Shaman AoE - A tad too complicated?

[Aleksej89]

I always loved the Shaman class, but even at this stage of end-LK Shaman's AoE capabilities are quite complicated to use, very restricting mobility-wise and are mediocre.

I read about Earthquake being Elemental's thing in Cata, but what about Enhancement and Restoration (soloing)?

I mean, are Enhancement's still going to have to sacrifice their ''Flametounge Totem'' buff to be capable of doing average AoE?

Is there gonna be any improvement as far as non-Elemental spec's AoE go?

[M4d2m0A]

I'm a bit confused, I've never dropped FT totem as enhance, if the group needs caster buffs I just switch to elemental.

I'm glad we at least got an AoE, Fire Nova is only a few patches old. The thing thats nice about magma totem is it's almost a passive buff, you drop it and it does aoe while you continue your normal rotation, It's different then casting a channeled aoe like the other classes.

I've never expected to be the best as dps while playing a shaman. They are a buffer class. They are there to make the pures do more dmg. It's impossible to answer a question about what we will be doing in Cata, I'm sure even blizzard isn't exactly sure what we'll be doing.

[Primaryjane]

As Enhance, I could care less about AoE =D Just like every other fight, I drop Magma Totem and hit Fire Nova whenever it's off CD while single targeting whoever the tanks on. Whatever, works for me. Is AoE even useful outside of trash anyways?

[Wildanimal]

Between Magma Totem, Fire Nova, Chain lightning, I am always topping meters. AoE it seems, is the Shamans strength now. It's single targeting that I'm have trouble with Dps output.

[Asaron]

The classes with 1 button AoE "Rotations" are the ones that need fixing.
FoK FoK FoK swipe swipe swipe volley volley volley and so on.
Be grateful that isn't you.

[boseguy22]

Lol, why is AoE that has no mechanic other then pushing one button listed as too complicated.

Shammys were never an AoE class. My Enh shammy can put out a lot of damage, but I dont expect to put numbers on recount like a mage or lock on groups of mobs, but fire nova is fun as hell. At least it is something.

If you are worried about AoE dps numbers then this thread is trolling. If your lack of AoE is actually hurting your raids ability at progression that is a whole other story, but i have never seen a single thread about how "Shammy's Cant AoE, we cant do ICC"

And did you really ask why no AoE damage spell for Resto questing? Seriously, get 1000g, buy dual spec, and quest as a dps.

[Bombkirby]

Resto is a healing tree so they don't need AoE damage really and Enhancement is a melee tree which means their totems will normally be close to the battle making fire nova effective.

Ele had no way of dropping fire totems close to mobs from far away so earthquake solves that matter.

[Piptooth]

I mean, are Enhancement's still going to have to sacrifice their ''Flametounge Totem'' buff

Your doing it wrong.

[rabbimojo]

...
I've never expected to be the best as dps while playing a shaman. They are a buffer class. They are there to make the pures do more dmg. It's impossible to answer a question about what we will be doing in Cata, I'm sure even blizzard isn't exactly sure what we'll be doing.

You can retire this philosophy now. Your ability to provide buffs should not mean your performance is lower than someone else's. It's OK to want your personal DPS to be competetive as a shaman.

You are still subject to the hybrid tax, but that's quite different.

[WindFurie]

i think the OP wants to talk about Elemental shammye AoEing packs
its kinda complicated to run to melee, drop totem, go back to casters so u wont get pwned by AoE (first trashes on ICC for instance, 10k damage when they die)
and on topic he also talked about only elemental shammye getting ranged aoe'ing (if i got that right)
enhance shammyes always drop magma totem and have fire nova, they are melee so yeah it wont matter to then, resto shammyes are heallers, elemental shammye wont have to run to the mobs to be able to AoE (chain lighting only hits 3 targets, so its not really AoE when there are 15+ mobs)

[Baabinator]

Between keeping magma totem up, having no combo points(or any loss of target switching), placing flame shock on as many different targets as possible, fire nova-ing, and using MW_5/CL all the time. The dps is fine

I love it when i outdps the *lazy classes* (e.g hunter, destro, mage) with their channeled AOE.

If cataclysm will just be a magma totem and earthquake spam, i will be a sad panda

[Primaryjane]

i think the OP wants to talk about Elemental shammye AoEing packs

I mean, are Enhancement's still going to have to sacrifice their ''Flametounge Totem'' buff to be capable of doing average AoE?

Is there gonna be any improvement as far as non-Elemental spec's AoE go?

I think you're wrong about the OP
I also think the OP is a bit clueless

[eErike]

Between Magma Totem, Fire Nova, Chain lightning, I am always topping meters. AoE it seems, is the Shamans strength now. It's single targeting that I'm have trouble with Dps output.

