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....

Shaman lvl 80 Talent

This is my own build, this is not what Blizzard have decided, I was just experimenting and though tthat this would make most shamans happy in all 3 classes.

http://talents.utimer.ppvh.eu/?p=vt&i=36346

Level 80 Shaman

Noone has seen any ideas of what the new level 80 talent builds are going to be like, but there has been alot of speculation going around the shaman forums.... I play as elemental so I devised up a few myself which I think is pretty cool, and from what I've been reading about enhancement and resto I have thought of a few which might be cool as well.... So here goes...

T1 Elemental:
Is fine, 10% of spell cost / 5% extra damage is great, keep that just the way it is.

T2 Elemental:
I think the only thing that could be changed for WotLK is, the 15% fire damage to your fire totems, should become 15% to your fire bonus dmg, so someone with 860 +dmg woudl recvie 960 fire dmg, which would stack with your fire elementa, your totems and Flame Tounge.

T3 Elemental:
I think this is fine...

T4 Elemental:
I think this is fine...

T5 Elemental:
Now because of the new talents I hava added, I took 2 points away from some old talents, Unrelenting Storm was 2% of your total intellect goes to mp5, per point. I would like to see this more as 3 point in Unrelenting Storm gives you 10% of your total intellect to mp5...

T6 Elemental:
I think this is fine...

T7 Elemental:
I think this is fine...

T8 Elemental:
This is were Lightning Overload sits, and I think its a great talent, it doesn't proc very often howevere so sitting here next to it to the right side, would be a 3 point talent called Improved Overload, which adds 1% extra to Overload per talent point, which could potentially mean there is a 8% chance...

T9 Elemental:
This has the 3% crit totem, which is great for raids, so thats fine, sitting along side it to the right underneath Improved Overload, would be a 1 point talent called Forked Lighting....this would do 550-650 dmg at around the cost of a shock, instant cast and could hit upto 4 people, kinda of like a mages Dragon Breath, it would have a 20 second cooldown...

T10 Elemental:
Here I have added 7 talent points, 5 in a new talent called Elemental Control, which takes 3 minutes of the 20minute cooldown per point on your elementals, 5 points in that would make your elementals on a 5 minute timer. 1 Talent point to the left of it is called Burning Ground, which would slow all enemys within a 15 yard radius of your fire elemental by 60%. And 1 talent to the right of Elemental Control is a talent that is called Earthen Storm, which gives your Earth Elemental an abaility, which is kind of like a dust storm, the storm in theory would be picking up rocks and throwing it at enemys within 15 yards of the earth elemental, so 25% chance to stun all enemys within 15 yards for 3 seconds...

T11 Elemental:
1 Talent point here called Molten Boulder, 4 second cast time, does 950-1050 damage, explodes on impact stunning enemys within 10 yards of impact for 4 seconds.

The tree would look like this....



For enhancement and things I was thinking, they should revise somne of the older talents which are to rarely used, maybe make toughness 10% reduction in spell damage done to them instead of 10% increase to amour.

I think restoratio is pretty good already, and they should proably make it just even stornger in WotLK, making a class full spec'd resto hard to kill is fair in my mind, its upto the other people around them to save him or her and things...

Wishlist Updated

I have managed to get 2 things off my wishlist in recent days, the T4 Pants dropped from Gruul and I rolled a 92 and won them, and I have saved up and bought Darkmoon Card: Crusade, which is essentially a +80 dmg trinket....So not worried about Quags Eye any more...

So Thursday / Friday, useall attempts to get Mindblade, Ring of Recurrence, Adornment of Stolen Souls, T4 Shoulders, they are the last 4 things on my wishlist that are drops from bosses....I have 56 Nether Dragonscales, and have reach 375 LW, so I don't have long to go before I managed to craft myself the set I want, I reckon another month maybe and I'll be full wishlist....

Should make raiding alot less expensive and alot more fun, the guilds kinda slowed down in progress at the moment. I haven't been raiding much though thats because I have been busy on the weekends and at the moment its better for me to spend gold improving my toon, by buying mats to craft my gear then it is spending in on potions and raiding essentials.....after I'm geared properly I'll get back into the swing of it, and start saving for my epic mount...

