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[WoD] Elemental Shaman Changes

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The Giant Elemental Shaman Changes Thread

 

This thread is the official Shaman section thread devoted to tracking known changes in Elemental Shaman mechanics, spells, and talents. This is basically a direct derivative of Stoove’s Resto thread, and with his permission, I've directly copied his idea and layout.

 

You can find the Enhancement version of this thread here:

[WoD] Enhancement Shaman Changes

 

And you can find the Restoration version of this thread here:

[WoD] Restoration Shaman Changes

 

Contributions to the guide are welcome, just comment below!

 

The changes are laid out as follows;

 

  1. New Level 100 Talents

  2. Other Talent Changes

  3. General Changes

  4. Levelling Perks (91-99)
  5. Ele Specific Changes

  6. Other Resources

  7. Frequently Asked Questions

 

New Level 100 Talents

 

These are the talents we’ve seen so far, and their current Alpha state with analysis.

 

1. Elemental Fusion

 

Elemental Fusion

 

Passive

 

Your Lava Burst and Lava Lash increase the damage of your next Shock by 50%, stacking up to 2 times.

 

Known Features

  • The application of this talent will be quite passive, as your number one damage dealer will increase your stacks.

  • Will not affect Fulmination

  • Will scale together with Unleash Elements, although Ele will most likely still use Lava Burst instead of Flame Shock to consume to buff.

  • The talent will to scale very strongly with stats, and offer the most consistent pacing on damage.

 

Theorycrafting

  • Hybrys has done some simple theorycrafting re: Elemental Fusion.  You can find it here.
  • If you see any other relevant information, post it below and we may include it here!

 

External Links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

 

2. Storm Elemental Totem

 

Storm Elemental Totem

 

5 min cooldown

 

Summons an Air totem which calls forth a Greater Storm Elemental, which hurls gusts of wind at the caster's enemies. Each gust does damage to the enemy, and then heals allies within 15yds for 100% of the damage dealt, split evenly.

 

Known Features:

  • The elemental does interact with Primal Elementalist to give you a Primal Storm Elemental with a long cooldown single target knock-down called Gale Force, and a short range AoE movement speed buff called Eye of the Storm

  • There’s also a cast/buff that the elemental can do called Call Lightning.  It’s a 3 second cast, with a 100% damage/healing buff attached.  This might be used by both the normal and Primal elemental version.

  • Acts as another Ancestral Guidance-type cooldown.

 

Theorycrafting

  • Hybrys has done some simple theorycrafting re: Storm Elemental Totem.  You can find it here.
  • If you see any other relevant information, post it below and we may include it here!

 

External Links:

 

 

3. Liquid Magma

 

Liquid Magma

 

Instant - 45 sec cooldown

 

Empowers your current Fire totem with the power of lava, causing it to spew globs of lava at random enemies within 40 yards every 0.5 sec for 10 sec. Each glob of lava deals 1 (+ 37.5% of Spell power) Fire damage to all enemies within 4 yards.

 

Known Features

  • Used on cooldown, should be competitive to Shocking Lava in single target damage contribution, and far superior on 2+ targets.

  • It behaves the same as Searing Totem; it won’t scale with haste/mastery, but does scale well with spell power/crit.

 

Theorycrafting

  • Hybrys has done some simple theorycrafting re: Spew Lava.  You can find it here.
  • If you see any other relevant information, post it below and we may include it here!

 

External links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

 

Other Talent Changes

 

Echo of the Elements

 

Echo of the Elements

 

Passive

 

Your spells and abilities have a chance to cause your next short cooldown spell or ability

Elemental
Lava Burst, Frost Shock, or Earthquake

to not incur its cooldown.

 

Known Features

  • Changes the effect from the duplication of a random spell at a low rate, to allowing the cooldown to not start on Lava Burst, Frost Shock, or Earthquake.
  • Does not reset the cooldown, and thus wouldn't interact with/be overwritten by Lava Surge.
  • Will synergize well with Elemental Fusion.

 

Theorycrafting

  • We don't know of anyone who has theorycrafted this talent yet.

 

External links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

Ancestral Guidance

 

Ancestral Guidance

 

120 second cooldown

 

When you deal direct damage or healing for the next 10 sec, 20% of the damage or healing is copied as healing to up to 3 nearby injured party or raid members.