How do you manage to do that while there is unholy DKs and shadowpriests around? o.O

[Primaryjane]

How do you manage to do that while there is unholy DKs and shadowpriests around? o.O

I can't even remember the last time I saw an Unholy DK in a raid (playing on US-Medivh) and Spriests are few and far between.

[Bunsie]

off topic:

releveling a shaman on another server, and it reminds me of how BLEH enhance was leveling until 40. They should at least get some kind of melee move besides "Auto Attack......Miss....Flame Shock....Auto Attack..."

On topic... Nova totem was all the AoE I needed on my shaman, not to mention free chain lightning procs are nummy.

[Omanley]

I'm a bit confused, I've never dropped FT totem as enhance, if the group needs caster buffs I just switch to elemental.

i think he means the new flametongue debuff we´ll put on our target come cata, which we´ll be unable to stack with magma totem around.

I'm glad we at least got an AoE, Fire Nova is only a few patches old. The thing thats nice about magma totem is it's almost a passive buff, you drop it and it does aoe while you continue your normal rotation, It's different then casting a channeled aoe like the other classes.

while it´s nice that it´s not a channeled spell, that´s to be expected as a melee. wether it´s rogue´s fok, druids swipe or warriors whirlwind. what´s bothering me is the high mana cost we have for having to use three separate aoe spells, each costing 1.xk mana. there´s also the issue of magma being immobile and sometimes being destroyed by npc´s and also that you have to have a fire totem active to use fire nova. to many restrictions.
same goes with having to stack msw 5 times for cl.

I've never expected to be the best as dps while playing a shaman. They are a buffer class. They are there to make the pures do more dmg. It's impossible to answer a question about what we will be doing in Cata, I'm sure even blizzard isn't exactly sure what we'll be doing.

at saurfang im topping the meters (13.7k dps with 15% buff ) and often enough im doing most damage in aoe packs as well. shaman being a buffer class is a thing of the past. mages are getting bloodlust with cata and warlocks will share their spellpower buff with us. hunters have their 10%ap buff as well.

I always loved the Shaman class, but even at this stage of end-LK Shaman's AoE capabilities are quite complicated to use, very restricting mobility-wise and are mediocre.

I read about Earthquake being Elemental's thing in Cata, but what about Enhancement and Restoration (soloing)?

I mean, are Enhancement's still going to have to sacrifice their ''Flametounge Totem'' buff to be capable of doing average AoE?

Is there gonna be any improvement as far as non-Elemental spec's AoE go?

you sum it up quite well. personally i think earthquake should be a baseline ability. no ele shamy going for top single target dmg will spec earthquake, and it doesn´t sound very handy in pvp either.
-give earthquake a minimum range, to make it more aoe-dmg effective for elemental to stay on range
(instead of going into melee for thunderstorm, magma-totem and fire nova)
-merge fire nova with magma totem ( pretty much an aoe flame shock, doing initial dmg (fire nova) and dmg over time (magma). this will safe mana, global cooldowns, makes enh more mobile while aoe´ing, clears up our bars and leaves room for a more exiting prio list.

as it currently stands, i see earthquake as a waste of talent points and the rest of the aoe is the same as now, to restricting.

The classes with 1 button AoE "Rotations" are the ones that need fixing.
FoK FoK FoK swipe swipe swipe volley volley volley and so on.
Be grateful that isn't you.

true, but you will see one hell of a resistance coming from those classes, would blizzard announce to make aoe´ing more complex. and as other posters said, aoe is a minor part of the game, so it does not need as much complexity.

Shammys were never an AoE class.

rogue´s, shadowpriests, feral druids weren´t either. and mages, which are together with warlocks one of the day one bomber classes, do worse aoe than those 3 specs/classes mentioned. Shamans WERE never an AoE class, but this changed and hopefully it will continue to improve.

You can retire this philosophy now. Your ability to provide buffs should not mean your performance is lower than someone else's. It's OK to want your personal DPS to be competetive as a shaman.

You are still subject to the hybrid tax, but that's quite different.

first point i concur. besides shamans, who still have to manage their totems, most buffs of most specs
are aura´s now. i cant see a reason why a class doing nothing other than dps´ing should be lower in dps output.

aside from that, the hybrid tax is just as outdated as the support tax.

being able to heal hardly helps me as a melee shaman in either raids nor pvp.
the only "advantage" i have being a hybrid class is being able to switch my spec. for that, i need the gear though. especially as the only non-caster spec that´s a huge pain in the ass for me. it doesn´t take that much longer lvling a 2nd class and gearing it than it takes to get gear for your 2nd spec.

that being said, being a hybrid isn´t the advantage people make it out to be.

off topic:

releveling a shaman on another server, and it reminds me of how BLEH enhance was leveling until 40. They should at least get some kind of melee move besides "Auto Attack......Miss....Flame Shock....Auto Attack..."

shaman will get primal strike at lvl3, which will get replaced by stormstrike at 30.