Should rip along nicely though with +950 dmg consistently and over +1k dmg buffed for raids...

Mindlbade NNOO!!

The Mindblade dropped yesterday, I was outrolled!! OMG sucks, now it won't drop for ever again, never mind, maybe next time!

I've been working on my Leatherworking, and have decided its less important this this stage to make money selling the items, as it is to basically just craft them and get my skill up, so I've dropped the price right down, 65-70g for the sale of the hats, or actually I may have put them on for 60-65g, so hopefully they sell quickly, and I'll be farming shadows like mad, only have 62 to go, they drop fairly good in Hellfire.

So it might take a whole couple of night farming but once thats done I can move to the other patterns and get my gear mad, thats going to make a huge difference and help.....

Pimpin Hat

I bought 205g worth of Primal Shadows, they are for sale on AH for 11g each, but they oviosuly aren't selling, I bargined down my Shadows to 5g each, ended up with 41, which was enough to make 5 hats, I sold 2 over about 4 hours of yelling in trade for 90g each, and put 3 on AH for 85-90g, so we'll see how we go, I have enoguh mats excluding the Primal Shadows to make 10 more hats, I can take my time selling them and creating them, cause I want the gold from them just as much as the leatherworking levels....

So I basically need 79 more Primal Shadows and I'm done, can move to the next type of item to get closer to that treturous 375 mark!

World of Warcraft : Wrath of the Lich King

Could all be fake, but guess we'll find out tommorow, apparently the release of this will be showen at Blizzcon on the 3rd of August, I do think that the fact that http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath saying forbidden instead of not found is a pretty good lead that effort to at least make a webpage has been done....

Pretty exciting anywayz!

Progress in Leatherworking

Ok, so I've collected all 90 Heavy Knothide leather, 30 Cobra Scales, 80 Zherva Leather. The Zherva Leather was the worst part.... It took ages!! The drop rate sucks so bad....worst part about it is that you can't collect anything useful while farming them, with the snakes I was collecting Knothide and Cobra scales, and they were dropping greens that I could get disenchanted to make some decent money....

I was running round barrens using rank 4 Earth Shock, smashing them in 1 hit, but the drop rate was below 2%, I ended up screaming in general chat buying Zherva Leather for 1g each, had an army of player under 30 get my the last 25 bits of leather....

So last bit of my creation is to get 120 Primal Shadows, they are selling on my AH for 5-8g each. I'll buy any primal shadows under 5g, and use them to speed thing up a little, as I wanna get these items built and my Leatherworknig up so I can concentrate on farming the mats I need for the gear I want...

----------------------------------------
350-365

Stylin' Purple Hat

120 Primal Shadow
45 Rune Thread

Sell:1275 Gold @ 85g x 15
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I've been watching the market closely, because I don't want to loose out on to much gold reselling the items, now the cobra scales fluctuate between 12g - 18g, I've got 12 for sale on AH for 15g bid at the moment 18g buyout, so I'll see how the sale of them goes, and keep an eye on them, I managed to sell 6 of them for 14g each...

30 scales @ the fluctuating prices are...
Scales = 540 @ 18g each
Scales = 450 @ 15g each
Scales = 360 @ 12g each

The Primal Shadows which I haven't farmed yet, are sitting for anywhere between 3g and 8g on AH, now most of them are sitting at 5g and heading up to 8g, and the ones at 3g are selling really fast, and no one will pay more then 8g for them.....

120 shadows @ the fluctuating prices are...
Shadows = 960 @ 8g each
Shadows = 600 @ 5g each
Shadows = 360 @ 3g each

Knothide is pretty standard price and hasn't changed for a long time, so I'll take the out of the equation, if I sell the hats I make at the highest prices going of the sale price of Shadows & Scales, considering they are most expensive mats, the prices look like this...

Estimate High Value 106g
Estimated Mid Value 76g
Estimated Low Value 54g

Considering what I've said, and the fact that most of the prices on AH have been seen at mid to high, I'm going to be aiming to sell each hat for 75-85g, also because of the fact that I farmed them and I will have lots for sale at the one time, this will mean if they all sell for 85g ill make a nifty 1275g for my farming efforts :D