Proposed Shaman changes in Cataclysm

looks pretty awesome.

Throwing this in too.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it's necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
• We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.
• Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.
• Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.
• Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.
• Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.
• With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Elemental
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Elemental Overload

Enhancement
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Nature Damage

Restoration
Healing
Meditation
Deep Healing

Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful 'bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.

Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target's health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

An aoe? They're actually adding an AOE for elemental? I..w..

OH THANK YOU, YOU'VE MADE ME THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD

Most of it seemed PVE focused with a couple of other things, over all mixed bag leaning towards positive.  No cleansing totem is an interesting new thing.  Eh I'll pass judgment when I see some more of the changes.

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.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Well, at least it gets a shrine. =)

Shaman Q&A

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

Q: How can Elemental Overload proc Lava Burst when Lava Burst already hits so hard in PvP?
A: We’re going to change almost every number in Cataclysm to adjust for everything from single ranks of spells to larger health pools to new combat ratings. With much higher health pools, hopefully burst damage will go back to being a tool and not the only way to win matches.

Q: What happens to the Lightning Overload talent?
A: It provides a bonus to Elemental Overload.

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.”

Q: Will Elemental have to spend talent points just to get the Spirit to hit conversion?
A: It will be bundled with another attractive talent, such as Elemental Precision.

Q: Will Unleash Weapon work with Frostbrand?
A: Yes. We just provided some examples.

Q: Is Healing Rain channeled?
A: No, it's not a channeled spell.

Q: Is Earthquake channeled?
A: Probably, but we’ll see.

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

Q: Does the 10% spell power buff from Elemental scale with the shaman or the target’s spell power?
A: It will scale with the target the same as Demonic Pact and other buffs that bring the same benefit.

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.

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.

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.

I've begun delving into the Beta with my goblin elemental shaman. There are a number of changes they haven't actually said anything about, both awesome and irritating. I'll elaborate on a few.

Ghost Wolf - now only boosts move speed by 30%, glyphable to 35% with a Major glyph. However, it can be used anywheres, even indoors and in dungeons, and still grants the immunity to slows. The talent that removes its cast time now also grants you a 15% move bonus, but that doesn't stack with Ghost Wolf, effectively turning it into a +20% move speed if you have a glyph instead of 35%, and 15% otherwise. The speed decrease is noticeable. There's a Minor Glyph implemented that allows you to change the appearance to that of an Arctic Wolf, but my beta server's auction house is pathetic, and has very few glyphs available so I don't know exactly what it looks like.

Healing Spells have had a reworking. Shamans now have a Flash Heal equivalent; Healing Surge, at 1.5 cast with high cost and high power. They've also been given a Greater Heal copy, literally. Greater Healing Wave takes a 3 second cast, does very high healing (10k base at 82), and costs a lot of mana. When you absolutely need someone healed to full, now. I've yet to go into Resto, but I expect I'll do it eventually.

Elemental Rotation - in Wrath, the raiding rotation consisted entirely of, flame shock, lava burst, lightning bolt until lava burst is off cooldown, repeat. In Cataclysm, this is not the case any longer. Well, it's similar, but more fun. And much stronger. When you have Lightning Shield up, you have a 60% chance to get 2% of your total mana back each time you hit something with a lightning bolt (including the free Elemental Overload ones!), AS WELL AS adding an extra shield charge, up to 9. Now you say, Tranq, elemental doesn't need lightning shield, nothing hits us in range! And you'd be correct. Except now Earth Shock detonates those six bonus charges, dealing the combined damage as well as its own to your target, both having a chance to crit. What this means is that Lightning Bolt now allows you to build combo points, and use Earth Shock as a finisher. Friggen massive damage. Given that Lightning Bolt costs so little, and gives you almost twice its mana back after casting, combined with the unchanged Clearcasting setup, you do not need Water Shield, or even Mana Spring totem anymore, letting you drop the new Tranquil Mind (inorite) water totem that offers 30% pushback resistance, and Lightning Shield for the aforementioned zomfgpain.

