Shaman Changes in 5.1. FINALLY!!!

[heyaz]

It was silent for so long I had thought Shaman weren't going to receive any buffs or changes in this patch and we'd have to tough it out a lot longer for ele/enhance. But then this popped up on mmo-champion.com:

Shaman
Talents


Ancestral Swiftness (http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/16188/#16257-16281) now has a 1.5 min cooldown, up from 1 min.

[remanz]

lol

[Multibocks]

That is OP. Like warrior OP, wtf

[heyaz]

Because instant casting a spell that crits for 50k, I mean you should only be able to do that every 90 seconds if at all!!! Server would crash otherwise from that obscene damage.

[valkry]

This is actually humiliating

[Nikita]

<3

Shamans aint that bad in 2s and 3s. Guessing this is just a gearing issue, give it 1-2 months, then do 5v5. Should be able to reach 1800 rating. I've had 100 k critts with ES, currently sitting on 25 k spellpower with trinket and jade spirit enchant up + 43,20 PvP power

[Lyonheart]

I know LFR is far from a good place to judge, I was impressed with how well the enhancement shaman did in the raid, he was sharing lead dps on bosses with a feral druid. The only ele sham was doing 30k average and the druid and enhancement were doing 50-60k. My sucky ret was only doing 30k lol..but i was in mostly tank gear stats. It was my first LFR .. just wanted to see how easy they were.

[remanz]

30k For ret as slaves is not that bad if you use Templar's Verdict only with 3 holy power. This is like 30-40% DPS loss right there. Enhance is totally fine. Burst onpar to warrior/DK/feral for pure damage, BUT, it will do more since during ascendance enhance melee range increase to 30 yard. Was watching top pvp streams the other night (reckful's). Whenever they face the enhance, they always try to sit on him and kill him with all CDs popped together. If they fail to kill him (most of the time they fail to kill him because zilea's HPally was on ball with his heals), enhance pop ascendance, reckful's team loses instantly. They cannot prevent enhance from killing the restore shaman on his side.

[heyaz]

<3

Shamans aint that bad in 2s and 3s. Guessing this is just a gearing issue, give it 1-2 months, then do 5v5. Should be able to reach 1800 rating. I've had 100 k critts with ES, currently sitting on 25 k spellpower with trinket and jade spirit enchant up + 43,20 PvP power

That is an obscenely high amount of PVP power (43.2%) and with trinkets and enchant up to hit 100k, I wouldn't be excited about that in the least. Warriors and mages have multiple abilities, at 35%+ pvp power that will crit for 150k, and warriors around 40% pvp power can crit for 220k or more. So not to disrespect you, but more to write off ele shaman once again, but really all you have to look forward to at 43% pvp power is a 100k fulminate?

[heyaz]

I know LFR is far from a good place to judge, I was impressed with how well the enhancement shaman did in the raid, he was sharing lead dps on bosses with a feral druid. The only ele sham was doing 30k average and the druid and enhancement were doing 50-60k. My sucky ret was only doing 30k lol..but i was in mostly tank gear stats. It was my first LFR .. just wanted to see how easy they were.

This is one problem. Ele and Enh shaman are (somewhat) competitive in PVE. Ascendance is a massive burst window putting you up to 100k dps during it and overall they perform pretty well (but aren't #1). The kinda buffs shaman need to see in PVP as hard casters to put them up to par with other classes would require nearly Doubling the damage of all of their spells. How would they implement that? "LvB damage increased by 33%", "Ele blast damage increased by 44%", and then..... "Ascendance now reduces damage of LvB by 25% against PVP targets" to keep it in line. If you could get the kind of crits (4x lvb = dead) with lavaburst in MoP, ascendance would need a change because if you aren't CC'd you could wipe an entire team in less than 15 seconds.

That and if you buff chain lightning, it buffs lava beam, and with stormlash during ascendance you could wipe god knows how many people with ele mastery or echo of the elements. I can imagine going to docks in IOC with ascendance+stormlash, bloodlust and em or echo and annihilating 20 people.

