Maelstrom Weapon, Predatory Instincts tooltips incorrect
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 16th 2008 at 5:00PM
I was browsing through Blizzard's updated patch notes for 3.0.2 today, and noticed that apparently two talents that have been patched in don't do what they say. Under "Known Issues," the notes list that the tooltips for the Enhancement Shaman talent Maelstrom Weapon and the Feral Druid talent Predatory Instincts are incorrect. I'll talk about them one at a time.
As far as Predatory Instincts goes, the patch notes say "The tooltip for Predatory Instincts is currently incorrect. This no longer works on Bear Form or Dire Bear Form and now reduces damage by 10/20/30%." I'm going to assume that it still just works on AoE, instead of reducing all damage taken by 10/20/30%, because that would be insanely OP, as much as I'd enjoy my cat form having plate-level mitigation. And I'm not actually surprised they took bear form off of it, because I'm told bear tanking was simply too good in the beta. It does mean there's no use taking it for tanking, though. More points for Infected Wounds or something, I suppose.
On to Maelstrom Weapon. This is actually something that was changed in the beta a while back, and the tooltip just took some time to get updated: Lava Burst is no longer affected by Maelstrom charges (this won't affect us for now, since the first rank of Lava Burst is at level 75). So it looks like you'll be limited to Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning for your instant-cast damage spells, clearly a PvE nerf. Chase actually sees this as a buff for PvP, though - now you can Flame Shock, crit Lava Burst, and instant Lightning Bolt for some serious burst damage.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Heuer Oct 16th 2008 5:11PM
Um. The problem with MW is not the Lava Burst thing. It says 100% cast time reduction for ranks 1-5.
Redski Oct 16th 2008 5:11PM
Additionally, Maelstrom weapon's ranks appear to be kind of wonky. I am one rank into it, and both the first and second rank display that it has 100% chance to give a 20% faster casting speed that stacks up to five times for 30 seconds.
According to the main site, it should start at 8% and go up from there.
Kastirin Oct 16th 2008 5:12PM
No reason you can't use your maelstrom stacks for a healing spell though, if you're soloing or the healer is struggling on a particular pull..
Mindbasher Oct 16th 2008 5:12PM
What are people using as their shock rotation for max PVE dmg in 3.0.2?
I used to use Flame/Earth until I got tired of missing interrupts. I'd like to know what other Enh Shammies do now.
WF/FT Slow/Slow with a EarthShock/Stormstrike/Lava is what I'm currently dishing
felenn Oct 16th 2008 5:35PM
im new to enhanc i was resto before the patch. so my attack combo might not be correct but this is what im using. i start with stormstike,flameshock,lava, earthshock and i use WF/FT on my weapons. i would love to hear if this sounds good to any other enhanc shammys out there. so far i love enhanc its alot of fun to pvp with.
Prophetik Oct 16th 2008 5:33PM
That's essentially what I'm doing now, yep.
Amaxe Oct 16th 2008 6:04PM
I use SS, ES, LL with MW thrown in whenever I get to 5 stacks
Angus Oct 16th 2008 6:38PM
The current simulated best damage rotation isn't a rotation, it's a priority list.
Instant Lightning Bolt, Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash.
In that order.
If MW has 5 stacks, immediately use LB.
If it is not and SS is off CD, use it.
If neither, Earth Shock
Lava lash if none of the above.
WF/WF with slow/slow is still the best, and don't worry about lava lash proccing WF. If it does, that measn less WF downtime which is more raw DPS than waiting another 2 seconds for a possible main hand proc that might not happen anyway.
Flame shock is completely out since it is not getting the sort of bonus earth shock does. (curse of elements does nature and 20% from SS > just CoE)
ES also gets bigger crits and since anything with crit rating works on spells too you should see a lot more damage there too.
The point is to throw enough spells to get as much uptime as possible with elemental devastation.
Pfooti Oct 16th 2008 5:17PM
Sigh. I guess the 30g for respeccing isn't the end of the world, but I could have used those 3 points elsewhere on my bear. Wish I had known the tooltip was wrong.
dave Oct 16th 2008 5:57PM
i really think maelstrom weapon works very well, at least it's already saved my butt a few times soloing in hellfire (the instant "healing wave" a couple of times). At least in my opinion, we didn't have this before and it's a damn good addition to our arsenal...
anjldust Oct 16th 2008 6:28PM
Predatory Instincts only reduces AoE damage in cat form. It no longer reduces it in bear form because bears became the go-to tank for AoE fights (I've heard Malygos and Sartharion both use AoE and/or cone-based attacks, which this previously affected.)
Graham Oct 16th 2008 6:34PM
Lots of the tooltips are incorrect. Like the Paladin Judgments. They all still say "refer to individual seals for judgment effects."
Also, Seal of the Martyr has a "When judged, this spell does..." at the bottom, which doesn't make sense because of how judgments work now.
ALSO, there is a talent for Pallies that increases the healing bonus from Devotion Aura, but the Devotion aura tooltip itself never mentions healing at all.
G Oct 16th 2008 7:06PM
I noticed at least two grammar and spelling errors on glyphs last night, and a spelling error on one of the new loading page tips. Maybe Blizzard should activate that blue B button for all of us right now..
Kraas Oct 17th 2008 9:08AM
Hold on a minute! I thought that they decided to leave Lava Burst on the list of spells affected by MW! What's the truth here?!
ejunk Oct 17th 2008 11:40AM
so let me get this right, this talent DOES NOT increase melee damage in bear form?
jeez, another respec!
yrs-
Ejunk!
prime Oct 17th 2008 5:58PM
Just to throw it in there, LB and CL arn't the only things affected by MW. You also have your healing spells that become instant too.