Thanks to
MMO-Champion, we've got a fresh new build from the
Cataclysm beta on our hands as of last night. As you might expect, shaman have received a few notable changes; what you might not expect is that the editors of WoW Insider gave me permission to write about them. This isn't the first time in the last month that
a priest has ventured in totem territory, so I'm going to guess the shaman community has been slipping something into the drinking water at Team Priest headquarters. What are you guys up to, exactly?
Anyway, right off, you'll notice some huge buffs to shaman weapon imbues, but they're not actually buffs. The increases in attack power, healing and damage are just adjustments to bring the values up to
Cataclysm levels. Other major highlights include tweaking to the enhancement tree and restoration abilities, which we'll discuss after the jump. There are cookies.
Or maybe I should have said "cookie cutters." Check it out for yourself.
Enhancement
- Windfury Weapon now deals damage equal to two extra attacks with 4,430 extra attack power (up from 1,395 attack power)
- Flametongue Weapon now increases total spell damage by 750, up from 235.
- Primal Wisdom (talent) is gone.
- Primal Wisdom (passive) *New* -- Your melee attacks have a 40% chance to immediately restore 5% of your base mana.
- Unleashed Rage is now a two-rank talent, down from three ranks. Now increases expertise by 4/8 (up from 3/6/9), increases all party and raid members' attack power by 5/10% (up from 4/7/10%)
The most notable change in the enhancement tree is changing the previously mandatory talent Primal Wisdom to a passive class ability. The two free talent points gained from that, plus the one point from the change to Unleashed Rage means enhancement shaman in
Cataclysm won't need to make as many compromises (or choices, depending on how you look at it) regarding their spec anymore. Until now, you only had four talent points to spread out over the four optional talents (i.e.
Improved Shields,
Improved Fire Nova,
Ancestral Swiftness and
Call of Flame from the elemental tree), and now you'll have seven. This will make the spec much more cookie-cutter, a trend that shouldn't be too surprising if you've had your eye on other classes.
Restoration
- Earthliving Weapon now increases healing done by 531, up from 167.
- Healing Wave base healing value reduced by 25%. Mana cost changed to 9% of base mana, up from 6% of base mana.
- Mana Tide Totem no longer restores mana, now increases the spirit of party members within 40 yards by 200%.
As for resto shaman, you can see Healing Wave (your "normal heal") is getting a bit of a nerf by reducing the amount it heals for and raising the mana cost. Currently in beta, shaman have three single-target heals with a cast time:
Healing Surge,
Greater Healing Wave and Healing Wave. Healing Surge (previously
Lesser Healing Wave) is the expensive, fast heal. Greater Healing Wave is the expensive, slow heal. Finally, Healing Wave is the cheap, slow heal. A change to the mana cost isn't really a big deal, because the spell is already really cheap in comparison to its brothers (about one-fifth of Healing Surge in the last build). But the healing value being reduced is quite a shame, since the actual amount of healing it does is considerably lower than the more expensive Healing Surge, while sharing a long cast time with Greater Healing Wave. Lowering the healing amount further just draws attention to the fact that you're really only casting the spell to be mana-efficient.
It's possible the change is just a tweak to the spell's spellpower coefficient, though (in which case a change to the base value would make sense), but right now it's hard to be sure what the motivation is without more information from the developers. (Priests are actually receiving an identical change this build, if you're curious.)
Joe will keep you posted on more details in the future.
The other restoration change to Mana Tide Totem isn't too much to panic about, either. It's likely just to keep with the continuity of healers' using spirit for regen, though I'd expect that it is a slight nerf, since other healers' regen cooldowns have received nerfs in the percentage of mana they return compared to what they did in
Wrath. On the plus side, the change will ensure that Mana Tide Totem remains a tool for healers and not any caster DPS (say, an
arcane mage.)
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's
third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm
expansion.
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Filed under: Shaman, Cataclysm
Sep 18th 2010 at 4:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Crash Sep 18th 2010 4:13PM
Dawn Moore reporting Shaman class changes now? YES PLEASE!
Sean Sep 18th 2010 4:26PM
I think the nerf to Healing Wave will be mostly offset by the increase in healing power from the buff to Earthliving Weapon, so it's just an increase in mana cost which makes sense. I was able to spam endlessly without ever running out of mana at that cost.
I'm pleasantly surprised by the huge buff to Flametongue Weapon. Elemental is getting another huge spellpower increase!
Angus Sep 18th 2010 4:49PM
"able to spam endlessly at that cost."
Which is what the original intent of the healing changes was. It was supposed to be "heal as needed, use huge or fast heal as needed and THOSE will mana drain you if you spam them. ".
We were supposed to be able to never run OOM if we stuck to the standard heal. So good healers used the right tool for the job and paid attention to what was called for. Now, it won't matter how good you are at judging if a big or quick heal is REALLY necessary because even the standard heal is draining you. So instead of healers being able to moderate the drain rate it is a clock. Does DPS have the moxie to beat the healers being OOM or do you let people die to maybe win?