[valkry]

This is one problem. Ele and Enh shaman are (somewhat) competitive in PVE. Ascendance is a massive burst window putting you up to 100k dps during it and overall they perform pretty well (but aren't #1). The kinda buffs shaman need to see in PVP as hard casters to put them up to par with other classes would require nearly Doubling the damage of all of their spells. How would they implement that? "LvB damage increased by 33%", "Ele blast damage increased by 44%", and then..... "Ascendance now reduces damage of LvB by 25% against PVP targets" to keep it in line. If you could get the kind of crits (4x lvb = dead) with lavaburst in MoP, ascendance would need a change because if you aren't CC'd you could wipe an entire team in less than 15 seconds.

That and if you buff chain lightning, it buffs lava beam, and with stormlash during ascendance you could wipe god knows how many people with ele mastery or echo of the elements. I can imagine going to docks in IOC with ascendance+stormlash, bloodlust and em or echo and annihilating 20 people.
I could imagine that too, but then I'd get charged/shockwaved followed by smokebombed/solar beam and raped

[remanz]

so sustain is low, but burst is great for shamans? or not great. If Pally BOP the elemental shaman, can it kill someone with ascendance.

Sustain is low is true with pretty much all classes except maybe shadow priest. The warrior 200k crit heroic strike is with 5 stack of Taste For Blood + poping skull banner + reckenlessness. Its not something they can just use right off the bat. When I sit at the dummy, I get maybe 5 stack of Taste For blood in every 5-10mins with continuous attacking. In PVP if you CC/root the warrior, the stacks will fall off. 5 stack is OP right now. I crit the dummy for 600k (probably 200- 250k on player) with all CDs + 5 stack. So they are looking to nerf to stacking it no more than 3.

Only chaos bolt can crit 200k plus without any built up I think. But that's a 3 second cast. It wouldn't be right to let shaman throw instant lava burst to crit for 200k.

[heyaz]

I could imagine that too, but then I'd get charged/shockwaved followed by smokebombed/solar beam and raped

lol, yep.

Ascendance needs CC protection and I think the most appropriate would be stuns and/or disorients. As much as I'd love to be super OP, I don't think ascendance needs immunity to all CC - that would be too much. Silence can be dealt with through a trinket as it's usually a one-off, or at the very least make SWG have 5-6 sec silence immunity BASELINE instead of a 4 piece resto set bonus. It makes sense to me because it wouldn't be built into ascendance making it god mode, you would have to use a Second cooldown to get that protection.

[heyaz]

so sustain is low, but burst is great for shamans? or not great. If Pally BOP the elemental shaman, can it kill someone with ascendance.

Sustain is low is true with pretty much all classes except maybe shadow priest. The warrior 200k crit heroic strike is with 5 stack of Taste For Blood + poping skull banner + reckenlessness. Its not something they can just use right off the bat. When I sit at the dummy, I get maybe 5 stack of Taste For blood in every 5-10mins with continuous attacking. In PVP if you CC/root the warrior, the stacks will fall off. 5 stack is OP right now. I crit the dummy for 600k (probably 200- 250k on player) with all CDs + 5 stack. So they are looking to nerf to stacking it no more than 3.

Only chaos bolt can crit 200k plus without any built up I think. But that's a 3 second cast. It wouldn't be right to let shaman throw instant lava burst to crit for 200k.

Burst is low for shaman in pvp all around. Ascendance burst is due to launching 500 30k lava burst really fast, not because lava burst hits any harder than a wet noodle.

Yes, the massive warrior crits are using cooldowns, but if shaman blow all cooldowns, no numbers like that are even remotely imaginable especially against classes with magic protection. With a massive amount of PVP power and trinket and jade spirit (or whatever it's called), you can Maybe get a 140k fulimination, but this even close to an on-demand ability. It's pure luck with your 8% crit as a ele shaman and waiting for a full stack.

It would be right however I think to let shaman throw a lava burst for 50-75k whether instant or not. Shadow priests pop you will 70-100k instants all day long. The problem with a hard hitting lava burst is ascendance would be too powerful.... but that being said, is it really more powerful than warrior burst cooldowns, shadow priest wings, mages with cooldowns, or anything else? They still 3 shot you anyway... with a 75k lava burst as a single shaman you still have to connect about 6 of them and the only way to do that is every 3 minutes through ascendance.