 

Known Features

  • Reduction of healing from 40% damage and 60% healing to 20% damage and 20% healing.
  • Related to the raid cooldown stacking changes; will still be the most effective talent of that row for Ele unless Healing Rain or Healing Stream Totem are dramatically changed.

 

Theorycrafting

  • We don't know of anyone who has theorycrafted this talent yet.

 

External links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

 

Changelog

  • Initial Post - April 12, 2014
  • Added new Echo of the Elements information - April 15, 2014
  • Added new Ancestral Guidance and Spew Lava info - April 19, 2014
  • Changed Echo of the Elements to the latest build - April 25, 2014
  • Updated Spew Lava to the latest numbers - May 22, 2014
  • Updated the L100 talents to their new names - June 13, 2014
  • Update pass for all sections - August 31, 2014
Edited by Hybrys

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General Changes

 

Several huge changes were announced for Shamans in the 6.0 Alpha Patch Notes update The most significant changes are general system changes that are being introduced with WoD.

 

Stat Squish

 

The way items scale with item level is dramatically changing in WoD, with damage and healing seeing dramatic changes in number size, but we should see similar scaling factors.  This applies universally, and creatures' power will change accordingly.

 

Healthpool Increases

 

At the same time, health pools are doubling, after the stat squish. This is intended to be able to remove PvP Player Resilience and make PvP overall less bursty, but it will have consequences for PvE as well.

 

Because of these changes, the amount of health per Stamina has approximately doubled, and the curve on this calculation has been smoothed out as well, so the exact amount varies slightly by level.  

 

Maximum mana has also been approximately doubled to keep pace with the expected health from new Stamina calculations, all consumables have had their healing and mana regeneration values approximately doubled, and all creatures have had their melee damage, spells and abilities doubled as well.

 

Less Intelligent Smart Healing

 

Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range, instead of always picking the most injured target.  This won’t affect Elemental Shamans as much as Resto, the current kings of smart healing, but does significantly tone down the effectiveness of our Ancestral Guidance and, to a lesser extent, Healing Stream Totem.

 

Spell Scaling Changes

 

Most spells will no longer have a base damage/healing, and your spells will be entirely determined by your spell power.  Intellect will also no longer increase your Critical Strike chance.

  • Damage scaling may shift further to spell power and intellect from secondary stats.

  • This will make theorycrafting somewhat simpler.

New Secondary Stats & Balancing

 

Warlords of Draenor also introduces two new secondary stats available on gear.  These are:

  • Versatility - 1% Versatility grants a 1% increase to your damage, healing, and absorbs, and reduces the damage you take by 0.5%. It’s a straightforward, obvious upgrade to your primary role’s performance, but also gives significant boosts to secondary role performance and survivability.  Blizz is saying that it will not be anyones highest throughput stats.
  • Multistrike - A chance to launch two additional attacks after any attack lands, for 30% of the original attacks damage.  This counts on any attack.  Elemental Shamans get a passive called Elemental Overload that increases Multistrike's damage by 35% (to 40.5% of the original attack), offers 20% baseline Multistrike, and increases Multistrike rating from any source by an additional 5%.

 

The Removal of Reforging & No More Misses

 

Blizzard has decided that reforging takes some of the fun out of getting a new item, or the best item for a certain slot.  The removal of that level of gear customization has some big consequences, but we've been assured that each stat will be relatively close in value.

 

That also means they're removing our mechanic for getting to and manipulating our Hit cap.  Well, lucky for us, we're all grown up now, and have no chance to miss with our spells!  This means that we have NO mandatory stat caps, and can be much more flexible in our pre-BiS gearing gearing.

 

Haste Breakpoints

 

Hard Haste Breakpoints are being removed, though they didn’t apply to Ele Shamans before the change.  The soft haste breakpoints, such as an extra Lava Burst during Ascendance, will remain unchanged though.

 

Discussion

 

Discuss what you think about these changes in the comments below, and the best points will be added to the list here!

