Enhancement shaman - Low blow

Q u o t e:
Yesterday night, I had a new low blow on my enhancement shaman (made me lol more than anything tho).

A friend of mine was in a WC group, and people kept dropping from the group, so I told him "Stay there, I'm going to run you trough". Being level 70... sure was going to be a quick run.

Then, a level 20 shaman in the group sent me a tell

"Hey, what spec are you"

I reply "Enhancement"

He quickly replies "Ok, bye", and disbands from the group

Of course, I lol, as I 1 shot right about everything from the instance... but that got me wondering... Is other player's perceptions of enhancement really that bad... that was pretty much... a low blow heh

First of all, that player was just a complete jerk. Now that I've made myself feel better by stating the obvious, allow me to say a few other things. The effectiveness of the enhancement shaman is certainly no where near as bad as is often perceived. With that being said, however, we not only recognizes that improvements are needed, we're working many of them into patch 2.3.

An example of one helpful adjustment surrounds shamanistic rage, which will also reduces all damage taken by 30% for the duration of the ability (30 seconds), in addition to its current effect. Spirit Weapons will also reduce melee threat by a total of 30% rather than 15%. More improvements should be expected as well.

So, I made this post, we're square for another six months, right? :P

Q u o t e:


If you came around daily we'd freak out less at a blue post, btw.

But things to note:

30% instead of the rumored 20%? Great to hear.

Still going to be 2.3 and not pushed back to 2.4 also like rumored? Further joy.

Actually, take that back. Go be a groundhog/hermit provided you're actively working on this!

It is going into 2.3, so don't worry about the rumors. I'll do my best to have a more active presence here. I've honestly been reading these boards extremely actively for quite some time now. If you're skeptical, no need to flame -- as it accomplishes little to nothing. I'm promising to do my best, despite many limitations and obstacles.

Q u o t e:


Will spirit weapons work with yellow damage as well?

I am going to be honest with you all, and say something that will likely result in a great deal of argument. Over the last several weeks I've had the numerous claims of spirit weapons threat reduction only affecting white damage tested extensively. According to our tests, it does add 15% threat reduction to white damage, in addition to damage dealt by stormstrike and windfury procs.

If you have information that proves otherwise, please create a new post and I'll make sure it's looked into further. Lets please keep this thread on topic, however.

Q u o t e:
Indeed, and i would like to know, if able if there are any plans beyond what we saw via screen shots at blizzcon.

Dont need to go into specifics, as i doubt you could, but i would just like to know if this is just a precursor to further changes in said 2.3 patch.

Are you asking if we're addressing more changes to the enchantment shaman in patch 2.3 than we mentioned was BlizzCon? Sorry, your question probably doesn't need clarification but I've not slept much lately.

Q u o t e:
When you say that you are working many of them into patch 2.3, do you mean there are more to follow?

And on that note, is the class as a whole going to receive any changes, or just enhancement shaman?

There will be changes that benfefit the elemental and restoration shaman as well. And yes, more enchancement improvements are absolutely going into patch 2.3.

Q u o t e:


that might be your quota, but we would appreciate it a little more often. :)

Yeah, I just figure I'll insult myself to beat you all to the punch. :P

Q u o t e:
Are they going to make 2H axes and maces trainable in 2.3 for all shaman?(Resto and elemental included?)

Yes, all shaman will be able to equip 2-handed axes and maces (proper training required of course), without having to spend a talent. In it's place, a seemingly solid replacement talent called elemental focus. Basically, what it offers is this -- after landing a melee critical strike, you'll enter a "focused state". The focused state will reduce the mana cost of your next shock spell by 60%.

Q u o t e:
Sooo....i guess this means bus shock is dead now.

Trust me, I've been doing this for a considerable amount of time. Many players will continue to hate me, and those shaman who vomit in their mouths by the mention of my name alone will continue to want to bus shock me. :P

We've received letters of players who refuse to use my npc for any purpose, and much much worse.... :P

Q u o t e:


Oh, just thought of this, does that mean we will need to level the skill again?
IE ive been enhancement along time and have high skills, will i have to buy it and train it up or will it be like when we respec, its still there just not active till purchased ???

