WotLK Shaman Changes - Build 9038

No big surprises here, earlier this week Ghostcrawler announced the enhancement shaman changes. There’s no question, the change to maelstrom weapon is a nerf, but one which needed to be implemented. The underlying isseue with enhancement was its incredible synergy with several elemental abilities, lava burst namely. This caused many enhancement shamans to consider wearing elemental gear.

Blizzard recognizes this mistake and has begun shifting some of this synergy out and providing additional melee specific buffs to the tree. It may remove some of the overall utility from the enhancement build, but I would expect the damage should remain approximately the same.

Shaman

Elemental

• Improved Fire Nova Totem - Changed to 50/100% chance to reduce movement speed for 2 seconds. (Old 50/10% chance to stun for 2 seconds)

Enhancement

• Flurry - Haste increased by 5% (Now 10/15/20/25/30) (Old 5/10/15/20/25)
• Dual Wield Specialization - Chance to hit while dual wielding doubled (Now 2/4/6%) (Old 1/2/3%)
• Maelstrom Weapon - Chance to reduce cast time changed to 100% for all ranks (Likely a tooltip bug and was changed to PPM)

Death Knight Damage Buffs

Pretty big changes on the Death Knight front today as Blizzard poster, Ghostcrawler, announced a major change to death knight melee and spell critical damage earlier today.

Death knights now do double damage on melee and spell crits. Normally spell crits are only 1.5x damage.
This was an intended change. Death knights derive a lot of damage from spells, but not so much that it made sense to give them a talent to increase spell critical damage. It’s just a passive bonus for them.
We were worried about certain specs not scaling as well with high levels of gear. (source)

I find this change somewhat worrysome, simply because it puts the class on a whole tier ahead of any other caster class. Esspecially considering the amount of damage death knights are capable of doing with their single target, and particuarlly AoE nukes. Of course, this can all be scaled properly with appropriate adjustments to each individual spell.

These adjustments to spell damage may have already started. Death and decay recently received reduction in it’s overall damage output.

Crypt Fever was removed from its damage, though apparently not for everyone?
That shouldn’t have affected the damage for Blood and Frost though. We’ll try to figure out what happened. We had no intention to nerf it. (source)

Wrath of the Lich King Raiding

Blizzard announced some new information today regarding the way that Buffs, Debuffs, and Groups will stack in Wrath of the Lich King.

Source: Blizzard Forums

With the release of upcoming content patch players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.

Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications.

IMPORTANT! Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. It should not be assumed that one class’ current performance relative to others in beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many may feel the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all of those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

There are thirty or so different categories into which buffs and debuffs fit. Here you will find a comprehensive list of the changes made broken down by category and which spells/talents are in that category.

• Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
• Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
• Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
• Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
• Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
• Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
• Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination’s Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
• Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter’s Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
• Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
• Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter’s Chill
• Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
• Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
• Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
• Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
• Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
• Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
• Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
• Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
• Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
• Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
• Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
• Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
• Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
• Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
• Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
• Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
• Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
• Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
• Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
• Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
• Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants spirit and intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the “Increased Spell Power Buff” category are also not all the same potency, as they scale and grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of attack power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the “mana battery” roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

Below you will find a list of the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that list of changes:

• Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Winter’s Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
• Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
• Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
• Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
• Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
• Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
• Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
• Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
• Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
• Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
• Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
• Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
• Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
• Hunter’s Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
• Improved Hunter’s Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
• Sting (Hunter exotic pet - Wasp): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
• Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
• Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
• Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
• Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
• Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
• Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
• Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

Wrath of the Lich King Paladin Talents

Well, we’re finally hearing some of the updated wrath of the lich king paladin talents. Below are a listing of all currently updated talents on the beta client.

Holy

Blessed Hands (20 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Reduces the mana cost and increases the resistance to Dispel effects of all Hand spells by 15/30%

Infusion of Light (35 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 1.25/2.5 secs.

Sacred Cleansing (40 Points Required in Holy, 3 Ranks) - Your Cleanse spell has a 10/20/30% chance to increase the target’s resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% for 10 sec.

Enlightened Judgements (40 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Increases the range of your Judgement spells by 10/20 yards.

Judgements of the Pure (45 Points Required in Holy, 5 Ranks) - Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by 2/4/6/8/10% for 30 secs.

Beacon of Light (50 Points Required in Holy) - The target becomes a Beacon of Light, healing all party or raid members within 10 yards for 2000 over 15 sec.

* Rank 5: Level 80, 2330 mana, 1.5 sec Cast

Protection

Hammer of the Righteous (50 Points Required in Protection) - Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing $s1% of weapon damage as Holy damage. This ability causes high threat.

Retribution

Heart of the Crusader (5 Points Required in Retribution, 5 Ranks) - In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Sanctified Retribution (20 Point Required in Retribution, 1 Rank) - Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 2%.

Sheath of Light (20 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20/40/60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.

Sanctified Wrath (35 Points Required in Retribution, 2 Ranks) - Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 25/50%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30/60 secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25/50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.

Swift Retribution (40 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3%.

The Art of War (40 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Your damaging Crusader Strikes have a 5/10/15% chance to cause your next Judgement spell to cause double damage.

Righteous Vengeance (45 Points Required in Retribution, 5 Ranks) - Increases critical damage bonus of all attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%

Divine Storm (50 Points Required in Retribution) - An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to ${$i-1} enemies within $a1 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling $s2% of the damage caused.

