Shaman Resto Changes and Spirit Wolf Buff

The spirit wolf buff isn’t surprising, every other class with a pet will be scaling in WotLK, it only makes sense that shaman’s should as well. The recent changes to enhancement in combination with the buffed spirit wolves are really bringing the enhancement tree to a level it’s never been at.

All 3 shaman talent specs are just looking great. Blizzard has done a great job balancing each spec accordingly. The one somewhat unknown area for me…at least not 100% known is still restoration. In theory the spec looks fine, but it will be difficult to determine if it will be equally effective in both PvP and PvE situations until level 80.

Riptide and Restoration tree
Riptide probably isn’t going to be a crazy awesome raiding tool *unless* you’re in a fight with a lot of movement, in which case it does its job very well. It is situational, but we actually made a lot of the new spells situational because almost every class already had bread and butter abilities well before LK.

Now, I think it does shine in 5-player dungeons, PvP or in 10-player raids, depending on how many hot-based healers you have. The initial heal could probably be a bit larger. That is something we may change after some more testing.

I know Resto hasn’t gotten as much attention as other shaman specs in this forum, but honeslty we think it’s because you work pretty well. Players have gotten made when I’ve said that before, but particularly in raids, everyone knows what they’re going to get from a Resto (CH and Earth Shield) and I don’t think that is going away.

Spirit Wolves
We might have to lower the healing per damage if the damage goes up a lot with the AP changes. In other words, you might not see a buff to healing and damage.

Spirit Wolves scaling with Attack Power
I said Strength at one point, but they never did scale off of Strength. In fact they never scaled off of anything. They were the same no matter what your level or gear. We fixed that though, and they should scale very well (using AP, not Str). Let us know if that isn’t happening.

Then you’re going to love them next build.

WotLK Enhancement Shaman Changes

Most shamans are going to look at these changes and be screaming “NERFS!!!”, perhaps they are, but I’m not overly concerned with them. The issue here is there were just too many spell damage related talents in the enhancement tree, buffs that were increasing damage output, but augmenting spell damage related talents of enhancement to aggressively.

Overall I think this will be a positive shift for the class, as it further reinforces enhancement as the melee spec. While it is nice to have some synergy between elemental and enhancement, particularly with shocks, it’s important that there is a definite division between the two.

Even though the elemental aspects of enhancement got the nerf stick, a few melee talents were buffed. Including the change the flurry (going to 30%) and dual wield (back to 6%). I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional buffs to pure melee talents in the coming days and weeks to help balance these lavaburst nerfs.

Here are our concerns: Lavaburst makes scaling from spell damage so good that Enhancement shamans were debating wearing Elemental gear. Enhancement shamans were also looking at using caster daggers to maximize procs. Both of these trends would cause us severe item headaches down the road and also don’t fit the kit of the tree.

We’re changing Maestrom Weapon to no longer affect Lavaburst. We are also changing the proc rate to a proc per minute mechanic instead of a chance on hit.

To compensate for lost damage, we are raising Flurry back up to 30% max haste and raising Dual Wield back up to 6% hit.

I don’t expect this news to be popular based on previous receptions to my posts here, but I remain an eternal optimist that you’ll eventually come to realize that we are trying to get all of the classes balanced. Please try to keep that in mind. (source)

Enhancement Wolves Explained

The last numbers I saw, the wolves did fairly nice dps. They do scale their strength, stamina and resistance from yours and inherit your hit. We can make sure nothing broke though.

They are intended to be burst damage, like the elementals. The root breaking is useful and the healing is a little bonus. The taunt will probably always be pretty situational, but the idea was you might be able to save the day sometimes if adds are running amuck.

From a quick glance, it looks like the wolves are not set up to scale the way the elementals are. This is a bug and we can get it fixed. And yes, it should be AP, not Strength. (source)

Pets always showing up in autocast is annoying especially with so many pets now. We’re trying to decide whether to fix it or overhaul the whole autocast system.

WotLK Shaman Changes - Build 8982

More changes from build 8982, this time for the shaman class.

Skills
Elemental Combat

• Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

• Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc …)
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old - 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

• Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn’t increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Seemingly minor changes to the class, but the new stoneclaw totem in particular is very interesting. Having what essentially amounts to a shield totem, should increase the strategic element of totem placement, particularly in arena. If anything else this should make it a bit more difficult for other players to just snipe an entire totem forest in 3 seconds. Though this will all be dependent on the amount of the absorb.

Riptide just looks better and better every time I see it. Now with nearly +300 healing added to it it’s just looking stacked! (as it shoulder considering it’s so deep in the talent tree). A friend of mine who was lucky enough get a beta invite tried out the new talent earlier today, check out his results. Note: he would have had approximately 2500 healing on live with this gear / trinket / earthweapon.

Additionally, earth shield was healing for around 1300 with trinket up, and that’s without the new improved shields talent, which adds another 15%. All in all, restoration is just looking very improved for expansion.