I can follow up on this for you. But if my memory serves me right, you will not have to skill-up again. Please don't hold me to that, I'm only going on memory. :)

Q u o t e:



Do you know if the mental quickness change made it through testing intact?


Edit : to the post above me, thats pretty sad that people would go to those lengths. But on the bright side, you're still here :).

Can you (or someone) remind me of the specifics of the mental quickness change? I find it's a bad idea to post on issues when I am clueless. lolzer

Q u o t e:
Well, thanks for your participation in the discussion Eyonix :)

The changes you mentionned are pretty nice
-New shamanistic rage (-30% dmg taken)
-New spirit weapons (-30% threat instead of 15)
-mental quickness adding spell dmg / healing
-Frostshock no longer on DR

I think it should help quite a bit right there, but what worries in me most in the long run is not how well we perform (we that we can perform well, given some situations), and do play an important support role, but more to the perspective other players have of shamans. I mean, I don't know about the others, but I beleive I play my shaman pretty well, regardless of spec (I'm switched back to enhancement lately, don't judge on my gear, my elemental gear is far better)... Yet, as elemental & enhancement, other than my guild, I have not received a single tell asking me "Hey, do you want to run ............." in months. That's what I hope can change.

I wish other classes when they made groups thought "Hey, let's bring a shaman" instead of asking all the mages on the server, then all warlocks, then all rogues... ending up taking whatever is available :(

I'm not going to lie to you. Perception is a very powerful thing and it will take some time. I've seen perception quickly change in the past, even in cases where perception issues were far worse that we enhancement shaman are currently facing. Lets focus on getting your class/spec up to speed and allow perception to improveme naturally over the course of time.

We we are afterall dealing with the WoW player-base. :P

Q u o t e:


THE HISTORY OF BUS SHOCK!

Phase 1 -

Shaman review was supposed to be in patch 1.9 - however the completely gimp state of paladins got through to the devs and they got their patch in that cycle instead. Since paladins at that point in the game had been nerfed into 3rd rate tanks, lowest dps in the game and crappy healers all anyone wanted them for was blessings and cleanse. So this was reasonable. Shamans were told - wait for 1.10

1.10 patch cycle - Paladin buffs make priests cry - Priests get reviewed instead of Shaman. Shaman told to wait for 1.11, mages told they will be in 1.12

1.11 - Mages throw a conniption about the delay - Mage and shaman reviews are combined into the same review cycle. Eyonix is sent to the Shaman forum to start a suggestions and feedback thread and one of the other Devs does the same for Mages.

Phase 2 -

Eyonix goes to E3 - misses about 5 days of work, then at the end of e3 has a gout? flareup and is out sick for several weeks.

Tseric and Caydiem come into the Shaman forums and say they will be gathering feedback in Eyo's place. "search for 'bite sized' to see some of the threads spawned by these posts"

Review period comes to a close - 1.11 patch hits PTR - it contains Mage buffs, Druid buffs and a wide variety of shaman nerfs. There is exactly 1 non resto shaman buff - the craptastic t6 enhance talent is taken out and replaced with +10% melee damage.
Druids get innervate for free ( Edit : that was their last , top tier talent in the resto tree , ie 30 talent points required to get to it !) . Mages get Evocation for free ( Edit : that used to be tier 5 talent powerhouse in arcane treee, ie 21st talent point ! ). Shaman still have to spec 31 resto for mana-tide (despite Mana tide being trainable, bloodlust and hex being the three most common requests during the review period)

Euro forums have a mild eruption - Euro CM looks into the problem and posts there that the Shaman feedback was apparently never submitted to the developers, and it is too late to do so - the patch is going live as is, and shaman have had thier review.

Cross posted to the US shaman forums - general disbelief and outrage occurs.

Phase 3 -

Eyonix gets back from sick leave and pops into the Shaman forum long enough to say "How do you like your review?"

Pure Hatred explodes (including death threats and the "get hit by a bus" statement, aka BUS SHOCK!

