WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.

There are two major changes coming to shamans in 3.2, one of which is a universal change (the addition of the new totem interface) that will affect all shamans, and the other primarily for one spec, restoration. There are other changes as well, however. Base range of all shock spells is being increased to 25 yards from 20, all shamans will now have approximately 7% more health, and our bread and butter interrupt will no longer be Earth Shock, but the redesigned Wind Shock, now named Wind Shear.

We'll break down the changes after that mean ol' jump.

General changes

First off, low level shamans (specifically ones between 16 and 20) will have access to Ghost Wolf sooner to compensate for the arrival of mounts at level 20. Not a major change if you're not that level, but I half expect some level 19 twinks will be happy.

More dramatically, we have the new totem interface to get ready for. The three pre-configurable 'sets' of totems that you'll be able to drop in one GCD (rather than the current system of each totem using a cooldown) will be Call of the Elements (gained at level 30), Call of the Ancestors comes at level 40 and gives you another four totems to pre-program and drop at once, and the final such set is called Call of the Spirits. Totemic Recall takes the place of Totemic Call and does basically the same exact thing, allowing you to pull up all of your totems at once.

It's hard to oversell how much easier this will make instances for any shaman. No longer will you have to spend up to eight seconds dropping totems for a group while all the other players get to immediately DPS or heal - one keystroke and your previously selected totems will be down. And if a fight requires a lot of motion, you can yank them up and drop them down again with a lot less effort and hassle.

Combined with other changes for all shamans (7% more base health, 5 more yards on shocks, Wind Shear's cooldown not linked to other shocks so that you don't have to worry about using a shock and then not being able to interrupt) and pretty much all shamans are going to have some nice surprises come 3.2. But let's not forget the Restoration revamp.

Restoration restored

First up for Restoration, of course, is the changes to Chain Heal. Not only will each link in the chain jump further (12.5 yards in 3.2) but the amount of healing per jump will now be reduced by 40% rather than the current 50%. This helps restore some group healing luster to the class that was once known for being the best at it back in the dim recesses of prehistory. Technically this change will effect anyone who casts Chain Heal, even an Enhancement shaman who uses it with Maelstrom Weapon procs to help out in five mans from time to time, but it's far more useful and important for our Restoration shamans. However, that's hardly all that Resto is going to see changed in 3.2.

• Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
• Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
• Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
• Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
• Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
• Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
• Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
• Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

We've covered most of these changes before, and the consensus hasn't really changed: these are almost all buffs or tweaks to shaman healing efficiency that should have positive results going into 3.2. The change to Tidal Waves is going to make spamming LHW a little less effective but since the crit boost will help proc Ancestral Awakening it's most likely going to help create more group healing for shamans.

In general, these changes shouldn't make shaman healing strange and alien: if you're healing on a shaman now, you won't suddenly find yourself in a whole new world, you'll just see some sprucing up of what you already know how to do.

And Much Much More

There will be a new five man, of course, and one that can be farmed for Naxx 10 level epics on normal mode as well as run on heroic for gear roughly equivalent to Maly 10/Naxx 25, excepting Frostwyrm of course. There will be more Argent Tournament dailies, and of course the new raids as well. The change to the Emblem system means that it will be easier for you to assemble offspec sets with emblem gear.

More importantly for enhancement shamans, a change to another class (rogues using axes) means that we might see more Enhancement suitable axes in future content, which would be nice for shamans as there's been a dearth of weapon options lately. Sure, letting shamans use swords would have been good for caster/healer shamans as well, but was anyone expecting something that awesome? I know I wasn't.

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WoW's Patch 3.2 ushers in the Crusaders' Coliseum, the Isle of Conquest, flying mounts at 60, and much more. WoW.com has all the patch information your Worgen obsessed mind can handle in WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2!

Tags: patch-3.2, wow-patch-3.2

Filed under: Shaman, Patches, News items