Dual Gladiator Weapons

I've managed to get my second Gladiator Weapon, Shammy looks coll with both, Ill update Pics when I get home, with Druid and Shammy. Yesterday I did a Hallaa raid and that was awesome fun, have never done one before asides beating on the random alliance around when i see them.

I got myself 47 Tokens from one raid which is fairly huge, so I am working on getting a +10 Resilience gem for my efforts.

I joined a 5v5 and 3v3 arena team on Saturday, the 5v5 was a bit of a flop, we had to many variations of everything, Resto Shammy, Enhancement Shammy, Rogue, Mage, Paladin.

We aren't very geared though. We won 3/7 games. We have a rating of 1443 or something, now I'm no expert in arean groups, but I think groups that complement each other are more succesful, enhancement shammy, warrior and paladin, druid, rogue or hunter would work better I think.

All 3 DPS complement eaach other, shammy boosts warrior or rogue, hunter boost shammy warrior, pali & druid boost both.

In the 3v3 group we had more luck, resto druid, a really good one, and 2 enhancement shammys, it was a laugh seeing all the windfury procs, we won 8 and lost 2, but we went to 1576 and its not bd seeing my and the other enhancement shammy dont have bugger all resilience. Druid does the CC, Entagle Roots for melee, Cyclone for healers. And we beat down clothies fast.

Can heal, 2 sets of Bloodlust, 2 Shaministic Rage, 30% less damage when we are being ganged up on. Its pretty damn good. Oviosuly the more games & points we play the more gear we can get helps us win more. But as I was talking about before, the group complements each other, we are both melee DPS, so any clothies die quick, we have 2 sets of everything and Unleashed Rage is up all of the time.

Level 20 Druid

I managed to level my Druid to 20 last night, I now have Cat Form and Bear Form, I still need to complete my quest to get Seal Form.

I have one Half of my pendant required to complete the quest, the other half is on the other side of the world so I am working on getting a Deadmines group to get over there , get the pendant, get some XP and hopefully so loot.

I have been leveling with all my talent points in Balance at the moment, the idea of this druid is to be Moonkin, so I started this approach but think its probably best to level as Feral and swap later. However it will cost me 5g to respec and since this is my only character on the server that isn't going to happen for a while.

I'm enjoying the Druid, but leveling without the assistance of movement speed (Feral) and gold and Bags is very difficult.

Enhancement and Druid

I have changed my shaman to enhancement now, and have done a few raids and lots of PVP with it. I started with Dual Wield and have recently changed over to a 2h enhancement spec, my build is 0/37/24.

This is the most DPS I can get with that amount of points spent in restoration, I have been trying to increase my survivability in PVP.

Using Shamulator, I have come to the conclusion about DW vs 2h that DW is more sustainable DPS, and scales better, but costs more talent points to do so.

2H advantage is its amazing burst potential. Using the talent points available and the stats changed from DW to 2h this is the calculations I came up with.

Dual Wield
Low DPS 438-991 High DPS
Avg DPS 627 Weapon Mastery 0
Avg DPS 686 Weapon Mastery 5
Avg DPS 741 Full Spec
(More stable DPS, scales better.)
(Less burst damage.)

2 Hander
Low DPS 399-1162 High DPS
Avg DPS 638 Weapon Mastery 5
Avg DPS 694 Full Spec
(Unstable DPS.)
(Great burst potential. Less talent points req.)

So the main difference is that when I spec 2h only I have 5 points into Weapon Mastery, and you can see the difference in the avg that makes. And the major difference in burst.

This is one of things i like best about my shaman, I can change from Melee, to Caster to Healer at the drop of a button. And because of this I have rolled a Druid on Jubi'thos, I have a few work mates that created Alliance characters over there and since i have been Horde my entire WOW time I decided to give it a go, and am currently level 16 working on a Moonkin Druid, I figure I was Elemental Shaman I want to see the comparison between the 2 classes that are most closely matched. If I don't like it I can change to Feral I guess......Hybrids ftw :P

Hybrid FTW

Since the changes of server and new equipment, this is what Happy now looks like.



With Wrath of Air down, Strength of Earth down, and Superior Wizard Oil on both weapons I can stand back and throw some really decent lighting bolts at people.



I have sacrificed, Lighting Overload, 5% Healing & Lighting Crit and Natures Swiftness, to gain nearly 150 damage with my totems down. I figure if I get some really decent PVP gear with more + dmg on it, my PVP mace as main hand, which isn't far off, and my off hand enchanted I could be hitting +1300 nature damage. I cast .1 second slower then before and get no Overload procs, but this is ripping pretty hard in Battle Grounds.

