2. I didn't say the changes weren't fun. Static shock and maelstrom are both certainly entertaining. The problem is that neither is sustainable while solo grinding. I will also bet a large hat that they will remain unsustainable while instancing. The optimal stormstrike > flame shock > lavaburst rotation will run you a little short of 1k mana every 8-10 seconds. On my current mana pool, I could do that... for 50 seconds before going oom. Even assuming I switch to a pile of mail gear that has int on it, I don't expect to get above 7k mana, which wouldn't change much anyway.
2) is irrelevant to me. Solo sustainability doesn't matter a whit. 5-Mans matter about as much. I care about raiding, and sometimes, once in a while, PvP. I'm not knocking Solo/5-Man content, I'm just saying, it doesn't matter at all to me, as I said in my last post.
EDIT: I do find Static Shock underwhelming. I'd probably rather use water shield.
EDIT AGAIN: Feral Spirit is for PvP more than PvE. Stun/Snare abilities your wolves can use on command, etc. etc.
won't the 20% haste instead of extra weapon hits mean much less damage for enhancers?
or is it only the WF totem that's being changed, not the enchant?
Just the totem.
so, a shaman can have windfury enchanted on his weapons & the 20% haste from the totem? Or does it still count both as "windfury"? and the don't stack
I think mana issues won't be as big with SPriests affecting the entire raid and hunters giving mana (is that party only or raid wide?). Is there anyone else who gives mana back (oh yea, more JoW I guess).
won't the 20% haste instead of extra weapon hits mean much less damage for enhancers?
or is it only the WF totem that's being changed, not the enchant?
Just the totem.
so, a shaman can have windfury enchanted on his weapons & the 20% haste from the totem? Or does it still count both as "windfury"? and the don't stack
WF totem provides a character buff instead of a weapon enchantment now, so the Shaman benefits fully from both.
I was more wanting something that doesn't require me to add a billion extra action bars just because I play a certain class.
I use the autobar class bars. It has four slots for the four totem types and remembers the last totem you selected, if you weren't infight while doing so
Pretty great.
You guys (Enh Shammies) are in for a fucking treat come wrath. I hopped on my buddy's 70 Shammy on the Beta Server last night, and.... wow. 3% crit and 170 AP from 1 totem, 20% haste from another. Instant Lightning Bolts/Chain Lightning, shorter CD on Stormstrike, AP from INT, AP from AGI. Just.... wow. WOW I SAY. A TREAT.
It all sounds good on paper, but it's really not. Static shock and maelstrom weapons will never see use when out and about soloing, and probably won't see use anywhere outside of boss fights due to how mana intensive they are (though perhaps with a new rank of watershield, maelstrom weapon will at least be usable). The int change is extremely meh. I will be shocked if the int > ap talent gets us off of leather being best in slot. The totem changes though, and the agi to ap change are both extremely nice.
Static Shock won't be too expensive, as they've currently changed Lightning Shield to cost no mana. (I couldn't find the blue post I remembered saying this, but it's on thottbot: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=49281)
It'll still result in losing the mana from water shield, but I think I'd rather have that than get to use an instant spell every once in a while.
It'll still result in losing the mana from water shield, but I think I'd rather have that than get to use an instant spell all the time.
Fixt.
EDIT: It would be nice if they made Shamanistic Focus affect Lightning/Chain Lightning.
How often does it happen that an enhancement shaman gets 5 melee crits within 15 seconds, with enough time to spare to hit the spell button? I honestly don't know, my shaman is still around 56.
And yeah, it would be cool if Shamanistic Focus affected instant lightning spells, but it's already cool that mental quickness does.
EDIT: It's not 15 seconds anyway. Each time you add a stack, it refreshes the countdown.
Oh, that makes it much, much better. It'll actually go off in pvp occasionally that way, and probably twice a minute in pve.
Probably more. Assuming 2.5 speed weapons, no haste, and no WF weapon, you're looking at a full stack every 32 seconds. Add WF procs and 20% haste on top of that, and things change dramatically.
EDIT: It's not 15 seconds anyway. Each time you add a stack, it refreshes the countdown.
Oh, that makes it much, much better. It'll actually go off in pvp occasionally that way, and probably twice a minute in pve.
Probably more. Assuming 2.5 speed weapons, no haste, and no WF weapon, you're looking at a full stack every 32 seconds. Add WF procs and 20% haste on top of that, and things change dramatically.
Yeah, and there's stormstrike, too. I guess it'll depend on your crit rating.
EDIT: It's not 15 seconds anyway. Each time you add a stack, it refreshes the countdown.
Oh, that makes it much, much better. It'll actually go off in pvp occasionally that way, and probably twice a minute in pve.
Probably more. Assuming 2.5 speed weapons, no haste, and no WF weapon, you're looking at a full stack every 32 seconds. Add WF procs and 20% haste on top of that, and things change dramatically.
Yeah, and there's stormstrike, too. I guess it'll depend on your crit rating.
Oh, I was assuming 25% crit chance, as well. Which is easily obtainable. You get ~3% from Strength of Earth.
