[PC] World of Warcraft

Originally Posted by Zio

I know the problem from what you speak off but I think truely that you are over exggerating from the usefullness of them in PVP whatever spec they are. But that's jsut me...

Eh, I'd have to see the changes for myself before I can make a final judgment.

But it's pretty much obvious that when you play a level 70 game with what is effectively level 60 talent trees, you're not gonna be as strong as you were at 60. =\

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Zio

What are you talking about? Everyone's tree is almost the same. I think your just being pessmistic.

Let's look for a moment at the new or changed talents shamans received:

Elemental:

• Unrelenting Storm: 10% of your intellect converted into MP5.
• Elemental Precision: +3% chance to hit, -10% threat on your spells.
• Elemental Shields: -6% chance to be crit. Conflicts with Eye of the Storm, something which previously only the Paladin's Protection tree could boast (and was fixed).
• Lightning Overload: 5% chance to cast another lightning spell at no additional cost. Burst aggro in PVE, unreliable at BEST in PVP. (There have been reports of people going for over 15 minutes without a single proc, to give you an idea of the value of this talent)
• Totem of Wrath: +3% chance to hit and crit to your party, on a totem with 5% HP. Before the addition of +hit, contributed less DPS to a raid than Searing Totem, has not been re-tested since.

Enhancement:

• Spirit Weapons: Adds the parry capability to shamans, and -15% threat on melee attacks.
• Mental Quickness: -6% mana cost on all instant-cast spells.
• Stormstrike: Attacks with both weapons instantly, on a 10 second cooldown. Increases sources of Nature damage by 20%.
• Dual Wielding: Obvious, I should think.
• Dual Wielding Specialization: Increases chance to hit while Dual Wielding by 6%.
• Unleashed Rage: 10% AP to party members and yourself after a crit.
• Shamanistic Rage: Chance on hit to regain mana equal to 15% of your attack power, lasts 30 seconds (has been called Shammervate by beta testers)

Restoration:

• Focused Mind: +15% chance to resist silence and interruption effects.
• Mana Tide Totem: Restores 24% of your party's mana over 12 seconds.
• Nature's Guardian: 50% chance to heal yourself for 10% of your health and reduce threat on the target when damaged by an attack that takes you below 30% health.
• Nature's Blessing: Increases spell damage and healing by 30% of your Intellect.
• Improved Chain Heal: Increases healing done by Chain Heal by 20%.
• Earth Shield: Adds 30% spell interruption resistance, causes melee attacks to heal the target for 270 health. 10 charges. Scales with +healing, stacks with other anti-interruption mechanics (such as Healing Focus in the earlier tree).

Of the new talents we received, the only ones that are of more than questionable or situational use in PVP are in the Restoration tree (Earth Shield, apparently, is amazing). Our Fire Elemental is okay, but runs out of mana insanely quick (as in 10-15 seconds), and our Earth Elemental is questionable at best. Bloodlust hasn't been tested much, but has been confirmed as dispellable. Wrath of Air conflicts with Grounding Totem, and Water Shield is a mana regen spell, which is useless in PVP.

It's not pessimism when you can put two and two together.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I dunno, but you can't deny that shammies aren't going to be as strong as they are in live, especially with the new stamina scaling. =\

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It DOES only work once every few seconds. The only difference between Earth Shield and Lightning Shield is the number of charges and the effect.

Also, it's more of a support spell than anything. It's targetable, so you can cast it on the tank. Surprisingly, all you really need in a 5-man is a competent tank, Earth Shield, and the occasional Chain Heal to be a good healer.

I never thought I'd say this, but Earth Shield is seriously making me reconsider my stance on speccing Restoration.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Zio

Even then it's still not balanced at all especially since there so little ammount of classes who can dispell it.

It is a support spell, with no cooldown and I think it even has rank up where you can go up rank 3 and with a shitload of +healing. I could crit you for 2000 but yet if unlucky you heal for 2000+? That's bullshit.

A few things:

The effect doesn't discriminate based on how much damage you do. Save that 5-point CB + Eviscerate for AFTER the healing effect goes off.

