Tier 10 Models & Name, No Set Bonus Update

About a week ago the first images of the Shaman Tier 10 models were released on MMO-Champion, I have attached them here. Although I was hoping to see how they look on a race that can actually use them; it doesn't look like it is coming any time soon. My initial thoughts are positive, the look is very different to what we have been exposed to recently. The whole outfit seems like a druid/warlock hybrid to me; dark and menacing with the nature theme creeping in. The shoulder animation looks interesting too, it will be good when we can see animations. Thoughts on the new look?

It was quietly mentioned at some point a while back, but the name of the set is the "Frost Witch's Regalia". Again, not exactly 'shaman-y' as we are used to it. Perhaps this new theme is a permanent revision to our image.

I was hoping to have more information on the changes to the setbonus that was being alluded to a while back. As it officially stands (to the best of my knowledge) the 2-set bonus is still a 2 second reduction to Elemental Mastery with every Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, although it looked as if it was being reduced to 1 second. I will continue to follow this and post as soon as any changes are made official.

-Puut

New Totem for 3.3; Reincarnation Changes

Back on tuesday MMO-Champion released the new totem slot items that will be available in 3.3, along with the Death Knight, Paladin and Druid equivalents. It has become commonplace to release a new totem for each spec every major patch for Blizzard since Wrath's release.

The new totem, which as I write this appears to still be unnamed, was initially announced to have the following attribute:

Your Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock spells grant 73 critical strike rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.

This was jumped on quickly by the online community, due to the fact that as it stood it was going to be near useless for us and overshadowed by the previously released totems of WotLK. A thread was soon put up on the Damage Dealing forums and, to my surprise, got a very quick response from Ghostcrawler who stated it would be haste rather than crit and the time would be extended to 30 seconds.

This changes things quite a bit. It took it from being awful to being slightly better than our current best in slot, the Totem of Electrifying Wind. We will have an almost constant 219 haste, although the stacking time will factor in slightly. It may become habitual (depending if there is an internal cooldown) to spam a couple of extra shocks on cooldown at the start of bossfights to build up your stack. The 30 second timer is a nice addition as well in that it gives us a little more lenience in movement intensive fights that is currently given by Electrifying Wind. Overall it looks to be the new BiS, but not by much. Like a deluxe version of what we are already using; few more bells and whistles but essentially the same thing.

The other change that has sprung up was the reduction in cooldown on our Reincarnate spell. It currently stands at 60 minutes, although it can be talented to reduce by 20 minutes via the Resto tree which we don't spec into. The PTR patch notes showed it being reduced to 50 minutes, and GC came out saying they are considering dropping this to 30 instead. This is to keep it fair with the buffs to other 'back from the dead' abilities like Druid's Rebirth and Warlock's Soul Stones, which had their cooldowns halved also. I will update on this once it is confirmed but I expect this to be the case.

Due to a hectic week I didn't get the ToC 10 Gear Guide out but I will be working on it every chance I get. The 25 man version should follow shortly thereafter.

-Puut

Tier 10 Announced

It is that time again! With a new major patch comes new tier and subsequently new tier bonuses. I don't need to explain to most of you how dramatic these announcements are; they tend to unleash a sea of complaining and arguing over which are good and which are bad, which need nerfing and which need buffs.

As I write this these are now offical.

Elemental Shaman Tier 10 Set Bonuses:

2-Set: Your Lightning Bolt spell reduces the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 1 sec.
4-Set: The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 1.5 sec.

There was announced ones earlier that were seemingly incorrect and most people assumed they were 'placeholders' until Blizz finalized the changes. These has the 4-set bonus listed as a 15 second reduction, which was illogical considering it only has a 8 second CD initially.

I will leave the floor open for discussion at the moment, and will post my thoughts later. This announcement made me realized how behind I am on talking about tier 9, so expect to see a Trial of the Crusader gear guide and tier 9 analysis to be posted soon.

-Puut

Chain Lightning; Patch 3.3

I know what you are all thinking: How is the new totem models for Dwarves, Trolls and Orcs not the headline for this post? Thanks to MMO-Champion as always for the screenshots.

A bit over a week ago there was a conversation floating around the Damage Dealing forums regarding Chain Lightning. Due to the 3.2 change to Shamanism (that allowed it to now recieve the Spell Power benefits that previously only went to Lightning Bolt), Chain Lightning was made considerably more powerful even in single target situations. Binkenstein over at Elitist Jerks, who does a lot of theorycrafting and is generally seen as one of the major authorities in such issues, claimed that integrating CL into a single target rotation was now viable and the DPS increase was forseeably worth the additional mana. Liax, a well known figure amongst eles on the official forums presented this finding on the DD forum in this thread, questioning if this was intended or if it was an attempt at making CL a more competitive form of AoE that produced this as an unforeseen result. Ghostcrawler responded quickly but didn't seem to confront the issue comprehensively, basically claiming CL is not intended to be a single target spell but if it works for you then go for it. You can read the succinct version through MMO-Champ's Blue Tracker here, just including the two posts mentioned.

