5% Spell Haste

Q u o t e:
The only questions you have to ask yourself is - "Can I form my raid in enough different ways and still have all the buffs I need?" Everything beyond that is just trying to bind yourself to making everything follow specific rules that apply universally (even when they probably shouldn't), and the devs don't limit themselves that way.

Well said.

It sometimes seems to me that players are obsessed with finding our design rules so they can then look for exceptions or inconsistencies that allow them to argue for buffs for their class. As Strawberry suggests, our goal was not to create a perfect buff / debuff matrix. Our goal was to give you much more flexibility in how you organize your raid comp. We think we’ve succeeded in that to a large degree. However, 3.0 was our first attempt at the great buff overhaul so no doubt the next iteration in 4.0 will feel even better.

Again, nobody should want to bring you just because of your massive raid buff. Nor should you really want that to be the reason people invite you….

Q u o t e:
Because totems were developed for a game that existed years ago, todays WoW is an entirely different game, and we're still stuck with these hindering totems because they're "Iconic" and blizzard doesn't want to get rid of them, and we're gimped because of it.

I don’t know of a kind way to say this, but if you hate totems, then you’re playing the wrong class. We are never, ever going to offer a shaman play style that involves ignoring or marginalizing totems. We have taken steps to improve those areas where totems fall behind, and any shaman that doesn’t see the massive quality of life improvement they got with the Totem Bar is just trying to downplay the positive in order to accentuate the negative.

Q u o t e:
So don't try to sit there and tell me that BL is this massive DPS increase when it isn't. It is a nice damage increase, but it's true strength lies in it's utility to get through a rough phase.

I will add that sometimes players look at a log and see the big spike when Bloodlust happened. But smart players also time their other cooldowns to take advantage of the haste bonus. While Bloodlust is undeniably a dps increase, it’s also the signal for everyone to strive for their massive dps. Some of it is correlation, not causation.

Q u o t e:
By the way, does the spell haste from Boomkin Aura stack with Wrath of Air?

Currently, yes. The complexity here is we have a melee haste, a spell haste and a generic haste buff. One solution we’ve discussed is to consolidate buffs into melee or spell haste. Swift Retribution could be melee and Improved Moonkin Form could be spell. But I am just arm-waving at this point. We might go a different way with it.

Q u o t e:
bloodlust (shaman only massive raid buff and is crucial for hm and heroic content)

demonic pact (only reason to spec demo at least 1 warlock is forced into this for each raid)

are you implying these ill be spread around or removed in cata?

Bloodlust / Heroism we're not just sure about yet. Only one class brings it, but there are three raid-viable specs in that class that all fill different roles, so it's a big difference from an ability that say only an Arms warrior or Frost DK brings. We've considered the drum angle too, but we're not 100% sold on that idea either. It is a very good buff, but overall players give it more credit for their success than it typically accounts for.

Totem of Wrath and Demonic Pact is something we've said before that we want to fix. They should be virtually the same buff (+spell power) and they definitely are not that now. It's a big change though, because currently Elemental shaman don't want to drop Totem of Wrath, unless they think that is the only thing getting them a raid slot, while on the other hand, Demo locks might very well vanish from raiding without their buff. None of this is ideal, but it's also not a trivial fix or we would have done it long ago. Remember it gets even more complicated in the Cataclysm time frame because Intellect (and buffs that provide +Int) also provides spell power.