Overload 2.3

Ok so I've been playing on PTR, all is well so far, we have some bugs which seriously need to be ironed out before the release, but its a DPS increase never the less, mana increase and threat reduction....

Exciting times for an elemental shaman...

The 50% of damage from overload is 50% base damage and full +dmg added...so its about a 3% increase at 1000 spell dmg....now I havent seen one Overload Overload proc yet, infact neither has anyone else so its safe to assume thats not there any more...

But the biggest importat bug atm are 2 things, clearcast is being sonsumed by overload, which isn't right and also if your mid cast a lightning bolt when overload procs, the lighting bolt you've cast, which should hit for a normal amount is hitting for the overload amount...



Here is a screen shot of the bug :D

Class Design & Hybrids

I was having a conversation with some guildies the other day, and their justification for elemental taking a 5% damage nerf is that, because my class Shaman is a Hybrid, I shouldn't be topping the damage meters anyway....

So lets take a look at this for a bit, we have 3 Hybrid classes.....Druids / Paladins / Shamans....Lets break down the different listings of things each Hybrid can do....

Drudis - DPS (Caster) / Tank & DPS (Feral) / Healing (Resto)

Pali's - Healing (Resto) / Tank (Prot) / DPS (Retri)

Shaman - DPS (Caster) / DPS (Enhance) / Healing (Resto)

Shamans are different from Paladins and Druids, as we can't tank....so our DPS classes should work more along the lines as a DPS class, DPS classes get CC, they get raid buffs, and do great DPS....we should probably be a little under there DPS, if we brought CC and raid buffs to the groups....but both DPS classes have party buffs not raid buffs, and have no form of CC, and a weak form of snare....SO I belive that the classes DPS has been risen to compensate...bringing us on par with mages, or rogues as enhancement....which we still have a lot of trouble keeping up with....and now after 2.3 elemental will have some more trouble...enhancement will be doing better...Tanking / Healing / CC / DPS is the order of importance I would rate raiding in, tanks are most important, healing second, long as u can heaal ur tank and raid your alive...CC is thrid, because you need to just simply take extra things out of the fight, and DPS is last, because as long as ur healing & tanking and CC is above par, DPS cna be slow but you will prevail...So that right away puts shamans at a weaker position in hybrids...we make up for it by supplying DPS, so it shouldn't be nerfed!!

So druids, druid's healing power is mental, it rivals that of a shaman's healing power by crap loads, they are formidable tanks, and can do some really decent damage, basically with different gear they can spec one tree and swap beetween damage and tanking rolls....And as a caster, the moonkin has more amour then an elemental shaman, more burst damage, and Crowd Control....by far as a hybrid choice, druids are the best you can get....I know for a fact that a moonkin druid can heal almost as well as a resto druid, and that a well geared resto druids does incredily good healing....

Paladins, ok so DPS for a paladin is fairly poor, retri needs some work, to make it viable in raids and get that side of the class fixed.....Paladins are great tanks, and they are great healers, I'd say a paladin healer is on par with a druid healer....yesterday I copp'd a 10k heal from a resto druid in kara gear....paladins also have buffs, raid buffs and damn goods ones, so do druids...

Ok Shaman, right we have no tanking class, so basically we have 2 DPS classes and one healing class....our healing side is fairly strong, I would have to say a healing paladin or druid is stronger, pre TBC we had a really damn good healing class....not so much any more, but healing brings things to the raid like Earth Sheild....umm yep thats the only thing it brigns to the raid! We can buff our party, thus placement of a resto shaman is important....but you can't compare party buffs to raid buffs, 3 paladins can buff an entire raid for 30 minutes...3 shamans can do 3 partys, so 2 groups are still missing, and we rebuff every 2 minutes....and get a great mana regeneration toll once every 5 minutes....so yeh resto shamans are a little under par as far as healing goes compared to a druid or paladin, and also we can't do raid buffs as good....Right now our DPS, now, we have 2 DPS classes, elemental and enhancement, this should technically mean that we can DPS better then a feral druid, moonkin druid or retri pali, because we cant compinsate with raid buffs, and also can't take a tanking roll...enhancement has pretty good buffs for a party, but oh yep, no raid buffs...elemental has a fairly lame excusses a a 41 point talent that can buff a party, thats right PARTY...and thats it....now DPS for elemental is being nerfed, even just a tiny bit, I just don't see how we are going to be as welcome as we were before...im sure my guild will make an exception for me, but they shouldnt have to suffer a DPS nerf from me, when I don't bring as much as I should in that raid slot...

