Mists of Pandara Shaman Spells and Talents Update.

                                                  
           After a long layoff were back with another post for you guys. With Cataclysm drawing to a close and Mist of Pandaria inching ever closer, were starting to get more and more info on the new expansion, and how azeroths adventurers will take on this new land of "Pandaria," and also how the horde and alliance will welcome their new allies the Pandarin. 

         So Dig in my fellow shaman, as we take a look at what might await us in "Pandaria". And as with all alpha expansion and patch information everything is subject to change.

Class Abilities:

• New Spell - Burning Wrath: Fiery elemental energy emanates from the Shaman, empowering all nearby party and raid members and increasing their spell power by 10%.
• New Spell - Grace of Air: Empowering winds swirl around the Shaman, granting all nearby party and raid members 5 Mastery.
• Ghost Wolf: This ability is now instant, but no longer reduces the effect of movement impairing effects.
• Cleanse Spirit: Removes all (up from 1) Curse effects from a friendly target. 8 second cooldown (up from none).
• Healing Stream Totem: Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 1 min that heals the most injured party or raid member within X yards for 81 every 2 sec.
• Earth Elemental Totem: Summons an elemental totem that calls forth a Greater Earth Elemental to protect the caster and his allies. Lasts 1 min (down from 2). 5 minute cooldown (down from 10).
• Earth Shock: Instantly shocks the target with concussive force, causing 1,030 Nature damage and applying the Weakened Blows effect.
• Weakened Blows: Demoralizes the target, reducing their physical damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec sec. 
• Fire Elemental Totem: Summons an elemental totem that calls forth a Greater Fire Elemental to rain destruction on the caster's enemies. Lasts 1 min (down from 2). 5 minute cooldown (down from 10).
• Flametongue Weapon: Imbue the Shaman's weapon with fire, increasing magical damage done by 7% (up from 5%). Each hit causes 99 to 305 additional Fire damage, based on the speed of the weapon. Slower weapons cause more fire damage per swing. Lasts 30 minutes.
• Flame Shock: Instantly sears the target with fire, causing 586 Fire damage immediately and 1,320 Fire damage over 24 sec (up from 18).
• Wind Shear: Disrupts the target's concentration with a burst of wind, interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec (up from 2). Also lowers your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you. 12 second cooldown (down from 15).
• New Spell - Ascendance: The Shaman surrenders his physical form to the power of the elements, transforming into a being of raw elemental energy for 15 sec. Required Level 87.
  3 minute cooldown.

• Elemental
  While in the form of a Flame Ascendant, Lava Burst has no cooldown and Chain Lightning is empowered to become Lava Beam.
• Enhancement
  While in the form of an Air Ascendant, auto-attacks and Stormstrike deal pure Nature damage and have a 30-yard range.
• Restoration
  While in the form of a Water Ascendant, all healing done is duplicated and distributed evenly among nearby allies.

Talents:

• Nature's Guardian: Whenever a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, your maximum health is increased by 25% for 10 sec (up from 15%) and your threat level towards the attacker is reduced. 30 second cooldown.
• (Reworked)Ancestral Swiftness: Passively increases spell and melee haste by 5%. When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell.
• Ancestral Guidance cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
• Astral Shift: Seek haven by shifting partially into the elemental planes, reducing damage taken by 50% but also all damage and healing done by 30% (down from 50%), for 6 sec.
• Call of Elements: When activated, immediately finishes the cooldown on all totems. (5 minute cooldown)
• Totemic Restoration: When a totem is replaced or destroyed before its duration expires, its cooldown is reduced in proportion to the lost duration, up to a maximum of 50% of the full cooldown.
• Elemental Mastery: Call upon elemental forces, empowering you with 30% haste for 20 sec. (2 minute cooldown, down from 3 minutes, and no longer makes your next offensive spell instant cast)
• Level 90 Talents: Were moved to 45 and for the moment the new level 90 talents are unknown or simply none existent as of yet.

Elemental:

• Shamanism no longer works with Lava Burst.
• Elemental Fury: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Searing and Magma Totems and your Fire, Frost, and Nature spells by 50% (down from 100%), and removes the cooldown from your Chain Lightning spell.
• Elemental Precision: Grants spell hit rating equal to any Spirit gained from items or effects.

Enhancement:

• Lava Lash: You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 130% (down from 260%) of that weapon's damage to an enemy target and spreading your Flame Shock from the target to up to four enemies within 12 yards. Damage is increased by 40% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue.
• Searing Flames: Your Lava Lash ability will consume your Searing Flames, dealing 20% increased damage for each application on the target. (Tool Tip Correction to include Lava Lash now consumes charges)
• Stormstrike now does 150% weapon damage, down from 225%.

