Lava burst crit damage nerfed in 3.1

[Clovis]

I first noticed this last night when another shaman asked me if I had noticed my lava burst critting for less damage -- I assumed I was just hitting targets with more resiliance but even on the target test dummies I'm seeing close to 2k less crits.

On the wow shaman forums there are several threads about the reduced damage to lava burst (as well as chain lightning, but the chain lightning nerf was at least posted in the notes) -- Ghostcrawler responded on some other thread that they haven't changed Lava Burst but prior to 3.1 I was critting for 8-9k and now I'm critting for 5-7k -- 7.1k was the most with 2200 spell power against the test dummies.

So now we have an instant every 3 minutes (2.5 with glyph) but it hits for less -- at the moment I can only instantly kill targets with < 20k HP and if they're around the 20k mark, especially druids they tend to live with 1000HP and run away to heal before I can finish them off =/

-Clov

[Zal]

my instant cast + all trinkets blow LB crits for 10k, no idea where your getting less crit dmg from. its gone up about 3k dmg for me.

[Hairball]

My Shaman are seeing much more damage overall as well.

[Kicksome]

I noticed a 7.5K crit and then a 12.5K crit. So it seems like it's a bit more of a range, I rarely saw over 11K before. My dps was still about 3.6K on the vault boss, which is around normal for me.

[Dorffo]

Haven't noticed any decrease in LvB damage on my shams - it appears (but could be coincidence) that they're pulling slightly more DPS in instances than they were pre-patch.

[Bovidae]

I had a record LvB crit last night in uld10, with 10man raid buffs.

But like Kicksome said, there seems to be a larger range, in both directions.

[heyaz]

Mine has gone up a lot, I've seen up to 12k on warriors and plenty of 9-10k hits. Check your combat log for resists and absorbs. A lot of classes have magic mitigation now.

Sometimes though, it's just completely unexplained. Ran into a DK with 21000hp today, 4x flame shock, 4x lava burst, 4x chain lightning combo did not kill him. He didn't use anti-magic shell either.The lava bursts crit for like 6k. I have spell penetration in case he was in frost presence. who knows?

7-8k with 2200 spell power sounds about right. Now, 2900 spell power with clearcasting up is where you see 10-12k.

p.s. change your subject line to a question maybe?

[Multibocks]

Reports of dual speccing changing your LvB spell to rank 1, but seeing as almost everyone here writes their macros....I'm not sure how it could affect us.

[Zal]

Found what might have cause increased / decreased damage. Look in the elemental tree, Call of Flame talent. looks like it affects % dmg by LB now.

[Mokoi]

i have also seen a big range, with my trinkets popped and around 4k SP I see 17-18k crits which are higher but I also see 7k and 8k crits still which is odd..