Now, I honestly haven't done the numbers to the level I am sure Bink has, but generally conclusions coming out of Bink and EJ's shaman forums are pretty reliable. I still use 4 set tier 8 so the effect will be a little less in my case, but what these results show and what GC was trying to express (at least how I am reading it) is that using CL sparingly is going to be a good thing, and a smart player will use CL to complete a rotation more smoothly in situations where due to moving or not a 'neat' amount of haste rating may not give you time to get a full LB cast off. Whether you choose to subscribe to the CL spamming every chance it is available is up to you, I haven't tested it to be able to verify Bink's claims. If any of you come to a conclusion feel free to post a comment and let us know.

The other news recently is the excitement building over patch 3.3, the release of Icecrown and what will probably be the last major patch of this expansion. It seems like it is going so fast, doesn't it? The PTRs are already in full swing and a few rounds of patch notes have already been released. Unsurprisingly, due to the large changes in 3.2.2 we are not getting a huge overhaul, but the primary change announced is interesting:

Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.

Those of us willing to spec for it in the elemental tree will also get:

Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds.

I am unsure of what this means for us. At the moment, I am only seeing it being useful in PvP or for enhancement specs. It still means we are limited to running in and out when wanting to AoE, but until the patch goes live it is tough to know the extent of its use.

-Puut

Upcoming Changes: More of the Same?

Firstly, I will state that out of fear of appearing ungrateful, I am happy that our spec is getting the significant planned changes to improve our situation. I feel my critique of the upcoming changes may come across as showing a lack of appreciation and at some point reading this you may feel that I need to smile, give my appreciation to Blizzard, murmur a prayer to the almighty buff Gods and move on with it. I only make this post because I am looking back at the big picture and I am not getting the same feelings of joy that I might if I were focusing solely on the PTR patch notes and the buffs at hand.

The upcoming changes are obviously in response to the large push of complaints about where we stand at the moment. I am not playing mind reader by stating this: all of GC's comments about the planned updates have been made on one of Strawberry's* threads. I will say, however, that the cause was certainly helped by the fact that now Warlock's have entered the fray over this Totem of Wrath vs. Demonic Pact argument. This spiked the popularity of the issue and, at least in my opinion, helped get the ball rolling on the elemental changes. I mean, Strawberry and numerous other great posters have been making valid, logical comments about the state of our spec for the last 4 months without response; I think it is unlikely Ghostcrawler simply 'saw the light' and decided to jump on the issue.

Another telling sign lies with a post put up on MMO Champ's site a while back. On September 7th, this post went up showing the world first Anub'arak 25-man Heroic kill by Paragon of EU Lightning's Blade (congratulations to them, by the way). They also posted the DPS meter for the Anub'arak kill and armory links to all the raid members involved (the meter is seen attached to this post, taken from MMO-Champion). The elemental shaman, Lazei, who was extremely well geared as all the raid participants were finished dead last on the meters with 5830DPS. The hunter was almost identical (5831DPS), but it was later revealed the hunter was the only one pulling ice down. Anyone who has done this fight knows that this is a chore that essentially renders that raid member preoccupied for a major percentage of the fight. The next closest, an Enhancement Shaman, was some 800DPS clear with 6637; and the next closest caster (Shadow Priest, who is also a hybrid class I might add) was sitting over 7300, a massive 1500DPS more than the elemental. The caster core was scattered throughout the 7-8k DPS region. Now of course, this is one example and cannot be evidence enough to prove claims about the entire spec. However, this difference is telling and not uncommon amongst top end raiding guilds. Elemental Shaman were the ones bringing up the rear on the DPS meters across the board in high-end cutting-edge content, and it was suddenly in the spotlight for every other class to see.

This outlines my first concern: the developers didn't recognize a problem with our DPS until other classes were thrown into the mix: the Warlocks being bought in to our ToW argument, and the top end guilds posting their DPS meters. Even GC's quote about how they don't believe our ability was as low as many ele's seemed to believe (you can read it in this previous posting) shows that he (still?) doesn't grasp how far behind we actually are.

My second (and less wordy) concern is with the actual changes. The thing that pleasantly surprised me, at least about the Flame Shock and Glyph changes, was that it was dynamic. It was different and innovative. It showed some thought. Not much mind you, as all they were doing was freeing up the existing Glyph of Flame Shock which up until now was considered an absolute must; but at least it was something better than the Lightning Overload chance increase or the Shamanism percentage hikes.

