Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman

[Terses]

Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman (Shaman Forums)

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the shaman class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

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 (a)Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional(b) 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%.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even (c)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.

• Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%(d). 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 (e)so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.(f)
  
• Enhancing Totems (g)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(h), Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Enhancement

• Melee damage
• Melee Haste
• Nature Damage

Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Really? Why all the praise? especially for enhance this is just horrible. seriously, I bolded stuff in the qote above:

a) This ability will be for leveling purposes only, most likely replaced by stormstrike by level 80 since there is no room in the GCDs.

b) ADDITIONAL effect, yes this is cool, but it is another cool down- no it does not proc windfury for you.

c) Possibly means wont, but what does that matter the only spells any enhance casts are instant anyway thanks to maelstrom weapon- great for ele and resto though.

d) Who cares what they really do- They strip enhance of almost all of it's spell power, moving these to %based means we will get virtually nothing out of them, screw y'all i am using magma.

e) No, its just the class is already so cool down choked they have to nerf an ability to give you room to use any new ones.

f) Int is not AP anymore, but that means this is no longer a DPS talent and will be avoided anyway.

g) No that's fine I don't mind losing Agi and Str (AP AP) from my str of earth totem, nono saves me a little mana just use your horn of winter. Only enhances 2 abilities instead of all of them. One of which probably wont even be used. so unless 5 points increases stormstike's damage by 50% it will be a nerf over all.

h) the Good byes:
Mental Quickness - instant spells don't get mana cost reduced by 6%, 30% of AP to Spellpower- oh crap this is why (d) sucks. your only going to see like 10 spellpower out of flametonge now. enjoy shitty useless fire spells (assuming the mastery nature damage makes up for this for earthshock and LBs... which it wont)

Improved Windfury Totem - No no use your frost DK talent, it is better than the ability it ripped off... (seriously? you give us 5% more melee haste on flurry and take 4% away from totems? Everyone called it this is what that change was for)

Mental Dexterity - No more AP from INT. (But then since hunters wont use mana anyway, hopefully Int will be off all out gear anyway, joy i love running out of mana)

Others - Yeah means don't be surprised as they continue to run this spec into the ground.

And for this we gain... Melee damage, Melee Haste, Nature damage... 3rd part which i doubt will make up for all the spellpower loss.

Really?? Because i was hoping to see expertise in there so we didn't have to fill every freaking gem slot with it because hunters don't need it so you don't even give it to us on our own tier set!

Better yet, make hunters need expertise- People dodge and parry bullets in fantasy movies all the time, make it happen in WoW!

/rantoff

[neuropsycho]

Ho hum.

Where are all the cool things you can do with totems that GC promised? Replacing flametongue with totem of wrath is nice, but how about combining the mana and healing totems like you toyed with before?

Healing Rain seems like a gimmick. How many resto Druids use their 10 minute CD AoE healing spell?

[petsoul]

Healing rain is stolen from someone´s idea on some forum.. Hoerah for paying 14 euro´s a month to see stuff beign so damn orginal.

Inbefore Spiritwalkers grace is OP.

/endthread, next class pls

[Elothie]

Spiritwalkers grace.I am so gonna dispell this immediately.

[Drakk-Enfer]

Healing while moving? thats so going to be nerfed :P

Druids heal while moving. I dont see the problem here

[Unholyground]

OH BABY ON CALL WF PROCS IN PVP WITH A 2H FTW!

[ogscoob]

Having played shaman since vanilla, I will like these changes except for one thing. Not being able to cure poisons and removal of cleansing totems easily makes rogue even more of a counter class.

[Jeanclaude]

Oh.my.god.

Cataclysm come now! Maybe I wont change mains anymore!! Healing Rain, spirit link, holy shit I WANT NOW

[Terses]

OH BABY ON CALL WF PROCS IN PVP WITH A 2H FTW!

no, read it again

[Panoramixe]

Ho hum.

Where are all the cool things you can do with totems that GC promised? Replacing flametongue with totem of wrath is nice, but how about combining the mana and healing totems like you toyed with before?

Healing Rain seems like a gimmick. How many resto Druids use their 10 minute CD AoE healing spell?

10 minute cooldown versus 10 second cooldown.
One based around the caster, one targeted.
And isn't tranquility limited to just the group? This is clearly a raid heal.

I'm pretty sure healing rain will be pretty nice, but not an answer for every aoe situation. Isn't that what people are always whining about niche healing and class diversity, you're getting it so please say thank you and shut up .

And this aren't all the changes coming to cata, there will be a lot more and they'll more than likely be revealed when the beta gets released. I bet there are quite a few totem changes coming.

[rahzgarrh]

Nice indeed, playing resto/elemental shaman on alt. Seriously can't wait.

[Shankar]

I agree with all Boubouille's remarks.
But that's the point : playing resto/elemental sounds pretty cool... and say goodbye to Enhancement -_-
Absolutely ridiculous. We're not rare enough for Blizzard staff.