[Nikita]

Haha, did a few tests on lvl 60 dummy, with all procs I had 27 k spellpower, and my Elemental blast hits for 80-100 k non critt, and Lava burst hits for 90 k critt. Gotta love the "burst". Thou if all 4 shamans toss out Elemental blast + ES you can kill a prepurged target. The really BIG issue for ele shamans is the AOE CC in 5v5, every time i pop ascendence I get locked down the whole duration.

Did 2s yesterday with a resto druid, met holy warrior and holy paladin. Got the warr in a hex, then went to town on the paladin. Warrior got dispelled, and locked me down for 15 sec straight. Even thou I had good distance to him. Intervene, heroic leap, charge x 2, gag, and that aoe stun shit = GG. Had to wait 3 min for new CDs, then I killed the paladin.

I really dont like the way this game is going. Do 3s and meet lock, spriest, resto shaman. You'll be feared most of the fight, even if you CC lock, there will be tons of fears from the priest. Go meet KFC, you will be forced to pop defensives regardless of skills from the warrior and hunter.

As a ele shaman, you need to play like a god to reach 2200. And your teammates need to be damn good aswell when it comes to peels.

Once patch 5.1 arrives, I'll do a serious push for ratings, hoping that some of the nerfs will help out. + all the extra conquest gear I have then.

[zenga]

If you are curious about the unmitigated numbers ele shamans can pull during cooldowns, feel free to check this VoD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r99j4A_y2YA&feature=plcp) of my 1st hc gara'jal kill, about 3 weeks ago. It's for the most part a tank and spank fight, and it's prepot/skull banner/blood lust/... right at the start. I don't use unleash lightning glyph and run with elemental blast/echo. The vid is uploaded from my stream, hence why it's not really fraps quality.

[Lyonheart]

If you are curious about the unmitigated numbers ele shamans can pull during cooldowns, feel free to check this VoD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r99j4A_y2YA&feature=plcp) of my 1st hc gara'jal kill, about 3 weeks ago. It's for the most part a tank and spank fight, and it's prepot/skull banner/blood lust/... right at the start. I don't use unleash lightning glyph and run with elemental blast/echo. The vid is uploaded from my stream, hence why it's not really fraps quality.

HACKS!!> PRIVATE SERVER!! NO WAY!!!! Ele sham #1? huh uhh!.... JK!! Well that's inspiring! thx for that!


What was that cooldown mod you were using?

[zenga]

HACKS!!> PRIVATE SERVER!! NO WAY!!!! Ele sham #1? huh uhh!.... JK!! Well that's inspiring! thx for that!


What was that cooldown mod you were using?

That's weakauras (an improved version of powerauras), where you basically create your own trackers with.

Well don't look at the #1 position as that fight has a 'parallel realm' mechanic and the combat log isn't very accurate there, we are all within a very small margin of each other usually (unless a fight offers a mechanic where certain classes profit more than others such as cleave, multidot ...). I linked the vid to show the big numbers during ascendance (300k+ lvb crits) with cd's up. I've better gear now and I've seen a single lava burst hitting for over 600k damage (echo +overload during skull banner, with close to 48k spell power). Think I wrote it in another thread recently, but when you are judging the lava burst damage (same with elemental blast), you really have to factor in the overload damage as well i.e if your lvb hits for 100k, with 40% mastery that hits for 75% of the initial damage, then your average lvb hit is 130k instead of 100k cause [100+[(40*75)/100].

Currently PVE is very well balanced, ele tends to be a little bit lower in overall ranks but it's still within a very small % range that player skill and rng can make up for it (raidbots.com). The problem tmho with ele in the overall picture is that it's a spec that is fairly easy to play but so hard to master: if you play just the normal way then you'll do ok damage, but it takes a lot of micromanagement to do top damage and it's easy to screw up as well. I still don't really know if ele scales well or not, one day I think yes but the other day I think no, I still expect a small lightning bolt dmg buff though for the next patch.