 

External Links:

 

 

Leveling Perks

 

Levelling perks are modifications which you will gain every two levels, starting with 92 and ending with 98, in lieu of new spells. They add functionality to some of your spells. We're going to split them into two categories -  Indirect Damage Gain, and Utility/QoL perks.

 

Indirect Damage Gain

 

  • Improved Chain Lightning - Your Chain Lightning and Lava Beam increases the damage of your next Earthquake by 40% per target hit by the Chain Lightning or Lava Beam.

  • Improved Lightning Shield - Lightning Shield gains 5 additional maximum charges (to 20 total), and Lava Burst can now trigger Fulmination's effects.

 

Utility or Quality of Life Changes

 

  • Enhanced Unleash - Your Unleash Flame ability also causes you to gain 30% increased movement speed for 4 sec.
  • Improved Reincarnation - Increases the health that you Reincarnate with by an additional 50% to 70% total.

 

Discussion:

 

Discuss what you think about these changes in the comments below, and the best points will be added to the list here!

 

Theorycrafting

  • Hybrys has done some simple theorycrafting re: the new leveling perks.  You can find it here.
  • If you see any other relevant information, post it below and we may include it here!

External Links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

 

Changelog

  • Initial Post - April 12, 2014
  • Added information re: the new Stats, Hits removal, and Reforging - April 15, 2014
  • Added new info re: Improved Chain Lightning.  It now affects Lava Beam. - April 22, 2014
  • Added links and spell info re: Leveling Perks. - April 22, 2014
  • Versatility has been added, and 'Improved TBD' has been fixed to it's new form. - June 13, 2014
  • Added new information regarding Multistrike, including our attunement and baseline contribution. - July 12, 2014
  • Update pass for all sections + Perk changes - August 31, 2014
Edited by Hybrys

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Ele Specific Changes and Additions

 

In addition to the general changes and talent additions, there have been some significant changes to Elemental Shamans in the latest 6.0 Alpha Patch Notes.

 

 

Spells Removed

 

Blizzard has been attempting to remove button bloat, and further simplify our lives by removing archaic and under-used spells.  Fortunately for us, Ele shamans aren’t seeing as significant changes as Resto or Enh.

 

Mastery Redesign

 

In a recent Official Patch Notes update (July 11, 2014), they replaced our Elemental Overload mastery with a new, more passive damage contribution called Molten Earth.

 

Molten Earth causes the Shaman’s damaging spells to incite the earth around to come to their aid for 6 seconds, repeatedly dealing Fire damage to their most recently attacked target.

 

It's current behavior and damage are in a very early state, but in it's current state it ticks every ~2 seconds, reduced by Haste, and it can Crit and can Multistrike.  It's current intended scaling is (Mastery * 5)% Spell Power, with it's base being 32% (and thus 160% Spell Power).

 

Other Changes and Glyphs

 

These are the list of other changes included in the 6.0 patch notes, filtered for those that affect Elemental only.  We're going to split them into three categories - Direct Damage, Indirect Damage, and Utility/QoL perks.

 

Direct Damage

  • Earth Elementals deal 90% less Auto Attack damage.

  • Primal Earth Elemental's Pulverize ability no longer deals damage.

  • Shamanism no longer reduces the cast time of Chain Lightning, but instead now increases the damage of Chain Lightning by 100% (up from 70%).

  • Searing Totem’s damage increased by 65%, to 1 + 12.87% spell power.

  • Unleash Flame no longer deals direct damage, but now increases the damage of the Shaman's next Fire spell by 40% (up from 30%)..

  • Lightning Bolt now scales with 72% of Spell Power (up from 54%)
  • Lava Burst now scales with 96% of Spell Power (up from 73%) and it's interaction with Flame Shock now scales with 33.4% of Spell Power.
  • Elemental Blast now scales with 205% of Spell Power, up from 4,726 + 156.2% of Spell Power.
  • Frost Shock’s damage has been reduced by 50%.
  • Earthquake damage has been increased by 36%.

 

Indirect Damage

 

Utility and Quality of Life

 

 

Discussion:

 

Discuss what you think about these changes in the comments below, and the best points will be added to the list here!

 

Theorycrafting:

  • Ashunera at Wind Lashed covered the LB moving change.  You can check it out here!

  • If you see any other relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

 

External Links:

  • We don’t have any yet!  If you see any relevant information, post it below and we may include it here.

