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Shaman questions raised by Blizzcon
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Post by
alpha5099
Aside from the addition of Dwarf and Goblin Shamans, there has not been a whole lot of news coming out of Blizzcon that is specifically about Shamans, but I was curious what other Shamans were wondering about with all the news coming out.
As Enh is my main spec, I've definitely been most curious about the changes to Hunters, which will definitely be affecting Enhancement quite a bit. The quotes I've seen seem to indicate that we'll get our mana from other sources; the comparison seems to be to Ret pallies. I don't know enough about pallies to really know what that means for us. Do they have a talent that converts Str or Sta or something into mana? Do they just get it all back from their Replenishment talent? And what the heck are they gonna do with Ancestral Knowledge? Enh won't want Int anymore, but it's a pretty central talent in Resto and Ele builds.
That's the other major thing I'd like more information on: talent changes. Just what will our trees look like come Cataclysm? If we're pruning out improved buff talents and +stat talents, what does that leave us with? Particularly as Shamans, with totem buffs being so central to the class. No more Enhancing Totems or Restorative Totems? By my count, slightly more than half of the talents I take in my Enh build are possibly on the chopping block.
Fellow Shamans, what are the big questions Blizzcon's raised for you?
Post by
slasher0161
Biggest question for me, is it worth finishing of my dranei shammy or should i just wait for cataclysm and make a dwarf (my dranei currently uses savoury deviate delight to hide his looks)?
Sadly despite all the effort poured into leveling it i will likely sit him on the back burning finish leveling him for some easy gold then delete him come cataclysm.
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Post by
gutogrando
To the OP... True, since Hunters now dont use mana, Mail gear will not contain Intellect anymore unless its for Shaman Casters.
Since AP and SP are gone.. what is Lightning bolt going to scale with?
Whats going to happen with talents such as Ancentral Knowledge or Mental Dexterity?
Since no mail gear going to have int.. Enh shaman mana pool going to be so small, were never going to have enough mana.
All these and more have been raised but im sure were going to have a HUGE talents tree make over, and lots, lots, lots of nerfing/hotfixes involved
Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're not removing AP and SP from the game entirely, rather they're basing them on base stats - you won't find spellpower or attack power on gear anymore, but rather will find Agility/Strength (which gives you attack power) or Intellect (which gives you spellpower).
This presumably is to cut back on the theorycrafting
This. Btw, i believe Lightning Bolt will scales with AP or something like that
Post by
caboosefanatic
To the OP... True, since Hunters now dont use mana, Mail gear will not contain Intellect anymore unless its for Shaman Casters.
Since AP and SP are gone.. what is Lightning bolt going to scale with?
Whats going to happen with talents such as Ancentral Knowledge or Mental Dexterity?
Since no mail gear going to have int.. Enh shaman mana pool going to be so small, were never going to have enough mana.
All these and more have been raised but im sure were going to have a HUGE talents tree make over, and lots, lots, lots of nerfing/hotfixes involved
Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're not removing AP and SP from the game entirely, rather they're basing them on base stats - you won't find spellpower or attack power on gear anymore, but rather will find Agility/Strength (which gives you attack power) or Intellect (which gives you spellpower).
This presumably is to cut back on the theorycrafting
This. Btw, i believe Lightning Bolt will scales with AP or something like that
wait, why would LB scale with AP over SP? lol
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328121
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Post by
windcrusher
Specifically regarding shamans:
Stats
- Int will be the basis for SP. Expect to find it on Mail gear meant for us as Hunters wont be using it anymore. MP5 is gone, spirit will be the stat handling regen. Expect to find it on elemental and resto mail. Haste is something they havent given a clear explanation on, though they did suggest it may increase regen in addition to cutting cast time... or haste may mean different things to different classes.
Talents
- All passive talents that increased dmg %, hit %, crit %, etc. will be taken out. These will be replaced by the Mastery ( a stat that will show up on gear now ). Depending on the tree you're focused on, you automatically gain a passive benefit to your crit, dmg, etc. That increases the deeper you go into the tree. Mastery will be a universal stat that increases all those passive, no matter the spec. (Perhaps to make gear more streamlined and desired by more than one spec Elemental/Resto for example)
Skills
- First, all ranks are going out the window. Once you learn a spell/ability it will scale in power as you level. With a reworking on how stats effect thing and talent changes, expect certain skills to change as well. Theyve stated that Int increases SP... so its logical to assume that to make things equal across the board for all classes, that all spells will gain thier coeffients off of Int. What this means to us specifically? I have no clue. Since they are doing away with passive gains in talent trees, saying that they will give us new talents to give passive gains based on certain stats seems unlikely. Will have to wait on that one.