Warlocks, enhance and any other DPS that can self heal win in the second environment.
A DP should never run out of resources doing the simple rotation. A tank should never either. So why is it okay for a healer to run out with the basic heal?
Angus Sep 18th 2010 5:23PM
"I was able to spam endlessly without ever running out of mana at that cost."
That was the original intent of Cata healing.
The point was to have all your spells matter in some manner.
Your basic heal could not run you OOM. But it was only suitable for moderate damage with plenty of time available to cast.
Your quick heal was there to get someone out of the red zone fast. It would become necessary if all you used was the basic heal.
Your slow, heavy hitter was a mana hog, but if someone was not in danger of dropping quickly, AND they need a lot of healing, it is the best heal to get them topped off.
AE heals are, well, AE.
HoTs are involved in here as they can slowly heal people so they fall in between the basic and big heal.
Well, now that is gone and instead of having skill matter for knowing when to switch to one of the other heals, you are in a race against the clock. Who needs a boss enrage timer when you can expect every heal to suck down that blue bar more than anything they have to bring it up? "Do I heal that DPS, or do I save that mana for the tank since I am low? Guess the DPS is on his own."
Is a DPS that sits there with no resources fun? Is it okay to have one that can't do a simple rotation without running out?
Is it okay to have a tank sit there unable to do anything because they ran out of resources while tanking?
If the answer is no to those 2, why are healers special?
I loathe healing. Because every time I hear about how they want to make encounters more exciting/fun/dynamic it tends to translate to "hose the healers somehow" and no one minds. So now they make healing more fun by doing what? Oh, making healers the only role in the game that will have limited resources, will be unable to effectively regain resources, and will have to make decisions based on minutes later.
I forsee any DPS with self-healing to be at an advantage in this setting, because then your healers can sit around on their hands for a little while and get some mana back, or maybe cast a few dozen lightning bolts...
(If this double posts, sorry, I have had a few posts swallowed up recently and I am not sure why.)
Debesun Sep 18th 2010 5:46PM
@Angus
'Which is what the original intent of the healing changes was. It was supposed to be "heal as needed, use huge or fast heal as needed and THOSE will mana drain you if you spam them.'
From what I recall (and I don't believe I have seen someone at Blizzard state that you should NEVER run OOM using a standard heal), it wasn't that you were "supposed to be able to never run OOM" if you used your standard heal, but it was the most efficient of all the heals with the drawback that it is not suited for specific tasks. Fast heal if you need to bring a target up immediately or a big heal to... heal alot. Spamming any 3 spells constantly will run you OOM or overheal. The playstyle they want to ram home in Cata is that healers will have to find efficient uses for heals in respect to their mana.
'So instead of healers being able to moderate the drain rate it is a clock.'
You basically always have, and probably always will have a 'clock' counting down to when you'll be OOM and that timer has always been in the control of the player. It's up to you for what type of heal you use for specific situations which will govern whether you will run OOM in 8 minutes time or 3 minutes time. If you spam fast heals or big heals, you will severely drain your mana pool within a short amount of time. If you spam your 'standard' heal, then you will last longer but the risk of others dieing due to certain situations may increase. If you mix in all 3 in reaction to situations, you'll find a sweet spot in which you'll have enough mana to last you while keeping everyone alive.
'So why is it okay for a healer to run out with the basic heal?'
It's what's going to make healing a bit more interesting. As GC has stated, is a bit more beyond 1 - 2 button healing. Nevermind now having an actual risk of going OOM due to poor choice of actions when it comes to healing.
Personally I've had to heal through BC and WotLK and this direction does interest me, aswell as others that I've talked to ingame that mainly heal. Though I tend to enjoy the 'busy' playstyle (I like playing as feral cat :P )
If you want to read more to understand, try this post from GC
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=21627632910&pageNo=1#6
He has also posted a few 5 or so more times in that thread relating to priest healing, downranking and regen.
Zorbak Sep 18th 2010 5:54PM
The reason they made this change was because the designated middle heal was too good, your big heal is the mana efficient one, the middle heal is your bread and butter heal. The problem was it was too good in most situations.
Mana has to matter to healers otherwise the only other resource Blizzard can make you manage is the global cooldown. If you should play as mana efficiently as you can and your group or raid fails as all healers run out of mana it's the DPS's fault or the tanks fault, either DPS wasn't high enough or the DPS and tanks took too much extra avoidable damage straining the healers mana pool.
Angus Sep 19th 2010 7:47AM
I am well aware of what GC has said. I am also well aware that this quote directly contradicts a quote made months ago that indicated that the efficient heal should not run you OOM.
As it stands, I really don't think it will work. Balancing something like this is way too hard to get right in the space of a couple of months. They "don't care about numbers yet" so the numbers have been way off and the final balancing is still weeks away. Without that numbers pass they aren't going to be able to balance this at all well and we will end up with some overly hard times, which is going to kill the amount of healers.
By the time the do get it right, it won't matter. The damage will be done and the lack of healers will be very apparent.