Forum mods spend the next 48hours deleting threads and banning people. Eyonix posts that he will not do anything to help the players because they are not treating him with respect (this seriously happened, search for the blue post archives).

1) This is a fairly accurate representation of things. However, a few things worth mentioning that I felt wouldn't have done any good at the time. Most importantly, your feedback did make it in on time. There was some miscommunication with our other regions and a post was made that indicated something that was in-fact false.

2) Tseric and Caydiem came into the forums and made the message you indicated. However, much feedback had already been gathered at that point and the class design team was also actively reading the shaman boards during that time.

3) Gout really sucks.

4) My post wasn't actually indicating that I would not help players until I received "respect", but rather that I'd not be making many posts (communicating information) until players (as a whole) began posting with some level of respect and reason -- however, the situation was far too agitated at that point.

Q u o t e:
Any word on Elemental changes?

I'll pop in an elemental shaman thread soon and discuss some of the changes.

Q u o t e:



There has never been proof that it hasn't to begin with.

IMO it works fine. Not sure where that rumor came from.


The mele crit talent didn't work with yellow damage at one point but they patched that.

Spirit weapons was never broken.

That is what our testing shows, and like I've said -- I've had extensive testing done. We'll continue to look into it, however and I will also keep my eyes open for additional posts on the matter (ideally containing some evidence to support the claim). Regardless, the additional 15% threat reduction should be quite helpful.

Q u o t e:


Hey E does (Melee) Include SS and WF attacks????

Indeed!

Q u o t e:




It is currently -2/4/6% to instant cast spell cost, the change shown at blizzcon was that it also added 10/20/30% of your attack power to your +dmg/healing.

Okay, right. Sorry guys. I've had quite a bit to keep track of as of late. That change is going into patch 2.3. But instead it will convert from spirit rather than attack power.

J/K =)

It's going in as described in this post.

Q u o t e:


Ok. Does windfury off hand and main hand still share the same cooldown?

Yes. So slower weapons = good. :)

Q u o t e:


1. I think you were better off not mentioning that as that means that the feedback was largely ignored instead of just lost or never received.

2. it was a silly post.

3. really really sucks

4. it was a silly move on your part. Instead of offerring an olive branch you waved it at the community.

It's too complicated of a subject to really elaborate on (and there is much more than you don't realize), and in the past as far as I'm concerned. We can't change the past, we can only learn from it, and do our best to apply it towards making a better future. In any case, lets keep this thread on-topic (though I admit I jumped into that thread). I love when class discussions can be had in this fashion.

Q u o t e:


Yup, got them confused for a second there :)

It's okay, I often get rogues and mages mixed up.

I kid, I kid!

Q u o t e:


The rumor was actually that the bulk of the changes were pushed back to 2.4 and that both shaman and ret paladin's would see some changes in 2.3. Also the leaked protection paladin skills like Blessing of Detterence and Seal of Protection were also pushed back to 2.4 if not later.

Nope, 2.3 locked in already. Good retribution paladin changes coming soon. If you're a paladin reading this thread, please don't get all crazy on me. :P

We'll be updating you with some cool information soon too.

Q u o t e:


Unfortunately my statement is purely based on personal perception and experience, of windfury seemingly causing a proportionately larger amount of threat than when under the effects of salvation. Perhaps it's simply drastic benefit of blessing of salvation, but from my perspective anyway it seems much larger. I've never taken the time to actually isolate windfury procs and test the amount of threat generated with and without spirit weapons, and as you've claim it's been tested by Blizz I'll take your word that it indeed works. Thank you for clearing one of the more prevalent misconceptions on this forum.

No problem. Assuming we don't discover a problem, when the patch hits the public test realms, we will watch closely, and hope you all provide feedback as well when able as to how much the extra 15% threat reduction from spirit weapons helps.

Q u o t e:
Heres a question for a shaman wanna be :(. With all the new changes E , will shamans be more capable in pvp as well as pve?