As for the shaman questions... the biggest one ( from an elemental specific view and shaman as a whole ) I wanted to know was.... When will we get a VIABLE and Useable AoE? Yeah, we have Fire nova ( a one shot bang ) and Magma totem, which is mediocre and sometimes dangerous to run in, drop, and run out of AoE/Aura/Cleave distance. Chain lightning is NOT an AoE viable spell.. not unless they reduce cast time and increase targets effected by some agreeable degree. Since much of the game has a nearly endless supply of AoE happy pulls.. I sometimes feel lacking when I can only pop 3 targets, wait a little bit and pop 3 more (not including Overload procs).. not to mention the damage done to targets past the first one is reduced significantly.
I dont see any immediate hardships for shamans with all the proposed changes they mentioned. However, who knows thats going to take place once these things begin to be implemented. We will all have to wait and see.
Post by
alpha5099
Stats
- Int will be the basis for SP. Expect to find it on Mail gear meant for us as Hunters wont be using it anymore. MP5 is gone, spirit will be the stat handling regen. Expect to find it on elemental and resto mail. Haste is something they havent given a clear explanation on, though they did suggest it may increase regen in addition to cutting cast time... or haste may mean different things to different classes.
Although Int will obviously still be on our Ele and Resto gear, it probably isn't going to be a part of Enh gear anymore:
http://www.wow.com/2009/08/22/blizzcon-2009-wow-qanda-live-blog/#continued
Now that Hunters no longer use mana or intellect, how will they handle gearing since they shared gear with Enhancement Shaman? Ghostcrawler: Ret Paladins are a good example of how they'll do it, because they don't gear Int anymore either.
I like Nikashera's idea that our spells will start being treated like Gift of the Naaru. Give it as a talent in the Enh tree, or just make it a base element of the class, which would give shamans a nice unique difference from other classes. Doesn't solve the problem of mana, but change ISS a bit and you've solved that.
Post by
66520
Stats
- Int will be the basis for SP. Expect to find it on Mail gear meant for us as Hunters wont be using it anymore. MP5 is gone, spirit will be the stat handling regen. Expect to find it on elemental and resto mail. Haste is something they havent given a clear explanation on, though they did suggest it may increase regen in addition to cutting cast time... or haste may mean different things to different classes.
Enhancement uses the same itemization as Hunters, and given how much their itemization revamp has improved the game I very much doubt they'll split that. They will plug in mana gains to some of our spells, or introduce talents to remove mana use on others (maybe things like "Lightning Bolt costs no mana when it uses Maelstrom Weapon charges").
The one thing I don't want to see them eff up on is merging Elemental and Restoration itemization. It
has
to be done, it is one of the most frustrating exclusions from the streamlining. Removing mp5 will help, but if they just replace that with Spirit it will be exactly the same issue as now. Hopefully they can hang Restoration mana gains off Intellect and Haste enough so that we can share gear with Elemental that doesn't have +hit on it.
Post by
frankc
very nice windcrusher...hell i cant wait to be honest..im a pvp ele shammy..and all this sounds great
Post by
nossy
Just let shaman wear plates and share gear with Pally and problem is solved - hey Thrall wears plate. Just go back to old ways of BC where Str is needed for shamans.
Then again, Huntards will be the only seeking Mail after that (but it doesnt mean Shaman won't opt for them either). I never understood why a RANGE class needs MAIL.
I thought fire nova, magma, thunderstorm, and chain lightning are pretty sweet AOE. What they need to do is reduce the CD on thunderstorm and get rid of the mana gain. 10 sec CD on thunderstorm with10 yd increase is what we need. Or maybe a lighting/fire/frost/water skill that shoots in a cone (kinda like warrior's shockwave). Come on, rogues can basically spam FoK for mad AOE dmg. I think we don't have enough water/ice abilities. Basically only Frost shock for being an elemental master in water? pffft give me a break.
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Post by
Victarious
I'm thinking that for Enhancement they will take a percentage of your attack power and convert it to intellect.
They already do that in a sense, in the form of Mental Dexterity, which converts AP into SP. They might leave it as is, or change it to intellect if need be, but that talent will be the key to Enhancement, if it's not already. I have a Ret paladin main, and we have essentially the same talent in Sheath of Light, and it works for us. It's a bit different since more of Enhance's damage comes from spells, but the likely answer is to increase the physical damage of the shaman, or the base damage of the shaman's spells. Between that and a slight buff to Improved Stormstrike, Enhance would play much like Ret, but with more spells, totems, and a far better interrupt.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I'm thinking that for Enhancement they will take a percentage of your attack power and convert it to intellect.
They already do that in a sense, in the form of Mental Dexterity, which converts AP into SP. They might leave it as is, or change it to intellect if need be, but that talent will be the key to Enhancement, if it's not already. I have a Ret paladin main, and we have essentially the same talent in Sheath of Light, and it works for us. It's a bit different since more of Enhance's damage comes from spells, but the likely answer is to increase the physical damage of the shaman, or the base damage of the shaman's spells. Between that and a slight buff to Improved Stormstrike, Enhance would play much like Ret, but with more spells, totems, and a far better interrupt.
Well SP is gone, so in order to keep our spell dmg up there we'd have to have a Int increasing stat.
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