Right now onto the hybrid classification....a Moonkin druid can DPS great, bring CC, bring raid buffs, and heal somewhere in the middle....thats pretty damn hybrid to me, a feral druid can tank, or do decent DPS, they can change forms and there mana is full for the odd heal here and there....thats pretty damn hybrid, a resto druid can just heal, but they do a damn good job, this isnt hybrid! All the do is HEAL, so they should be good at it, damn good!! And all 3 specs can RAID buff...

Ok so paladins, a paladin can tank, and do some ok DPS while doing it...they can also fully raid buff....DPS, our guild doesnt have a retri pali for DPS, and I'm sure alot of guilds dont, this is a broken section, resto, now they raid buff, and heal very well....so I belive i would classify a paladin as not a hybrid, as they arent doing more then 1 thing at a time, they are doing 2 of the 3 things very well, but not all 3 at the same time....I think we need a new name for a class like this....maybe instead of hybrid we can call them "Segregate" meaning they have the option to do all 3 specs, but can only do 1 at a time...

If a shaman has a below the other hybrids average of healing, and no tanking roll in raids, and no CC, and no raid buffs, the DPS we do should be par with the other DPS'ers, if you invite a DPS shaman to a group, be it 5 man / 25 man, your after their DPS...you get some party buffs...but your after the DPS, if you make the DPS lack, the shamans so call hybrid will be just like pre BC, a healbot, and I'm certain thats not where blizzard are trying to go....

Shaman QQ

The wow forums are a joke, there is hundreds of "Nerf warlock" posts, which just get locked and disregarded, with a cheeky dev comment who plays a lock saying, "stop posting nerf threads we arent OP".....FUCK OFF......how many bloody posts does it take for blizzard to realise, that any other class vs a warlock feels underpowered.....if there is hundreds of posts coming from druids / mages / warrior everything!! Then there is a problem....

Almost every other class forum, are just using it for "random dribble"threads, with the odd, "bug here" or "suggestion here"thread....or "how do I beat a lock" thread....indicating, that locks are overpowered, and there is a bug or two but mostly the class are fairly fine....

And then you come to the shaman forum, and its "rebuild our class", "fix our class", "this doesnt work", and hundreds of "our class is very very very very broken" or "im going to roll a difference class" or "I spent so much time and you have borken this class now that I /quit" threads, we don't even get around to posting "nerf lock" threads, because our class is completely rooted and until thats fixed we cant do shit!! This is retarded.........and blizzard continue to nerf everyone else except warlocks, and not FIX the shaman class.....

WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU STUPID COMPANY!! YOUR MEANT TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMERS HAPPY AND LISTEN TO THEM!!

Link For Dumb Ass Blizzard Devs

Take a look at this link and do the maths you retards!

Simple Maths to Show Example

Lets try not to confuse the sitution with the maths for this, and keep it simple....

We need to add the spell coeffecent in, so we have 3/3.5 = 85% & we have 2.5/3.5 = 71% for the new version....

We'll use 100 as the avg spell dmg a lighting bolt hits for...

We'll cast 300 lighting bolts, thats a 10minute fight...

Well give ourselfs 500/1000/1500 spell dmg, so 3 calculations...

We'll do overload at 5% proccing on itself over 300, and also 20% procing on itself over 300, and see what the total dmg outputs are, for the 2 difference version...

And we'll have 40% crit to keep it simple...

Ok, so we go to get our coeffiecent
500*85%+100 = 525
500*71%+100 = 455
1000*85%+100 = 950
1000*71%+100 = 810
1500*85%+100 = 1375
1500*71%+100 = 1165

Now we cast 300 spells with 40% critting, and 20% overloading and 5% overloading, so lets work out exactly what we need to times by what...
300*40% = 120

So we have as far as crits & hits go...
120 Crits
180 Normal Hits

Now with this we can see how many LO's will crit and hit...
Version 2.2
120*5% = 6 Overload Crits
180*5% = 9 Overload Normal Hits
6*5% = 0 LOLO Crits
9*5% = 0 LOLO Normals

Version 2.3
120*20% = 24 LO Crits
180*20% = 36 LO Normals
24*20% = 4 LOLO Crits
36*20% = 7 LOLO Normals

Ok so we worked out so far...
Version 2.2
We have fired 300 shots....
120 Have crit..
180 Hit normally..
14 Overloads have proc'd..
6 LO Crits..
9 LO Normals..
0 LOLO's..