Druid / Warrior vs. Druid / Hunter 2v2 Arena Strategy

This combo is very difficult. You are already at a huge disadvantage because you have lost the mana fight, the hunter will be using viper sting to mana burn your druid. Now for the strat, I would suggest that the warrior immediately charge and start DPSing the hunter. Don’t initially blow your CDs here, instead save them and when the druid pops out of stealth. Eventually he will waste his mana healing through your damage. The mace spec and improved hamstring truly shine here, they enable you to disrupt the hunter casts and ultimately do more damage.

While you are busy sticking to the hunter, the your druid should Keep in his melee range and force the healer to try and out do your DPS. Druid should be in bear form to avoid Drains, eat traps and CC. Bash/Root if you can on the Hunter to keep him in your Warriors striking range. Don’t forget to kill the pet!! Sweeping strikes can sometimes help you achieve this without having to change targets. Try to toss a low rank Faerie Fire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm on the druid to keep him in combat to avoid drinks. Once again, this is a very difficult fight so don’t get down if you find yourselves having trouble with it. Its easily one of the hardest combos you will encounter.

Looking for more strategies? Check out the complete druid / warrior 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of Neurotik

Arena Strategy Guide

My last major category for success in arena is centered on the idea of strategy. Now your team’s class composition will determine your exact strategy, though within each basic strategy lies many sub-categories for change, improvement, adjustments, etc. Trust me, no strategy is ever perfect. There will always be that one particular team or class setup which seems to always beat yours. Changing your strategy to combat against these is what World of Warcraft arena is all about.

The whole basis for the PvP scene of WoW is based on the rock / paper / scissors mechanic. 4 DPS blow up teams beat warrior based balanced teams, balanced caster teams with a paladin beat heavy melee teams, traditional teams with a hunter beat heavy caster based teams, the list goes on, and on, for every class composition and counter class composition.

It’s all about first, under standing what your class composition has to offer. Let’s take for example my shaman’s team. The team’s matrix is elemental shaman, shadow priest, affliction warlock, arms warrior, and restoration druid. A bit of a twist on the traditional 4 DPS lineup, though we’ve found the restoration druid provides even more offensive control and killing power than the paladin did. We basically dominate all warrior teams, be they balanced (2 healer / 3 DPS) or out last style (3 healer / 2 DPS). We simply control the healers too well early on and can hit their warrior with too much damage that he can’t do anything about. In essence, the warrior is dead in the first 30 seconds. Though other 4 DPS teams which have chosen to go with a heavy caster lineup often beat us, simply because our warrior is in the same predicament as the warriors are that play on the traditional style teams that we beat. So we are constantly trying to develop new techniques so we can better defeat these teams. For example, we have our warrior stay in the back and mounted to avoid being first in combat, we know the opposing team is going to go for him first. Learning to perfect our matrix against the combinations that beat us is half the fun, and a sometimes tedious and frustrating process.

Speaking of “frustrating process”, now if you are doing arena you need to just get it through your head, you’re going to get pissed, you’ll be angry at times, that’s simply the nature of any sport or competition. Every game won’t always go as planned, and you need to be prepared to deal with it.

If you lose a game for 20+ points it’s not the end of the world. Don’t start screaming on ventrilo about how bad paladin is or about everything else your teammates screwed up on. Learn to:
1) Discuss what happened in the game
a. What did your team do?
b. What did the opposing team do?
2) Why did it happen?
3) How can your team improve overall?
4) How could you have individually improved?
5) Offer constructive criticism

Trust me, blaming your teammates or screaming after a match is not the right choice. It’ll make other players uncomfortable and possibly angry with you, creating animosity and hostility which may surface at a later point in the season, it’s just not good for the team and it’s best to just keep the BS nonconstructive comments to yourself.

Offering strategy to help each other improve and perfect the overall team’s strategy is of utmost importance and will be an ongoing process regardless of your rating. Determine what your basic strategy is, how you will implement it, then begin understanding where your team’s class composition short comings are and how to make up for them. This in essence in what World of Warcraft PvP, a series of rock, paper, scissors that are prevalent in all levels of PvP.

Hunter Arena Talent Specs

0/43/18 Marksmanship Talent Spec
or
11/41/9 Marksmanship
So why is it that this spec of all the hunter builds remains supreme? Well, in my opinion it’s entirely due to the balanced nature of it. Unlike beast spec, which relies too heavily on the pet, in essence, if your target isn’t dead by the time your beast within is up then you are dead. Marksmanship offers you the ability to rotate a wide variety of shots to virtually permanently lock a caster down.

Additionally the area of effect damage that a single hunter can dish out through multi-shot is great. This brings me to my next point, being that just as you play widely different styles with different specs, you play very different ways in the different brackets, especially as a hunter. In the smaller arenas it is very possible to simply focus your main target while throwing occasional other crowd controlling shots and traps at your opposition to slow their own DPS or heals down. Though in a 5v5 scenario the hunter often functions as a meaning frost trap, where your most important role will rely in properly positioning the frost trap (which shouldn’t be too difficult). Beyond that, many 5v5 games will simply end up as mana battles, which a hunter certainly helps tip the tide here with viper sting.

In any regard, back to the basics of the spec, overall I just feel this is the most balanced of all the specs. You do not have to rely on any major cool downs, simply keep track of your shot rotation, if you are able to use this to effectively lock out casters in addition to providing insane amounts of focus damage and utility via the pet and traps, you and your team will fair very well.

41/20/0 Beast Mastery
BM is the type of spec that requires a very specific team composition. Typically blowup teams or teams with heavy melee damage will take advantage of a BM spec’d hunter.

If your team fall into this category you may find it superior to a traditional marksmanship.