Also, you're really exaggerating there. Beta reports that the MAX it heals for is 500-ish with decked-out healing gear. =\

Priests, Shamans, Warlocks with a Felhunter out (and what warlock not using FD to summon a Succubus to fight off a melee class DOESN'T have a felpup out?), and Warriors with Shield Slam (lol) can dispel it. Mages can steal the buff off you, as well (and immediately get it purged, so it basically counts as a dispel). So... basically around half the classes in the game have the potential to dispel it. Hunters can also silence you once Earth Shield runs out, preventing you from recasting it (but that requires that they don't spec The Beast Within... which even after the nerf to it is utterly stupid). So, that leaves Rogues, Pallies, and Druids with no method of at least COUNTERING Earth Shield.

Also keep in mind that if you get Earth Shield, you more or less sacrifice most of your damage-dealing capacity. No Elemental Mastery. No improved Windfury. No Lightning Mastery. No Stormstrike. No dual-wielding. No Elemental Fury.

Considering the sacrifices in damage you'd take to get Earth Shield, I'd say that the survivability it gives should damn well better be good.

I actually wouldn't mind much of a PVP nerf to Earth Shield if it weren't for the fact that Earth Shield is the ONLY good PVP spec we have in TBC, literally. Elemental can't frontload enough burst damage to overcome the new stamina scaling - in fact, we hit as hard in live as we do in Beta, and we use the same spells, the same playstyle. Nothing at all has changed for Elemental. Enhancement lacks the utility and anti-CC measures in order to get close enough to do any damage. They're basically Warriors with a choice between either an AOE hamstring that can be dispelled with a wand, or a ranged hamstring that falls under diminishing returns, and no charge/intercept.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zio

Oh really? I was hearing it healed for more then 500.

It theoretically COULD. In the same way that Soul Fire can theoretically do 20K damage. You'd need a shitload more +damage (or +healing) gear than is available in the game to have it do that much.

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Second the only nerf I was thinking was 2 min cooldown. Yanno? Maybe even one minute. Yanno? Just something so you just don't spam it.

A 2 minute cooldown on a support spell designed mostly for tank mitigation, with the added bonus of interruption prevention for self-buffing and caster-buffing. You're thinking just PVP. A 2-minute cooldown would wreck the ability in raids, and it would make the 21-point alternatives (Elemental Fury, especially) more attractive than the 41-point talent.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Zio

It used to do that much with negative resistance. Now it's impossible. I was being told it could due to say having +1000 to heal. I think someone in the test realm had all the epic enchants and the highest tier set and I think they had around that for the closed beta. It was doing more then 500.

Odd, from what I've heard Tier-3 decked players are hitting for a little over 500, but nowhere near that high an amount.

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The only thing I would say is /cry really. Even if it did ruin it for raids, well too bad I suppose.

Blizzard has, if their latest changes are any indication, been focusing more towards EVERY spec having raid viability for every class. Shadowpriests got mana regen to their party. Feral druids are viable tanks, and can do decent DPS thanks to Mangle. Protection pallies are viable tanks, and Ret pallies allow the other pallies to focus more on their specific task than running up and whap a mob every few seconds. Restoration shamans bring Earth Shield to the table, mainly. Chain Heal is amazing, but it alone doesn't provide viability for resto shammies, and non-resto shammies and other classes can heal almost as well as resto ones. Before, they brought Mana Tide to the table, but now it's not as required with the emphasis on mana regen that other classes are getting. Nerfing Earth Shield would wreck the viability of Resto shamans in raids. You generally don't nerf the class that is weakest (in terms of PVE), as a rule of thumb. =\

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The only reason they did do that ot prevent buffing to everyone was cause you could buff the whole raid, and hey you wouldn't have to heal the rogues anymore. It's still bullshit both PVE and PVP. A one to two minute cooldown would be fair enough cause a lot can change within that minute or two. Hell you know what? You might not even expand all the charges within a min or two in cooldown, hell there will be MORE then one shammy buffing that main tank.