The issue I have is this: they didn't make the changes we were asking for. I am not saying 'they didn't give me absolutely everything I wanted, so therefore I am not satisfied'. The changes they made were not the ones that the community was suggesting. A viable AoE? More practical fire totems (like the better ranged, assist-targeting Searing Totem concept)? The Totem of Wrath buff given as an aura to all fire totems? None of these were put into affect. The developers didn't work with the community, but instead buffed us with what they assumed we needed and threw it to us expecting complete satisfaction. This worries me because at the end of the day it shows we are still not getting heard. We are making enough noise to prick up their ears, with the help of some outside factors. But they are not actively working with the community in making changes. This makes me question the longevity of the cooperation and if the understanding is there, or if it is just another quick-and-slick buff bonanza that will keep us all happy and quiet for a few more patches.

In summary, the changes are a good thing. It is good that Blizzard recognized that we need a change to become more competitive. However, at this point it feels like just another band-aid to me. Although more elaborate and thought-out, it is still just a short term fix rather than the repair we actually need. Maybe I will be proved wrong; there will almost definitely be more changes in the ToW vs. DP saga that is still going on. Maybe they will listen to the suggestions and add the "aura" ability to all our fire totems so we are not stuck planting Wrath every fight. That would indicate to me they are recognizing the work being done by the community and acting in conjunction with rather in spite of it. At the moment I still have my concerns; but hell, I am going to enjoy being the buff recipients for once. God knows it doesn't come around as often as anyone would like.

-Puut

* If you do not know, Strawberry is a poster on the official forums who has done an extremely large amount of work trying to get ele's problems under the nose of GC and the development team and is one of the best at fighting for our cause. I pay particular interest to Strawberry's postings.

I also apologize on the delays with this posting, with the stream of changes I kept being forced to rewrite and change the structure.

Buffs on the Horizon...

If you have been following the latest PTR patch notes (they are posted on MMO Champion) you will have no doubt noticed that there has been major action on the shaman front. Unlike with 3.2, we have been in the spotlight so far and the outlook is mighty good...

Firstly, here are the announced changes released so far for Elemental Shaman:

• Flame Shock now deals 834 fire damage over 18 sec at max rank (up from 556 fire damage over 12 sec). Lower ranks increased accordingly.
• Lava Burst no longer consumes Flame Shock.
• Glyph of Flame Shock: The periodic damage dealt by your Flame Shock can now be critical strikes (Old - Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 6 sec and it is not consumed by casting Lava Burst).
• Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.

The two changes essentially revolve around the removal of Glyph of Flame Shock, an elemental staple, and the implement of the tier 8 2-set bonus as the 'new' version of the forementioned. The less notable change, only release a couple of days ago, was the addition of an extra 5% to the Spell Power bonus to Lightning spells from Shamanism. These changes are all going to result in a boost to DPS which first and foremost is the most important thing and what you should all be getting excited about.

The additional GCDs that are going to be freed up with not having to refresh our Flame Shocks as often will be small, but valuable. Every 36 seconds we will have an additional GCD up our sleeve and when paired with the 2-set tier 9 (which increases the duration of FS by 9 seconds)we will have an eternity before having to refresh; a massive 27 seconds. Less refreshing = more time doing other stuff, primarily more DPS.

The other key change will be the freeing of what was previously a must-have glyph. Especially at the moment where the majority of regular raiding elementals will be using the 2-set t8; this will make it completely obsolete. Depending on when this patch is made live this will be less of a factor as more of us move to tier 9; but expect to see a lot of people being in this situation of having a redundant glyph. If this is the case, the logical move is to switch to the Glyph of Lava. The majority of us will move to Lightning, Lava and Totem of Wrath Glyphs when this patch is put into effect. This change is convenient as it will prevent the trade off between ToW and Lava that most of us were forecasting when the t9 4-set is obtained.

The final change is far less interesting and looks to be another bit of juice they are providing to us with the additional 5% to our Lightning spells. Unlike before, this now encompasses Chain Lightning which will help out in AoE and trash a bit. Not nearly as dynamic as the other changes, but who is going to complain? A buff is a buff and when we were faced with such a dismal outlook after 3.2, anything seems pretty good at this point.

Actual release date for the patch is still unknown, but it is reportedly confirmed as NOT tomorrow. My estimate is it will be at least 3 weeks, but at the moment it is up in the air and your guess is as good as mine. One thing is for sure though: Expect to be pulling some pretty DPS numbers in the near future, my friends.