This is kind of a subjective, since everyone has their own idea of what's needed to be "effective". But yes, some of these changes will help in pvp. Such as the frostshock change (no longer subject to diminishing returns) and even the blood rage improvement - yes, I do realize it can be dispelled. At the same time, however, you've lost nothing when activating the ability and it's not always going to be dispelled, and certainly not always immediately going to be dispelled.

Q u o t e:


But surely it's not intended by a green weapon 20-30 DPS LESS than a faster weapon scales better?

Sorry, can you explain what you mean better. I think I have an idea but want to be sure.

Q u o t e:


So you're fully aware that slow weapons are positively required to be effective, confusing your playerbase by making slow low DPS greens much better than fast high DPS purples.

This is the same issue fixed by normalization for rogues and warriors, which definitively indicates that the devs didn't think that's a good thing. And yet here we have a new patch specifically intended to address shaman issues and your post saying that mechanic is not only not broken, but intended, and followed by a smileyface.

I guess I just don't understand what you guys are going for sometimes.

I realize it can be confusing for some, but those who care to really min-max (or at least really optimize there talents/gear, also take the time to research. Beyond this, I don't totally agree. It really depends on the green and purple.

Q u o t e:
Please look into:
Relics
Quite honestly the current relics are very poor in quality. I believe many of us would be happier to be able to hold thrown/ranged weapons and not be able to use them (simply for the stats). I would even be happy if relics had straight stats similar to ranged weapons (+stam, +crit, etc)

The next problem is lack of choice. There are very few relics in the game. I have yet to see random uncommon or rare one's drop (random stats would be good). The ones we can get from vendors are 1-sided. Badge of Justice- Elemental, Arena Points- Resto. What about adding more for each spec?

Funny you should mention that!

We're adding new relics to support all talent trees in patch 2.3 for Shaman, Paladins and Druids. In addition, (not that this will sweep you off your feet), most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention.

Q u o t e:
I hope those changes (30% threat reduction and 30% damage reduction) aren't the only major changes coming. These look like they'll be major boosts for PvE, but won't help all that much in PvP. Most PvP enhancement shamans take nature's swiftness for an instant cast healing wave, so it seems all this change would do is make PvE spec enhancement shamans more viable in PvP, but wouldn't really help enhancement shamans at all in arenas, or at least not much.

If there are any forthcoming changes for enhancement PvP please let us know as soon as you're aware of them.

I know the thread is long, but try and go through each page. I''ve discussed a variety of changes.

Q u o t e:
Good point some previous poster brought up. What's the chances of seeing the generally considered useless Tanking talents in the enhancement tree replaced? Specifically Shield Block, Anticipation and Toughness. Are there any plans to remove, replace and/or review/change these talents? If Blizz wants to leave them, what justification is there to leave them, and to ever pick them other than as a joke build?

It is very possible that these could change for the future, but more than likely Wrath of the Lich King would be the earliest we'd focus on these talents. I am only speculating mind you. Or rather, more of an educated guess.

Q u o t e:
Another concern is the amount of mp/5 and int we still see on enhance gear (although non shaman-bound gear is often hunter as well). Are the devs, etc. aware of how useless these 2 stats are for raiding PvE shaman? I know a lot of shaman use leather to avoid those stats and pick up the more useful rogue oriented stats (which are also the stats we want).

I've not done an extensive review of the item changes going into 2.3. If there is anything to address this concern, I'll let you know. Regardless though, your point is noted.

Q u o t e:


And on that note, Eyonix, can you find whoever the heck is in charge of the tooltips to actually bring this cooldown into the tooltip description? Part of the problem is that not all players read the forums and are simply ignorant to the cooldown.

While I still stand behind my point on the matter, your suggestion is most certainly worth passing along.

I mean, what's the worst that can happen -- they fire me... Oh, wait. :/

Q u o t e:


Shamanistic rage :)
Blood rage is the warrior's skill

What forum am I in???

Q u o t e:


Wow you guys are lucky. Ret has been utterly mutilated but they are working on you guys at the same pace they are working on us. You even get more of a threat reduction that can stack with salvation...when all we have is salvation (and its not enough). We will put out more threat than a rogue and do 1/3rd of the dps.

