Patch 3.0.3 Shaman notes & changes

I don't usually do this but why not this one time. Here are the latest patch notes for Shaman with some idle commentary in italics.


Shaman

• Flurry: Now grants the proper number of charges when it triggers. How handy.
  
• Improved Fire Nova Totem: Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20% and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire nova Totem for 2 sec. Might be a useful escape option in PvE and will of course annoy lots of PvPers.
  
• Lava Burst: The base damage has been increased by approx. 10%. A damage buff to a spell which, if you believe it, will be part of an end game Elemental rotation.
  
• Maelstrom Weapon: Tooltips corrected to correctly describe the chance for this talent to be triggered. How handy.
  
• Riptide: The initial heal amount has been increased on ranks 3 and 4 and periodic healing has been increased on all ranks. Extra HoT power is welcome, although it was pretty good already. Ranks 3 and 4 are at level 75 and 80 you gits.
  
• Stormstrike: Other shamans can no longer consume charges of your Stormstrike, and each shaman can have their own stormstrike on the victim. This is good for Enhancement shaman who won't get their Stormstrikes stolen by Elementalists, although it says other shamans and doesn't mention if Boomkins and the like can use the charge.
  
• Storm Reach is now called “Elemental Reach” and now includes Lava Burst. If Lava Burst was to be part of a level 80 Elemental rotation, it had to have a range to match Lightning Bolt, with this change it does. Oddly even with Lava Flows, Flame Shock only has a 35 yard range, unlike LB and Lava Burst which have a 36 yard range with this talent.
  
• Thunderstorm: Mana gain has been increased to 8%. Maybe now it will be useful in PvE, although I am still underwhelmed by this supposed top-tier talent, and the knockback makes using it in raids a real pain.
  
• Tidal Mastery: Now correctly applies its critical strike bonus to Earth Shield. How handy.
  
• Tidal Waves will now also proc with Riptide. This means we have another option in a resto "rotation" - to Riptide then quick Healing Wave someone, rather than having to Chain Heal to get the quick HW effect.
  

Professions

• The level requirements required to train gathering skills have been removed. How handy although I would prefer this extended to all professions ;)
  
• Inscription
  
  
  
  • Glyph of Flame Shock: Now extends duration by 6 sec and prevents Flame Shock from being consumed by Lava Burst. As Baluki says this is now an awesome Glyph for elementals. I won't rehash his stuff, go read :)
    
  • Glyph of Lava: Glyph of Earth Elemental removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases coefficient on Lava Burst by 0.1. Ok odd that they are mentioning coefficients in the patch notes but hey. This is an extra 10% on whatever the spellpower coefficient of Lava Burst is. I don't have the numbers so undecided on this one.
    
  • Glyph of Strength of Earth: Replaced with Glyph of Lava Lash which increases the bonus from having Flametongue Weapon by 10%. Enhancers, I think they want you to use FT on your offhand.
    
  • Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Replaced with Glyph of Elemental Mastery, which decreases the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 30 sec. Makes EM have a 2.5 minute cooldown, which is nice enough but I'm not sure it is essential, as an Elemental shaman should be critting quite often anyway.
    
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Shaman: Totem of Wrath tooltip updated to reflect that it affects all crit chance and indicates that it increases Spell Power (instead of just damage). How handy.