WOD alpha: A turning point since TBC?

[Kruschpakx4]

Its alpha so we don't know numbers yet but we have already tons of information how the game changes, enough to make a post about what is good and bad for us.
I'd like to invite everyone to post stuff about how he thinks his team will perform in WOD, obviously I'm going to say something about shamans, however you're welcome to share your list about the team you think could perform well.

Shamans (elemental and enhancement)

Pros:

• All three level 100 talents are a great addition to our oneshot potential, extra damage without the need of an extra gcd while bursting
• Multistrike is great combos for combos like *spell with travel time*+*spell without travel time* hitting simultaneously
• Overall CC remove and diminishing returns merged, list here
  
  • important stuff: psyfiend gone, ring of peace now incapacitates the enemy for 3 sec instead of 8 sec silience/disarm and presence of mind is an arcane only spell (no more pom ring/sheep from non arcane mages)
  
  
• PvP trinkets grant immunity to reapplication of an effect from the same spell cast when they break abilities like solar beam.
• Spirit shell removed
• Cast slowing debuffs gone
• Necrotic strike gone
• Many instant heals got a cast time which makes oneshots and coordinated burst even more powerful and harder to counter
• Shamanistic resolve glyph (extra 30% damage reduction on sham rage and doubled cooldown) against 4 or 5 dps teams
• Symbiosis gone (usually makes druids easier to kill)

Cons:

• NS/maelstrom cannot make hex instant anymore and hex being an 1,7 sec cast
• Bladestorm/shockwave is now in different rows so warriors will have both
• Healing tide again restoration only talent
• Rogue aoe stealth still not gone ...

Elemental specific:

Pros:

• Lightning shield stacks up to 15 charges
• Multistrike can trigger lightning shield charges
• Elemental attunement buffs multistrike
• Quadrupled NS EB Earthshock with 15 ls charges should be a oneshot
• Silence immunity while ascendance (new pvp setbonus)
• Mana reg increased by 50% to compensate the loss of rolling thunder, however since we cant go pve mode anyway passiv mana reg is always better
• lava burst can generate ls charges
• Mass spellreflect now replaces spellreflect
• Strom elemental totem heals allies within 15 yard range which supports elemental turret mode gameplay
• Ring of peace only triggers on harmful spells so we can still drop totems and heal without getting incapacitated a second time
• New Spirit walkers grace glyphs, one for 5 sec silence immunity and the other one for cooldown/duration reduction to one minute/7 sec to help out with getting chainlights off to get ls charges

Cons:

• Earthquake gone, it was rarely useful though, but was nice to screw up openers from 4/5 dps teams
• Chainlight 2 sec cast time will make it harder to stack up to 15 ls charges fast but swg glyph helps and otherwise we use ascendance/lava beam
• Elemental focus gone, hurts healing
• No more passiv lb while moving but as mentioned already, turret gameplay is supported by storm elemental

Enhancement:

Pros:

• Maelstrom perk doubles a spells damage at 5 charges so 100% more damage on instant eb
• Spirit wolves are probably getting useful
  
  • Glyph of feral spirit (healing of wolves increased by 40%) and ephemeral spirits (cooldown and duration cut in half (1 min cd 15 sec duration)) should provide sick healing, lightning shield or healing stream as third glyph then
  
  
• Maelstrom glyph is now passive
• New flurry effect reduces gcd and cd of stormstrike/lava lash/shocks and unleash elements, probably allows triple stormblast in ascendance but rather doubt it
• No longer need to keep searing totem up for increased lava lash damage
• Unleash elements perk increases movement speed by 30% for 4 sec
• Higher uptime due to many cc removed and some converted to roots which is completely negated by windwalk totem so in the end that means more dps, maelstrom healing and elemental blasts

Cons:

• Stormblast probably not as powerful as it was since blizzard sees it as a problem
• Mastery no longer increases stormblast and auto hit damage in ascendance but sb damage gets compensated by 30% additional damage when lightning shield is up

So I think I have summed up the important stuff here, tldr version: both specs look good if not great for now, but I'd like to see aoe stealth getting removed too as it was my biggest issue to deal with in mop, but aside from that if that team continues to have the ability to oneshot like it did in the past expansions and massive cc thrown out of the equation then we might get really competitive even in ranked pvp. No doubt the current ability pruning and cc nerfs turn the tide to our advantage, looks much better than mop, cata and the first half of wotlk.

#edit: changed titel

[HPAVC]

I am interested in how the sp coefficients impact the former instant case heal spells, this could be pretty big for their effects in the end.

[Kruschpakx4]

of course they might get stronger but its easier to lockout both healers while oneshoting with windshear built into the nuke macro like I'm doing it now, since its a 3 sec lockout it should give overload/multistrike enough time to hit when the target is more than 20 yards away

[ebony]

Am going to try Pally next xpac, though i might fall over to sham's if i need two you forgot changeing gear is going to be a lot easyer one pvp set fits all. though i can see a lot of players leving ratted pvp and going into the more fun pvp arana's but we shell see.

[Kruschpakx4]

Yes quad ret+x should be really strong imo, the new setbonus cuts cc duration in half when wings are up and hand of freedom+liberator+protector of the innocent or battle healer glyph is really strong for multiboxing, fear won't be much of a pain with that stuff, perhaps that team can be played again similar to kromtor's style going for high pressure instead of trying to oneshot. Perhaps use quad ret +enh shaman for snare, tremor and storm elemental with primal elementalist for 100% movement speed increase on team.