I wish I had rolled a shaman sometimes.

Last non-shaman post I make here, but there are some very nice retribution changes coming. You'll be updated soon and ideally very pleased.

The grass can be green on your side too! :P

Q u o t e:
Dear Eyonix,

Was the WF animation intended or it was a mistake ?

As of now i feel like it is a work in progress animation. The size of it might have been increase to make it more noticeble to people around us, so they know we proc (pvp I guess) But having it only black seems a bit plain.

To be very honest, I'm not sure yet. We've been focusing on the higher priority issues since the patch. It's on my follow-up list, however.

Q u o t e:



In competitive arena, enhance shaman seem to be the first focus fire target on their teams. If this change goes through, and shamanistic rage is dispellable, then the only difference this will make in that situation(the same one that makes enhance shaman undesirable in 5v5) is that the opposing team will require, at best, one more dispel or purge to bring the enhance shaman down as fast as they would otherwise.

This leaves an inherent flaw in the Enhance shamans pvp viability.

And really, unless blizzard is giving enhance shaman a charge, I don't see how making this ability undispellable would be overpowered, especially when compared to a warlock's constant soul link and a hunter's undispellable, and the arguably more powerful bestial wrath of BM hunters.


That being said, I will give it an open-minded chance, and I will test it on the PTR and submit feedback through the proper venues.


EDIT : Grammar errors, i'm tired

Okay, sorry everyone I may have made an error. I've only been doing arenas with my shaman recently, and I've been elemental for some tim. The end result is I may have just made a total shammy Noob statement. I'm not at work to verify, as I'm off today. Is shamanistic rage currently dispelable?

Please clarify for me.

Q u o t e:
can i ask that this thread get stickied or another thread compiling of all the information you have posted be made, with a sticky?

there are too many shaman who ask for the answers you have provided on these forums, and unfortunately the thread title for this thread doesn't indicate any of this information being given.

regardless, thanks a lot for all the info.

We'll see how things go. Keep in mind topics such as this that have the blue tag and receive active responses from players are actually more noticable than stickies. My information will go into the Warcraft Weekly for sure. I'll keep an eye on the situation though and be sure information is readily available.

Q u o t e:


Thanks for the reply, but you forgot a [quote] or something in there.

Fixed. Thanks. Sad, after years of using the forums you think I'd have a handle on them...

Q u o t e:
I must say I'm fairly blown away by all the posts from Eyonix in this thread. I quit my horde shaman way back when the shaman 'review' took place. I've had a sour taste in my mouth since then, but the time has come to let bygones be bygones.

Eyonix, you're a good guy and my faith is restored. This thread is very promising; not only since it details future buffs to the class, but more importantly opens up communications between players and Blizzard. I think that's all most players want..is to be recognized.

Now I gotta go start leveling.

Cool, glad to hear. Problems or not, the class is seriously a blast to play. Subjective of course.

Thread capacity increased.

Q u o t e:


The Paladins have seen these posts and are begging for information. Enhancement is getting AP -> spelldamage and 30% threat reduction. Can you please swing by and toss the Paladins a bone if possible.

I gotta say tho, take your fire resist gear, some of them are quite jaded.




Props for this. Note the dispel resistance on Pain Suppression btw.

I've gotten burned enough, natural immunity. :P

Still cry at night sometimes.

Q u o t e:
Eyonix i made a thread for teh elemental/resto changes if you could tell us a bit about them there:)

Cool, going to give you guys attention soon. And don't worry, in this case soon means today. :)

Q u o t e:
Also, can you change the Chain Lightning sound effect to sound more appropriate (IE something not weak)? The warrior Thunderclap SFX doesn't suit the nature of Chain Lighting at all.

How about we give it the ability to shrink orc shoulder pads? :P

Q u o t e:
Wow, glad to see this thread doing so well.


My question is back to gear. I've noticed a lot of the enhancement talents push a build where shocks play a big role yet enchancement gear never has any spell crit on it leaving the shock spells very weak. I was wondering if in the future gear will maybe give up the int spirit and mp/5 and instead give some +spell crit or for enhancement/resto build maybe some +healing.