[Deleted]

The whole "While running" thing is 10 seconds every 2 minutes, for most current fights you have to move more often than that, so not really over powered.

Look like a lot of decent additions for Shamans though, now to wait for the other two classes today

Main thing it's useful for is not having to waste a trinket proc / cooldown / speed pot because the boss decides to frost bomb the guy next to you's ass. Just keep casting while running out of the AoE.

Also PvP. ;D

[ticktickboom]

OMG CASTING WHILE RUNNING!!! no more losing shit loads of dps when we have to move in a boss fight!!!

[PurechaosSK]

I dont see anything very interesting or comprehensive here. Healing rain sounds cool, but should be instant cast to give shamans more options during high movement encounters. (Similar to CoH since that is what they based the spell on I assume) High Cooldown spells are usually instant cast for a reason.

[azrielen]

These changes sound amazing!

I don't play a healing Shaman, but the healing ones in particular might make me want to!

My main is a Paladin, and seeing this, I can't wait to see what they might do for us. I'm desperately hoping for a heal-while-moving spell at 85!

I dont see anything very interesting or comprehensive here. Healing rain sounds cool, but should be instant cast to give shamans more options during high movement encounters. (Similar to CoH since that is what they based the spell on I assume) High Cooldown spells are usually instant cast for a reason.

Did you miss the spell under that where you'll most likely be able to cast it while moving? (On a cooldown.)

[Deleted]

As a resto shammy i really love those new changes. The AoE Healing Rain is going to be awsome i hope.
A new Greater Healing spell...dont know about that. Sounds like lesser healing wave is going to be used less then and how long casting time will the Greater Healing spell be on since Healing wave is kinda long if you dont count haste in.
Looking forward to Spirit Link too

I think its sad that they remove the poising totem and change our cleanse spells but i guess its good that you have to think more than just mindlessly putting poisen totem down, alltho massive poisens in the raid is going to be annoying to remove one by one.

I also really like that we are getting a spell that makes us cast spells even while moving. Thank you! Now i dont have to going all crazy about druids all the time lol

I like these changes. In fact i didnt thought it would be like this at all!

[Izenhart]

Healing rain is stolen from someone´s idea on some forum.. Hoerah for paying 14 euro´s a month to see stuff beign so damn orginal.

Yeah, because whoever said it wad it Trademarked ™ right? Or he didn't steal it from another one?

God, someone bitching is easily spottable everywhere.


Really happy about shaman changes, they look very cool

[Deleted]

1 x happy shammie

[Unholyground]

Really? Why all the praise? especially for enhance this is just horrible. seriously, I bolded stuff in the qote above:

a) This ability will be for leveling purposes only, most likely replaced by stormstrike by level 80 since there is no room in the GCDs.

b) ADDITIONAL effect, yes this is cool, but it is another cool down- no it does not proc windfury for you.

c) Possibly means wont, but what does that matter the only spells any enhance casts are instant anyway thanks to maelstrom weapon- great for ele and resto though.

d) Who cares what they really do- They strip enhance of almost all of it's spell power, moving these to %based means we will get virtually nothing out of them, screw y'all i am using magma.

e) No, its just the class is already so cool down choked they have to nerf an ability to give you room to use any new ones.

f) Int is not AP anymore, but that means this is no longer a DPS talent and will be avoided anyway.

g) No that's fine I don't mind losing Agi and Str (AP AP) from my str of earth totem, nono saves me a little mana just use your horn of winter. Only enhances 2 abilities instead of all of them. One of which probably wont even be used. so unless 5 points increases stormstike's damage by 50% it will be a nerf over all.

h) the Good byes:
Mental Quickness - instant spells don't get mana cost reduced by 6%, 30% of AP to Spellpower- oh crap this is why (d) sucks. your only going to see like 10 spellpower out of flametonge now. enjoy shitty useless fire spells (assuming the mastery nature damage makes up for this for earthshock and LBs... which it wont)

Improved Windfury Totem - No no use your frost DK talent, it is better than the ability it ripped off... (seriously? you give us 5% more melee haste on flurry and take 4% away from totems? Everyone called it this is what that change was for)

Mental Dexterity - No more AP from INT. (But then since hunters wont use mana anyway, hopefully Int will be off all out gear anyway, joy i love running out of mana)

Others - Yeah means don't be surprised as they continue to run this spec into the ground.

And for this we gain... Melee damage, Melee Haste, Nature damage... 3rd part which i doubt will make up for all the spellpower loss.

Really?? Because i was hoping to see expertise in there so we didn't have to fill every freaking gem slot with it because hunters don't need it so you don't even give it to us on our own tier set!

Better yet, make hunters need expertise- People dodge and parry bullets in fantasy movies all the time, make it happen in WoW!

/rantoff

Your a vagina face. changes are all good, enhancement is boring as shit right now.