-Puut

Frustrations with the Developers

At what point does community feedback sink in? When is the tipping point where the Blizzard developers go “Okay, I can see the point these guys are making, let’s take a look into it”? I am understanding of limitations of the development team to cater to everyone playing every class at every skill and gear level, but there has to be enough of a movement to prick up some ears at the Blizzard HQ at a certain threshold.

There is a reason I bring this up. Recently there was a post by everyone’s favourite designer, Ghostcrawler, which grazed a nerve for me (the post I refer to can be found here). Now, this was not aimed at elemental shaman by any stretch. It is a general message posted in the Damage Dealing forums as a ‘sign-on-the-wall’ style notice to let everyone know that being annoying and kicking up enough dirt is not going to get Blizzard to succumb.

I took particular aversion to this because I believe that, for the most part, us elemental shaman have done most everything right. Obviously, like every other spec in this game, there are those who act inappropriately and think that they deserve something bestowed on them for whatever reason. Some classes/specs (*cough* mages *cough*) more than others, but it is certainly present to some extent across the board. However, for the most part we have been very cooperative with the manner we have conducted our complaints in. My particular focus fell on this paragraph:

"Here is how the process should ideally work: If you have an issue, bring it up. See if other players agree with you. If they disagree, don't shut them out. Once you've explored the issue a little bit, you've done your job. You don't need to keep starting new topics on the same issue nor bumping those already so long that no reasonable person is going to read them (though I try to)."

There are some genuinely great players that have put forward well constructed, technically sound ideas about changes that can be made to our spec. I will not name these people for the fear of retribution from the ones I will inevitably forget to name, but those who frequent the official forums on a regular basis are familiar with them and their work. These ideas have been presented to the community. They have been agreed upon, as a general consensus. They have been analyzed, debated over, tweaked and finalized until they are a polished suggestion that, if instituted, could genuinely improve our class.

And they are ignored.

Now, this claim may be a bit unfair. I cannot claim that Blizz ‘ignored’ them. The developers may have read them and even given some consideration. However, Blizzard has chosen not to respond to them. Not even acknowledge them for the most part. The latest patch with our grand total of zero spec specific changes proved that pretty boldly.

I am aware that elemental is not the biggest spec around. I am aware that we do not hold a lot of weight in the grand scheme of WoW, simply because our population just isn't there. We are a small, relatively menial class. The “forgotten casters”. But does that really justify us being the hotfix junkies? Because we aren’t popular we can't earn a dynamic change?

Our DPS by comparison is slipping at the cutting-edge levels, our population is declining and there are still no changes in sight. Magma totem is still our viable AoE. Totem of Wrath is still our unique selling point. We are still the only caster with absolutely no scaling ability from our base stats. Our itemization is still laughable.

The shaman forums are a barren land in regards to blue activity. To the developer’s defence, they have stated they will not post in class forums for the most part. That said, even our Damage Dealing forum posts are without blue contributions. It has been 6 months since GC’s posts here and here. This is a thread where GC’s first post commends the quality of the thread; (I quote) “We could use many more posts like this in this forum. Thanks!” and he himself goes on to agree with and list these issues which even back then had been known for a long time. His appreciation? Yes. Actively following up on his points and answering to the community? Still patiently waiting.

Ghostcrawler needs to stop lecturing on how he ‘ideally’ wants us to contribute. Instead, start commending those who are doing the right thing and actively contributing. If not, there hardly seems inclination to do otherwise. The proof is staring right at them and has been for a long time.

-Puut

Edit: As a follow up, I would like to draw attention to this thread that is currently active in the DD forums. GC has given this thread recognition by posting in it (twice), and in the second post he says "Good data make stronger argument than opinions or anecdotal observation..." when discussing how to make an impact in the community. Funny, coming from a thread that starts with an intellectual gem like this.

3.2 Elemental Shaman Initial (Belated) Impressions

Being an avid follower of a number of WoW blogs I have noticed there exists an unwritten code regarding an ‘initial reaction to the new patch’ post. As this is the first major patch I have been blogging during the release of I am feeling obliged to comply before I go about my rebellious posting ways in the future.

My playtime in this patch release week has been pretty low. As I previously mentioned, I moved into a new place and had to wait for internet to be connected which took the better part of the week. As such I missed out on a lot of the initial release stuff; by the time I first got in on the Thursday it was already old news. I haven’t had a chance to raid the new place yet (apparently the guild cleared the first boss in very little time on the first night, so I will have to wait until Tuesday). I have seen both the regular and heroic 5 man instances, which provides little to talk about as it is rather easy and the mounted combat is really the only notable highlight.

