Blue post on lava burst and lightning damage

[wizofid]

Well I guess it is always a bit of a crapshoot with an expansion, but I guess I want some assurances that the combination of players I am leveling will be capable of handling Heroics in the expansion. The only "safe bet" would probably a mixture of classes, since that is what Bizzard is designing the encounters for: Like Pally, boomkin, shadow priest, shaman, shaman.

[Lyonheart]

Even WITH the nerfs. What makes multi-shamans a good class to MB is simplicity, and that will not change! Even WITH the nerf they can heal..rez..self rez..totems still help a lot!. AND we get HEX at 80 which will make the instance farming that much more safe/easy. So, IMO, one tank+4shaman will still be the best MB group, all things considered.

Also the 30 days of nerf wont hurt me much as i intend to level some 60s to 70 before launch. Including a druid AND warlock hehe. So if a druid makes a BIG difference( or lock) I might bite the bullet and make one part of my team. But if i can complete 5 man content with my paly and 4 shaman, I don"t mind losing a little DPS (for simplicity's sake).

[Aradar]

Unfortunately, I think some of you may be brushing Niley's statements aside too easily. If you go to the WotLK beta forums, her post are a dime a dozen all the way from level 70 to 80. Some are even suggesting that weaving flame shock and lava burst in to your dps rotation does worse than just lightning bolts and chain lightning alone.

I generally stay out of these conversations because 1) I assume/hope Blizz will eventually get it right and 2) I'm not much of an "elitist jerk" for lack of a better term (meaning I don't get into the number crunching much) but this complaint seems to be becomnig very prevalent on the beta forums and the class designer seems to be a bit of an asshat in that he says stuff that makes no sense or is very condescending.

Somehow there is a deep devide between the game designers who actually think we do to much damage (personally I think the majority of their testing is done in optimal raiding situations where every buff/debuff you could want you get) and those testing shamans on the beta in gameplay who say we sometimes get beat by tanks.

I guess only time will tell and hopefully it gets sorted out in the end...

[Hachoo]

I'm not really worried. Personally I see this a couple ways:

1) Theres no way shamans will be nerfed so bad they're unplayable while multiboxing - seriously, this just won't happen, it never has happened to ANY class regardless of what anyone says, sure some classes get nerfed to where they're "less effect" but not so bad that everyone just stops playing them. If they are nerfed so bad its hard to level they will be buffed, this is how blizzard has always done it and anyone who says otherwise is a conspiracy theorist or an overreactor/exaggerator

2) RAF means leveling a second team is easy. Personally I'm working on a priest + 4 locks right now, will be a great PvP team i think. Worst case is you could boost a pally to level 60 instantly and level that to 70 to be a tank for your 4 shamans which would still make them EASILY able to solo heroics.

[Fuzzyboy]

I'm not really worried. Personally I see this a couple ways:

1) Theres no way shamans will be nerfed so bad they're unplayable while multiboxing - seriously, this just won't happen, it never has happened to ANY class regardless of what anyone says, sure some classes get nerfed to where they're "less effect" but not so bad that everyone just stops playing them. If they are nerfed so bad its hard to level they will be buffed, this is how blizzard has always done it and anyone who says otherwise is a conspiracy theorist or an overreactor/exaggerator

There's truth to this statement.

Also, keep in mind that grouped with a druid/lock/DK, our damage is, at worst, back to normal.

[Hor]

I've decided in light of all this talk of LBs effectiveness to sub in a Druid I had sitting around, I gifted him and parked him along with a bunch of others (I'm sitting on about 20x 60+ toons since RAF started, not including my 70 PVP Rogue). So now my group comp is going to be Paladin, Druid, 3x Shamans. I'm moving my other Shaman to my second team, DK, Mage x2, and Shaman x2.

[Multibocks]

GL mbing a DK as a tank. Can you say 20 situational abilities to macro? Ugh. I wish the class were more simple =/

[valkry]

This can be very easily fixed by giving us a stackable buff much like the moonkin buff after lightning attacks so that we don't have to rely on a lock/dk/moonkin being there in raids or being nerfed for solo play.

[Hor]

GL mbing a DK as a tank. Can you say 20 situational abilities to macro? Ugh. I wish the class were more simple =/

Well, I usually play the tank. So, I don't think it'll be that big a deal, but just incase. I'm levelling some Paladins right now ... incase I'm just going to HAVE to have Palis to tank all of my groups. I'm still hopeful though.

[Fuzzyboy]

I just tested the newest beta build on the premade level 80 shaman and the premade lvl 80 druid - this is obviously solo, so without class synergies. I was able to parse an average of 1620 dps on my shaman, 1650 dps on my druid (on lvl 80 training dummy). I experimented a bit with castsequences to get it right, but I might have missed some timings. Even so, after testing I'm really not that worried about the dps issues. Should it turn out that the druid has 100 dps more than the shaman, I still think the synergies will make it worth it.