Official Patch 2.4 Update : Class Changes

Source : http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Druids

* Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.
* Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.
* Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
* Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.
* Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.
* Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0.
* Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
* Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent and reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
* Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.
* When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.

Hunter

* Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues.
* Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players.
* Hunter's Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter's Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter's Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.
* Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.
* The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase.
* Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target.


Mages

* Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
* Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
* Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
* Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostbite effect.
* Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
* Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
* New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
* Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.
* Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.


Paladins

* Avenger's Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
* Divine Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.
* Holy Shock: The healing, damage, and mana cost of this spell have all been increased.
* udgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same time when judged by multiple Paladins.
* Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.
* Resistance Auras: It is no longer possible for two Paladins in the same party to make it appear that players have two of the same resistance aura active.
* Righteous Defense: This spell will now always be castable on friendly npcs.
* Seal of Blood: This ability will no longer cause spell pushback for the Paladin with this seal active.
* Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed to Turn Evil. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead. Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in PvP.

Priests

* Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and roots the target for 2 seconds.
* Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
* Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
* Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition, Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.
* Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% for 15 seconds.
* Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.
* Reflective Shield: The reactive damage from this talent no longer breaks crowd control affects which break on taking damage.
* Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.
* Silent Resolve:This talent now affects Surge of Light, Power Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.
* Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.
* Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.


Rogues

* Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth, can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.
* Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability activates and now has an animation.
* Improved Backstab is now called Puncturing Wounds.
* Puncturing Wounds increases your critical strike chance with Backstab by 10/20/30%, and the critical strike chance with your Mutilate ability by 5/10/15%.
* Improved Sprint: This ability will now always remove Entangling Roots.
* Sap mechanic changed from Incapacitate to Sap. This will allow more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap previously will still remove Sap after the change.
* Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.

Shaman

* Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.
* Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
* Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
* Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
* Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
* Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.
* Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
* Stormstrike has a new icon.
* Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
* Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4.
* The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate without doing any damage.


Warlocks

* Blood Pact now has a tooltip.
* Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved demons when Enslave Demon is removed. It will now increase your spell damage by an amount equal to 4/8/12%, down from 5/10/15%.
* Demonic Sacrifice: Now works properly in sanctuary regions (such as Shattrath City and the Stair of Destiny).
* Nether Protection: The buff from this talent will no longer interrupt capturing PvP flags and bases.
* Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.
* Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.
* Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.


Warriors

* Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.
* Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).
* Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.
* Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.
* Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP.

Elemental Problems

From Nerf my Shaman*

So well, if this is true, it is the most, well, Elemental Shamans are messed up. There was debate on the blogosphere about how OP were Elemental Shamans with PI (Power Infusion: Spell damage and healing done increased by 20%.) in 5vs5 Arena. Specially after Inactive release some CLC videos where he has taken insane burst.

Having played Ele only during my Leveling, I don't know how much this nerf will impact for them in arena. But it's definitely a sad day for them.

Couldn't agree with him more, I leveled to 70 as Elemental, played through the PVE raids as Elemental, I took some hardcore convincing from the guild to even let me take a mages spot, after I was fairly geared, and they saw the potential damage I raised in the 5 man group I was in, and the DPS I was dishing out myself I got allot of spots.

But there is only ever one Ele sham per guild most of the time, why would you ever need more. The spec is one of the least played according to wow census, and since the changes in 2.3 I thought they had got us to a fairly balanced state.

Now 2.4 comes, we loose crit, burst,and gain nothing in return. If the reason for these nerfs are due to movies being made about huge crits from elemental shamans, that's a bad move.

For those that haven't seen the CLC Video here it is.

Hybrid Totem

So, I haven't played for a while, I enabled my account to test out a few features I read about in 2.4. Though I haven't been able to get the PTR to work.

I have renamed the site to Hybrid Totem, because once again I have respec'd now predominantly during TBC I have been Elemental, but I have bounced between all 3 specs, this latest one has come about because of a video I watched on the Shaman Forums.

I have spec'd 29/32/0, I have had fun in the past with this spec but with the new up coming changes in 2.4 I think the Ghost Wolf changes mainly will make this really enjoyable.

Also 2.4 no EM + NS, which hits elemental pretty hard, so with this new spec, no cooldowns. Tones of +dmg, quick lighting bolts. Stand back and cast, doing 1600-3200 lighting bolts. When the enemy gets close Fire Nova and Stormstrike.

I have prevented all healing until Eye of the Storm procs. And so far its been pretty good. Yesterday I got 26/3 in Warsong Gulch, and had a blast, the players didn't know weather to keep there distance or come up close to me.