Restoration:

• Mana Tide Totem: Summons a Mana Tide Totem with 10% of the caster's health at the feet of the caster for 16 sec (up from 12). Party and raid members within 40 yards of the totem gain 200% of the caster's Spirit (excluding short-duration Spirit bonuses).
•  Purification: Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 25%, and the healing done by your Water totems by an additional 50%. No longer reduces the casting time of your Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave spells.
• Earth Shield: Protects the target with an earthen shield, increasing the effectiveness of Shaman healing spells on that target by 20%, and causing attacks to heal the shielded target for 1416. This effect can only occur once every few seconds. 9 charges. Lasts 10 min. Earth Shield can only be placed on one target at a time and only one Elemental Shield can be active on a target at a time.
• Riptide: Heals a friendly target for 2,405 and another 6,822 over 18 sec. Your Chain Heal spells are 25% more effective when their primary target is affected by your Riptide. (Riptide is no longer consumed)
• Purify Spirit: Cleanse Spirit now includes Magic effects. (Improved Cleanse Spirit now cooked in)
• Earthliving Weapon: Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases spell healing by 855 and gives each heal a 20% chance to trigger the Earthliving effect on the target, healing an additional 2,348 over 12 sec. Heals on targets below 35% of maximum health will always trigger this effect. Lasts 30 minutes. (Cooked in Blessing of the Eternals, and chance to proc is now 100% up from 80% when under 35% Max HP) 

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.

4.3 Patch Notes (Update)

     Some small updates.

Elemental

• Elemental Fury - Now removes the cooldown from your Chain Lightning spell.
• Thunderstorm - Now also reduces the enemies movement speed by 40% for 5 sec.
• Wind Shear - Now has a 25 sec cooldown, up from 6 sec.
• Call of Flame - No longer increase the duration of Flame Shock on Fire Nova damage.
• Lava Flows - Now increases critical strike damage bonus of Lava Burst by 8/16%, up from 6/12%.
• Reverberation - Now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 10/20 sec. 
• Earthquake - Damage has been increased by roughly 75%. 

• Wind Shear  - Base cooldown has been adjusted to 15 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
• Reverberation -  Now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 5/10 sec, down from 10/20 sec.

Enhancement

• Flametongue Weapon - Now increases magical damage done by 5%, instead of increasing spell damage by 747.
• Lava Lash - Now deals 260% weapon damage, up from 200%.
• Mental Quickness - Your spell power is now equal to 55% of your attack power, and you no longer benefit from other sources of spell power. Also, your instant beneficial, damaging, and totem spells cost 75% less mana.
• Stormstrike - No longer increases Nature damage against the target. Now grants you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, and Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.
• Improved Lava Lash - Now increases the damage of Lava Lash by 10% for each application of Searing Flames, now also causes your Lava Lash to spread your Flame Shock from the target to up to four enemies within 12 yards.
• Unleashed Rage - Now increases melee attack power by 20% and ranged attack power by 10%

• Unleashed Rage - Tooltip wording has been fixed to include "melee" attack power.
• Maelstrom Weapon - Can now also proc from fully absorbed melee attacks.

Restoration

• Ancestral Healing - Heals you cast increase allies' maximum health by 10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of their health.
• Cleansing Waters - The heal effect can only occur once every 6 seconds.
• Riptide - Healing effect has been increased by 50%, from 3725 to 5585.

• Ancestral Healing - Now reduces physical damage taken by 10%, up from 5%.

Shaman Tier 13 Preview + Set bonus

A preview of the upcoming Shaman Tier 13, enjoy.

  

• Elemental 2P - Elemental Mastery also grants you 2000 mastery rating 15 sec.
• Elemental 4P - Each time Elemental Overload triggers, you gain 250 haste rating for 4 sec, stacking up to 3 times.
•  Enhancement 2P - While you have any stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and healing spells deal 20% more healing or damage.
• Enhancement 4P - Your Feral Spirits have a 45% chance to grant you a charge of Maelstrom Weapon each time they deal damage.
  
• Restoration 2P - After using Mana Tide Totem, the cost of your healing spells are reduced by 25% for 15 sec.
• Restoration 4P - Increases the duration of Spiritwalker's Grace by 5 sec, and you gain 30% haste while Spiritwalker's grace is active.

Patch 4.3 Notes.