Version 2.3
We have fired 300 shots....
120 Have crit..
180 Hit normally..
71 Overloads have proc'd..
24 LO Crits..
36 LO Normals..
11 LOLO's..
4 LOLO Crits..
7 LOLO Normals..

So to calculate the damage now we can..
Version 2.2
500*85%+100 = ((525*120)*2) + (525*180) + ((525*6)*2) + (525*9) = 231525 Damage
1000*85%+100 = ((950*120)*2) + (950*180) + ((950*6)*2) + (950*9) = 418950 Damage
1500*85%+100 = ((1375*120)*2) + (1375*180) + ((1375*6)*2) + (1375*9) = 606375 Damage

Version 2.3
500*71%+100 = ((455*120)*2) + (455*180) + (((455*24)*2)/2) + ((455*36)/2) + ((((455*4)*2)/2)/2) + (((455*7)/2)/2) = 211916
1000*71%+100 = ((810*120)*2) + (810*180) + (((810*24)*2)/2) + ((810*36)/2) + ((((810*4)*2)/2)/2) + (((810*7)/2)/2) = 377258
1500*71%+100 = ((1165*120)*2) + (1165*180) + (((1165*24)*2)/2) + ((1165*36)/2) + ((((1165*4)*2)/2)/2) + (((1165*7)/2)/2) = 542599

So at 500 damage, the difference beetween 2.2 & 2.3 is...
231525 / 211916 = 9.25% Lower

So at 1000 damage, the difference beetween 2.2 & 2.3 is...
418950 / 377258 = 11.05% Lower

So at 1500 damage, the difference beetween 2.2 & 2.3 is...
606375 / 542599 = 11.75% Lower

Every time I do this, it seems to get more and more ovious that this is not good, for our DPS in general....I don't think people are also not realising, that this will essentially suck for resto as well...even though they can cast quicker lighting bolts...the damage decrease for them is huge, meaning instead of casting 3 lighting bolts at 3 seconds...they are going to need to cast 5 lightning bolts at 2.5 seconds...

Instead of taking 9 seconds to kill...it now takes 12.5...

Round about the truth....

I think we are all forgetting, this is probably to mold us towards WotLK, now unfortunately, a 30/0/41 build in WotLK is probably going to be way over powered as a shaman....

So I belive they are trying to restructure the elemental tree, to try and balance this out....

This has been noted by a poster on the European Forums...

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Eyonix basically confirmed the nerf, but only implicitly.

It's smart since my rants at least didn't pay attention to threat-caps or mana-efficiency (nor did anyone else's).
But other folks, with a lot of raiding experience as elemental, have basically waved the limits on both threat and mana - you can see their posts not only on the EU forums, but also on the US forums as well on the reputed EJ forums.

Reference: Link 1
"Some of the math looks good, some is far off. It really depends on the post. If my lightning bolt currently does 1076 damage for 1076 threat giving me 3.26 damage per mana, my new lightning bolt should do 1017 damage for 915.3 threat giving me 3.39 damage per mana.

If I'm threat limited, I can now do 11% more damage before generating too much threat.
If I'm mana limited, I can now do 4% more damage before running out of mana...." -Eyonix

This is a concrete example since he illustrates bolt values which include Lightning Overloads factored in (since the threat on the new bolt is lower then the damage dealt by the bolt).

Now we just take these figures and divide them; out rolls the nerf percentile.
This would be 1017 for the new bolt divide by the 1076 of the old bolt equaling a 0.9452 ratio.

Or rather a 5.48% nerf on Lightning Bolt spam according to his example whenever you are not threat and mana limited.

Most high end raiders dismiss threat and mana limitations because of their guild's properly understands raid layouts.
I'm not sure about PvP since I hardly play Arena - but I have this hunch, suspicion, that Elemental Shaman Gladiators don't just spam bolts and chain lightning in Arenas but rather reserve that for called short bursts (which now have been nerfed by around a little more then 5%).