You won't get hit 10 times in two minutes? Maybe if you're AFK in Orgrimmar, no, you wouldn't. =\

Also, "2 shammies buffing lolol" doesn't work in 25-man raids. MAYBE in 40-mans, but in 25-mans you can't afford to have two shammies Resto without sacrificing another class or a different-specced shammy. I also have to wonder where the hell this crap about buffing the whole raid came from. I never made a single mention of that in my post.

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Thus either way a cooldown wouldn't harm you one bit. Besides, I thought all shammies were gimped to going resto anyway.

If that happened, then there will most likely be no shamans on raids period, except for one token enhancement shammy to pick up class-specific loot. Seriously, we're already close to disposable as is. =\

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zio

I mean it won't proc/take all the charges....

I still don't see how you can do anything besides AFK in Orgrimmar and not blow Earth Shield in under 60-90 seconds, especially if you're facing a fast-hitting mob.

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Hmmm, it seems in AQ/ZG 20 we always have 4 hunters and 4 shammies not only for healing but totems + Nature resist.

That's in AQ20/ZG. We're talking about 25-man instances, which according to Blizzard, will be about as hard or harder than Naxxramas.

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I said it cause you could easily if they didn't throw that last part, buff everyone with earth shield and heal very well especially say like rogues.

Read the damn spell description before you mouth off on something you know nothing about.

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And I say again, you think it's major and the shammy is weak. I have yet to see it at all. Shammies do very well both PVE and PVP.

You're talking live, and you're only correct about PVP. I'm talking expansion, where shammies are hovering just above the "Free HK" mark, Elemental is worthless for both PVP and PVE, Enhancement is okay for PVE and terrible for PVP unless you're geared out the nose (ESPECIALLY if you're dual wield), and Resto is once more the best spec for PVE, and PVP too.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Kensaki

Griffin sorry to say but I think we can declare elemental dps on the part of a shaman dead. Closest you'll get is to put totems down in our mage dps overlords parties.

And yes mages will become the new dps kings with the best damage and least punishment for doing so with 3 agro reset abilities. Even lead dev said so. Welcome to World of Magecraft I guess.

Which is what pisses me off more than anything else. We're supposed to be a DPS/healing hybrid according to Blizzard, yet Elemental, even with excellent gear, doesn't even approach half a DPS class's damage, while providing no additional benefits outside of 3% crit/hit that doesn't require a DPS'ing shaman.

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Warhammer is actually starting to look good after looking on TBC as rogue/warrior. >_>

Why do you think I'm rerolling a blood elf rogue and working on my troll warrior more? =\

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It *is* including pretty much everything that changes mechanics in TBC, after all.

And with that, it's time for me to respec Enhancement or Restoration. Good bye, Elemental. 'Twas fun while it lasted.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Zio

Unless your unlucky and it doesn't proc. ._.;

It's a guaranteed proc that has a cooldown of several seconds. Not a chance to proc.

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I DID read the god damn spell, and I know what it says. Why don't you read and think before you mouth off about what you think I know. I said what I said cause if a few shammies could buff the whole raid with that shield. It'd make things a whole lot easier. Such as putting it on the MT and perhaps others classes that don't get heals or aren't suppose to cause they aren't as important. Thus helping them live longer. (Such as, if you put the earth sheild on rogues so when they get hit by AOE or whatever they have a good chance to heal themselves and as well tehy could bandage.)

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Earth Shield - Rank 1
Requires Level 50
600 Mana40 yd range
Instant cast
Protects the target with an earthen shield, giving a 30% chance of ignoring spell interruption when damaged and causing melee attacks to heal the shielded target for 150. This effect can only occur once every few seconds. 10 charges. Lasts 10 min. This shield can only be placed on one target at a time.

Trainable Ranks Listed Below:
Rank 2: 745 Mana, Heals for 205
Rank 3: 900 Mana, Heals for 270

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This shield can only be placed on one target at a time.