I've also updated a Column with other shaman blogs, I enjoy reading about what other Shamans are doing through the game, and there ideas and thoughts about it. When I get home Ill link the video of the Shaman that inspired this hybrid change, and I figure if I spec either Melee, Resto, or Elemental, Shamans are still considered Hybrids so the name shouldn't have to change any more.

Difference beetween PVP and PVE elemental build

I use 2 builds with my shaman, one for PVE, which is 41/0/20

PVE Build

and one for PVP, which is 40/0/21

PVP Build

This is all the difference beetween the two builds, yet it makes a huge difference in PVP....

4% less expensive spells - PVE
.8 second quicker shocks - PVE
10% less threat - PVE
9% more chance to hit - PVE
totem of wrath - PVE
15% less expensive totems - PVE
10 more yard range on totems - PVE

100% chance gain focus casting after being hit by melee or ranged crit - PVP
6% less chance to be crit by melee and ranged weapon - PVP
70% chance to avoid interupt while healing - PVP
25% more amour on critcal heals - PVP
.5 seconds quicker Healing Wave - PVP
natures swiftness - PVP

Basically, in PVP I use more mana, but gain survivability, in PVE I use less mana, loose survivability, and gain more group support functionality.

There isn't a huge difference beetween the two builds, yet a few simple features, like 70% chance to avoid interupt while healing, makes a massive difference in the way an opponent has to tackle your class.....

I like that the game can be so versitile from such a few small changes, it adds depth to the game, and keeps it interesting. What ever build you choose for your class adds a different perspective to the game, another class and build have to take into account.

2.3 is Big, Bigger and Better

2.3 is a great patch, by far one of the best they have ever done, it was looking like dreafully horrible patch to us elemenental shamans, but it has turned out fantastic.

Guild banks are quite cool, I'm a 375 LW, so I have been taking leather scraps and knothide leather, and turning it into Heavy Knothide leather for the guild. I will donate some gold toward it tommorow as well, I can really see that guild bank working out great in everyone's favour, it allows players within a guild to trasnfer gold quickly to one and other, or items and not even have to be in the same main city.

The new 48 hour auction house is fantasic, no more logging in once a day to check things, you can afford to sit back a while and collect money it is a fantastic idea.

Zul'Aman is a great instance, looks fantastic, plays well, and the boss fights seem to be more fun the Kara.

The new amoury, is alot faster, and alot easier to use, with guild bank instituted in to it it seems to be very very good.

The new WOW interface changes are very good, my wow seems to run 9x faster then before, even with out of date mods, and the incoorperated idea from some of the custom mod people consitently get is great.

I have recently respec'd to PVP shammy, to give it a whirl, and I'm enjoying PVP as elemental, I can't imagine a fully deck'd S2 elemental shaman atm, with 70% spell push back I can imagine they are quite unstoppable, which is good. They have pretty much bandaided the situation at the moment, allowing us to be on top at this point of the game, and even out in Black Temple, Hyjal, Sunwell Plateu, and WotLK with other casters.

Seeing I am at the stage of SSC/TK I feel quite strong at the moment, I have updated my wishlist with the new items I am wanting, I would love some of the new ZA gear, fantastic stuff, but I am trying to honor grind my way to the S1 mace when it becomes avalible, its another 78 dmg to my destructive powers, currently I stand at 759 nature dmg, and a consitent 80 with my trinket and 121 with totem down in PVE sitatutions. I suspect with my wishlist fullfilled I will be sitting on roughly ~1250 raid ready dmg.

Organising Raids

So, our guilds version of organising raids is to have an Absent forum, in which players give a reason if they can not make a raid.....

Then in the game the post a time people are meant to arrive, at an unknown location, to fight an unknown boss....

This is due to the fact that the guild doesn't know what encounter we can complete successfully, based on what players we have online at the given raid time....

Which I fully understand, without a pali tank we can't do x, with a druid tank we can do x, with no mage we can't do x, it makes sence, but its not very efficent...

In an attempt to rectify the situation I have started making threads on the forums we have so that people can /sign saying they will attend the raid tonight....I was hoping this would allow the Officers to say, we can do Gruul, Mag, Lurker what ever tonight because we know we have x,x & x....

Its still not a very good way of keeping track of the players though, if one can't get to the internet before the game, we won't know till raid time any way....

So I ask you, what does your guild do to keep track of what the next enemy you will conquor be, and how do you keep track of who will be attending prior to the raid actually starting???

