More Shaman beta changes on the horizon
by Matthew Rossi 
Aug 2nd 2008 at 1:30PM
Yet more news from the beta: while not as massive as the revamp to the Death Knight from the last patch, shamans have seen a fair amount of change in the most recent beta patch. The relevant changes are highlighted on Nethaera's post, (and our own Alex Ziebart covered the entire patch) and we shall discuss them after, as always, the jump.No, that jump, down there. Sorry, my bad.
Shaman
- Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
- Nature's Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
- New Talent: Tidal Force- Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
- Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman's total health.
- The range of all "friendly totems" has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
- Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with "Tidal Force".
Well, for starters, this change removes one fo the reasons almost every shaman had to spec into resto at least a little, especially if you were intending to raid. The removal of Totemic Mastery and moving its effect into the base range of every totem is a very good move for freedom in shaman talent specs: you're going to see more elemental points in enhancement shaman's specs and more enhancement in elemental spec. Tidal Force, meanwhile, will have interesting synergy with the new talent Ancestral Awakening, which procs off of a critical heal. So if you really want to ensure that ancestor spirits are going to pop out and heal people, Tidal Force will help you do this.
Stoneclaw Totem's change, frankly, is long overdue and should be applied to all totems.
The Nature's Blessing change seems reasonable enough and is based on the new spell power system, so we'll see how it plays out. The change to Flametongue Weapon puts it in line with the new Flametongue Totem, so it was to be expected: it'll give elemental shamans and resto shamans a solid imbue for soloing and grinding since they're probably not going to want to have to dump the mana for a spell damage totem when they'll have this instead.
I don't think they can be done with shamans... there's no mention of what they're doing in Elemental Combat yet to replace paralysis, so I'll be looking to future patches to find out what's in store for deep elemental. Hopefully we'll see changes further in totem health as well.
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
zinssiel Aug 2nd 2008 1:34PM
I love you, Blizzard.
brittwilson Aug 2nd 2008 1:59PM
"Stoneclaw Totem's change, frankly, is long overdue and should be applied to all totems."
I don't disagree with you very often, but I totally have to here Matt. Obviously it would be variable, but for it not to be unheard of to have a shaman have 12000 health, that would have all totems having 600 hit points, and thats only at current standards, I have no idea what kind of health is going to be flying around in Wrath.
In my opinion, having them exempt from AoE is plenty sufficient, but to have a situation where people are having to fight your totems for a extended length of time is a bit silly.
ringu0 Aug 2nd 2008 2:06PM
You mean, some level 70 out there is incapable to deal 600 dmg in a single blow?
brittwilson Aug 2nd 2008 2:15PM
I know I cant with reliability, without critting, or wasting crusader strike.
And even if you are correct in that no single class cannot hit for less than that at any time, then why change it? if every single class at 70 can one shot a 600 health totem, then why even bother making the change?(Note I'm still talking about the idea of the PvP aspect of this being on all totems, not the Stoneclaw part.)
Earnest Dodge Aug 2nd 2008 2:54PM
Yes, totems being one shot with pet and wand macros the very instant they are put up is certainly reasonable.
brittwilson Aug 2nd 2008 3:07PM
Thats the penalty for picking the shaman class. You can purge my buffs off faster than I can reapply them. Should my buffs get changed so you cant do that? No. Everything has a counter, and yours is that you have totems, that can be killed.
If they were still susceptible to AoE, you would have an argument, but at the fastest, it would take 6 seconds for a mage to get rid of your 4 totems. That sounds comparable to purge spam to me.
ringu0 Aug 2nd 2008 4:10PM
> Everything has a counter, and yours is that you have totems, that can be killed...
...by level 1 unarmed drunken gnome. Tell me more about balance please, I'm all ears.
> it would take 6 seconds for a mage to get rid
> of your 4 totems. That sounds
> comparable to purge spam to me.
Purge: 10% of Base Mana
Wand: 0% of Base Mana
Pet: don't think it even consumes GCD
Tell me more about comparability, too, while we're at it.
But, actually, I see where you're coming from. Paladins were always butt-hurt about shaman purging their class mechanic. Let me just level it for you: in modern WoW 5 classes out of 9 are capable of ruining your class mechanic, and 9/9 are capable of destroying shaman's class mechanic the very moment they roll the character.
ringu0 Aug 2nd 2008 1:59PM
I wonder if they ever take a step to eliminate totem destroying macros.