    These are a little late but here are the Shaman Patch Notes off the PTR
 

Elemental

• Elemental Fury - now removes the cooldown from your Chain Lightning spell.
• Thunderstorm - now also reduces the enemies movement speed by 40% for 5 sec.
• Wind Shear - now has a 25 sec cooldown, up from 6 sec.
• Call of Flame - no longer increase the duration of Flame Shock on Fire Nova damage.
• Lava Flows - now increases critical strike damage bonus of Lava Burst by 8/16%, up from 6/12%.
• Reverberation - now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 10/20 sec. 
• Earthquake - damage has been increased by roughly 75%.

Enhancement

• Flametongue Weapon - now increases magical damage done by 5%, instead of increasing spell damage by 747.
• Lava Lash - now deals 260% weapon damage, up from 200%.
• Mental Quickness - has been slightly revamped - Your spell power is now equal to 55% of your attack power, and you no longer benefit from other sources of spell power. Also, your instant beneficial, damaging, and totem spells cost 75% less mana.
• Stormstrike - no longer increases Nature damage against the target. Now grants you an additional 25% chance to critically strike that enemy with your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Shield, and Earth Shock spells for 15 sec.
• Improved Lava Lash - now increases the damage of Lava Lash by 10% for each application of Searing Flames, now also causes your Lava Lash to spread your Flame Shock from the target to up to four enemies within 12 yards.
• Unleashed Rage - now increases melee attack power by 20% and ranged attack power by 10%.

Restoration

• Ancestral Healing - got an extra effect - heals you cast increase allies' maximum health by 10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of their health.
• Cleansing Waters - The heal effect can only occur once every 6 seconds.
• Riptide - healing effect has been increased by 50%, from 3725 to 5585. 

Some interesting changes are coming to all the specs, as far as dps goes our aoe has been a topic of interest as far as corrections and blizz has some ideas for us.



We start out with Elementals removal of Chain Lightnings CD and Increased Earthquakes damage by roughly 75% but to balance out the massive damage the removal would bring, they also removed the duration stacking of Flame Shock from Fire Nova damage.


On to Enhancement, we all know by now Enhancement aoe was more or a chore and very lackluster compared to other dps in raids, the ramp-up time it required to be competitive with everyone elses was far to long, making aoe all but useless, some would even go to the point of single targeting in group trash pulls rather then put in the work.
Well Blizz heard your cries and did something about it. they went ahead and added a new feature to Improved Lava Lash by allowing your Lava Lash to spread the targets Flame Shock to up to 4 targets within a 12 yard range, what that means is now our ramp-up time is greatly reduced and allows for maximum aoe.

Now on to Restoration, we have 1 change to a core talent, 1 to a core ability, and a tool-tip addition. First the tool-tip, all it is informing is that the occurrence of  Cleansing waters heal can no longer go off each time a target is cleansed but can only occur once ever 6 secs, basically stating a 6s CD which was already in place but was not noted.

Now on to Ancestral Healing, a new effect this core talent gains is a 10% increase to your healing targets health pool, now as far as it being base health or scaling with gear remains to be seen it will be something I will be testing out and reporting on soon.
And Finally we come to Riptide our sol castable HoT received a healing effect increase, so what that means is our HoT Effect post Riptide will do much more healing, and not the initial heal. So by no means will both these changes rocket us to the top of the meters but will bring a solid buff to aoe damage situations and Main Tank healing.

I'll continue to keep you updated as changes come in.
 

New Lightning Bolt Effect!

Here's a small video clip I made up for you all fresh off the PTR. Coming in Patch 4.3 Blizz finally came to the realization that a Lightning Bolt is not a small ball of light with small sparks flaying off it, so they went ahead and redesigned the effect to give it a more "lightning-y" feel.
kudos to those who catch that.

Enjoy.

Site Changes.

Hey guys were back, first off I'd like to say that I will be making some changes to the site. I will now be covering all 3 specs of the Elemental Master known as the shaman, Enhancement, Elemental, and Restoration. These changes are coming mainly because of the fact that I am no longer only Enhancement, because of Guild situations I was asked to take up Restoration and Elemental Duty's. So instead of continuing on purely on one spec I decided to put more effort into all 3 specs and continue to grow the site. I will try not to neglect any one spec and cover all three to the best of my ability, so sit back relax and enjoy these new and exciting changes.

Patch 4.2 Notes (update)

Ok So first things first, id like to formally apologize for my long absence my personal life became vary hectic and time consuming, giving me vary little time to keep the blog going. Recently I've been able to make available some free time and decided to get back to work on it. So with my first post Im going to present you with "Patch Notes" just singling out the points most imformative to the "Enhancement" spec. Enjoy.