Other Useful Resources

 

Here is a list of other resources which have covered changes in various things so far;

 

Blizzard Entertainment

MMO Champion

BlizzPro

Sentry Totem

Winslashed

It's Dangerous to Go Alone

 

Changelog

  • Initial Post - April 12, 2014
  • Added Wind Lashed post re: LB while moving - April 19, 2014
  • Updated the direct damage changes with some 'wide pass' damage buffs - April 22, 2014
  • Added information re: Lava Burst's Flame Shock interaction change - April 22, 2014
  • Added latest tweaks for Frost Shock, Lightning Shield, and Earthquake - April 23, 2014
  • Added the latest glyph changes and additions - April 25, 2014
  • Added some information re: our new Mastery - July 12, 2014

 

FAQ:

 

I want my blogpost / theorycraft / newscoverage mentioned here! More than happy to add your link! Get in contact with Hybrys via PM, or with Stoove via Twitter or PM. The comments are not the place to ask for it, and comments to this effect will be deleted.

 

Why have you not covered X? Likely because I have missed it. Get in contact with Hybrys via PM, or Stoove via Twitter or PM, or comment below!

 

Why have you not included my point about Y in the summary? The Discussion sections are editorialised or approved by Stoove. It's either because he disagrees strongly, because there isn't room, or because he doesn't think it's important enough. If you disagree, contact him personally - comments below to this effect will be deleted.

 

Why is this a near direct copy from Stoove’s thread?  With his permission, I’ve copied the layout with some of the content, and I will curate this thread.  However, Stoove is the moderator of this forum and topic, and his word is law.

Edited by Hybrys

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Hybrys' Theorycrafting:

 

Elemental Fusion:

 

Elemental Fusion

 

This talent is going to be very dependant on the application of the buff, and if there’s going to be any additional changes to Lava Burst/Lava Surge.

 

Baseline:

Earth Shock does 0 + 36% Spell Power

Flame Shock does 1 + 26.8% Spell Power and applies a DoT that ticks for 16.1% Spell Power every 3 seconds over 30 seconds..

 

So, off the bat, Earth Shock is always worth more than Flame Shock, as long as Flame Shock has more than 5 seconds remaining.  But Flame Shock is more important to maintain the buff on, because it has a significantly higher total damage.

 

The real question will be, does capping Fulmination matter more than immediately spending the 2 stack?  Each stack over 1 of Lightning Shield adds a flat 21.15% spell power damage to Fulmination, and without the T16 set bonus, there’s no real bonus to getting a higher stack.  That being said, you don’t want to waste extra Rolling Thunder procs to overflow as that’s always a waste of damage.  Ultimately, you can almost ignore Fulmination and just spend your stacks, but if you’re capped or near capping you should spend the stacks regardless.

 

End result:

Maintain 2 stack Flame Shock > Maintain Flame Shock > Spend 2 stacks w/ Earth Shock > Spend Earth Shock/Fulmination at 15+ stacks of LS.

 

It’s DPS contribution is very fluid, scaling directly with your Shock damage (and thus Int/SP), but hard to pinpoint.  It should result in a near doubling of Flame Shock damage, which scales well with haste and crit, and a doubling of Earth Shock damage, which scales well with crit.

 

 

Storm Elemental Totem:

 

Storm Elemental Totem

 

It’s sort of a hard thing to theorycraft, but I can always talk about the pros/cons.

 

It’s another cooldown, but you typically can’t stack it with other CDs, because Fire Ele totem fills that role.  On the other hand, it’s also another AG-style cooldown, and with the healing changes it might have great value.  Along with that, it’s power might be pretty good, especially if it’s meant to be competitive with the other l100 talents.

 

I could see it’s applications being fights were mechanics include two separate ‘burn’ or increased damage phases where you spent Fire Ele on the first.  Another application could be a fight requiring multiple phases of burst AoE, or with a fight requiring multiple phases of burst healing.

 

I should hopefully have some more solid numbers on it's ability to DPS soon.

 

Liquid Magma:

 

Liquid Magma

 

By the looks of it, this will be the definitive AoE talent for us and will allow us to put out some real AoE burst, alongside the power of CL + EQ.

