Talent Builds in Wotlk for shaman

[pinotnoir]

Has anyone played with the talent calculator for Wotlk? I was toying around with it and cant decide what to pick. There are some nice new talents. If you want thunderstorm you cannot have natures swiftness. Having that instant burst every 3min is nice but I dont think it would be worth giving up thunderstorm to get it. I dont have a beta account so it's tough to know how good these new talents are.

[Naysayer]

Thunderstorm looks like a great BG talent, but I don't see how you could be successful in arena without NS. Imp. ghostwolf should be great, even better than druids travelform, so I guess that would be a bonus for going with Thunderstorm as well.

[Rowdysattva]

As odd as it might sound... what do you NS in arena? I know it is supposed to be critical to do this and i am wondering if it is CL or LB?

I assume with the cast time of LB being longer it is the one that is used with NS and then you get both off with only a 1.5 sec cast instead of a 3.5 sec cast for both of them?

I can see why NS would be greater than ToW but will it really trump TS?

:huh:

[Sam DeathWalker]

Here is my current plan which I ripped off from a bunch of different people: 54/7/10

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman=550300150321535100531051050050000000000000 00000000005002000000000000000000000

[Nejcha]

Any one though of a lava burst/NS shaman? I was poking around with the idea.

[Fuzzyboy]

Here is my current plan which I ripped off from a bunch of different people: 54/7/10

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman=550300150321535100531051050050000000000000 00000000005002000000000000000000000I assume thats a pvp spec, since youre skipping elemental oath?

For pve I like: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=hEhmq0dxtMxotZVcxzox

I guess it's pretty standard, although the talents in resto would depend on your group setup (if it's a 5-shaman group, 4shaman + tank, 3 shaman + other healer + tank etc.). If your group has at least three shaman, elemental oath will be up all the time and I think it's shame to miss out on the damage and mana save unless you're pvp'ing. Also, only 1 shaman needs ToW so the rest can spend their extra point in reverb (or skip reverb and go lava flow + ?).

[Sam DeathWalker]

humm I think yur right ... 56/5/10

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=hEc0qcdetMeot0xZV0x

Got rid of ghost wolf and added elemental oath.



Thunderstorm looks so super that any build without it dosn't seem optimal.

[Stealthy]

Slight variation -55/5/11
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=hEc0qcdetMeot0xZV0x

I drop Convection, Ele Precision, and several points in Unrelenting Storm, and instead take:

Imp Fire Nova Totem - 75% movement snare aweomse for PvP

Elemental Shields - 6% less physical damage? Yes please!

Lava Flows - boosting spellpower gain from Flametongue Weapon & increasing crit damage from Lava Burst by 24% is too good to pass up IMO.

Remember if you cast lava burst onto a mob / player with Flame Shock on ticking on them, its 100% chance to crit! Gotta love that! :)

Cheers,

S.

[Rowdysattva]

I wanted to throw this into the mix for consideration.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents2.html?tal=25300015232143510253135100000000 000000000000000000055000031000000000000000000



Now i will say the last four points i don't have any really strong feeling about: two of which went into elemental oath and two into unrelenting storm. Actually i am not sure if unrelenting storm or conviction or reverberation or elemental warding is better from some of the lower talent points and then for the later last four.


I am confused as to why more people didn't take healing focus. As i understand it everyone will just have spellpower gear and so our heals may be a bit better and being able to get them off a bit easier would be a bonus. Possibilities i see are that only lesser healing wave is used and it is so fast we don't need any help for it? Or that the spell push back being changed helps out? Spells can still be pushed back two seconds (or more?) and that can be too long in pvp... in pvp .5 sec can be a life saver.


It also seems like 5% off healing is not as good as 25% off totems given that totems can be spendy too. Here i guess i could see that with totemic focus giving 25% back anyway it is not an issue... is this what peeps are thinking?


Call of flame and lava flows seem like great talents and they go well together. Call of flame will boost lava bursts damage by 6% and lava flows will boost the crit damage by 24% which is an auto crit when flame shock is up. Fire totems being buffed seems like awesome when then can be doing damage while we heal from time to time. Not sure how the spellpower boost to fire totems works with the extra %.


For pvp astral shift seems like a must have to me. Elemental precision is something i don't know about. It is not the same bonus it was before... for pve it seems awesome. For pvp it could be awesome if freeing up gem slots for not needing +hit was good enough that whatever else you could get with those points.


Elemental shields is also something i am not sure about. I linked to the wow site for my build because they have updated their builds not that long ago and they don't have that talent at reducing physical damage but as reducing the % chance to be crit. Which one is it?


To me enhance seems mostly good to dip into only for improved GW. Beyond that it would only seem like a good idea if ancestral knowledge was greater than maxing convection and unrelenting storm.


I could also see an 53/7/11 build where you got impro GW in enhance and up to tidal focus in resto leaving out healing focus... spending the lower resto points in various ways depending on what works or what i learn.


In ele i could see points going mixing between unrelenting storm/conviction/elemental precision/elemental shields/elemental oath/reverberation... but i think the rest are must have unless i learn something different.


/my thoughts so far

[Fuzzyboy]

I wanted to throw this into the mix for consideration.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents2.html?tal=25300015232143510253135100000000 000000000000000000055000031000000000000000000



Now i will say the last four points i don't have any really strong feeling about: two of which went into elemental oath and two into unrelenting storm. Actually i am not sure if unrelenting storm or conviction or reverberation or elemental warding is better from some of the lower talent points and then for the later last four.