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Let's dissect the US Community Manager Eyonix' post even more.
This to...
...find the base damage of the new Lightning Bolt.
...get the implicit damage nerf of Lightning Bolt without Lightning Overloads factored in.
...see how much the new Lightning Overload will buff the damage of our Lightning spells.

Skip to the TLDR caption if you cannot be bothered with wordy math.


Wordy mathematics and reasoning

Reference: Link 2
"Internal testing thus far has proved that the coefficient loss from your lightning bolt with five points in the new lightning overload results in an overall dps increase. And yeah, a larger portion of your dps being threatless should help...." -Eyonix, 26th September

The above quote is older and is misinformation. Eyonix has rectified that by generously providing the quote below -thank you again- even though he avoids mentioning the damage nerf explicitly and instead misdirected attention to the dps boosts you would get if you are constrained by mana or threat in your current game.

Reference: Link 1
"Some of the math looks good, some is far off. It really depends on the post. If my lightning bolt currently does 1076 damage for 1076 threat giving me 3.26 damage per mana, my new lightning bolt should do 1017 damage for 915.3 threat giving me 3.39 damage per mana.

If I'm threat limited, I can now do 11% more damage before generating too much threat.
If I'm mana limited, I can now do 4% more damage before running out of mana...." -Eyonix, 28th September

We can deduce the following from the quote directly above:
- Elemental Precision is not factored into these quoted values, since the current lightning bolt inflicts as much threat as the damage dealt by it.
- Lightning Overload is factored into the "new lightning bolt" damage in his quote; since it does 1017 damage for 915.3 threat and the new Lightning Overload is the only damage that is threatless.
- It's only logical to assume the current Lightning Overload is factored into the "current lightning bolt" figures, otherwise the comparison would be flawed.
- All the figures mentioned in the above quote are "over time" figures since that is the only way you can factor in Lightning Overload because it is chance based.

So knowing all that, we can begin to reverse engineer a few things.

Herodias mentions in post #79 that Lightning Overload needs to be modeled according to geometric distribution/sequences.
It boils down to the current 5% chance at Lightning Overload being, in fact, a 1/(1-0.05) = 1/1.95 = 5.26% increase in damage.
So the "current lightning bolt" that does 1076 damage actually hits for 1076/1.0526 = 1022.2 damage.
And the "new lightning bolt" that does 1017 damage has the new lightning overload modeled into it that is threatless; so the real bolt actually hits for the amount of threat which is 915.3 damage.

The average damage for which a Lightning Bolt hits in the current game with zero spelldamage is (563+643)/2 = 603 damage.
So, knowing the current coefficient is 3/3.5 = 85.7% and that the benefit of spelldamage on Eyonix' current lightningbolt is 1022.2-603 = 419...
We divide 419 by 0.857 and get a whopping 489 spelldamage used in the example.

The coefficient for the new lightning bolt is 2.5/3.5 = 71.4% so with the spelldamage calculated in the previous paragraph this is a benefit of 489 * 0.714 = 349...
Now, subtract this amount from the true damage of Eyonix' new bolt and we get the average value for which the new bolt hits with zero spelldamage; 915.3 - 349 = 566 damage.

Also the mana cost of the new lightning bolt, as calculated in another thread, is the 1017 damage Eyonix mentioned divided by it's 3.39 damage per mana = 1017/3.39 = 300 mana.

We can see that for the new bolt hitting at 1017 for 915 threat you have a bolt that hits for 915 and gets 1017-915 = 102 in lightning overload damage.
This implies that Lightning Overload, the new version, gives a 101.7/915.3 = 11.11% (repeating) damage boost to lightning spells.
This is lower then every calculated "new Lightning Overload" damage boost in this thread so far!
Does this imply a hard cap on the number of times that Lightning Overload can proc itself?
Or does it imply that an overload proccing from an overload is actually half of the previous overload; like a 50-25-12½-6¼- sequence?

I'm thinking, based on Eyonix' example plus the reasoning above, that the new Lightning Bolt base will be around 528-604 damage for 300 mana at a 2½ second cast time.