 

But what's the value on single target?  When used, it does one attack every .5 seconds for 10 seconds, at a power of 37.5% spell power per hit, and it has a 45 second CD, making it have a 35 second CD.

 

From that, we can estimate approximately 16.66~% (repeating, of course) spell power DPS on a single target, if used exactly on cooldown, and without factoring in Crit (which will be significantly lower in WoD due to the Int change and Ele mechanics still making Crit unfavorable).

 

In it's current state, it would beat Shocking Lava early on, but scale poorly as the expansion progresses.  This is also per target, so it really quickly scales and would be even better for AoE burst phases (Ex: Sha of Pride's Self Reflection).

 

Leveling Perks

 

Most of the changes constitute a direct and clear damage gain, and don’t change the majority of our gameplay.

 

Searing Totem (perk) is currently really undervalued, with an oft-quoted ‘2-3% DPS gain’.  I personally think that it’s completely negligible with the Clearcasting changes from January, but it’s my personal, unproven theory.  With the perk, along with the general change of a 65% damage increase, it makes a lot more sense and becomes significantly more important to maintain.

 

The Chain Lightning perk is an interesting one, with the hope being that Earthquake finally sees some more general usage.  This is a long requested change, and makes the spell more viable in large AoE scenarios.  With the recent 36% Earthquake buff accompanying this change, it's now worth 11.3% SP DPS from the outset.

 

This DPET layout shows how valuable EQ is vs a single target.  Crit/Haste aren't factored into the equation.  Crit should linearly scale all the abilities (in a simple and perfect world of course), and haste affects Earthquake slightly more, because of it's longer cast time.

 

EQ = 113% SP per cast, with a 2.5 sec cast time.

 

EQ DPET layout without haste: (This is an old list, not compensating for the Flametongue change)

 

0 stack: 113% SP / 2.5 = 45.2% SP DPET

1 stack: (113% SP * 1.2) / 2.5 = 54.2% SP DPET

2 stack: (113% SP * 1.4) / 2.5 = 63,3% SP DPET

3 stack: (113% SP * 1.6) / 2.5 = 72.3% SP DPET

4 stack: (113% SP * 1.8) / 2.5 = 81.4% SP DPET

5 stack: (113% SP * 2.0) / 2.5 = 90.4% SP DPET

 

It looks pretty promising to make EQ a little more worthwhile.  Infact, the only reason it's not worthwhile in a single target scenario is because of Mastery and Fulmination!  Early on in gearing, there will be a point where EQ is a gain single target with a certain amount of stacks, but it'll be flexible based on your Mastery.

 

Glossary of terms:

 

LB = Lightning Bolt

LvB = Lava Burst

CL = Chain Lightning

EQ = Earthquake

SP = Spell Power (typically used as Spell Power Damage)

SPD = Spell Power Damage (see above)

DPET = Damage per execute time

Edited by Hybrys

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Just posted a couple of small updates, regarding the new secondary stats, removal of hit and reforging, and the new Echo of the Elements change!

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Updated with the Ancestral Guidance change, as well as the completing my theorycrafting re: Spew Lava.

 

Check it out, and let me know what you think!

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Windlashed has a fantastic writeup about what LB not being castable on the move means for elemental, found here.  Her calculations don't count Frost Shock either, so it's actually even better than that, not to mention the premise already being extremely punishing (even in Pit Lord phases you can stand still for a cast every few seconds).  Speaking of, might be useful to note that the Frost Shock perk makes it a useful filler for moving dps.

 

Also, do we know if Shocking Lava applies to Fulmination damage or just the base Earth Shock hit?  If it's the former, we're going to be one-shotting people (I hit a poor mob the other day for 800k on Fulmination not counting the actual Earth Shock or the multistrike) and that talent is incredible for single-target, giving us a decidedly niche-based talent choice; pick Shocking Lava for ST, Spew Lava for AoE, and Storm Elemental when you need to do more offhealing or want the shenanigans movement aura from PE.  That's probably okay, but feels a bit too prescriptive, and has very serious PvP implications (they're trying to make our murder less random, and "did my turbo-fulmination crit or not" is a huge deal).