The obvious discussion point is regarding the new totem bars. I have been configurating my personal setup which, for raiding purposes, is pretty easy (Totem of Wrath, Healing, Wrath of Air and no earth totem). I initially removed all my totems from the bars and went to just using the new UI, but realized whilst running heroics how often you go to those other utility totems such as Tremor or Cleansing. Having to reconfigure every time one of these alternate totems is required is a paining process and I have found I am resorting back to having a nearly full bar of totems for easy access in those ‘just in case’ situations. I am not complaining, as I am still enjoying the fact that I can drop my standard three at once thoroughly. I imagine I will learn to take this for granted quite soon as it will make raiding (at least in my prior experiences) a lot smoother. If you are interested, I am open to possible suggestions to totem makeups.

I am also looking forward to getting into the arena as I am sure the feature will be more influential there. I have crafted my anti-gank rogue setup already (Earthbind, Fire Nova and Cleansing all in the one) which, teamed up with the new Ghost Wolf (again, yet to really experiment with) should help avoid the perils of stunlock. I will have to do some reading to work out how to get ‘good’ with these new abilities, or a lot of trial-and-error.

My final comment is regarding itemization. I know we should be used to it, but it is kind of disappointing to not see any items bar the new totem available from the Emblem of Triumph vendor. Hopefully there will be more of a relevant selection with the future vendors, but based on the track record I would guess it is going to be more of the same. The one item we do have, the Totem of Electrifying Winds, is likely to replace the Totem of Hex we have been using for a long time now but this is dependent on what the actual uptime of the proc is. On the PTRs it was having an extremely large uptime but no results are out yet (and I am FAR from having enough emblems for it to test myself on account of missing out on so much of this week) on what actually made it to the release. If anyone gets info send me an email and let me know.

-Puut

3.2 Live Today

As the title says, 3.2 is confirmed to be going live today. You can check out the latest news updates at MMO-Champion. Unfortunately out hopes of more Elemental changes were not realized; we will have to see where we stand in the coming weeks.

In more personal news, this blog just hit 10,000 views a couple of days ago which I am really happy about. Just another chance to thank all of you for taking the time to read this and support me, I really appreciate it and I hope you will keep reading.

I have moved into a new apartment this past weekend and will not have reliable internet until Thursday. As such I will be missing out on seeing the new patch today but I am sure I will make up for lost time this weekend. If I am taking a while to respond to your emails this is why. I will catch up as soon as I can.

Enjoy the patch,

-Puut

New Armor Set Models, General Updates

Couple of little bits and pieces for you all, seeing as how there hasn't been one in a week.

New Armor Sets

I'm not sure how many of you adamantly follow MMO Champion; it is understandable as they tend to post about a million times a day. However, they are one of the best sources out there for news and information as soon as it becomes available and are generally very accurate. Before I digress any further, they have recently posted the "finalized" armor sets coming with the release of 3.2. I use the term with some caution because they have released what we think will be the final version a couple of times now, but this one seems to be the most promising.

There has been a bit of a twist with the new tier set. In a bit of a stray from the norm, they have now given each faction a different model for their classes. As such, us Draenei's won't be looking similar to our Horde counterparts as we will both be sporting individualized gear. However, they have made all armor-similar classes wear the same model with differentiation in color schemes. That's right: although we will not look like our factioned counterparts, we will ALL look like hunters. I don't know how I feel about this, I think I would rather be associated with a Horde than a huntard...

Regardless of my opinions, you can check out the sets for Alliance here and Horde here. Give me your opinion, what would you prefer? Do you like the looks of your set? Be sure to specify which faction's you are commenting on.

It seems they are keeping the Arena gear homogenized across factions, which you can see here (both factions included in the link).

All rights to the images are courtesy of MMO Champion (http://www.mmo-champion.com/).

Earth/Wind Shock Changes

Due to the glaring redundancy that was created when Wind Shock was first added to the Shaman arsenal, the developers have decided to make a couple of changes. Wind Shock is now becoming 'Wind Shear' and remaining, for all intents and purposes, pretty much the same. The major change is it is now off of the cooldown shared by our other shocks, so we will have a much better ability to interrupt enemy spellcasts. This is a real perk for PvP where we will no longer be faced with an either/or situation for our Flame Shocks and interrupting the enemy.

Earth Shock is being reinvented. It is, as of the latest PTR build, a debuff that will reduce the enemy's melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds. It was previously 2 seconds which hardly seems worth the cast. Even with the change, I am wondering how useful it will be. It is obviously another attempt to increase our PvP viability and prevent melee from tearing us up as soon as they get within range, but is 10% really going to be a game-changer? Another mystery that the patch will withhold.