Shaman

• Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.
• Lightning Shield and Water Shield can no longer be dispelled.
• Unleash Elements is now in the Nature school, and thus can no longer be used if a shaman's Nature school has been locked out.
• Talent Specializations
  • Elemental
    • Call of Flame now also causes Fire Nova to add 3/6 seconds to the duration of Flame Shock auras on targets that Fire Nova damages.
  • Enhancement
    • Stormstrike now deals 225% weapon damage, up from 125%.
    • Unleash Wind now deals 175% weapon damage, up from 125%.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (new Prime glyph) allows Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving.
  
  So looking over the notes we can see some nice dps boosts to two of our main single target ability's a 100% boost to "Stormstrike" and a 50% boost to "Unleash Wind" and a vary nice added bonus to a talent that most Enhancement shaman should posses "Call of Flame" giving us some much needed control to our vary busy and high maintenance aoe. The added utility to this talent now allows us to keep a single "Flame Shock" on a target without the need of reapplication after the initial shock so long as you continue to "Flame Shock" other targets and have their fire novas hit targets which have already been shocked prior to the Fire nova.

•  As far as the glyph is concerned I was unsure whether to add it to the post or not, primarily because of two reasons, one being its mainly an elemental glyph and second during a stationary fight is worthless and in a single target fight it does not add a dps increase over anything we currently use as our primary glyphs, Its more of a situational glyph for those fights where movement dampens your dps. For the time being if the spec is played correctly, no one fight come out as being far to movement heavy except maybe Atramedes or Omnitron, I will continue to dig and research information on the new upcoming Firelands fights and perhaps find a fight that could put this glyph to good use. It will never be a glyph to take the place as a permanent primary only a switch in.
  

Class Preview : Cataclysm

Hey guys got a new post for you all today and it doesn't disappoint, its a preview of some the the new changes coming to shaman. I will be posting the changes in full, but will highlight the Enhancement changes.

New Shaman Spells

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave, we're adding another spell to the class's direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent is for the 'new" Healing Wave to be the shaman's go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we're considering for this ability:

* Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.
* Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%.
* Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman's next healing spell by 20%.


Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to adding new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

* Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to mana more than they've had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the Restoration shaman's primary mana-regeneration stat.
* We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.
* Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming 'just in case.") We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.
* Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock's Demonic Pact, so you can't benefit from all of them at once. We're also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.
* We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We're considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.



New Talents and Talent Changes

* Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
* We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.
* Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.
* Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.
* Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.
* Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.
* With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Elemental

* Spell damage
* Spell Crit
* Elemental Overload


Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful 'bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.

Enhancement

* Melee damage
* Melee Haste
* Nature Damage


Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Restoration

* Healing
* Meditation
* Deep Healing


Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target's health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.

In my overlook of the changes I have to say that im excited from whats to come, and im looking forward to these changes. Keep in mind all these changes are not final and are subject to change or removal, but from what I can see if we play our cards right we'll be in for one heck of a ride.

Enhancement Buff.

Heads up Enhancement Shammys we have a Buff incoming.

Upcoming Enhancement buff

 We agree with some of the recent discussion about Enhancement dps. We are going to hotfix a change to the Flurry talent to increase it from 25% to 30% attack speed with 5 ranks.

We also agree that Enhancement may have survivability problems and understand that players don't necessarily feel they can afford the bonus Stamina from the Toughness talent, at least in PvE. We don't have an immediate change to deploy here, but it's something we'd like to fix and a candidate for future patches. 

Video Post

Now I know the new posts have been few and far between but I hope this one helps, now its not a shaman post but its a funny video I happen to run into during my random rummaging on youtube hope you like it. Enjoy.

Btw this is not my video, I take no credit for the creation of this video.

Majin Update: Black Bruise

So our Thursday night raid came around, and there we were face to face with "Festergut" the ugly abomination himself. We charged in with full force and downed the beasty swiftly and forcefully, as we sat there as loot was called and handed out I sat unaware of what the ugly one held in his possession. Moments later to my shock I found my Raid leader Post in raid chat "Black Bruise, Bid", My eyes lit up and scrambled to post my bid, and before I knew it, I come to hear over vent "Last Call, 3, 2, 1, Grats Majin" suddenly I was hit with in game tells of "Grats Majin" "Awesome" ect....

Ok enough of the roleplay "lol", So Thursday came and went and I was fortunate to receive my vary own "Black Bruise". As you can see from the image above this weapon is kind of lacking in stats, but what makes this weapon so special is not its stats but the proc in which it provides its wielder. the rate of this proc is fairly generous, and from early tests on target dummies I've seen a 100-200 dps boost from it selfbuffed, I have not yet had a chance to test this bad boy out on a raid boss, since Thursday happens to be our last raid day of the week, but I will keep you updated come Tuesday.  

