Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Shaman changes
by Rich Maloy 
Feb 20th 2010 at 1:00AM
- Flame Shock: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste.
- Talents:
- Elemental Oath: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.
- Unleashed Rage: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.
Combine these new always-on auras with the raid buff range changes and these talents will provide a nice opening boost in battlegrounds and arenas. At this time it hasn't been said if Elemental Oath and Unleashed Rage will be included in the range changes; we'll have to see how they develop on the PTR.
The most significant change for shamans in this patch is to Flame Shock which will crit and be affected by spell haste.
Glyph of Flame Shock will be the first casualty. I suspect the glyph will be redesigned and come out as something new -- total speculation at this point because changes to the glyph were not listed in the patch notes.
As for the DoT portion being affected by spell haste, this has major implications for both elemental and enhancement shamans. It will most likely turn haste into the go-to stat for enhancement shamans and cement FS as a staple in the rotation. On the elemental side of the house this opens up a big question about the 4-piece tier 10 set bonus which is currently: Your Lava Burst spell increases the duration of your Flame Shock effect on the target by 6 sec.
Let's wait and see how the glyph and tier bonus change on PTR over the coming weeks.
What do you think of the changes for shamans? Haste + DoT FTW or just more math FTL?
Patch 3.3.3 is up on the PTR and as with every new patch there's a flurry of new information. Check out the official patch notes, changes to battlegrounds, new achievements that hint at future content, new models (and more new models) in the game files, things to do with those pesky frozen orbs, UI updates, and perhaps more to come before it hits the live realms.Filed under: Shaman, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brune Feb 20th 2010 1:21AM
My first thought when I saw the flame shock change was that it was primarily to make the T10 4 piece reasonable- Pop BL, Potion of Speed and Engi Gloves and juggle that one OP dot for as long as you could with LvB.
Good change for enh too (I'd just like to say: Haste, I always believed in you), possibly a minor pvp nerf in some situations (basically whenever you want to prevent stealthing).
Squeek Feb 20th 2010 6:20AM
That may be less effective than you think.
The way current dot-tick-reduction skills work currently is that the overall time of the dot is reduced, much like a channeled ability. If, say, haste made each tick half a second faster, then it becomes a 18-(0.5*6)= 15 second dot. You're shortening the overall time of the dot with the more haste you get.
It remains to be seen if the 4pc will add 6 seconds or two ticks, since it's a big difference. In my mind, if they decide not to change it (which would be a dumb move), it will err on the side of two ticks. Why? Because specific timing of dot ticks is impossible to predict. If you add 6 seconds onto the above example, it will tick two more times, but it will last an extra second and do nothing, since it ticks at 2.5 and 5.0 seconds. That doesn't make sense. So, in reality, you're only adding 5 seconds onto the timer.
So, while your t9 2pc added 9 seconds onto the timer, allowing you to do a dot-and-forget on heavy add fights like Putricide and TLK, this one requires focusing solely on one target for the entire duration just for an additional 10 seconds. While this is four ticks instead of three (six at best), it's still fairly lackluster considering that the t9 bonus wasn't all that great in the first place, and was just a 2pc. Also, with our current haste levels, the values I've listed here are actually lower than you'll see in reality. You're looking at about 12-14 seconds on a raid-buffed Flame Shock duration.
What I'm trying to say here is that if you're looking at the 4pc bonus in terms of giving you a free global cooldown since you don't have to refresh flame shock as often, this isn't going to do you any good. Since flame shock is ticking faster, more ticks will go by while you wait for lava burst to come off cooldown.
To summarize, this further reduces the value of the 4pc t10 bonus, especially if you blow all your haste right from the get-go. That methodology would only work if the 4pc bonus was to fully refresh the timer of Flame Shock every time you cast a Lava Burst. Even then, with ICC fights being so heavy on movement and target switching, this ideal situation wouldn't last long. The worst part about all of this is that the timer of Flame Shock becomes variable. Your rotation changes dramatically based on how much haste you had when you applied Flame Shock, and it can easily lead to a situation where you attempt to fire off a Lava Burst that won't crit.