Though there is probably a oneshot button potential, final verdict actually does more damage than stormblast, pure holy damage with mastery increasing its damage and attunement: mastery, wings up, thats gonna hit hard, 10yard range is ok.

[ebony]

Yes quad ret+x should be really strong imo, the new setbonus cuts cc duration in half when wings are up and hand of freedom+liberator+protector of the innocent or battle healer glyph is really strong for multiboxing, fear won't be much of a pain with that stuff, perhaps that team can be played again similar to kromtor's style going for high pressure instead of trying to oneshot. Perhaps use quad ret +enh shaman for snare, tremor and storm elemental with primal elementalist for 100% movement speed increase on team.

Though there is probably a oneshot button potential, final verdict actually does more damage than stormblast, pure holy damage with mastery increasing its damage and attunement: mastery, wings up, thats gonna hit hard, 10yard range is ok.

ya i got my pallys to 90 and having a lot of fun on them am trying to stay to one class for now. cn not wait to play with the changes in 6.0

[Kruschpakx4]

depends on their healing capabilities then, wotlk had that sick stuff with bubble+group sacrifice that made it viable for 5 dps, for 5 boxing I think dk or enhance would be great for the 5th spot in a 4 ret team

there were some more changes yesterday, finally warrior needs def stance again to spellreflect, that makes it easier to kill them as they wont be able to switch out of gladiator stance while in combat

[Kruschpakx4]

so I've pretty much read everything now and I'm going to prepare a ret team too, the healing and cc avoidance potential just looks too awesome with holy prism, empowered seals, selfless healer, divine purpose, clemency combined with freedom and protector glyph.

I'd say 4 rets and then pick the fotm class for the 5th spot and go for 5v5

[Fat Tire]

so I've pretty much read everything now and I'm going to prepare a ret team too, the healing and cc avoidance potential just looks too awesome with holy prism, empowered seals, selfless healer, divine purpose, clemency combined with freedom and protector glyph.

I'd say 4 rets and then pick the fotm class for the 5th spot and go for 5v5

Is there any way we could get you to do a write up on pallys the same way you did with shamans? I havent played in several months and I am out of the "loop" and would probably come back if dk/ret/ret were to come back. I know your talking about 5s, but I would downsize the info for 3s.

Thanks

[Kruschpakx4]

Paladin - Retribution

First of all I see three different ways to play this team, either strong burst damage (Type I), strong healing (Type II) or a mix of both (Type III)

I tried to gather some information from kromtors thread (wotlk) too but the game has changed too much :/ since ret can't dispel fear anymore I'm not sure if dk will be a better addition to that team than a shaman.

I'd use long arm of the law, fist of justice, clemency and selfless healer for all three types, using cleanse on cooldown vs certain classes is also important


Type I: uses holy avenger, execution sentence, final verdict and depending on overall surviveability/burst damage in the game (and I suppose burst will be pretty high at the beginning just as in every xpac) I'd play this with a resto shaman for double tremor/windwalk support, primal elementalist+storm elemental for 100% increased run speed and shocks. If the enemys team has no warlock then he should go for totemic projection and support with capacitor/root totem instead of going for double tremor.

Pros:

• High burst damage (Final verdict does 280% weapon damage as holy (increased by mastery), I remember holinka saying 180% wd in wod equals 380% wd in mop, so you can guess how hard that one hits), even if it doesnt oneshot it looks like a massive burst ability without cooldown, which makes it very strong combined with holy avenger up, crusader strike -> final verdict -> judgement -> final verdict -> exorcism -> final verdict, combine it with execution sentence

Cons:

• Obviously less healing, though it shouldn't be that big of a problem if you play that style with a healer, however this only works well if the ret heal is in a good spot since shamans usually have a hard time keeping 4 dps alive, but you'll need the tremor in 5s environment

Type II: uses divine purpose, holy prism, empowered seals

Pros:

• With seal of insight you're never going to die again, with bigger health pools 3% hp every 2 sec is very strong plus you can switch seals without losing the effect
• Works well for a 5 dps team with enh shaman since you'll need the tremor I'd say enh>dk in 5s, also pe+storm ele for 100% run speed, double tremor/windwalk or perhaps frost shock root instead of windwalk
• Can also be played with dk but then you have to drain locks 24/7 and kill them before you run out of fear breakers

Cons:

• Probably no oneshot since Templers verdict doesn't ignore armor
• longer games due to the lack of burst make fear more of a problem since we can't avoid it forever

Type III: (my personal favorite) uses divine purpose(situational holy avenger), holy prism and final verdict

Pros:

• Works well for 4 and 5 dps combos
• High burst damage and oneshots possible
• Burst healing with holy prism

Cons:

• build up time for burst

I'd play that with dk enh shaman, rogue or healer

with dk: drain lock 24/7, once he drops low finish him with wings+final verdict/HoW, otherwise switch targets whenever deathgrip is availible for force cooldowns and once someone is getting low pop wings
with enh: same as above but tremor keeps you longer in the game vs certain teams with lock/priest
with rogue: use holy avenger and go in with aoe stealth, snipe someone (most likely something that can't block) with all cooldowns in smokebomb right at the beginning, then zerg anything that could spam cc
with healer: well ... no need to further explain this