Enhance Yourself : "Relic Slot" Totems

Enhance Yourself : "Relic Slot" Totems

Hey guys I'm back and I have a fresh "Enhance Yourself" post for you all today and the focus is on the "Relic Slot", an item slot we share with Druids (Idols), Paladins (Librams), and Death Knights (Sigils) alike. As a shaman I've always liked the idea that we hybrids have had that extra slot in which to receive that extra boost, whether it be to Dps or Healing, it has always been something to call our own.

In this post I'm going to review the two new DPS totems released with patch 3.3.

 

Lets start out with Totem of the Avalanche, as you can see in the image above if you were to compare the two, most would think to grab it without a second guess. By looking at it the bonus to attack power (146 x 3 = 438) is nice from doing nothing more then Stormstrike, I consider this totem a nice upgrade for those doing heroics to entry level ICC raiding, but if end game is your game consider option two.

And here we have "Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice" Blizzards elemental shaman totem if you will, well most would think that at first glance and again are right to do so. But in recent months haste has started to become a key if not the key stat for enhancement shamans in end game raiding because of the benefits it can bring to the table such as faster weapon swings, which equal more white damage, faster maelstrom proc times, shorting GCD time, and much more, but thats for another post /smile for now lets continue with the totem at hand. As you can see the totem grants the player 44 haste per tick stacked to 5 for 30secs (44 x 5 = 220) and the nice thing about it is the proc doesn't occur from "Flame Shocks" initial damage but from its "Periodic Damage" meaning this totem is very low maintenance in an already high maintenance priority line or rotation if you will. With "Flame Shock" by the numbers providing higher dps to enhancement this totem seems to fit the Enhancement bill nicely, and is my choice for end game totem.

Patch 3.3.3

Patch 3.3.3: A Call to Arms

So Patch notes and PTR information has started to stream out little by little, and shaman among other classes are noticing changes, well I'm here to break down all of that we know about these changes so far. Now the patch is not 100% completed yet and I'll continue to keep you all up to date as time goes on, but as far as we know these are the enhancement shaman changes as of today.

Shaman

• Flame Shock: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste 

Enhancement

• Unleashed Rage: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.  

  

Glyphs

• Glyph of Flame Shock - Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Flame Shock periodic damage by 60%.  

Some good changes as we can see so far, flame shock capable of producing critical strikes without the aid of a glyph and is also affected by spell haste to boot is a nice addition. Unleashed Rage now a passive aura instead of having to crit for it to proc is another positive. As far as the new glyph I'm not 100% sold on it yet, I will have to go over the numbers and get back to you all on that, as I said before I'll continue to keep you all up to date.

Enhance Yourself : Battered Hilt.

 

Hey yall, its been awhile since my last post, ive been busy with stuff IRL but im back and got a fresh post for you all.

Now you all may have noticed in trade chat people advertising to sell an item called a Battered Hilt and have wondered what it does and why it happens to sell for so much? Well the answers is a few things, the item opens up a quest chain in which leads to a good amount of gold and upon completion of Quest : A Victory for the Sunreavers (H) / Quest : A Victory for the Silver Covenant (A) will lead to a Epic sword of item level 251. Now you may ask yourself  "A Sword? why would an enhancement shaman like me want that?" well I'm gonna tell you why, blizzard added a special part to this quest allowing players not able to wield swords, to have there own special weapon as well.

Now there are 3 options to choose from but were only gonna review the one that matters to us enhancement shamans, the Cudgel of Furious Justice, at first glance this weapon lacks the look of a weapon your willing to wield, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for in power and stats, with its high dps and slow speed its ideal for enhancement also something to notice is the the haste that is present on this weapon, which is something rare in these days of Icecrown raiding, most weapons you will find either have hit or armor penetration, so haste is a welcome sight. In all this item is something to look for if your building your way to join a top guild, if you can afford to get your hands on one I suggest it, if not try your luck at running heroic Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, or Hall of Reflection. Good Luck and Happy Hunting.     

Enhance YourSelf : Professions

Hey all, Im back and I got a fresh post for you all today.
Today's topic is gonna be all about the Professions! Yup Professions something no max level player should ever be without. Now during your time in major city's you may notice in trade chat a lot of your fellow players posting "LFW" macros displaying there professions and services, this is just one way in which professions can make your time in wow easier. By doing so these players are providing a service in exchange for gold, which is then used for various other things, for the common raider that would be enchants, gems, regents, flask, pots, and BoE (Bind on Equip)Gear, all vital items in which to increase there rolls in raid. But professions are not just there to make you money, they are also there to provide you with above average enchants and buffs to help you reach that next level, Im going to go over them in this
post today.