 

Shocking Lava might also be pretty cool for multidotting; how many superpowered Flame Shocks can I get out?  (Answer is six by my understanding of how DoT haste works in WoD.)  The power of that might let it compete with Spew Lava for sustained AoE, especially for a fight like Troll Council or Fallen Protectors (all damage meaningful, but need to damage this guy now).  Looking forward to the tuning on these... gonna be interesting.

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Windlashed has a fantastic writeup about what LB not being castable on the move means for elemental, found here.  Her calculations don't count Frost Shock either, so it's actually even better than that, not to mention the premise already being extremely punishing (even in Pit Lord phases you can stand still for a cast every few seconds).  Speaking of, might be useful to note that the Frost Shock perk makes it a useful filler for moving dps.

 

Also, do we know if Shocking Lava applies to Fulmination damage or just the base Earth Shock hit?  If it's the former, we're going to be one-shotting people (I hit a poor mob the other day for 800k on Fulmination not counting the actual Earth Shock or the multistrike) and that talent is incredible for single-target, giving us a decidedly niche-based talent choice; pick Shocking Lava for ST, Spew Lava for AoE, and Storm Elemental when you need to do more offhealing or want the shenanigans movement aura from PE.  That's probably okay, but feels a bit too prescriptive, and has very serious PvP implications (they're trying to make our murder less random, and "did my turbo-fulmination crit or not" is a huge deal).

 

Shocking Lava might also be pretty cool for multidotting; how many superpowered Flame Shocks can I get out?  (Answer is six by my understanding of how DoT haste works in WoD.)  The power of that might let it compete with Spew Lava for sustained AoE, especially for a fight like Troll Council or Fallen Protectors (all damage meaningful, but need to damage this guy now).  Looking forward to the tuning on these... gonna be interesting.

I'll mention it in the post above!  I do agree that crying re: not being able to move while casting LB is pointless and that it won't be a huge damage loss, but I'm not pleased with their choice of IJ to make the comparison.  High movement and low movement fights exist (IE: Sha of Pride vs IJ, Dark Shamans vs Garrosh.), and it's unfair to say 'We're still good, look at this low movement fight!'.

 

Shocking Lava does not apply to Fulm damage, just the base hit from ES itself.  It's unfortunate, but it would be way too overpowered if it did.  A 9 stack would do (8 * 28.2% SP) * 2, making the single Fulmination do 451.2% SP damage.  That would be 2.5-3 times the damage of your average Lava Burst. (!)

 

Shocking Lava's multidotting capabilities are still limited to how many Lava Surge procs you get.  Estimating without haste, even if you got one on every second tick, that's ~12 seconds before you get a 2 stack.  If you got one every single tick (which will still be ~2.8 seconds in the first tier), you're riding the GCD going 0s FS --> 1.5s LvB --> 3.0s filler --> 4.5s (proc) LvB --> 6s FS.  So your absolute limit of super power FSs is 4, with crazy good luck.  With mid to high haste (15-20% in the first tier), 5 may be possible.

 

Besides, if you're doing Protectors-style stack 'em up method, Spew is going to be huge.  ~150% SP damage per hit, 20 hits per CD, ~66.67% SP DPS.  That's way too big to give up vs rolling a couple of double powered Flame Shocks, atleast imo.

 

I'm definitely pleased that they went with three distinct gameplay differences.  Storm Ele Totem might fill a 'burst' role, kind of like the role PE fills now, which would atleast give us a use for it, compared to Shocking and Spew.  The final tuning on those three will definitely interest me greatly.

 

Re: Frost Shock.  You're right that it may be beneficial to cast during movement, but I'm hoping that they have another plan for it.  I'd also refresh Searing below half duration over Frost Shock.

Edited by Hybrys

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Updated some information based on the latest Alpha build, care of MMO-Champion.

 

It included some really big damage increases:

 

 

It's important to note that Lava Burst also had it's Flame Shock interaction changed.  Flame Shock's contribution is increased with scaling, and is approximately 1/3rd the damage of Lava Burst.

 

You hurl molten lava at the target, dealing 0 (+ 96% of Spell power) Fire damage.  Lava Burst will always deal a critical strike.  If your Flame Shock is on the target, Lava Burst will deal 1 (+ 33.4% of Spell power) additional damage.