I am confused as to why more people didn't take healing focus. As i understand it everyone will just have spellpower gear and so our heals may be a bit better and being able to get them off a bit easier would be a bonus. Possibilities i see are that only lesser healing wave is used and it is so fast we don't need any help for it? Or that the spell push back being changed helps out? Spells can still be pushed back two seconds (or more?) and that can be too long in pvp... in pvp .5 sec can be a life saver.

It also seems like 5% off healing is not as good as 25% off totems given that totems can be spendy too. Here i guess i could see that with totemic focus giving 25% back anyway it is not an issue... is this what peeps are thinking?

Call of flame and lava flows seem like great talents and they go well together. Call of flame will boost lava bursts damage by 6% and lava flows will boost the crit damage by 24% which is an auto crit when flame shock is up. Fire totems being buffed seems like awesome when then can be doing damage while we heal from time to time. Not sure how the spellpower boost to fire totems works with the extra %.

For pvp astral shift seems like a must have to me. Elemental precision is something i don't know about. It is not the same bonus it was before... for pve it seems awesome. For pvp it could be awesome if freeing up gem slots for not needing +hit was good enough that whatever else you could get with those points.

Elemental shields is also something i am not sure about. I linked to the wow site for my build because they have updated their builds not that long ago and they don't have that talent at reducing physical damage but as reducing the % chance to be crit. Which one is it?

To me enhance seems mostly good to dip into only for improved GW. Beyond that it would only seem like a good idea if ancestral knowledge was greater than maxing convection and unrelenting storm.

I could also see an 53/7/11 build where you got impro GW in enhance and up to tidal focus in resto leaving out healing focus... spending the lower resto points in various ways depending on what works or what i learn.

In ele i could see points going mixing between unrelenting storm/conviction/elemental precision/elemental shields/elemental oath/reverberation... but i think the rest are must have unless i learn something different.

/my thoughts so far




Well, healing focus only applies to healing wave and most shaman-heavy teams use lesser and chain heal, but rarely healing wave. It's too slow for PvP and I've only ever needed lesser with my 5 shaman, so I guess that leaves heroics. It seems that for heroics it's mostly chain heal that is used (apparently it's more mana efficient even if it doesn't jump - see Vyndrees post on this). Not to say the spell is useless, but if you have 4 or 5 shaman in your team, it's limited (this may change with wotlk). This leads to spending points in the mana save talent instead, at least for me.

The usefullness of unrelenting storm depends on what you're doing and how your team is setup. As far as my team goes I figured that more mana regen = less downtime (I'm focusing on PvE content in the expansion). Reverberation might be even more useful in wotlk, where you could use lava burst + flameshock every time it's ready. What talents are better really depends heavily on what you're trying to accomplish (arena / bg / pve).

[Rowdysattva]

I would love to get a more clear sense on what healing focus does.

If it only works for healing wave then, yeah, skip it. However on the wow site right now it says 70% to avoid interruption while casting "while casting any shaman healing spell". The cast time on chain heal is not nearly as sweet as on lesser healing wave. So, how about this talent? Do you only use lesser healing wave and the reduced cast time is not worth those three points cause they are better spent elsewhere?

If all the shaman are helping heal in pvp or pve then this looks good... with a dedicated healer in pve it is not as nice (as i see it) but in pvp it may still have a place... but talent points are precious and few.

[Fuzzyboy]

Sorry about that, I was getting ahead of myself and was talking about improved healing wave. Healing focus works for all healing spells, but again, the usefulness depends on your setup. With 5 shaman you'll most likely be casting heals with more than one char at the time, so the interruption isn't as important. If you have a dedicated restoshaman (ie. pala + restoshammie + 3 eleshammies) then it might be worth it but if all shammies are elemental specced, then it's less important in my opinion. When I was playing 5 shammies, I'd usually either round robin heal my main or just chuck 5 lesser heals after the char in need of healing. If one of them was interrupted, it would "only" be 4 heals that hit but still enough to go from 1hp to full hp, so I didn't need it.

But again, it depends heavily on your setup.
I would love to get a more clear sense on what healing focus does.

If it only works for healing wave then, yeah, skip it. However on the wow site right now it says 70% to avoid interruption while casting "while casting any shaman healing spell". The cast time on chain heal is not nearly as sweet as on lesser healing wave. So, how about this talent? Do you only use lesser healing wave and the reduced cast time is not worth those three points cause they are better spent elsewhere?

If all the shaman are helping heal in pvp or pve then this looks good... with a dedicated healer in pve it is not as nice (as i see it) but in pvp it may still have a place... but talent points are precious and few.

[Fuzzyboy]

I would love to get a more clear sense on what healing focus does.

If it only works for healing wave then, yeah, skip it. However on the wow site right now it says 70% to avoid interruption while casting "while casting any shaman healing spell". The cast time on chain heal is not nearly as sweet as on lesser healing wave. So, how about this talent? Do you only use lesser healing wave and the reduced cast time is not worth those three points cause they are better spent elsewhere?

If all the shaman are helping heal in pvp or pve then this looks good... with a dedicated healer in pve it is not as nice (as i see it) but in pvp it may still have a place... but talent points are precious and few.Just to be clear: Imp. healing wave (reduced cast time) only applies to the spell "Healing Wave". Healing focus (chance to avoid interruption) applies to all shaman healing spells.

In PvP you won't be needing Healing Wave, but often Lesser healing wave and chain heal. Currently (AFAIK) healing wave is only used in PvE to "catch up" if chain heal spam isn't cutting it, since chain heal is more manaefficient, so the talent might apply there. As for how things will look in wotlk when it hits the stores, noone knows :)