Upcoming AE DPS Changes

There is definitely a lot of AE (area effect damage) going on in World of Warcraft dungeon runs at the moment. We’re not too worried about it for now – on the contrary it’s nice to see so many people doing the level-up dungeons on the way to level 80. If we find that AE tank + AE damage strategy (with no sheeping, sapping or other crowd control) is the only way people are running heroics and raids, then we’ll probably make some changes, but for now we’re content to just see what happens.

Having said all that, we feel like a few groups are being left out of the AE fun, which makes them of less utility in the 5-player dungeons. We aren’t able to provide a lot of details yet, but here are some upcoming changes we’re making.

Shaman – we are removing the threat component from Fire Nova Totem and Magma Totem and increasing the damage from Magma Totem. This should provide the Elemental shamans in particular with some formidable AE.

Rogue – we are removing the cooldown from Fan of Knives and adjusting the damage calculation slightly to make daggers more useful for this ability.

Druid – we are adding Swipe (Cat) as a baseline ability.

As is the case with most multi-target abilities, these three should be something you want to use when faced with groups, but never against single targets. Fan of Knives and Swipe, for example, don’t grant combo points so they should never be a core part of the rotation against single targets (like most bosses).

These changes will be available in the next minor content update, so keep an eye out for the next PTR push.

Q u o t e:
GC, i would like to ask you to please reconsider the shaman change. As it stands, this is a great change for enh shaman, however as an elemental shaman, if i am standing back 30 + yards nuking, having to stop what im doing, run into a crowd of mobs and toss down a totem (which removes my group/raid buffing totem) is a huge hassle and a rather large loss in both my personal dps and raid dps as well.

Please, reconsider simply adding a new talent in the elemental tree, say a 31 pointer or something such as volcano or earthquake where we can do a targeted and ranged AOE like every other caster class has.

We might still do an AE spell for Elemental as well, but that is further down the road. Let me be clear that shamans are intended to be a totem-using class. I would not expect a lot of changes that let you opt out of using totems. Instead we want to make them fun, easy and worth the effort. We did consider the problem of having to run up to AE, but this is what several specs do already -- mages to use Arcane Explosion for example. We talked to a lot of Elemental shamans who thought it wouldn't be a problem. Also remember than when a mage channels Blizzard, that is all she is doing. Totems do damage in addition to your spells.

Our goal is not to make every spec in the game awesome at AE damage. Our goal is to give you a button you can push to contribute in some way. We think Elemental shamans need to fill this role more than the rogues or Feral druids however, since they tend to compete for slots more against warlocks and mages, who have excellent AE. Our goal is for Elemental to be there as well. This may not get them there 100%, but it's a good improvement over nearly 0% which is where they stand today. :)

As far as whether you can AE too much, as I said, that is something we're keeping an eye on. Even Naxx is considered an entry-level raid and not the kind of place that requires Sunwell (or even Black Temple) -level coordination. For now it's nice to see so many players with the option to run 5-player instances and entry level raids. I would not expect the strategy in Ulduar and Icecrown to be "I'll Swipe while you guys Blizzard. Volley and Hurricane down all the trash."

Q u o t e:
Awesome, but if the damage/energy isn't sufficient, bear form could still easily prove better. That is assuming of course that pulling agro isn't an issue, which is usually the case, since AOE packs are softer hitting targets... not to mention I'm a better tank than any squishy, and the only way I'd pull agro off a prot paladin is by mauling a couple of targets.

I wouldn't expect your tanking form to do better dps than your dps form, but we'll see. If you need the survivability of course, then go Dire Bear by all means. We just didn't want the only option Feral druids had to do AE to be to fight their own threat generation (or use Hurricane).

Q u o t e:
Discussion is hot and heavy on this topic, GC-

Feel free to chime in at any time with some inspired Blizzard wisdom on this subject.

Sadly, moderating this thread has taken all of my time. Someday posters will figure out the connection.

For everyone who responded with intelligent points, even if you don't agree with the changes, you have our thanks.

I realize buffing totems sounds strange to players who are used to loltotems. One of the designers just made the comment that telling Elemental you are buffing damage totems would be like telling Holy priests we are nerfing CoH and you're expected to area heal with Holy Nova now. :)

But the change to Magma Totem in particular is substantial. The base points went from 170 to 370 and the coefficient from 0.67 to 1.0. In our tests, the pulses were doing something like 600 damage. You would be hard-pressed to get that kind of increase out of Totem of Wrath, even considering its benefit to the whole raid.

Yes you have to run up, but we don't think that is too much to ask considering you can still Chain Lightning or whatever while the totem does its thing.

Totems are a core piece of the shaman design. We want to make them work, not remove them from the game.