Jormund Fenris Sep 18th 2010 4:33PM
I wish the normal 25man ICC gear was the 25man hc gear. I really loved the idea of the icy shaman as the pinnacle of Lich King gear. Frosty tusks, spirits trapped in blue, glowing prisons... It just fit more, I think.
Damn, Dwarf shamans really makes my mind wander.
Fletcher Sep 18th 2010 5:26PM
I'll admit that the shaman tier ten is excellently designed, particularly the blue set; unlike other tier ten sets which are hideous (rogues) or just meh (mages, priests). It's also the first set in a while which really feels "shaman" to me, as opposed to "elementalist"; the tier ten is more primal, less civilized.
But for those of us who aren't raiding ICC hardmodes (such as my recently-dinged-80 soon-to-be-dwarven Draenei shaman), we get the green set or nothing (tier nine, particularly Alliance side, is so ugly I'm actually going after the gear from the ICC dungeons instead). So I can't say I feel much sympathy for your plight. :D
I do think that the heroic set feels more dwarven; red and gold are their colours. Earth and fire! The blue set suits Icecrown, and the green set suits resto shaman (I'm thinking Tauren here particularly), but if the red set suits anyone it's dwarves.
azurahealz Sep 18th 2010 4:34PM
The thing about healing wave is that in blues our mana regen is more then it costs to cast the spell.... so while casting healing wave you would get mana back. this is a nono to blizz as they posted a while back saying that a healers basic spell should never be profitable
Skarn Sep 18th 2010 4:46PM
"This will make the spec much more cookie-cutter, a trend that shouldn't be too surprising if you've had your eye on other classes."
Don't you mean LESS cookie-cutter? With more free points, the specs can vary more. More free points = more options, less cookie-cutter.
Dawn Moore Sep 18th 2010 5:00PM
No, I do mean more cookie cutter. Before you were able to get 2 out of 4, now you can get 3 out of 4. That means player talent trees will only vary by one set of talents as opposed to two - unless you're not maxing out the ranks and getting a little of everything.
Skarn Sep 18th 2010 6:40PM
Aaah, I see what you mean. Odd effect, that. It does make sense from that perspective though.
Skarn Sep 18th 2010 6:44PM
Basically, they decreased the mandatory talents without increasing the optional talents making it possible to get most of the optional ones.
(Desire for edit button and all that repetitive jazz.)
alpha5099 Sep 18th 2010 4:50PM
The Mana Tide change puzzles me. Blizzard previously went out of their way to remove Spirit buffs, removing the Priest buff and taking Spirit out of the stats boosted by BoK. This made sense, as a number of classes (Ele shamans, Boomkins, and Spriests) get Hit rating from Spirit now, and Blizzard didn't want anyone's Hit to be dependent or fluctuate with Buffs (the same reason they axed Misery, IFF, and Heroic Presence).
The new Mana Tide seems to fly right in the face of that. If it's going to be tied to Spirit, it shouldn't be a straight increase in Spirit, but perhaps it should increase the effect of Spirit.
This also effectively kills Mana Tide for Enh shamans. We usually don't need the mana regen MT offers, but it's nice to have as an option sometimes. We can still drop it to benefit the group, but we won't get anything out of it, or at least not much.
Also, on the list of the talents Enh shamans need to choose from for their last points, you should probably also include Reverberation, which was a popular choice among some Enh shamans throughout Wrath and will likely remain popular in 'Clysm.
Eregos ftw! Sep 18th 2010 5:06PM
Confusing mana tide and mana spring there buddy
Mana tide is a resto shaman totem that used to restore mana with a 5 min cd, and now increases your spirit by 200%
Mana spring totem is a base totem that you'll still be able to use just as effectively as enh then as resto.
alpha5099 Sep 18th 2010 5:12PM
Oh, yeah, so I am. Well, aside from the part about it's effectiveness for Enh shamans, most of what I said still stands. It's strange to change it to a Spirit buff (even a very temporary one), in light of all the changes Blizzard made to get rid of Spirit buffs.
Boobah Sep 18th 2010 8:40PM
Pretty sure the intention is to remove all static spirit/hit buffs. The totem flies because even in a fairly long fight, it only boosts your boomkin, shadowpriest, and elemental hit for 24 seconds. The five minutes-plus (vast majority) of the fight without the boost to hit is enough that Blizzard, I think, doesn't care (rightly, IMO), especially given the player base's insistence on always being hit-capped.
I suppose you could, I dunno, swap out a hit weapon and/or relic/wand for the duration of the totem... but losing two GCDs would more than likely outweigh any benefit from trading out the hit for (at most) 12 seconds, and more likely less than that.
And then there's the whole thing about it being only party-wide. In 25 mans, it's pretty much going to be all healers in the shaman's group anyway.
Mandarin Sep 18th 2010 4:54PM
Stoneybaby... c'mon mon!
Seriously, any change to enh at this point is welcome.
FoxOfWar Sep 18th 2010 5:21PM
We have been putting some extra... hmm, indregients to your water, yes.
*looks slyly around*
...but you didn't hear it from me.