Edited by Hybrys

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A couple of small QoL changes coming down the pipeline, care of Blizzard's own Alpha notes update.

 

And a small change I missed from their last Alpha notes update.

Edited by Hybrys

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A couple more changes on their way in, care of the new Alpha build, and MMO-Champion's comparison.

 

  • Glyph of Frostflame Weapon has been added - While your weapon is imbued with Flametongue Weapon, your attacks also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 3 sec.
  • Glyph of Ghostly Speed has been changed - Ghost Wolf grants an additional 60% movement speed.  This movement speed bonus will not be granted if Ghost Wolf is activated while in combat.  This effect is disabled in battlegrounds and arenas and cannot be combined with other temporary speed bonuses.
  • Echo of the Elements has been changed - Echo of the Elements causes your next short cooldown spell or ability to not incur it's cooldown.  Elemental: Lava Burst, Frost Shock, or Earthquake.

 

An interesting Glyph to re-add the functionality of Frostbrand to Elemental, along with Flametongue's spell damage benefit.

 

The Ghostly Speed change makes it much better, as it won't limit you from using Ghost Wolf in combat.

 

The Echo of the Elements change is also a major nerf to it's potential.  From all Shocks to just Frost Shock; the only real benefit we'll see is from Lava Burst.

Edited by Hybrys

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A couple of changes, and I ran some numbers re: the CL/EQ change.

 

With the recent 36% buff to Earthquake, even 4 stacks would most likely be viable for single target damage, nevermind the amazing implications for AoE damage.

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o.0 we're going to cast EQ? to do damage? that will be weird.

 

here's hoping we can glyph the original animation.

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o.0 we're going to cast EQ? to do damage? that will be weird.

 

here's hoping we can glyph the original animation.

In low gear, it's DPET even rivals that of Lightning Bolt!  If Overload procs didn't give Fulmination stacks, we'd want to maintain it in low gear scenarios. o.o

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We've been hearing some talk from Celest's twitter about the Frost Shock de-linking perk being reverted.  It looks like, they'll be changing it to Improved Unleash Elements, still with mobility in mind.

 

"Unleash Elements also increases movement speed by 30% for 4sec."

 

So, a free Ghost Wolf that you can cast from, linked to Unleash Elements.  I'm not a huge fan of it, but at least they're trying to help us a little more with mobility.  I'd rather have this form stay for Enhancement, and Elementals become:

 

"Unleash Elements also allows you to cast while moving for 3sec."

 

I'm not going to make any guide changes until the next Alpha build comes out, but we'll see how this pans out soon.

Edited by Hybrys

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We're finally seeing our first damage pass, as well as professions starting to get finalized, but shamans saw no significant changes.

 

All changes are via MMO-Champion

 

  • Lava Burst now does 72% of Spell Power damage, down from 96%, and the Flame Shock interaction now does 25.05% of Spell Power damage, down from 33.4%.
  • Lightning Bolt now does 71.28% of Spell Power damage, down from 72%.
  • Chain Lightning now does 28.65% of Spell Power damage, down from 38%
  • Earth Shock now does 33.6% of Spell Power damage, down from 44.8%.
  • Flame Shock now does 25.05% of Spell Power damage, down from 33%.  The damage over time component is reduced 150.3% of Spell Power damage, down from 200%.  
  • Lightning Shield now does 21.15% of Spell Power damage, down from 28%. (This affects Fulmination damage.)
  • Searing Totem now does 9.65% of Spell Power damage, down from 12.9%.
  • Earthquake now does 11.3% of Nature Spell Power damage, down from 15%.
  • Thunderstorm now does 32.55% of Spell Power damage, down from 43%.
     
  • Elemental Blast now does 153.75% of Spell Power damage, down from 205%.
  • Spew Lava now does 37.5% of Spell Power damage, down from 50%.

 

You might notice that Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst now do the same damage, which is pretty odd.  We do still have to be aware that Lava Burst has the 1/3rd multiplier from Flame Shock, along with it being a guaranteed crit.