And the same is kinda true for pvp: I've seen a few ele shamans doing absolutely crazy stuff in 3v3 this round. But for the average player it's simply not possible (I like to think of it like the hunters back in the day: there were so many bad hunters, but in the hands of a top player it was a crazy spec). I'm not sure if what a top player can do with a spec should be the measurement to define if a spec is viable in 3s or not though.

[heyaz]

Haha, did a few tests on lvl 60 dummy, with all procs I had 27 k spellpower, and my Elemental blast hits for 80-100 k non critt, and Lava burst hits for 90 k critt. Gotta love the "burst".

Make yourself a level 1 target dummy. Go duel them and see what your spells hit for.
This is equivalent to a 90 without pvp resilience.

[Kruschpakx4]

Earthquake (http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/61882) sound effect is now quieter.


YAAAAAAAAY

[valkry]

Earthquake (http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/61882) sound effect is now quieter.


YAAAAAAAAY
There is an addon to remove most annoying sounds from the game so you can play with high sound

[Kruschpakx4]

Shaman
All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.

ok that one really hurts

[Fat Tire]

Shaman
All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.

ok that one really hurts

Its a major nerf to shamans especially resto and ele shamans. The fact that I can now blanket or stun and they cant link,tremor or put down grounding totem is amazing for me. Not sure how it affects boxers.

[Multibocks]

Maybe resto shamans won't be best arena healer now? Nah, who am i kidding

[Multibocks]

Haha, did a few tests on lvl 60 dummy, with all procs I had 27 k spellpower, and my Elemental blast hits for 80-100 k non critt, and Lava burst hits for 90 k critt. Gotta love the "burst". Thou if all 4 shamans toss out Elemental blast + ES you can kill a prepurged target. The really BIG issue for ele shamans is the AOE CC in 5v5, every time i pop ascendence I get locked down the whole duration.

Did 2s yesterday with a resto druid, met holy warrior and holy paladin. Got the warr in a hex, then went to town on the paladin. Warrior got dispelled, and locked me down for 15 sec straight. Even thou I had good distance to him. Intervene, heroic leap, charge x 2, gag, and that aoe stun shit = GG. Had to wait 3 min for new CDs, then I killed the paladin.

I really dont like the way this game is going. Do 3s and meet lock, spriest, resto shaman. You'll be feared most of the fight, even if you CC lock, there will be tons of fears from the priest. Go meet KFC, you will be forced to pop defensives regardless of skills from the warrior and hunter.

As a ele shaman, you need to play like a god to reach 2200. And your teammates need to be damn good aswell when it comes to peels.

Once patch 5.1 arrives, I'll do a serious push for ratings, hoping that some of the nerfs will help out. + all the extra conquest gear I have then.

Haha "holy warrior" is a first for me. Is that a new arena term?

[heyaz]

Shaman
All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.

ok that one really hurts

Well blood elves can now prevent you from breaking out of a fear quickly... but I'm often both silenced and feared and won't be able to drop a totem.

That's another cool change. Are there too many shaman overall or something? Do they want to make this class even less attractive, even for healing?

[valkry]

More nerfs for shamans, oh yay. I will now be changing my monthly cancellation monthly message from rogues are OP to shamans have been unfairly nerfed too much!!

[heyaz]

the more I think about it, this would have little effect if you're multiboxing shaman especially in healing, someone will be able to drop a totem (likely all but the main that got silenced). I don't know the purpose of this change though. Silencing restos and having them drop a healing tide or spirit link and not dying? is that a huge problem in arena?

[Fat Tire]

I don't know the purpose of this change though. Silencing restos and having them drop a healing tide or spirit link and not dying? is that a huge problem in arena?

Yes. In 2s and 3s shaman are the best healers by far because of all their outs. I would be ok if they kept totems the way they were but got rid of double purge and increased tremor cd or take it off totemic restoration talent.

[Kruschpakx4]

Yes. In 2s and 3s shaman are the best healers by far because of all their outs.

yeah resto shamans have crazy heal output because the mastery is really op, so better destroy a core mechanik that fucks all specs

[Fat Tire]

so better destroy a core mechanik that fucks all specs

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