Progression

On a personal note, my guild and I are really beginning to push the hardmode buck after a period of relative lacking recently. As I have previously mentioned, we got the FL+4 a couple of weeks back which was long overdue. We also got Freya+1 but neither seemed to screenshot worthy and had a feeling of 'finally' to them. We are seriously working on Assembly of Iron Hard mode (and have been for a good 4 weeks on-and-off, this is what has been slowing our progress a lot); additionally we have started work on Thorim hard and Yogg 3 Keepers. If we can get the right mix of raiders I believe we can achieve all 3 of these in the next 2 weeks.

Hopefully more kill pics will be on the way soon.

No News is Good News?

The upcoming patch is shaping to be a rather major one. With the class Q&A sessions all underway and the new changes the developers have introduced independent of user feedback, it looks like this will be a shakeup for almost every spec in the game.

That is, except for elementals.

I have already posted on how the Q&A session left us feeling a bit left out in the cold. Sure, we scored with some of the class-wide changes but getting excited over them feels like salivating over the scraps of someone else's feast. Sure, the totem changes will be nice and a little extra stam couldn't hurt, but not one spec-specific change?

Now by this stage you are probably all wondering what rock I have been living under for the last few years to not realize we always get left out in the cold when they are handing out buffs. I am anything but a overzealous optimist; that said, I honestly thought we might get some more of the spotlight this patch.

Why now you ask?

Because since 3.1 there has been considerably more buzz regarding us then what we usually hear. In our case the 'usual buzz' would be silence; and by silence I mean like deep space without a spacesuit, several million miles away from anything remotely resembling anything notable kind of silence.

If you hadn't noticed, that was me getting carried away in an analogy tide. But think about it: There was the Lava Burst 'Stealth Nerf' which, whether it happened or not did get a couple of blue posts which happens less frequently than the similarly colored moon. Potentially in response, we then got the Lightning Overload buff because it was noted by developers that as a whole our spec was lacking.

Finally, our close brethren in the 'forgotten casters' category, Balance Druids or 'Moonkins', have undergone a number of changes integrating spirit to be a scaling stat for them to make them more viable at the cutting-edge endgame content. I was foolish to believe that this could mean we would see similar attention being thrown our way seeing the issue was at least showing up on Blizz's radars. One would have thought this topic would have at least been mentioned in the Shaman Q&A seeing there was a number of well-constructed posts regarding it. Unfortunately though, there was nothing. Not in the Q&A feedback, and not in the 3.2 build up. There was nothing in regards to elemental shaman at all.

Now, just this weekend I have seen that Wind Shock is being changed to be off the cooldown of the other shocks and that Earth Shock is being changed. I can't see I didn't see this coming because having the two was a little redundant to say the least (I think Blizz thought Wind Shock was going to be a DPS shaman's aggro dump, turns out it wasn't nearly as effective as they thought. Plus we already have one in Resurrection, don't we?). But again, I am back to the point that these are class wide changes and not exactly 'rocking the shaman world' at that.

I remain as skeptical as myself and every other long-term elemental shaman always is about the future of our class, but I can't say I am not wishfully thinking something will emerge before the patch. You can't blame me for that, can you?

-Puut

PS: I have gone back over some of the comments in the previous posts and responded. I am sorry I did not do this sooner. If you left a comment that didn't have me responding to it you should go back and check it now.

Feel free to leave comments or emails. I always find them useful and it helps me in posting things more relative to you all.

3.2: Totems and Tier

The upcoming 3.2 patch holds a lot of promise, not only for elementals but all shamans and pretty much every other class. A lot of changes to class dynamics are planned and the class Q&A session is a good indication of how Blizz is looking to meet the player's wants and needs for the first time in a long time, definitely since WotLK has been released.

Totem Mechanic

So far the most major things related to our spec that have been announced is the change to our totem mechanics, plus our new spec-specific gear. I announced a while ago when the totem mechanic changed was announced (here) but did not give an opinion on the topic. Unfortunately I am not going to change my position, but I am going to open up discussion a little. The ability to drop 4 totems concurrently is a deliberate attempt to increase our ease of use of totems and make them more viable for how the game works now. They are an outdated design and this change has been needed for a long, long time. It will provide benefits on both the PvE and PvP sides of the spectrum. How much? Well, that is to be seen.

I do not understand those who claim it will act to our detriment. This simply does not make sense. If you want to treat it like it is now and drop individual totems then you still can as I understand. You can, if you so desired, act like nothing has changed at all. Although I don't see the point of not utilizing the new design, the option will be there to act like it is non-existent. These naysayers not only annoy me but mislead the less experienced players into believing their personal opinions as fact. There may be teething problems, the mechanic may be awkward and almost non-functioning in the worst-possible circumstance but it will not ever be a downgrade from what is here now because it is simply an addition to the existing. I hate to vent, but sometimes the ignorance of the stubborn frustrates me.

