Monday, June 20, 2011

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
  • Glyphs
    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.


    Wednesday, April 7, 2010

    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. 

    Sunday, March 28, 2010

    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.

    Saturday, March 6, 2010

    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.