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/cry /wrists I see your point but either way I see nothing wrong since most shammies and those who have played the close beta have nothing wrong with anything. Even with Elemental/enhancement/resto. Whatever spec it maybe. People I've known from guilds and etc love BC shammy.

Nothing wrong with Elemental in both PVP and PVE and Enhancement in PVP?

Suuuure. Keep thinking that.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Zio

Hmmm, that 30% must have threw me off, sorry.

That 30% is the addition to spell interruption, not the chance to proc. With this and Healing Focus, you have 100% anti-spell interruption. It's one of the main reasons why Earth Shield is so good.

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Most people love the new enchancement and what it will bring for PVP and PVE.

For PVE? Yes. For PVP? It brings nothing new at all except a cheaper Stormstrike with a shorter cooldown, which is hardly enough to counteract things like Ice Lance or the myriad of other new tools which are introduced in the expansion, while shammies run around with a dispellable Bloodlust and two totems on 20-minute cooldowns which do almost nothing to help the shaman, as well as a mana regen spell that requires to to either eat cleaves or tank the mob (loooool) and ANOTHER air totem that increases damage.

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I know elemental sucks for PVE. The only reason that is, is what you have for spells. The one nature bolt or whatever. And the shocks. That's why elemental sucks for PVE. That's all I know.

The MAIN reason Elemental sucks for PVE is a combination of no longevity like Restoration and now Enhancement has (40 MP5 in decked out gear doesn't cut it, people), and no REASON to be casting those nukes at all, be it a spell damage increase in the party, mana regen, etc. Other issues are a lack of the Nature equivalent of Curse of Elements/Shadows, which itself gives us a handicap of over 10% damage (and that's BEFORE taking into account the spell penetration), and reliance on a single school of magic for dealing damage, which is bad news if there's a nature-resistant (or nature-IMMUNE) mob.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

...NOT that argument again.

We're talking about a game where gigantic anthropomorphic cows turn into oversized kittens, the living dead can turn a troll into a sheep before using mystical and arcane forces to decimate it, immortal elves can summon down the wrath of their moon goddess upon their enemies (lol starshards), and dwarves can fire a bolt-action rifle at speeds that would rival a sub-machine gun.

Realism ain't got no place in this game.

Besides, doesn't a little thing called "balance" usually take place over realism? =\

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Zio

Yes this is true but shamans aren't ones who 'curse' thier enemies. They use nature and the spirits to GUIDE THEM.

Mages don't curse their enemies either but they get 10% damage and spell penetration. How hard would it be to extend Elements to Nature damage (and possibly Shadows to Holy damage?)

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zio

Priest don't really have that much DPS either Griffin. They just can outlast like hell cause of shadow form damage reduction + the life stealing.

They... don't life steal unless you're talking about Vampiric Embrace, which just adds a healing component to their damage spells. And really, the only problem they have with Shadowform is that their spells scale like utter shit. Fixing Mind Flay's mechanics would solve any problems they have in PVE, especially with Vampiric Touch.

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How do mages get 10% of that, talent isn't it?

http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=11722

I'm... rather surprised that you have a warlock and apparently raid with him yet don't know about this. Are you put on Curse of Recklessness duty on your raid, or are you allowed to DPS fully and put on Curse of Agony/Curse of Doom?

EDIT: Sunder Armor got nerfed? When did THIS happen?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Still, if the reports are right, then druids can not only hold aggro better than warriors but do DPS competitive with DPS classes (with one spec, no less), and paladins can just hit RF and Consecrate and do what I'd have trouble doing on my best day with my 27 warrior.

Yeah... warriors need help in BC.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm actually not certain about this. I've searched the forums and I can't see anything about a nerf to Sunder Armor... right now I'm starting to suspect it was a misinterpretation.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You think that's bad? Try being a cat druid.

I have no clue what the fuck Blizzard is thinking making warlocks so ridiculously strong while other classes fall to the wayside. They ALREADY have a fighting chance against EVERY class in the game, so why are they getting MORE tools to help them?

How ya doing, buddy?

The 'lock is strong, and in TBC, their felguard can solo a same-level warrior.

It would be funny if it weren't true.

