abilities, but at high levels I don't really see the need for two new attacks when most Shaman I talk to are pretty GCD starved as is.

[Augrelle]

So I have mixed feelings about this. A few of the spells look just like flashier version of other classes spells.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Most would probably think oh look a new spell but if you think about it it's just a heroic throw, fire blast and half of a holy shock imo. It just adds a boost to different things afterwords to make it look different.

Healing Rain (level 83): Now when I see this I'm thinking it must be very strong in order for it to have diminishing returns and I can see why it would need it due to pvp. Though I'm pretty sure if you saw one healer casting a huge aoe healing spell then they'd be dead in no time. It also seems like it would just be a similar tranquility spell but I'm guessing it's way stronger.

Unleash Weapon (level 81), they want to add a longer cd to LL. I do hope they increase the dmg it does if that's the case cuz we only had 2 melee abilities. In Cata it looks like we have 4 now but that just adds to the gcd wait unless it's more balanced where when you push one thing the next one is ready. Just seems to make it more cluttered imo.

Earthquake: This looks alright but in WC3FT it was more of a building destroyer than a mob dmger. Seeing as there's no more explanation to it I'm guessing it will be a frost trap/aoe mix but I'm just taking a wild guess. I don't really have an opinion on it though. I never really got into ele. I found enh and resto more fun.

Spiritwalker's Grace: This looks pretty good but I'm not entirely sure what to think. Now I see a lot of QQ with this tbh lol. Instead of ele turrets or resto staying in one spot to toss off a few heals and run off it'll be run cast lol as you frost shock/earthbind them to get away faster. Don't see much use for it for enh though. We'd be too busy with our 3 melee abilities, maelstrom procs, lightning shield, magma totem/firenova and flame shock to worry about tossing lava burst.

Spirit Link: They said they were gonna add this in WoTLK so I guess we will just have to wait and see. Looks like more of a soul link but for players. In the preview before it was between the shammy and the one he linked too so I'm guessing it will be the same and it might be good but depends on how much dmg is shared I guess. Wouldn't want the tank to take a huge hit to the face and end up killing the shammy lol.

As for cleaning out the talent trees and letting them provide passive buffs, I just hope they get rid of toughness cuz we aren't tanks and even the pvp spec only takes it as a filler. And we don't even use anticipation. So we've got about 7 passive things and 2 useless ones.

Kinda funny how they changed the Primal strike. You'd think they'd mention that so we wouldn't get our hopes up for another melee attack.

((Moved since the thread I made got locked.))

Spiritwalker's grace basicly let's enhancement cast stuff on heavy movement boss fights. It is basicly our version of sprint/intercept. Just popped herosim and the boss jumped to the other side of the fighting area? Pop Spiritwalker and start spamming Unleashed weapon/lavaburst/Lightning bolts as you run back to the boss.

[Aragen]

Yeah but what a lot of us want is 2H Enhance to be viable again, it is a very fun playstyle and should be reintroduced into the game as in option in the same manner that Frost DK's who are supposed to be DW can also be 2H Frost, it is subpar compared to normal DW Frost but it is fun and something I keep as my off spec for when I am allowed to dick around.

Though for Shaman's 2H Enhance has a very good pvp potential and really should be worked out as such like give them 2H specialization again and maybe allow for a talent that will be a 2H related ability to allow Primal Strike with Storm Strike when using a 2H weapon.

[Arteous]

While alot of the info seems interesting it still does not make up for getting rid of our cleansing totem.

none of the enhance and elemental buffs/new abilities come close to making up the loss of cleansing totem or just simple use of cleansing spell versus any class that uses diseases/poisons. - Are they just removing poisons from rogues and diseases from dks or making them magical attack instead? then i can agree it would be ok to take away ele/enhance ability to cleanse and have it deep in restoration for pve use.

I see nothing in those abilities helping out our survival issues. almost seems to me like a simple look at the pretty bird while we take away more of your abilities and ignore that other classes bring better versions of your buffs announcement.


However i really do like that finally a POSSIBLY good 2nd move is being introduced. I am curious if primal strike will work with 2h weapons and blizz may be reversing it's stance on enhance being stuck with only 1h weapons.

[Norgul]

Spiritwalker's grace basicly let's enhancement cast stuff on heavy movement boss fights. It is basicly our version of sprint/intercept. Just popped herosim and the boss jumped to the other side of the fighting area? Pop Spiritwalker and start spamming Unleashed weapon/lavaburst/Lightning bolts as you run back to the boss.

True. Forgot about that but I use rocket boots and wolves if they're up to sprint so that'd just give me a third option on running back to the boss I guess.

[Magruun]

Spiritwalker's Grace: This looks pretty good but I'm not entirely sure what to think. Now I see a lot of QQ with this tbh lol. Instead of ele turrets or resto staying in one spot to toss off a few heals and run off it'll be run cast lol as you frost shock/earthbind them to get away faster. Don't see much use for it for enh though. We'd be too busy with our 3 melee abilities, maelstrom procs, lightning shield, magma totem/firenova and flame shock to worry about tossing lava burst.

the way I read it was that it was a 10 sec buff that allowed you to keep attacking.
so that means you can squeeze in 1 or 2 lava bursts depending on your haste and a few Lightning Bolts which can get a few charges of Maelstrom too making them slightly faster.

I think this skill will be powerful enough for Enhancements that they won't let it go through like this.
note how they say: and possibly even by your own attacks.
I bet it won't.
then it'll only be good for fights where you have to run away for an AoE/Focus or close in on a boss.