EDIT: It's not 15 seconds anyway. Each time you add a stack, it refreshes the countdown.
Oh, that makes it much, much better. It'll actually go off in pvp occasionally that way, and probably twice a minute in pve.
Probably more. Assuming 2.5 speed weapons, no haste, and no WF weapon, you're looking at a full stack every 32 seconds. Add WF procs and 20% haste on top of that, and things change dramatically.
Yeah, and there's stormstrike, too. I guess it'll depend on your crit rating.
Oh, I was assuming 25% crit chance, as well. Which is easily obtainable. You get ~3% from Strength of Earth.
Imagine a pve spec like this. (there's room for adjustment there, as it's not clear how much damage spirit wolves will do, and water shield might be better than lightning shield with static shock.)
You've got the haste from Flurry and Windfury Totem, as well as reduced stormstrike cooldown (8 seconds). You've got the extra crit from strength of earth, plus 9% more crit whenever a spell crits. You've got 10% extra int to help with spell crits, and Mental Quickness, Convection, Elemental focus, and Shamanistic focus reducing casting costs (the last one only for shocks), as well as spell damage boosts from stormstrike, mental quickness (aided my mental dexterity) and concussion. And then shamanistic rage every two minutes to re-fill your mana bar.
The most difficult part might just be casting your instant spells fast enough to not lose a maelstrom weapon activation.
The Shaman changes, specifically the hex spell, looks like it might get me reinterested in a game that has long since lost its luster for me. I never finished leveling my shaman to 70 because I pretty much had more fun playing my fury warrior off and on, but now it looks like shamans will not only have some cooler abilities, but CC too, which will actually make a shaman useful for 5-mans, regardless of spec.
My biggest turn off when trying to level my shaman is that I felt kind of useless in 5-mans, not because I couldn't dish out some good damage, but because everyone expected I was going to be healing.
I never had mana problems on my Shaman and after water shield it's just hilarious. I don't see the common complaint, but you can just wait until wotlk gives water shield at lvl 20 if it's that big a deal.
I'm not sure how Int will affect spell crit. As I said, I was playing my buddy's Shammy on the Beta Server, and his Melee crit is 21.45%, and his spell crit is exactly the same, so... I don't know. Not sure how INT factors into that.
For heroics my favorate group is Warrior tanking (me), Rogue, Enh Shaman, Fury Warrior/Ret pala, paladin healer.
This is also the reason I am never able to pick up people for 10 man groups (Had a few break up when they realised that I had subconciously made all the dps melee).
For heroics my favorate group is Warrior tanking (me), Rogue, Enh Shaman, Fury Warrior/Ret pala, paladin healer.
This is also the reason I am never able to pick up people for 10 man groups (Had a few break up when they realised that I had subconciously made all the dps melee).
I love you.
I ended up quitting the game because I got bored of having to play my warlock in order to have any success. My guild didn't want me to raid on my fury warrior (understandably we already had one, and mine was undergeared so there was no reason to take him along), I couldn't get many groups as a fury warrior, and pvp was an effort in frustration. Meanwhile my warlock was dishing out 6k shadow bold crits, had a place every raid, and was often getting tells to come dps for this or that group, and could really lay down some pain in PVP. The downside? Boring as hell.
The problem with picking up a fury warrior is all they really bring is dps. No real CC and only a minor buff for melee. Most tanks are lazy and so want 2-3 CC at all times. This leaves 1-0 spots for a random. There are plenty of warriors/shaman/dps druids to pick from. Add the the fact tanks are always in demand and you are always secretly thinking "why can't he just be prot".
Checking the LFG on the daily heroic usually looks something like this:
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 3 looking for tank and healer
Fury warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Fury warrior
Pvp warrior
Enhanment shaman
Elemental shaman
"full epix" Shs rogue
"full epix" Shs rogue
afk prot warrior
Shadows or elements, 5 minutes. If they made it last only 30 seconds warlocks would at least have another button to push! The funny thing with warlocks is that they're a lot of fun to level up, and in pvp all of their specs are viable (although some are far better than others), but once you hit 70 and get into the world of min/maxing, they get really boring.
The problem with picking up a fury warrior is all they really bring is dps. No real CC and only a minor buff for melee. Most tanks are lazy and so want 2-3 CC at all times. This leaves 1-0 spots for a random. There are plenty of warriors/shaman/dps druids to pick from. Add the the fact tanks are always in demand and you are always secretly thinking "why can't he just be prot".
Checking the LFG on the daily heroic usually looks something like this:
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 3 looking for tank and healer
Fury warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Fury warrior
Pvp warrior
Enhanment shaman
Elemental shaman
"full epix" Shs rogue
"full epix" Shs rogue
afk prot warrior
Yeah, I understand why my fury warrior would have a hard time getting groups and all. It's nice to see that the shaman will now have a valuable group role that doesn't rely on your spec (yay hex!).