Oh, and did I mention that Seed of Corruption is essentially the new form of AOE grinding?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Still, the fact remains that the felguard can put out enough DPS so that a warrior focusing SOLELY on the warlock, with the warlock just sitting there taking the hits and not doing ANYTHING, cannot win.

Whether that's an indication of how overpowered warlocks are or how underpowered warriors are, I don't know, but there's something goddamn wrong when a pet can take down its opponent before he takes down the pet's master (which itself is a reasonably strong force even without the pet).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, for single-target tanking, no, they're not terrible.

The problem though is that the new mob pulls are supposedly insane. We're talking like 6 or 7-mob pulls, and warriors don't have the multi-target aggro tools to tank anywhere nearly as effectively as druids (who have Swipe) and paladins (who have Consecration).

Also, according to reports, druids have no problem at all not only generating more multi-target aggro, but can easily rip aggro off of a prot Warrior with Devestate.

Also, from what I've heard, Devestate supposedly generates as much aggro as a single application of Sunder Armor. Which is... pretty much bullshit IMO.

Double Post:
Alright, latest news from the grapevine:

Warlocks finally got nerfed. Soul Link changed to 20% DR (from 30%) and 5% damage buff (from 3%), and Curse of Weakness changed to an attack power reduction, instead of a flat damage reduction. In other words, a PVE buff, and a PVP nerf.

Also, somebody did some theorycrafting... and well, Restoration shamans put out damage over a 5 minute fight that is around 95% of an Elemental shaman's. Here's the thread: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...50895737&sid=1

I think this more than anything highlights the problem with Elemental. Somebody else put it best: "The main restraining factor with Shaman caster DPS is not time, but mana. The Restoration shaman's mana regen would have to be buffed by 50% to even allow time to be a factor, much less Elemental."

So... yeah.

Also, Rogues got some changes. Imp BS and Imp SnD got switched (yay), Cloak of Shadows got reduced to a 1-minute cooldown (!!!), and Blind got reduced to a 3 minute cooldown (!!!), 1.5 with talents (!!!!), but they both got removed from Preparation. Also, Surprise Attacks got changed to affect finishers instead of standard CP generators.

What else... Meh, can't think of much.

Oh, and if there's ANYBODY on Thorium Brotherhood that's 60... please, for the love of god, help me get ONE fucking group through DM!

Seriously... I've tried that place at least 6 times, various branches, and EVERY time we haven't made it past the first boss. Tonight, the problem was a complete FUCKTARD of a druid that had 3.6k mana "in healing gear," and stood there on the SECOND pull and let the tank die before shifting to bear and trying to tank them both at once. -_-;;;

Never group with a 60 Tauren Druid named Zord. Ever.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Neither can I.

Oh, and I got my first purple EVER in Live Strat a few nights ago: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=17740

Won it against a rogue. The really lol-worthy thing though is that I actually won the SECOND drop of that ring. The first had happened literally a minute before, and the tank won THAT roll. That same run, five Righteous Orbs dropped and everybody got one, and I also won a nice helmet. Not a bad run neh? =D

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

While we're on the topic of WoW comics...

http://www.lfgcomic.com/

WINNER. Pure WINNER.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

They got 2 ranged AP for 1 agility.

Of course, he forgot to mention that the hunter loot got re-itemized to have RAP instead of agility, and that hunters got a new formula for crit chance which gives more crit for less agility.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by dagget

Invisible characters, missing items. Welcome to a new patch!

Any addons back available? I felt so naked without at least Titan Panel and Perl.

Ahaha, yeah. Went on a DM run last night (that was my first actual SUCCESS out of over a dozen tries), and in the end I had to boot everybody, relog, and invite everybody because the LFG system glitched out and invited somebody so that they didn't show up. -.-;;;

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Zio

I didn't know hunters got that big of a revamp.

Yup. The only problem is that more or less only their tier sets got re-itemized. So, those wearing things like the Ony pendant lost some AP because of this, but overall, it was either a non-issue or an actual buff to hunters.

FELIPE NO