But wait, I'm not done yet. Flame Shock's ticks now have a 20% chance to refresh the cooldown on Lava Burst, meaning that occasionally you'll lava burst, then lava burst again. Combined with Elemental Overload, that's a potential of three and a half shots in three seconds. Speaking of Elemental Overload, it's now the Mastery setup for Elemental... and Mastery is entirely overpowered. 16% regular proc, +2%/mastery point, which is like Expertise, it raises slowly, but is very powerful. At 82 I have a 24% chance to hit a second, 75% damage spell every time I cast. Add in tier level gear, you're going to be seeing 30, maybe 40% proc chances. And, to confuse people even more, Elemental Mastery is still in the game, with a very peculiar setup indeed. 3 Minute cooldown, next damage spell is instant cast, 15% damage boost and 20% spell haste for 15 seconds. And then, every time you Lightning Bolt something, the cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds. That cuts its down time by more than half. And let's not forget the new AOE, Earthquake. It does decent damage at range, basically a physical damage Blizzard, with a 10% chance to knock things down. It's not great, and no talents really improve it, but it IS an aoe, and it has a damned awesome effect. A perfect circle of the ground raises up and starts cracking and shaking, looks very nice. At my level and gear it does ~1200 damage/sec over 8 seconds. It'd be nice if there were talents or glyphs for it, such as to improve the knockdown rate or such, but it has no cooldown and is affected by Clearcasting so it's easy to maintain.

Also, Spell Hit. Now they mentioned that Shamans were getting spirit turned to +Hit, but I don't think they emphasized the conversion ratio. It's 1:1 - every point of spirit is a point of Spell Hit. When I logged in, I had about 30% worth of +Hit. Now that decreases as you swap out gear, since no caster mail has hit anymore, but it means I can use exactly the same stuff as Resto shamans, meaning I only need a single set of gear. More spirit, more hit. Resto gets the same Meditation skill the other healing classes get, 50% of spirit regen active in combat, meaning Spirit's going to be emphasized. Shamans also get to Shackle elementals now, with a pretty, and unique graphic - and Hex is actually USEFUL now. Its cooldown is 45 seconds, duration 1 minute, and you can glyph it to 30 seconds cooldown, meaning a shaman can actually lock something down in CC now.

A few totems have been removed. Cleanse Disease/Poison is no longer a shaman ability, only curses. Resto gets the ability boosted to remove magic too. So Cleansing Totem is gone. Sentry is removed for aforementioned reasons. All of the elemental resistance totems have been removed as well, instead rolled into a single Elemental Resistance totem that gives all three at once. Even better though, you can glyph Healing Stream to do exactly what the Resistance totem does, so you can have both up at once. Totem of Wrath is gone, instead any fire totem grants its 10% spell power bonus with the talent, otherwise Flametongue grants 6%. A new totem has been added, Totem of Tranquil Mind. It's a water totem, and grants 30% casting pushback resistance to everyone in range. I've noticed a marked decrease in how bad pushback actually is even without the totem, and I have no talents to add to the resistance, so I think they downplayed that mechanic a bit. The 30% is enough to make you nigh immune to it.

After finding out that in Beta, you can buy all of the glyphs from vendors in Dalaran, I tried the Arctic Wolf one. It turns your transparent tan wolf into a transparent grey wolf. Not that useful, considering the other Minor glyphs.

A word on glyphs. There are now three tiers of them, Prime, Major, and Minor. Three for each. Minor is where they were, they change cosmetic or reagent costs of spells, all convenience stuff. Major affects how spells behave; for example, one makes it so Lightning Shield can't be removed via damage anymore, it will always have 3 charges minimum, or the Totemic Recall one that boosts the mana regained from 25% to 75%, making totems much easier to move. Prime glyphs directly affect how things work, usually by boosting their numbers a little bit; most of the current Major glyphs were turned into Prime glyphs, like the Glyph of Lava Burst that boosts damage by 10%, or making DoTs/HoTs last longer. Three slots for each tier, total of nine glyphs. When you use a glyph, it's added to your book, and you never have to buy it again. But, there's an item required to change them, Dust of Disappearance, that vends for 8g in the beta, that Scribes can make. This'll make glyphs more expensive, but they're also far more useful now.