PTR

To answer a few of you, I am not on the PTR. I do not tend to joint the PTRs in that there is still a lot that could happen before the patch and I find preaching about what is happening on the test realms will inevitably end up making you look foolish later when things you have been complaining about are not implemented. I would rather judge the end product when it hits with the patches then worry about things that *might* occur.

Tier 9

The new tier set bonuses have been announced, and ours is as follows:

2-set bonus: Increases the duration of your Flame Shock spell by 9 seconds.
4-set bonus: Increases the damage done by your Lava Burst spell by 20%.

These set bonuses, although rather plain in comparison to our t8, should prove rather powerful. The 2-set extends out DoT time on FS from the 18 seconds (assuming you have it glyphed, which you probably do) to 27 seconds. This means in the time we currently have to cast 3 Flame shocks we will not only have to cast 2, giving us as spare GCD once every 54 (27 + 27) seconds. May not seem like too much but that little extra window of time should prove useful.

The 4-set is fairly notable. A pretty sturdy 20% slap on top of our Lava Burst will be nice. It may alter our glyph setup back to including Lava (which most shaman dropped in favour of ToW in 3.1) and potentially the inclusion of the seemingly useless [Thunderfall Totem], our spec's designated totem in Ulduar which has been making more use as a bank slot decoration. This is highly doubtful though, as [Totem of Hex] still provides beneficial for so much more of our damage so unless they magically buff up Lava Burst damage on top of this set bonus I can see that bank slot being filled for a long time to come.

New Totem Slot

All this talk of Thunderfall vs. Hex is a nice lead-in to our new totem for 3.2: Totem of Electrifying Wind. Now, the talk on the forums is that this baby has practically no cooldown and an uptime of close to 100%. This is good, because it would have to be close to this to beat out Hex. They keep pushing this haste-proccing totem idea for some ungodly reason; both our last 2 badge reward totems ([Totem of the Elemental Plane] and [Skycall Totem]) have been the same concept.

I have been holding off doing my totem comaprisons until 3.2 to see just how good the final Electrifying Wind product turns out. For now we will just have to wait in eager anticipation of just how good this thing turns out to be. As I said before, I rather judge the end product and not what is being seen on the PTRs.

-Puut

Totem Bars

HERE is a post from the devs regarding changes to our totem system. Reserving comments until a later time. For now, absorb and contemplate.

- Puut

Q&A Summary

Well, the Shaman Q&A session is over and the developer's preliminary responses are in. With this, I felt it was time for a bit of a rant.

Firstly, you can find the full spread of Ghostcrawler's response here. It is quite the wall o' text, so beware.

I have seen numerous posts already springing up in response to the thread and the developer's conclusions. The most accurate summary I have seen is a comparison of GC's response to that of a politician: saying a lot without saying much at all. Seems GC can verbally build a wall of roundabout discussion whilst slyly dodging actual questions.

So what was actually said. What, regarding elemental shaman, is in the pipeline and will be changing soon? What are we so patiently holding our collective breaths for?

The answer: Not much.

I would not say this if I didn't feel it true because of my love for our other specced brethren; but I personally feel we got the least out of the Q&A session out of all three specs. Now, admittedly one spec has to get the least but the least in this case seems to be next to nothing. The only real thing I was hearing that will benefit us that is seemingly pretty concrete is connecting all 4 totems to a single GCD. Which, in all honestly, is long overdue and has been discussed many, many times on the forums already. The only other thing that spiked my ears up a little was the sliver of discussion regarding elemental AoE damage, where GC was quoted as saying: "...while we have given Elemental strong AoE in the form of the Magma Totem, some players feel like this comes at too high a cost to their buffs and mobility, so this is something we’ll look at". Again, something that has been consistently discussed on the forums for a long time. May we finally see the introduction of forked lightning? Or is this just a way to roll out the carpet on the chain lightning modification that was being discussed a while ago, where it has less single target damage but hits an additional target and loses less potency with its jumps? Time will tell.

There was a couple of comments that got my blood boiling a little. It is commonplace to see comments thrown around regarding the developer's lack of understanding of our class/spec and I avoid making these claims to as greater extent as possible, but sometimes they really test my patience on such topics.

Firstly, GC and all the developers have beating this dead horse in regard to "hybridization" for as long as I can remember and this session was no exception. GC mentions of elementals that they can "easily throw out heals if a group needs a little extra help"; seemingly in response to our lacking DPS numbers. As a higher-end raiding shaman I know that if it comes to the point where you are asking the elemental shaman to 'throw out heals' the raid is in pretty big trouble and more than likely wiping anyways, making us nothing more than the bubblegum used to plug holes on a sinking ship. And with dual-spec now available it makes the need for such hybrids obsolete. Using this ability as a defence of where our spec is at the moment seems like a pretty hollow excuse to me.