TLDR; conclusions and thread recap

Anyway, the above is not that interesting unless you want the mathematical reasoning behind the following conclusions.

What is interesting is that, if you ignore Lightning Overload that is factored into Eyonix' example, you're looking at the new Lightning Bolt itself being at 915.3 damage compared to the current one at 1022.2.
That means the new lightning bolt will be at 89.5% of the damage of the current one with the supposed 489 spelldamage from Eyonix' example.
This is a 10.5% reduction in power which some posters deduced earlier in this thread; and the reduction percentage is similar for Chain Lightning, obviously.

Actually, when taking the base values of each bolt and 800 spelldamage in account, which seems to be roughly the top end Season 2 Gladiators level, you're looking at the new bolt being at 88.3% of the current one; a rough 12% drop in damage.
As mentioned in earlier posts in this very thread; the Lightning Overload changes, implicitly presented by Eyonix as a 11.1% boost, do not compensate for this loss.
In fact; it is impossible to change (I mean; buff) Lightning Overload so that it will compensate for the damage loss - since the damage loss becomes a bigger percentage the more spellpower one has.

Let me preempt some folks trying to mention that -10.5 + 11.1 ends up in the positive.
Right now we have 100 increased by 5.26% = 105.
With the new patch it will go down to, and here come those percentages you wanted to add up, 100-10.5 being 89.5 which is increased by the new overload by 11.1% = 99.
Now you subtract from what we will get, 99, what we have now, 105, and you'll see that this equals -6; we lost in damage output.

The changes...
...devalue the Lightning Mastery talent to the point that the talent no longer belongs in such a deep spot in the Elemental talent tree.
...sell a "damage increase" only for rare situations in which you use Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning exclusively and where the Shaman does not have time to drink up or does not have teammembers buffing the Shaman with additional mana regeneration and threat reduction.
...create a dependance (and not an option) on very deep talent investment in the Elemental tree.
...set the stage for a coefficient increasing talent at a "40+ or 45+ points required" WotLK expansion related talent tree update.


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I think he was on the right track till we got to the end, because the new lighting bolt spell, hasn't had its damage reduced, its had its mana reduced but not its overall damage....so the places a error could have occured is.

1. The 11.1% increase from Lighting Overload indicated is wrong....if the base dmg of Lighting Bolt isn't nerfed then the 11.1% he is talking about is more like 8%....

Or...

2. Lighting Overload doesn't proc near enough to the 20% it is indicated to in the talents....

So basically we get a nerf now, of roughly 5% still, to get an increase in WotLK, but we need to rely on Overload for it to work....meaning we can't excpect to do good damage as a Resto / Elemental hybrid....

Great news for WotLK, bad news till the nerf is fixed, but at least we are being looked into, imrpoved hopefully and listened to....

This is really hard to try and predict, would b easier if they just added the 10% coeffecent talent into the overload tree, so we had to put points into it and just even'd everything out...

I have to say tho that Eyonix is really trying, and this he did mention the mathmatics for this could change before PTR....and also the as I posted previosly, if there is any reduction it will be revamped in 2.4, and to exspect more changes in 2.4...

Someone in the DEV team actually listens!

I've been reading and watching the changes plans and direction the shamans are heading in, I'm quite happy to say that there is at least one person on the DEV team, playing, testing and leveling our class! Thank god....and he is doing changes, stuffs been changing alot for us, they are trying to molde us towards WotLK and imrpove the class and tree's as a whole.....

Although 2.3 is a dmg reduction for elemental shamans, apparently we'll be capable of doing 11% more dmg to threat, and if we were having mana issues, 4% more casting to mana.....

So looks like the changes as they are listed for us will go ahead, but at least we have a shaman Dev!! Eyonix, plays an Elemental Shaman at present, he is currently at Kara, and is working on improvements to the class......

So this patch is a improvement for anyone at Kara level gear now, as an elemental shaman.....but I have faith in him and hopefully as he gears more, and see's the changes, and plays more and listens to us.....thank fuck someones finally listening....

Improvments will be made!! Very Happy
After all the reading I've done on the upcoming changes, and calcuation I have made and stuff.....I say bring on 2.3! And looking forward to have the extra changes made to the shaman class in 2.4, by the sounds of things to fix the mistakes made in 2.3!