I ran through a few of the new 5-man instances yesterday as a restoration shaman. I gotta say it's nothing at all like it was in Wrath. Lesser Healing Wave was removed entirely, but Flash Heal (Healing Surge) and Greater Healing Wave were added, as well as the Unleash Life and Healing Rain abilities.

What does this do? Well. It's odd. Shamans have basically been turned into tank healers, with raid heals on the side rather than the premiere raid healers. Mana is an issue as well, it's incredibly easy to go OOM in five man fights if you don't conserve your mana, much greater than the degree it was in Wrath. Chain Heal now heals four people, and you can glyph it so that its healing reduction each jump is cut in half at the cost of a slightly weaker initial heal.

Healing Rain is... alright? But it's not something you can depend on that much. There's a talent that greatly improves its healing ability in deep Resto, as well as boosting the healing stream totem's heals, and the sad part is that the totem heals more than the spell. It costs a lot, about twice the cost of a Greater Healing Wave, and does at my level perhaps 800hp/sec, that decreases the more people it heals in a linear fashion, so two is 400, four is 200. Considering most people have 80k+ hp, that is barely a drop in the bucket. Healing Stream on the other hand does over 500 to everyone, regardless of how many people it's healing, lasts much longer, and has a far greater range, while costing a fraction of the mana. All in all, it's not worth the effort, though it's a quick cast and is not channeled... so if mana isn't an issue, dropping in on top of your healing stream totem might boost your HPS for a bit, but the cost usually outweighs that.

Healing Surge is an interesting spell. It costs about the same as Greater Healing Wave, maybe a bit less, and heals for about 30% less as well. But it's a 1.5 second cast, making it the equivalent to Flash Heal. Strong, expensive, quick. Greater Healing Wave is the 3 second (2.5 talented), high cost, high heal spell equivalent to Greater Heal. Like Priests though, they're bringing back the standard Heal, which for Shamans is regular old Healing Wave, which does about half the healing of the GHW, but costs about a third as much mana, while having the same casting time.

The mistake I made on my first run was using Healing Surge frequently, which ran me dry of mana very fast. Managing that resource is the new game for healing classes, it's much harder now since all you get is +Spirit. Mp5 is gone entirely, the only other ways to get mana are Mana Spring and Water Shield. Even Mana Tide totem doesn't grant you mana regeneration any longer, it simply boosts everyone's spirit by 350%. There's a new talent deep in the tree called Telluric Currents that lets your Lightning Bolt regen mana equal to 20/40% of the damage it deals, which would be nice, except that I never have time to spam lightning bolts for mana. Spike damage is more or less gone, it's constant health loss now.

The Unleash Elements effect for Earthliving is Unleash Life. It does a quick, mid-power instant heal, and then improves your next direct heal by 20%. This stacks with Riptide's Chain Heal boost, letting you do a +45% powered one every fifteen seconds. Cleanse Spirit now only removes Magic and Curses when talented, and only one of each when it's cast. There's a talent that reduces its cost and gives it a heal when it removes an effect, though, similar in power to Healing Wave. Earth Shield now has 9 charges,the glyph increases its healing by a fair bit. One nice talent in early resto is Totemic Focus. This was in Wrath, but it got a new ability in Cata; it still reduces mana costs of totems, by 30% now, but it also increases their duration by 40%. So your healing stream, stoneskin, and other beneficial totems last a huge seven minutes. Another talent in early Enhancement boosts the range of all of them by 30%, letting Healing Stream heal ~50 yards for seven minutes. It's very nice. With the glyph of totemic recall, when you do have to move, you get 75% of your mana back, meaning totems are no longer difficult to position, or expensive.