God's of Zul'Aman

So 2.3 is out finally, 2.4 isn't far behind according to blizzard, so I'm looking forward to Sunwell Platuea, even tho I won't get a chance to get in there, but never mind.

Right so the state of the shaman is as follows, we bitch moaned and whigned enough, to get 2000 accounts banned for a few days, and over 5000 threads deleted from the forums resulting in 2 changes, for the better.....

No more DR on Earth Shock, and they are giving Elemental Shamans a 6% spell coefficent for free, for 1200 spell dmg, now I assume that spell coefficent raisees and lowers for every hundred odd spell damage above and below 1200....

Because they say that below 1200 spell dmg has been buffed very slightly, and anything above it recives a minor nerf, according to the forums, 1500 spell damage is roughly 0.5% damage reduction....

Which is fine considering we got no DR on Frost Shock, Earth Shock, and shitloads more MP5, and more chance of Overload Proccing :D

So overall I'm pretty happy, I did however here, that you can not use Elemental Mastery any more and get 3 critical hits from you Chain Lighting.....Not sure exactly what caused that, probably a full 5 elemental 5v5 team lol....

Anyway I have renabled my account, to have a crack at 2.3, and also because I've actually had some spare time on my hands lately....I got so busy last month, I always get busy in summer, places to go, people to meet.

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!

Patch 2.3 Destroys Elemental Shamans

Although I haven't tested this yet, theroycraft explains, with pretty basic mathematics, that this is seriously going to lower elementals dmg output, both in PVE and PVP....

Elemental relies on burst dmg to be able to kills its opponents in PVP, and in PVE I already am doing less damage then Hunters & Warlocks and some Mages, and I have pretty damn good ele shammy gear...

Now I understand that the mana work over we'll be reciving is going to be a good buff for us, maybe I wont need to spend 100's of gold on mana pots each week for raiding...

But I plain and simple won't get invites, if the DPS isn't there from my character...

So basically the way the mechanics work is, all your accumulated spell dmg is divided by the base cast time of the spell, over 3.5 seconds cast time, 3.5 seconds being the base rate all spells are divided by, so a spell that takes 3.5 to cast, gains 100% of your spell dmg....

So they have change it to Lighting Bolts & Chain Lighting, are not .5 seconds quicker to cast base time....what this means is....Lighting bolt used to be (3/3.5)* roughly 85% of your spell dmg, now its (2.5/3.5)* which is 71% roughly...

So if I have 1000 spell dmg, only 714 gets added to my lighting bolts instead of 857, now to try and make up for this change, they change Lightning Overload procs to proc 15% more then it did previously, so from 5% to 20% in patch 2.3, which is great, and would have worked, except they have half'd the damage Lighting Overload procs do, so instead of critting for a normal crit of 3k, it will crit for 1.5k....

The problem is who ever decided on these changes, doesn't realise that addition damage provided in your Lighting Overload, doesn't make up for the damage that is lost from the pure elemental damage loss, because of the casting time....

I do realise that something like this had to be done to resto shammys, to allow them to farm easier and level faster, but they need to add a talent that eliminates this for Elemental Shammys, hell if they made the Lighting Overload talent 25% instead of 20%, it would actually be a buff for our damage...

I did the calculations for Lighting Overload/Lighting Overload/Lighting Overload procs, assuming Lighting Overload still procs on top of itself, which we'll probably see alot more off since the change....it still doesn't add up, and that's taking into account the 2nd and 3rd overloads don't do half of one n other's damage....

I don't understand why blizzard keep making the shaman class harder and harder to play, each and every patch there seems to be something in place that makes it more difficult, the are nerfing us continually, while other classes get away with blue murder in my mind...

PVPing as a shaman is extremely hard as is, and this is going to make it even harder...I wonder how much more the shaman community can take, the % of shaman players has already dropped from 10% pre BC to 3%, after BC, and that's including the numbers picked up from all the new Alliance players....without them the Horde numbers would be nearing 1%...

Updated

So I haven't got any screenshots, I was hungover last night and really CBF getting anything prepare, I'm at work now, bored and so figured I'd post about whats been going on.....

My toon now has full Netherstrike Set, the Bracers, Chest and Belt, fantastic set, took me donkeys years to get, I'm pretty sure it was a solid 5 weeks of farming Primals....

The Netherdragon Scales weren't hard to get, the drop rate is quite good, and the respawn rate is also good, they are also worth quite a bit of money, about 30g a stack of 20, which isn't to hard to get, maybe half an hour of farming will grant you this.....But they sell quick, so its a good source of income if your a skinner...