The saddest part is that we're forced to rely on these super-ideal situations just to make our 4pc worthwhile. In my mind, the entire thing needs to be scrapped as it's just a terrible idea. Either make the dot refresh without wasting a tick or just make an entirely new bonus--something good like the bonuses of the other caster classes that already beat us in DPS. Yes, this is a nice DPS increase in terms of Flame Shock itself, but it still doesn't give me any incentive whatsoever to go for the 4pc bonus. Most Elementals weren't going for it before, and even fewer will now.
destinyshand Feb 20th 2010 8:02AM
@squeek
no matter how you decide to look at the flameshock buff, it's still more useful than you think. it makes it so that with enough haste you can effectually fit it into a more regular rotation(ex. FS, LvB, LB, LB, LB, FS, LvB, etc.) without worrying about clipping it which turns out to become a much larger dps boost in the long term without being a mana drain. Admittedly, i'd still like to see the T10 4pc bonus changed to be more like what it was for the 4pc T9, before they nerfed it
Brune Feb 20th 2010 10:47AM
@squeek: No, I think you're in fact adding 6 seconds. You have a 15 second debuff, and next GCD is Lava Burst. You now have a 19-20 second debuff. 8 seconds later you'll add another 6 seconds, giving us roughly a 17 second debuff (including flight times, GCDs, etc). The 5th time this happens (after which you'll have 13 or 14 seconds left), you'll have added in a whole nother tick. Even at 3 LvB you're only having 0.5 "pointless" time.
You could even gear for specific numbers of haste to get the ticks going to give you one just before it drops off, but who knows yet. (Depending on how the amount of haste needed to get another flame shock tick compares to the amount needed for another lightning bolt). I think this is quite likely, considering that you can get an ideal scenario at 5 LvB, and at 3 LvB you lose only 0.5 seconds of flame shock which won't lead to a tick while at 6 LvB you lose 1. At 8 you lose 0.5, and at 10 you get another perfect lot (with these haste numbers).
Writing this off before this has been thoroughly looked at is a bit premature, isn't it?
Giz Feb 21st 2010 4:10AM
Me rikey the passive auras.
I'm a haste fiend myself, and I use the Stoneybaby Sexytime Super Shocking Sequence. Guess I'll be looking for some minor changes to that soon enough. Also means I don't have to carry around extra glyphs for my already crammed bags. Too many gear sets. x_x
alpha5099 Feb 20th 2010 1:59AM
Blizz made some comments about how people should be prepared to gear for the changes when the Cataclysm revamps take place. I suspect that this FS change is mainly to make us switch to Haste, as it'll likely be our go-to stat in Cat. As an AP stacker, I'm sad.
Brune Feb 20th 2010 2:08AM
I think it's really more to give a boost to T10 elemental 4 piece, as well as an overall dps boost to both specs.
A change which (in the grand scheme of things) is this small probably has nothing to do with the cataclysm revamp and is FAR more likely to simply be one small step towards redressing Elementals terrible scaling issues.
Chuie Feb 20th 2010 2:38AM
Errr haste already is the go to stats for enhancement. Think the big change is the enhance that still uses glyph will use something else.
Brune Feb 20th 2010 2:41AM
Haste may well be the go to stat for YOUR enhancement shaman. The only way to find out whether you needed haste or AP was to sim it.
bdaneila Feb 20th 2010 5:40AM
Time to rework the ele shammy gearing then. The 'flame shock tick as crit' has already appears twice, once as 2pc bonus on tier 8, and as a required ele glyph. Baking this into the ability will mean finally being able to dump those two pieces I have been wearinf since forever.
perderedeus Feb 20th 2010 10:29AM
It's curious that they made Flame Shock's DoT crittable by default. That sort of thing was ideal for Armor Set or Glyph bonuses. I wonder if they'll be moving to that formula for other DoTs on other classes as well, as we segue into Cataclysm.