Kittimm Aug 2nd 2008 2:05PM
"Stoneclaw Totem's change, frankly, is long overdue and should be applied to all totems."
I love my shaman and would gladly accept any buff thrown his way. But PVP-wise, this is a ridiculous statement.
Matthew Rossi Aug 2nd 2008 2:33PM
Why? Name a buff another class has that can be destroyed as trivially as a totem. Grounding? Totem macro, wand, frostbolt away. SoE? Spamstring. GoA? Target, autoattack, go back to whaling on me.
Totems need more survivability. As it is, no class has any difficulty at all removing four totems as fast as I can put them down. It's silly and absurd. The day I can autoattack off a paladin's bubble I'll accept that totems should be so casually destroyed.
The Hammer Aug 2nd 2008 2:49PM
It's more of a case that the totems aren't meant to survive. It's explicitly stated in the class page itself.
http://wow-europe.com/en/info/classes/shaman/index.html
It's about balance and pros and cons. Remove enough cons, and you're left with a class everyone else rightfully complains about. Just as a mage is crappy at taking damage, and a warrior doesn't get any abilities to ease levelling (such as teleports, fast moving spells, or conjuring food), Shamans don't get tough, reliable totems.
PimpyMicPimp Aug 2nd 2008 8:50PM
@ Matt:
Warlock Pets, mostly with Soul Link or Master Demonoligist, are easily wiped out by a melee. True, they do have more than 5 health, but they are killed very easily and once their dead said Warlock loses all PvP relevant bufffs.
I'm not completly ignorant, the two classes I play are a Warlock and a Shaman, but not every totem needs to have oodles of health.
The Hammer Aug 2nd 2008 2:20PM
Yeah. I'm cool with totems not having much health, and in light of the other changes, it seems unnecessary to expect a change.
Earnest Dodge Aug 2nd 2008 2:58PM
You're cool with never getting to use your totems because the instant you put one down it's destroyed by a pet or wand macro?
I realize this doesn't happen much in battlegrounds or low rating arenas, but it happens Every. Single. Time. once you are in 1700+ arenas. Just say goodbye to your totems.
brittwilson Aug 2nd 2008 3:13PM
You cannot spam a totem macro AND either heal or DPS efficiently. For someone to be on you the whole time killing your totems as soon as they drop with no pause or delay means they are not doing something else, which means your team is effectively fighting a team thats got half a teammate.
That isn't a very good example of the problems you claim to have.
Thrashnak Aug 2nd 2008 3:52PM
Yes, you absolutely can. You obviously have no idea how totem stomper macros work if you think pet classes lose much while running them. Fel puppies take out totems and get right back onto their target eating buffs and interrupting casts. The macros are tied to most of their abilites, they can roll their face across the keyboard and the pet will continue to act as if controlled by a player.
brittwilson Aug 2nd 2008 4:13PM
That only applies to 2 classes with pets like that. And even at that, so it kills your totems, you wait for it to back to a target(if that target isn't you obviously), and put them back down. Sure its not perfect, but thats a lot of wasted time having a pet go back and forth. And thats ONLY if you have a pet! You guys are acting like a player looks at you, kills all your totems by blinking, takes your gear away, overheats your CPU, erases your hard drive, and cancels your internet service, leaving you a withered husk of a player, unable to do anything ever again.
Its part of how your class works. Your totems do cool stuff, and its your job to use them when you can and when its going to mean something, just like its my job to try to use my abilities at times when they cannot be canceled out or stolen to be effective. I'm sorry that you cant have totems that have 1000(or more at 80) health, but thats the balance.
You want the game to be as balanced as possible right?
simeon Aug 2nd 2008 5:39PM
IMO: Give shaman totems significantly more health, but give them a cast time.
Leandar Aug 2nd 2008 3:20PM
I think totems should be able to be distroyed but some effort has to e put into doing it, they are just too easy to destroy so are worthless in pvp.
Xiaonag Aug 2nd 2008 3:41PM
You do realise that the change is to STONECLAW totem dont you? And thats the totem he was saying the changes were long overdue for?
Stoneclaw totem is the useless-in-pvp-but-used-to-offtank-in-pve-soloing totem, you know, the one that could do with a little extra health to help out with this?