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.