Can we say Serpent Sting's DoT is capable of critting by default? YES PLEASE.
BoomingEchoes Feb 20th 2010 6:39PM
My first thought when I saw the Flame Shock change was a mix between "about time!" and "Well what the hell is going to happen to the glyph then".. Honestly I can see them taking the glyph away all together only because I can't imagine what more they can do to the spell through a glyph.
I can't see them making the glyph extend the spell even more, it already extends the DoT by 6secs, I can see them calling it overkill to extend it further when there are at least 2 set bonus' in play right now (2piece 9 and 4piece 10) that find a way to increase it. I love the dynamics of these changes but its making my head spin.
And I don't really know if it'll be worth it for Enhancement shaman to work Flame shock into their rotations. Sure it'll be a crit-dot but they also sorta get that alread from having Magma Totem down.. Couple that with many working in Fire Nova blasts into their already crazy rotation (so crazy it couldn't really be added to the Enhancement 101 article) it seems like overkill. Enhancement already has too many things to watch while trying to keep their fat out of the fryer and I can see Blizzard realizing that (if not now then at some point later).
It might be worth pointing out also that it MAY make speccing into enhancement a little crazy as I'm sure some are going to try to spec far into Elemental to up the power of Flame Shock with Storm, Earth and Fire. It's something that Blizzard wanted to stop in the past when that train of thought went in the opposite direction with many Elemental and resto shaman speccing deep into Enhancement just to get duel wielding so they could achieve having 2 spell weapons with 2 spellpower enchants and 2 weapon imbues.. Even if Storm, Earth and fire is too far in to make it reasonable it still might be something Blizzard would want to stop before it starts.
As for Elemental Oath, I would say its a long time coming. There was a time when a lot of Raid leaders passed up Elemental Shaman for Balance Druids because Elemental Oath, which acts like Moonkin Aura, wasn't up all the time like Moonkin Aura. It was a dark time for Elemental shaman cause our damage wasn't the greatest and we weren't bringing any unique buffs to the group (we still really don't).. So this change is not only over due but the time for its usefulness is has also already passed... Not saying it isn't welcome, its just really late for it.. Now they just need to close the gaps in the other reasons to bring Moonkin over Elemental (Imp Faerie Fire, the locust swarm debuff) but i dont see that happening.
What worries me though is the part of Elemental Oath that works together with our clearcasting, giving us extra spell damage while clearcasting is up. There's been no word on if that's changing or being taken away and I'd assume it isn't but its still worth stating my worry for it.
BoomingEchoes Feb 20th 2010 6:45PM
Small edit to myself, They wanted to stop elemental and resto from getting mental quickness too and moved that WAY down the tree
Angus Feb 20th 2010 11:32PM
Enhance was already working FS into their rotation on long fights. You put it up, ES twice and once that thing was gone, reapplied. Clipping the DoT at all was a DPS loss, but not doing so ended up as a small DPS increase over just using ES. Micromanaging this meant you got more DPS, so it was a skill thing.
With haste and it critting, and Enhance already seeing some pretty insane spell crit already, this change looks to be big on helping keep ED up pretty much 100% and there is less chance of clipping, so you will see it be better.
Brune Feb 21st 2010 5:06AM
Unfortunately ED is non periodic spell crits only :(
Naku Feb 21st 2010 7:01AM
Hmm not much not much. ok every bit buff is a buff. But ive played enhancement since more than two years and i found more and more hard to pvp. Now im really waiting some buff like goddamn paladins to make shamans op. im not even in the game. i left it because shaman is a joke to pvp. so im rlly looking forward about Cataclysm
Ahlicks Feb 21st 2010 8:09PM
I can see them adapting the FS glyph to increase the damage of the crits potentially or maybe even a SP/Haste boost from the crits? Would be definitely interesting if they did that.
vanye111 Feb 22nd 2010 11:35AM
I saw a reference to the glyph on live causing the FS to do upt to 230% crit damage.
Disincarnate Mar 23rd 2010 6:14PM
60% crit damage bonus.