Shaman 12803 changes discussion

#0 - Aug. 21, 2010, 1:08 a.m.

Preliminary reports indicate these changes. I'll add more info if I find more when the servers come back up:

Elemental
* Totemic Wrath is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 5.
* Unrelenting Storm is gone.
* Rolling Thunder (Tier 4, 2 pts) *New* - When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning while your Lightning Shield ability is active, you have a 30/60% chance to recover 1% (GC says it will be 2%) of your mana and to generate an additional Lightning Shield charge, up to a maximum of 9 charges.
* Fulmination (Tier 5, 1pt, requires 2 in Rolling Thunder) *New* - When you have more than 3 Lightning Shield charges active, your Earth Shock spell will consume any surplus charges, instantly dealing their total damage to the enemy target.
* Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (not yet implemented).

Enhancement
* Elemental Weapons reworded - Increases the passive bonuses granted by your Flametongue Weapon and Earthliving Weapon abilities by 20/40%, the damage of your extra attacks from Windfury Weapon by 20/40%, and the effectiveness of the ongoing benefits of your Unleash Elements ability by 25/50%.
* Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem (by 15/30%, to 23/26 yards)

edit: Updated with stuff clarified by GC.
edit 2: Updated with more details from the beta server.

Ghostcrawler

#24 - Aug. 21, 2010, 2:15 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Of course, this adds another spell to the list of things that should have increased range. Maybe Elemental Reach can just "increase the range of all your damaging offensive spells to 40 yards" rather than needing the laundry list?

Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (Elemental only).

Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem. (Tier 2 Enhance, so available to all shaman.)

If you're fighting a shaman with a bunch of Lightning orbs and you're worried about damage, just go hit the shaman. That still removes the orbs.

Rolling Thunder is 2% mana return, not 1%.

Ghostcrawler

#121 - Aug. 21, 2010, 7:25 a.m.

You're just going to have to wait to see the tree. You're making a lot of assumptions about how things are laid out. I could try and draw the whole thing in ASCII, but you'll see it soon enough.

Ghostcrawler

#122 - Aug. 21, 2010, 7:28 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I can't see myself picking up earthquake at all now for raiding since it is good only on a limited amount of trash.

I'm trying to think of a non-insulting but still humorous way to suggest that bosses beyond Patchwerk often have an AE component.

Don't get me wrong. I still love old Patch.

Ghostcrawler

#133 - Aug. 21, 2010, 7:39 a.m.

Q u o t e:
There is no difference between "talents that increase potency of buffs" and "talents that increase range of buffs". In both cases you must spend talent points to bring a buff up to par with something other classes offer. In both cases, the baseline buff has something about it that's inferior. So if there's some sort of difference that I'm missing here, please share with the class. No one else can see the difference either.

That's not our definition. If you bring an 8% attack power buff and someone else brings a 10% attack power buff, then the other guy will generally be more desirable. If you have an 8% attack power buff but a talent that brings it up to 2% (and only that), then you have a talent you probably don't want to spend and feel dumb spending whenever the 10% guy isn't around. This is the case with many talents in Lich King, such as Improved Blessing of Might. These are the class of talents that we said we would remove (and then proceeded to do so).

Once you get beyond the buff itself, there are a variety of ways it is produced by a character. Sometimes it's a base spell. Sometimes it's a talent. Sometimes it's a passive aura. Sometimes it's a proc. Sometimes it goes away when the dude dies. Sometimes it lasts for a duration. We're not interested in making all of these parameters identical, and we think the game would suffer from a pervasive sameness were we to do so. We also think most raiders are sensible enough not to disqualify someone because his buff isn't produced in the absolute most convenient way possible. "Our dps would go up 2% if we had 10% attack power instead of 8% attack power" seems like a reasonable sentiment. "Our dps would go up if the range on this buff were longer" seems like you're really down in the weeds of things to actually worry about.

Ghostcrawler

#136 - Aug. 21, 2010, 7:41 a.m.

Q u o t e:
GC we can currently see the tree - are you talking about an internal build? Are there more changes to the flow or even play style of elemental?

Yes, we have made further changes to the tree since the build that you have available now. They are predominantly talent changes and not gameplay changes. Earth Shock was the big one.