The Hour of Twlight!

Patch 4.3 has arrived, and its up to You, your Fellow Guildys, The greatest shaman in the world "Thrall", and his fellow wielders of the elements to step forward and put a stop to this chaos before its to late.

So be strong my fellow shaman, because Deathwing has arrived.

Shaman

• Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.
• Lightning Bolt has a new spell effect. (Link)
• Wind Shear’s base cooldown has been adjusted to 15 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
• Unleash Rage The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.

•  Elemental
  • Call of Flame no longer causes Fire Nova to extend the duration of Flame Shock.
  • Earthquake damage has been increased by roughly 75%.
  • Elemental Fury now removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.
  • Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 5/10 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.
  
   
  
• Enhancement
  • Improved Lava Lash now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.
  • Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.
  • Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.
  • Maelstrom Weapon can now also proc from fully absorbed melee attacks.
  
  
  
• Restoration
  • Ancestral Healing now also causes the shaman's heals to increase the target's maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target's maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.
  • Riptide's periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.
  
  
  
  
  

4.3 Balance Explanation

Small Post for you guys today, blizz released a 2 part explanation about balance in the new upcoming patch 4.3. Their overall reasoning for the upcoming changes.

Part 1 Shaman

We made changes to Wind Shear to restrict the short cooldown version to the DPS shaman (who have the Reverberation talent) and make Restoration less potent at interrupting. We think Restoration is currently too useful in PvP relative to other healers because of a potent, ranged interrupt. We don’t think this nerf will have major PvE ramifications.



We changed Mental Quickness and Flametongue Weapon to hopefully put a nail in the coffin of Enhancement shaman using spellpower weapons. We want Enhancement using melee weapons. Players who have been doing so should notice no change in their DPS. Players who have been using caster weapons or armor will find that gear is no longer useful to them.



Elemental’s AE damage was still not competitive with the rotations of other DPS specs, so we buffed Earthquake and removed the cooldown on Chain Lightning. These two spells should be the bulk of Elemental’s AE DPS, while spreading Flame Shocks should be an Enhancement mechanic (see below).



We also tried to improve Enhancement’s AE. In this case, the DPS was fairly competitive, but applying the AE was a headache with having to tab through multiple targets to spread Flame Shocks. Enhance can now use Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock (and the bonus granted from Improved Lava Lash has been baked into the base Lava Lash ability, so Enhance should not suffer any DPS loss as a consequence).



After checking in on thousands of raid attempts, we were concerned that Resto shaman were not competitive with the other healers, especially on 10 player-content and on fights where the raid needs to stay spread out. It’s okay for healers to have niches where they really shine, but we felt like Resto wasn’t experiencing enough of these. We buffed Riptide outright and gave Ancestral Healing a new mechanic of boosting the target’s max health. These buffs are also intended to help offset some of the loss of Wind Shear for PvP.



As you can see, we changed shaman mechanics quite a bit, some of which will be met with cheers and others will be met with poo flinging. Please try out the changes when the PTR goes live and offer us constructive feedback if you want us to discuss any concerns you might have. That goes for all of these changes of course.



No doubt when 4.3 goes live, there will be even more changes and some of the above will be modified or redacted. Part Two of this blog will explain our intent behind the final changes.




Part 2 Shaman

We have slightly unnerfed the initial Wind Shear nerf, but we still want it to be much harder for a healer spec to have such a potent interrupt. Wind Shear (originally Earth Shock) was balanced in the hands of a Resto shaman as a tool for coping with enemy casters in the absence of a magic dispel.  While a priest could remove an ally’s Polymorph, the shaman’s only recourse was to prevent it from ever landing in the first place.  But in a world where Resto shaman gained the ability to remove magic debuffs, the net result was too potent. We nerfed Elemental’s tier 12 set bonus because it was so powerful that shaman risked passing over their tier 13 set bonus. We increased the passive benefit of Shamanism and Fire Elemental scaling to help compensate for this nerf. There are many other shaman changes discussed in Part One.

4.3 Patch Notes (Update)

Some small changes to shaman incoming.

Shaman
Tier 12

• Item - Shaman T12 Elemental 2P Bonus tooltip was clarified with values: Your damaging spells have a 30% chance to reduce the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 sec.

• Item - Shaman T12 Elemental 2P Bonus now only affects Lightning Bolt

Elemental

• Shamanism now gives Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst an additional 36% benefit from spell power, up from 32%.

• Earthquake now scales from 11% of Spell Power (Going to assume it's just a tooltip fix to actually reflect spell power changes in-game)

MoP : Talent Overhaul.

With the introduction of "Mist of Pandaria" Blizz took this chance to overhaul the talent system making them more of a choice of game play style rather then which talents will overall increase your tanking, dps, or healing ability's. None of these Talents are set in stone and should in no way be seen as all making it to release.

So now instead of collecting talent points every other level and then once each level after 80, you will now receive a point every 15 levels and only be allowed to select one talent in that tier before that tier is locked.

Level 15

We get a look at the new system when we hit level 15, and by the looks of it we have some nice choices for leveling, PVP, and possibly crowd control for end game raid trash, and boss encounters that include adds.