Posts
2) is irrelevant to me. Solo sustainability doesn't matter a whit. 5-Mans matter about as much. I care about raiding, and sometimes, once in a while, PvP. I'm not knocking Solo/5-Man content, I'm just saying, it doesn't matter at all to me, as I said in my last post.
EDIT: I do find Static Shock underwhelming. I'd probably rather use water shield.
EDIT AGAIN: Feral Spirit is for PvP more than PvE. Stun/Snare abilities your wolves can use on command, etc. etc.
so, a shaman can have windfury enchanted on his weapons & the 20% haste from the totem? Or does it still count both as "windfury"? and the don't stack
Don't forget that all of your spells benefit from it too.
EDIT: I think.
EDIT: Duuurrrr nevermind. Wrath of Air = Spell Haste.
I use the autobar class bars. It has four slots for the four totem types and remembers the last totem you selected, if you weren't infight while doing so
Pretty great.
Static Shock won't be too expensive, as they've currently changed Lightning Shield to cost no mana. (I couldn't find the blue post I remembered saying this, but it's on thottbot: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=49281)
It'll still result in losing the mana from water shield, but I think I'd rather have that than get to use an instant spell every once in a while.
Fixt.
EDIT: It would be nice if they made Shamanistic Focus affect Lightning/Chain Lightning.
How often does it happen that an enhancement shaman gets 5 melee crits within 15 seconds, with enough time to spare to hit the spell button? I honestly don't know, my shaman is still around 56.
And yeah, it would be cool if Shamanistic Focus affected instant lightning spells, but it's already cool that mental quickness does.
20% Haste, not 30%.
And yes, what Wally said.
Pretty fucking often.
EDIT: It's not 15 seconds anyway. Each time you add a stack, it refreshes the countdown.
He was talking about Flurry w/ 30%
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
K.
So, another 20% for WF Totem, then.
Oh, that makes it much, much better. It'll actually go off in pvp occasionally that way, and probably twice a minute in pve.
Probably more. Assuming 2.5 speed weapons, no haste, and no WF weapon, you're looking at a full stack every 32 seconds. Add WF procs and 20% haste on top of that, and things change dramatically.
Yeah, and there's stormstrike, too. I guess it'll depend on your crit rating.
Oh, I was assuming 25% crit chance, as well. Which is easily obtainable. You get ~3% from Strength of Earth.
Now I only need to farmthose S2 weapons so I can finally get to do some heroics :V
I'm lvl 15, I normally do: 2-3 Lightning Bolts, Earth Shock and Lightning Sheild and auto attack the rest with a Stoneskin Totem, sound any good?
Imagine a pve spec like this. (there's room for adjustment there, as it's not clear how much damage spirit wolves will do, and water shield might be better than lightning shield with static shock.)
You've got the haste from Flurry and Windfury Totem, as well as reduced stormstrike cooldown (8 seconds). You've got the extra crit from strength of earth, plus 9% more crit whenever a spell crits. You've got 10% extra int to help with spell crits, and Mental Quickness, Convection, Elemental focus, and Shamanistic focus reducing casting costs (the last one only for shocks), as well as spell damage boosts from stormstrike, mental quickness (aided my mental dexterity) and concussion. And then shamanistic rage every two minutes to re-fill your mana bar.
The most difficult part might just be casting your instant spells fast enough to not lose a maelstrom weapon activation.
Edit: fixed the link
My biggest turn off when trying to level my shaman is that I felt kind of useless in 5-mans, not because I couldn't dish out some good damage, but because everyone expected I was going to be healing.
Hex will make them more worthwhile for Heroics, though.
I just can't handle the mana deficiency all the time
I'm not sure how Int will affect spell crit. As I said, I was playing my buddy's Shammy on the Beta Server, and his Melee crit is 21.45%, and his spell crit is exactly the same, so... I don't know. Not sure how INT factors into that.
This is also the reason I am never able to pick up people for 10 man groups (Had a few break up when they realised that I had subconciously made all the dps melee).
I love you.
I ended up quitting the game because I got bored of having to play my warlock in order to have any success. My guild didn't want me to raid on my fury warrior (understandably we already had one, and mine was undergeared so there was no reason to take him along), I couldn't get many groups as a fury warrior, and pvp was an effort in frustration. Meanwhile my warlock was dishing out 6k shadow bold crits, had a place every raid, and was often getting tells to come dps for this or that group, and could really lay down some pain in PVP. The downside? Boring as hell.
122222122222122222122222122222122222?
Seriously though. Curse of Shadows -> 222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222
/wowquit
Checking the LFG on the daily heroic usually looks something like this:
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 4 looking for tank
Group of 3 looking for tank and healer
Fury warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Pvp arms warrior
Fury warrior
Pvp warrior
Enhanment shaman
Elemental shaman
"full epix" Shs rogue
"full epix" Shs rogue
afk prot warrior
The one was for "some curse I know you keep up but don't know the duration of."
My warlock is level 24.
Yeah, I understand why my fury warrior would have a hard time getting groups and all. It's nice to see that the shaman will now have a valuable group role that doesn't rely on your spec (yay hex!).