The change to mental quickness will certainly help with the damage output of shock spells, and the addition of the new talent shamanistic focus will help with the mana cost of each shock. Also, stormstrike allows nature based shocks the ability to do more damage, which will feel even more rewarding once mental quickness has been upgraded.

Concerning itemization, I don't recall too much spi on enhancement gear. Beyond this, shocks are by design, intended to play a role in overall shaman dps, but not be a damage source that you heavily rely upon. Shocks add to the shamans damage, and depending upon which shock you use, potentially provide a secondary effect that could be highly beneficial.

Lastly I could be wrong, but I don't see many enhancement shaman dropping int or mana/5 to stack spell damage/crit so instant cast spells on six second cooldowns have higher damage potential.

Q u o t e:

Any plan on helping with shaman itemization?(Such as weapons, since there's no good offhands pre black temple that aren't crafted or from pvp)

There are itemization improvements in 2.3, just have not reviewed the full list yet. Stay tuned.

Also, can anyone say Zul'Aman? Going to be some good upgrades there. Want to clarify that statement though, I'm not saying there are absolutely good off-hands there, but I do know that our goal was to make great loot that also filled in certain itemization gaps.

Q u o t e:

Why not just add relics and such to the old TK quest line? I remember a post saying it would have rewards... :)

As for the mass MP5 on tier sets, that could easily be converted into something like ignore ac or haste. Mp5 for hunters and shamans is pve is a waste; but then again you could make the same argument for the spirit on shadow priest T6.

I'll post this elsewhere but since you brought it up --

We're adding something better, well, at least in my opinion. Those who completed the attunement process will have access to the title "Champion of the Naaru". Also, the plan is to hard-cap it at 70, meaning you can't go back at 80 and "cheese" the title.

Q u o t e:
Forgot the there again Eyonix ;)

Damn you rogue! :P

Q u o t e:
Oh, and Eyonix, little buddy, think you can get the two piece tier 5 Elemental set bonus changed.

I wonder what you guys were thinking when you made that.

=/

What does it matter to me, I'm still trying to collect my shamans tier 4! !! lolzer

I'll look into it, ya know if you run me through your raid so I can get purplz

Q u o t e:


I'm not sure any enhancement spec'd shaman would every intentional take any of:
- int
- mana/5
- spell dmage
- spell crit

We just don't do it. We care about the secondary effects of shocks far more than we care about the damage. There is actually a reasonable case to never using any non-rank 1 shocks; I don't think we actually go to that degree often but we really care more about secondary effects and not about the damage.

I wasn't referring to seeking out int and mana/5, but they are on many enhancement items, affect the total item budget very little, and do help. My main point was that int and mana/5, in my opinion would be more useful than spell damage/crit.

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LOL. Quoting tags is hard work.

lol -- sorry, I'm just trying to keep up with the posts as best I can. I guess my bml coding has suffered as a result.

Q u o t e:


Soooo that's why you're here. :P

Haha, naw. I'm progressing with the character and having a great deal of fun. I'm a bit behind since I was mostly raiding with my healing priest and also focused on gearing up my boomkin. Work gets hectic at times too, causing me to stay late, making rading as active as I'd like as accesible currently.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about gear, but it honestly isn't the most important thing to me.

Q u o t e:


And I'm still being ignored...

In case you missed it, is there any response to the 36% Windfury Dual Wield proc rate bug? If you don't know what I'm talking about, tell me so I can give you the short version.

Is this the bug that players have tested and theorycrafted which seemingly indicates that windfury when dual wielding procs at 36% rather than 20%?

Q u o t e:


Yes. Which also explains why dual procs were happening in 2.0, and why linking the cooldowns fixed it in 2.1.

I'm not sure what the internal testing results revealed, but I'll follow-up with design and QA when I'm back in the office.

Good discussions here, all. Keep things on topic and try not to argue. Not only will I be following this thread heavily, many others will as well.

PS Elemental Shaman are turning on me.