"...However, we didn’t want say shamans to no longer be attractive for raiding so we brought up their damage a lot. It might still not be as high as rogues or warlocks, but it’s close, and if you have the right gear and really know how to play, you can even beat those classes on some bosses". I think here we see blissful ignorance of the issue by the devs. Yes, there is fights where I can trump a rogue and warlock (Yogg and General, for examples). However, I think the problem is not with having those 'one off' fights. The greater issue is that on a stand and blam, tank and spank fight we do not keep the pace. Sure, in favourable conditions we are competitive but should we really need that kind of crutch to be able to keep up? My complaint has been for a long time that comparable players of comparable gear and comparable experience in the same raid should be doing similar numbers but this is simply not the case. When a dps warrior/feral druid/ret pally opens up on a tank and spank fight they will considerably beat us; and I use those classes as examples because they are other hybrid classes who supposedly should be on the same par as us (sitting slightly below the pure DPS classes).

My final point is in regards to elemental shaman scaling. There seemed to be nothing but silence offered on this issue, which is surprising due to the amount of posts regarding it. The statement of "After the recent Lightning Overload change, we think Elemental can do competitive ranged damage" is the only thing we could get out of him, which anyone who has been playing this class for a while knows that the whole change to overload was just another quick fix in the ever growing chain of quick fixes (*cough* Shamanism *cough*). Unless this constant buff-then-ignore system is the long term strategy (which creates a whole different issue altogether) then we need to see some kind of scaling introduced. Its not like it is something that has just been sprung on them; this issue has been existent since the end of Burning Crusade and the Moonkins are undergoing changes with it at this very moment. Are we really that invisible of a spec?

If all goes well we will see the buffing to base HP, single GCD for totems and additional PvP viability that was discussed. As for everything else? I go back to holding my breath. At least I got a little fresh air to hold onto.

- Puut

(PS: Fingers crossed for those of you who roll resto, the news was far more promising for you guys.)

Upcoming Shaman Q&A

The latest talk around the official forums is about the upcoming Question and Answer session the developers will be having regarding each class. Obviously there is a feeling of discontent amongst the entire shaman community as all three specs are having difficulties at the moment.

The interesting ting to see will be the responses by the developers. Some are already fearing the dreaded 'working as intended' or 'known issue, working on it' responses that we have seen from blue posts in the past. Hopefully in this session they will have the common sense to at least elaborate to a greater extent and calm the concerns of the community some.

Posts are already going up discussing what questions should/will be asked so I am putting my opinions up as to what the most important questions are for us. A couple of these points are general for all shaman specs I will admit off the bat:

Scaling: This is an issue that has plagued elemental shaman since the Burning Crusade. The inability to scale up well as we move into deeper content is worrying. We are the only caster class without benefit to our spell damage from base stats such as intellect or spirit; the easiest method of scaling there is. With the latest improvements to Moonkin Druids giving them significant benefit from spirit, elemental shams are now scratching their heads wondering when we are going to get a bone thrown our way. Seems we are becoming the forgotten casters, and it is not a fun spot to be in.

Totem Viability: When WoW was in its early days, shamans were a necessity as the benefits that their totems bought to a raid group was unmatched. This presence has lessened consistently as the game has evolved until this latest expansion where, in order to make raid makeups more flexible, they have made almost every totem's benefits replaceable by another classes buffs. In essence this is a good idea, because the developers want this game to not restrict the player's experience based on their class. However, being the buffing class we are we have gotten a raw deal here as we now have non-unique buffs that are bulky and awkward to use in that totems have limited range and have to constantly be recast. I would imagine this will be the hot topic of discussion amongst all specs.

PvP: PvP is generally not a topic of discussion for me as I am far more into my raiding than anything else, but I do hit the BGs every now and again and am in a 'just for kicks' 2's team with my Boomkin housemate (we stay in PvE gear/spec and see how many we can win blowing heroism and spamming like hell!). I know like every other elemental shaman how incredibly vulnerable we are, especially to the likes of rogues/feral druids. We are easily stunnable and have literally NO way of getting out of CC apart from our trinkets. I do not have any huge issue with it, but I know serious PvPers are demanding changes to even the playing field a little.

These are the three biggest I can think of off the top of my head, but here is where I am turning it over to you. I have received emails from readers in increasing amounts (which I really appreciate, I might add!) but I am asking you guys to leave comments and let me know what you think about this whole Q&A deal. What questions do you have? Do you have any suggestions? Do you foresee us getting any changes? Hit the comments at the bottom of the post and let me and the other readers know.

- Puut