[XemnasXD]

still can't beat my groups DK and Paladin during P1 LK they're a bit better geared and its close but im always lower by 600-1000k, mind you we're all doing over 11K anyway. Its kinda disheartening to use CL FN and refresh MT just to keep up with the guy using Pestilence...i wouldn't change that though, i'd still like to to use all those skills in my AoE, i'd just like for them to be more competitive...

[M4d2m0A]

while it´s nice that it´s not a channeled spell, that´s to be expected as a melee. wether it´s rogue´s fok, druids swipe or warriors whirlwind. what´s bothering me is the high mana cost we have for having to use three separate aoe spells, each costing 1.xk mana. there´s also the issue of magma being immobile and sometimes being destroyed by npc´s and also that you have to have a fire totem active to use fire nova. to many restrictions.
same goes with having to stack msw 5 times for cl.

at saurfang im topping the meters (13.7k dps with 15% buff ) and often enough im doing most damage in aoe packs as well. shaman being a buffer class is a thing of the past. mages are getting bloodlust with cata and warlocks will share their spellpower buff with us. hunters have their 10%ap buff as well.

These spells might have high mana costs, but we have talents that drastically reduce the cost of spells after we crit, also it takes a really long time for a ele shaman to go oom unless you're not using thunderstorm. Mana for enhance just simply isn't even an issue. Immobile fire totems? Immobile all totems, you can't single out fire.

You might be doing 13.7k dps, but the pures in your raid should be doing 15-16k dps. Shaman is a buff class, end of discussion. It's the only class that has "buff" in the description when you create a new character. There's only 1 reason why we don't have the best buffs for melee or casters, and that's warlocks demonic pact. Other classes may be able to bring the same buffs we do, but you don't always have every other class/spec like in 25 man raids.

Honestly you top dmg in aoe packs? The aoe pull before lady death some of our aoe is hitting 50k dps. I will bet my soul you are not topping 50k dps. A mage chain casting blizzard will out dps our aoe anyday, and that's not even their max dps aoe rotation.

[Omanley]

These spells might have high mana costs, but we have talents that drastically reduce the cost of spells after we crit, also it takes a really long time for a ele shaman to go oom unless you're not using thunderstorm. Mana for enhance just simply isn't even an issue. Immobile fire totems? Immobile all totems, you can't single out fire.

in terms of mana costs, im mainly talking about enhancement. we have the smallest mana pool of all shaman specs and even smaller in cata with int gone from our gear. enhancement doesn´t spec into elemental focus either and probably wont skill ancestral knowledge in cata. i dont mind aoe spells costing more mana. i do mind however that a class channeling one 1k mana spell doing the same aoe damage as we using three 1k mana spells and additionally maintainig our prio list.

You might be doing 13.7k dps, but the pures in your raid should be doing 15-16k dps. Shaman is a buff class, end of discussion. It's the only class that has "buff" in the description when you create a new character. There's only 1 reason why we don't have the best buffs for melee or casters, and that's warlocks demonic pact. Other classes may be able to bring the same buffs we do, but you don't always have every other class/spec like in 25 man raids.

You´re wrong. WoL lists enhancement in a pretty high spot on Saurfang or Festergut even compared with pure dps classes. Also, enhancement has a MUCH higher difficulty than almost any other dpsing spec ( it doesn´t surprise me that facerolling combat/mutilate rogues are mostly at the top, not because they are "pure" dps classes, but beceause they are simply that easy to play). Shaman WAS a buff class. We´re still supporting the raid with our Totems but almost anything we can bring can be brought by others, and it will get even more widespread in cata. Having the word buff in the class description is almost as meaningful as having the mages description say they do the most damage. The class descriptions haven´t changed, but the classes have. Shamans are able to provide the raid with the most buffs that´s true, and this will continue to be a big advantage for shamans in 10mans in cata. However in 25man raids shaman buffs will be easier to replace than now, so being a "buffer class" is a thing of the past, blizz themselve said so and i wholeheartedly concur.

Honestly you top dmg in aoe packs? The aoe pull before lady death some of our aoe is hitting 50k dps. I will bet my soul you are not topping 50k dps. A mage chain casting blizzard will out dps our aoe anyday, and that's not even their max dps aoe rotation.

Im not topping the meters in every single trash pack. but i often enough do top the meters. and dps is often enough misleading. it´s the dmg done that counts. And as far as i know, blizzard doesn´t do marvelous damage as arcane or fire mage. Also keep in mind that some classes tend to use every single dps cooldown on trash for e-peen.