Frozen Power: 
Your Frost Shock now also roots the target in ice for 5 sec.

Earthgrab Totem:

1600 Mana

Summons an Earthgrab Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 45 sec. The totem pulses every second, rooting all enemies within 8 yards for 5 sec. Recently rooted enemies will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%.

Repulsion Totem
1600 Mana
Summons an Air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 15 sec that repels enemies.



Level 30

At level 30 we come across some nice defensive ability's and totems.

Nature's Guardian:
Whenever a damaging attack brings you below 30%health, your maximum health is increased by 15% for 10 sec and your threat level towards the attacker is reduced. 
30 second cooldown.

Stone Bulwark Totem:
2560 Mana
1Min cooldown
Summons an Earth totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 30 sec that grants the caster a shield absorbing 2649 damage and refreshes that shield every 5 sec.


Astral Shift:
2 min cooldown
Seek haven by shifting partially into the elemental planes, reducing damage taken by 50% but also all damage and healing dealt by 50% for 6 sec.


Level 45

Level 45 we come to self and raid utility's. By the way we will have insta ghost wolf as baseline, this talent will now only add to the skill.

Improved Ghost Wolf:
Passive
While in Ghost Wolf form, you ignore the effects of snares.


Windwalk Totem:
1920 Mana
1 min cooldown
Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 30 yards immunity to movement impairing effects.


Tranquil Mind Totem:
1920 Mana
1 min cooldown
Summons an air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 30 yards immunity to spellcast interrupt and silence effects.




Level 60

Level 60 brings us to a Restoration Tier.

Healing Tide Totem:
2560 Mana
3 min cooldown
Summons a Water Totem with 5 health at the feet of  the caster for 10 sec, healing the 5 most injured raid members within 40 yards for 1060 health every 2 sec.

Ancestral Guidance:

Passive

When you deal direct damage or healing for the next 10 seconds, 40% of that amount is copied as healing to a nearby injured ally.

Fortifying Waters:

Allies standing within your Healing Rain receive a 10%reduction to incoming magic damage.

Level 75

Level 75 is about boosting our burst dps.

Elemental Mastery:
3 min cooldown
When activated, your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst spell becomes an instant cast spell. In addition, your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage is increased by 15% and you gain 20% spell haste for 15sec.

Nature's Swiftness:
1 min cooldown
Passively increases spell and melee haste by 5%
When activated, your next nature spell with a base casting time less then 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.


Echo of the Elements:
Passive
When you cast a damage or healing spell, you have a chance to gain Echo of the Elements
duplicating that spell's effect.



Level 90

Level 90 is all about Totems and the way we control them.

Elemental Harmony:
You may summon multiple totems of the same element simultaneously.


Totemic Restoration:
If a totem is replaced or destroyed before its duration expires naturally, its cooldown is reduced in proportion to the lost duration.

Totemic Projection:
10 sec cooldown
Relocates your active totems to the specified location.

We come to our conclusion, with this new system expect to see some interesting game play changes, a new way to utilize our totems and dare I say it? Bring the idea of one day being shaman tanks. =P

We also included some changes coming to the shaman class and our totems.

Shaman

• Buff totems are gone. It just wasn't very interesting to be the buff bitch of the group.
• All totems are now utility
• New totem examples:
• Earthgrab totem - roots
• Repulsion totem - repels
• Bulwark Totem - absorbs

Blizzcon Q&A Shaman Questions.

With so much happening these last few weeks, the site took a hit in updates, but I was able to get some time in to post up the blizzcon Q&A and single out the shaman only question. Enjoy.

Q: Often as an enhancement shaman, I find that weapon drops, specifically agility one handers, are always rare or not made to be slow (I know slow daggers seem pretty odd, but stay with me here). Is there any chance we would be able to reforge swing speeds? 

A: We don't want minute differences in weapon speed to have a non-obvious, massive effect. We like daggers being fast and other weapons being slow and will make shaman etc. mechanics work around that.


Q: Wind Shear change shouldn't hurt enhancement shamans, but most don't take Reverb. It also hurts Resto Shaman, any plans to fix this?
A: Raids usually have enough people, so it won't hurt the raid. PvP might force you to make the choice, but it is still an interrupt with a longer cooldown.


Q: Do you hate enhancement shamans? DPS sucks, in PvP they suck, any plans to fix them? / Any plans for Illidan to come back?
A: Lets answer the Illidan question. Do you want to see Illidan come back? We will think about that.
This is a problem, just like frost mages dont do well in PvE but the difference is you can't tell an enhancement shaman "hey just go elemental". In PvP it will be much easier in 5.0 but for PvE we will try to address some of the issues in 4.3


Q: The new shaman talent points seem to be geared for resto and not to a damage point, I know you said you want hybridization is coming more into play but what about DPS?
A: There are DPS options there, some of the tiers are based around movement, totems, etc.


Q: Which classes are available to a pandaren?
A: Currently, pandaren can choose to be hunters, mages, priests, rogues, shaman, warriors, and of course monks. Pandaren are not able to become death knights, druids, paladins, or warlocks.