Wednesday 7 April 2010

Yet more Shaman tidbits

More questions were answered after the Shaman changes were posted, which I commented on here:

Q: Will Maelstrom Weapon include Lava Burst?
A: That’s the plan currently.


Ah so remember how they said they wanted to alter Enhancement so it would penalise bad decisions more, and reward a "good decision"? This initially seems that you would want to just cast Lava Burst on every MW5, as you should have Flame Shock up on the target so it is an auto-crit. However, Lava Burst has an 8 second cooldown and I sure get more than one MW5 in every 8 seconds. Therefore this seems like we will need to prioritise how to spend MW5 - Lava Burst first, but then Lightning Bolt if Lava Burst is on cooldown. We will also need to keep FS up on the target so the LvB crits. The reward for getting this right will be better DPS than if you LvB with no FS on the target, or use LB instead of LvB for a MW5.

Q: Elemental doesn’t want to drop Searing Totem at range. We want to drop Magma Totem.
A: Searing Totem needs to so more single-target damage than Magma. That said, if we’re happy with the ability to occasionally place totems at range there is no reason it couldn’t apply to any totem. Imagine, “After using this spell, the next totem you drop will appear at the feet of your target.”


I think they forgot that Searing Totem randomly chooses a target, so its not ideal anyway cos it might go after some crowd controlled add instead of the boss! Hopefully they have some cunning plan to address this shortcoming, but tossing a ranged Magma Totem would be cooler.

Q: Will Unleashed Weapon consume your enchants?
A: No.


Handy, I sortof thought that anyway.

Q: Are you supporting two-handed weapons for Enhancement?
A: Once you start to get into the dual-wield talents, then Enhancement is a dual-wield tree.


I'm quite happy to dual wield. The cost of Berserking two weapons is somewhat silly, but that's what a guild bank is for, right? ;)

Q: You didn’t address Enhancement survivability or mobility or X and Y!
A: This was just a preview and is not a comprehensive list of every change. Much more will be revealed in beta and much will change during beta.


Fair enough. Much is left unanswered like the lack of Intellect on gear, more stamina or more utility for our beloved Sentry Totem. But wait, what is this...

Q: You didn’t answer the most important shaman question! What about Sentry Totem?
A: The Cataclysm is a time of great upheaval. Deathwing’s return to Azeroth tore a hole in the fabric of the universe that tragically resulted in the ultimate and irrevocable destruction of all Sentry Totems. Level designers are contemplating a shrine for the Sentry Totem near that of Uther the Lightbringer. We know shaman players will greet this news with grief, but as with all class changes we’ll have to get into beta before anything is final.


Nooooooooooooo!

4 comments:

Skraps said...

Say what you will, but i find Sentry Totem invaluable. Every time we have a guild first boss kill, I drop Sentry Totem for the group shot. With that I am able to get far enough from the raid to get everyone and the boss, while still being in the pic myself! Kind of the auto timer of the wow photography world.

Stormcrazed said...

I think they forgot that Searing Totem randomly chooses a target, so its not ideal anyway cos it might go after some crowd controlled add instead of the boss! Hopefully they have some cunning plan to address this shortcoming, but tossing a ranged Magma Totem would be cooler.

Searing totem actually targets (and has always targetted) whichever target you had selected at the time you placed the totem.

It will also specifically not target a crowd controlled mob. That was changed years ago due to it regularly breaking sheeped mobs and sheeped players in PvP, and as far as I know, has not been changed back to it's original vanilla targetting methods since.

Ranged placement of Magma Totem would be sweet as though. I hope they do implement that functionality. :)

Rakhman said...

@Stormcrazed I must confess I never use Searing Totem, so I am most ignorant about those changes you mentioned. I guess I was remembering the old vanilla implementation, so I am glad to see it's been fixed up to be useful.

I guess with that information in mind the ranged Searing Totem might be useful. I guess the Earthquake spell they mentioned in passing is some sort of AOE and if that is targettable at range then they are designing Elemental Shaman to use that instead of Magma. Makes sense as never understood why you guys had to run into melee range to lay a Magma and then stay there to keep it refreshed.

Rakhman said...

@Skraps that is a genius use of Sentry Totem! If we did kill shots any more I would make use of it.

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