Right, the Primal Mana, they also were not to difficult to collect, I found a terrific spot just outside Area 52, farming Mana Wrath, there was a specific route I took, which gave me, 1-3 Primal Mana in one route, if noone was there of course, it's a questing area, and I'm on a PVP server so I did run into a bit of trouble, nothing I couldn't handle....

One warlock gank'd me while I was farming, even after giving them clear indication I meant no harm, so I got him back, and hadn't burnt any of my cooldowns yet, so after he respawned and I killed him 5 times, 1 Fire elemental, 1 Earth elemental, 1 Bloodlust, 1 Elemental Mastery......etc I continued farming, and he left me alone....

So I collected my 36 Primal Mana and headed off to Elemental Platuea, where I attempted to farm Primal Air, as elemental.....this was a miserable failure, the Air Elemental are immune to lighting bolts, so, I believe I collected 3 Primal Airs, very very very slowly as Elemental and then respeced to a hybrid that I use in these situation....the spec is 29/32/0, basically its Enhancement, down to Stormstrike, and Dualweild, and Elemental down to 4 points into lowering the casting time of Lighting Bolts....

When I'm farming as this spec, I can easily Stormstrike, and Chainlighting for over 4k....I couldn't with the Air Elemental, but at least if another player tryed to gank me up there, I had a shot of killing them....So I farmed away, my I kept my +spell dmg mace in my Mainhand, and have an Offhand dagger that's got 93DPS, and basically put Flametounge on both weapons, which stacks with my +dmg, and just burn them down quickly....

So I farmed away, Primal Airs, although quicker as Enhancement still took ages, but I got them, I also used the area out the back of Shadowmoon Valley to collect them as well, when it was overcrowded on the Plateau....

The next step was collecting Primal Nethers, this step sucked, I kept being out rolled and things when I came to the last boss, but I managed to get them, I won 2 Primal nethers, only because they where guild runs and noone else needed them, and I bought the other 2 with the Tokens I collected over the 7 heroic runs I did....

I got +6mp5 enchanted to my chest, and socketed it with 2x Blue 2mp5 gems, and got Vitality on my boots, which is +4mp5/hp5....My unbuffed mp5 now for the shammy is 120, with AI / BoK / Wisdom / Spirit / Mana Spring & the elixirs and potions I buy each raid now, I have 230mp5 while casting.....my crits now 26.85% unbuffed, and 37.85% lightning....so need less to say I am doing alot better with Mana consumption in in raids.....

Also instead of buying Flask of Supreme Power, I have been buying Exlir of Major Mageblood, +16mp5, Adepts Exlir, and Superior mana Oil enchants for my wepon....my overall dmg in raids is allow higher then it was before, I am sitting 3rd on the dmg meters, with our 2 unbelievable hunters above me, I'm drawing less agro because the spells aren't hitting for an abnormally high amount, and the guild is putting a shadow priest in my groups from now on....

It is unbelievable, on Lurker I had to change my spell rotation, to add Chain Lighting shots in more often, just to go down in mana....

I also made my Hurricane Boots, which are more Mp5, so my wishlist has changed I was aiming for T4 shoulders to get the 4 piece bonus set, which I found out is bugged, the set has chance to proc, that give you 270 less mana for next spell cast within 15 seconds....atm its bugged and it takes 270 mana from all spells cast within that 15 second window...

So it would be lovely to get, but I am not going to bother, the guild still doesnt add DKP for Gruul runs, and with new members outrolling me on shoulder drops I have given up, same for the Mindblade in Kara, no DKP runs are just annoying me, so I am concentrating on T5 shoulders from Void Reaver, which we add & take dkp from, and the Rep for Lower City mace....

All and all that's about an extra 50 dmg, little more crit, more stats and more mp5 again...I think my PVE shammy is coming along very very nicely, I have +705dmg unbuffed nature atm, but a trinket that adds +80 dmg constantly in boss fights, after the first 10 shots, so technically I have +785 nature dmg, with another 50 Ill have +835, and my Wrath of Air alone adds +121, so I'm close to reaching that 1k barrier :D

Ill try to get around to adding picture when I get home....should be able to do it tonight during shutdown :D

New Site

I have renamed my site from Happyshield, to Lightning Overload, considering I'm an elemental shaman, always will be and have been for ages now, it suites the site better.

Also changed the template, and have updated my wishlist, I will post a new pic of Happypappy this afternoon when I get home, and put some posts in about, what's been going on, with screen shots etc....