 

That being said, I think it's an oversight and either A ) they missed Lightning Bolt in their ~25% blanket reductions, B ) it's a step in the direction of letting Lava Burst scale with crit, or C ) they're trying to bring Lightning Bolt closer in line with Lava Burst, due to the penalty of no longer being able to cast it while moving.

 

It's also important to note that these ARE NOT nerfs, and are simply a tuning pass.  A number of classes were affected by similar reductions.

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havent they always been closing the gap between lava burst and lightning bolt? well, ever since early wrath pvp when LvB one shot ppl.

 

i wasn't thinking of it in terms of LvB coming down in damage, but LB getting a boost since we cant cast it on the move.

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havent they always been closing the gap between lava burst and lightning bolt? well, ever since early wrath pvp when LvB one shot ppl.

 

i wasn't thinking of it in terms of LvB coming down in damage, but LB getting a boost since we cant cast it on the move.

That may be true as well.  If they gave it a 30% buff, then brought everything down 25% in their tuning pass, it would result in the same numbers.

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One interesting thing that I think Celestalon pointed out was that the tuning pass they did just here is only about half a tuning pass. Expect more data soon™? (Unless I missed something while I was away...)

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One interesting thing that I think Celestalon pointed out was that the tuning pass they did just here is only about half a tuning pass. Expect more data soon™? (Unless I missed something while I was away...)

Well, from the datamined information, I believe only Shaman/Rogue/Hunter/Mage/Paladin got their main damage passes, and we'll see more on the small stuff coming soon for the rest of the classes.

 

We may also see more sweeping changes put on to the Shaman/Rogue/Hunter/Mage/Paladin set, and damage passes on the others, as if they're trading off.  I only say that because a lot of the announced changes (such as UE causing a speed boost perk) haven't been implemented, and they still haven't fixed the fact that Ele Shamans aren't going to value Crit or Readiness, and will specifically avoid those stats..

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I missed this one in the fuss:

  • Frost Shock now does 28.5% of Spell Power, up from 19%.

A buff within the nerfs!  The only issue is, Earth Shock still has a higher base damage, so if Frost Shock remains linked to the Shock cooldown, we still won't see it's use, even in a movement scenario.

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Finally had the time to rework my theorycrafting to account for the latest changes, and I've added a Glossary of commonly used terms in my TC posts.  (Since I LOVE my abbreviations.)

 

Check it out!

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There's a new build up!  Coming with it are some major and not so major changes.

 

  • Flametongue Weapon has been removed.  Every Elemental skill has been boosted by 7% to compensate for that change, including Elemental Blast.
  • Unleash Elements has been reworked and split into 3 different spells.  The Elemental version remains the same as Unleash Flame, "increasing the damage dealt by the Shaman's next Fire spell by 40%".
  • Unleashed Fury has been reworked and split into 3 different spell modifiers.  The Elemental version reads as: "Increases the enemy target's damage taken from your Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst by 30% for 10 sec."
  • Multistrike Attunement has been added. "You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources", which means that you get 105% of Multistrike from gear/enchants/potions/flasks and any other source.
  • Fulmination has been reworked.  Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst multistrike hits now also give an extra stack of Lightning Shield.  Maximum stacks increased to 15 before the perk, 20 after the perk.

Other less notable changes:

  • Shocking Lava is now called Elemental Fusion
  • Spew Lava is now called Liquid Magma
  • All Shaman specializations now provide 5% haste via Grace of Air.
  • Conductivity has been changed to include Earth Shock.  "When you cast Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Earth Shock, or use Stormstrike, your Healing Rain's duration is increased by 4.00 sec.This cannot cause Healing Rain to last longer than 40 sec."
  • Shamanistic Rage no longer makes your spells, abilities, and totems cost no mana.
  • Thunderstorm no longer restores any mana.
  • Elemental Fury and it's related perk had slight wording changes to clarify the way that the critical damage bonus applies.  W/ Elemental Fury, "critical strike damage is increased to 250%", and with the perk, "critical strike damage is increased to 270%."

I'll be updating the guide soon!

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i hope we get minor glyphs to xmog our weapon enchants to our old embue graphics. i want my tiny orbiting fireball.

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One thing I missed, that I just caught while I was updating the Enh thread...

  • Elemental Blast can now increase your Multistrike as well as Haste, Crit, and Mastery.

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