Ailis in Hunterland

Gah, finally.  Why are shamans the last ones to see their new tier set?

Well, the wait is over, somewhat.  Here’s the T10 version as worn by a male human.  I hope the race sets will be out shortly.

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/november/huge-sh.jpg

I can get behind this design.  I’m amused by the spectral goats floating out of the shoulders – would make more sense to be wolves, don’t you think?  But nothing looks ostentatious or sticks out weird.  The colors are muted, which I’m actually in favor of.  The whole set just speaks to the Icecrown zone itself.  With the Fall/Winter months setting in here in my city, the set just seems to go with everything else going on as well.

I don’t know about you guys, but it’s nice to be somewhat excited about a tier set again.  T9 fell flat on its face in my opinion.  I have two pieces and that’s probably all I’ll get.  I only really have two purchased badge items, too.  The rest of my gear is a mash of ToC, crafted and U25 gear and I’m fine with that.

Given this look and the set bonuses, however, I think I may just try for all the pieces and see what I can get my little hands on.  Here’s to hoping the rest of the loot from Icecrown and the Emblem of Frost vendor is fun and appealing as well.

Shaman

• T10 Elemental Relic (Shocks) – Your Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock spells grant 73 haste rating for 15 sec.  Stacks up to 3 times.
• T10 Enhancement Relic (Stormstrike) – Your Stormstrike ability grant 146 attack power rating for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• T10 Restoration Relic (Riptide) – Your Riptide spell grants 85 spell power for 15 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes (Improved Reincarnation will continue to lower the cooldown by 10/20 minutes).

/dies

3.3 is coming.

I would venture pretty soon based on the amount of information we already have and the speed with which new information is being released.

My guess?  Before Thanksgiving.

Anyway, let’s talk changes, shall we?

Classes: General

• Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon.
• Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player’s level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.
• Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.

Races: General

• Orc and troll shamans now have their own unique totem art.
• Racial Attribute Bonuses: These bonuses have been recalibrated to even out the amount of starting health on the various races. All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina. For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total.

Shamans

• Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.
• Talents
  • Elemental Combat
    • Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds.

Items

• Glyphs
  • Shamans
    • Glyph of Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Glyph of Fire Nova. This glyph now reduces the cooldown of Fire Nova by 3 seconds.

And just released (so therefore subject to many, many changes…):

• Item – Shaman T10 Restoration 2P Bonus – Your Riptide spell grants 20% spell haste for your next spellcast.
• Item – Shaman T10 Restoration 4P Bonus – Your Chain Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over until cancelled.
• Item – Shaman T10 Elemental 2P Bonus – Your Lightning Bolt spell reduces the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 1 sec.
• Item – Shaman T10 Elemental 4P Bonus – The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 15 sec.
• Item – Shaman T10 Enhancement 2P Bonus – When you activate your Shamanistic Rage ability you also deal 12% additional damage for 15 sec.
• Item – Shaman T10 Enhancement 4P Bonus – Each time the beneficial effect of your Maelstrom Weapon talent reaches 5 charges, you have a 15% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 sec.

Breakdown

Well, that certainly is a lot going on.  Add to that the new Icecrown Heroics and Raid instance plus all emblems are being upgraded again (All emblems of Conquest drops are now Triumph drops and the new instance drops Emblems of Frost) and you have a solid packed patch that will, hopefully, keep us busy enough until Cataclysm releases.

The large majority of the general changes are next in a long line of changes designed to make leveling faster and easier.  With Cataclysm being released next year and the introduction of Worgens and Goblins plus the re-mapping of Azeroth, you’re going to have a lot of people re-rolling in starting zones.  So, Blizzard is making it easier for those of us with multiple max-level characters to start from 1 again.

Totem art. It’s about damn time.  Granted, I play Alliance, so my totems have always been unique but I’ve never ceased to find it odd that all Horde totems look the same.  Now, each race will have totems unique to their race.  Currently available pictures are Dwarf, Troll and Orc.  Goblin totems still unavailable (and probably for quite some time, honestly).

Fire Nova Totem. Shamans: “We don’t have AoE!”  Blizzard: “You do now.”  I haven’t been on the PTR to test this out but it sounds ridiculously fun and I wonder what the effect is with pairing it with Magma Totem.  Something tells me this is no comparison to a Mage’s Blizzard or a Druid’s Hurricane, but it adds another level of DPS to any Shaman tree.  This can be an “oh shit” button for Resto Shamans and a way to help with mobs (whelps anyone?) for both Elemental and Enhancement Shamans.

Set Bonuses. Okay, an Enhancement set bonus I can get behind.  I still cringe a little when I look at the current Tier 9 bonus especially compared to the awesome that is the Tier 8 bonus.  Tier 10 seems to make up for Tier 9 in that both bonuses focus on one of our most important stats – Attack Power.  With the reduction in CD on Shamanistic Rage in the last patch from 2 minutes to 1 minute, with the T10 2P bonus, you will have an extra 12% damage every 60 seconds.  Add to that the constant MW procs now potentially giving you 20% more AP, Enhancement Shamans are going to see higher instances of burst damage in a full T10 set.

Let’s just hope the design is something I can get behind as well.

I wanted to take a moment and expand on a subject I touched upon briefly in my previous post outlining the new changes coming next year with Cataclysm.  I realize we have, at minimum, a year to wait for the new expansion and there’s a couple of raids in between now and then; however, I wanted to attempt to get a discussion going because I’m honestly curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

There was a blue post a few days ago that caught my attention regarding the stat changes and the accusation that it was over-simplifying everything:

I find many of these arguments to be elitist. This is not a “catering to the casuals” issue. This is an issue that even some of our most educated and math-savy players could not make gear decisions without the help of external tools. We’re much less concerned about more casual players because the specific choice of upgrade will mean less for them (skill outweighs the contribution of stats for all but the absolute best players) and they often choose pieces based on things like art over stats.

I’m talking about very hardcore raiders who no longer could eyeball a piece of gear with any degree of authority. I might believe that some very few of you are so proficient with the math as to be able to eyeball the stats, but I think you are vastly overestimating the number of players who can or do. Remember, the formula to convert armor penetration into damage was so complicated that we had to take the unusual step of actually spelling out how it was calculated.

With this change will you still have to make hard choices about upgrading? Absolutely. Will there still be quasi-religious debates about which neck is best in slot for a given spec? Of course. Will you still need to understand the mechanics to make the best choice for your character? We think so. One of our overall design philosophies for WoW (and Blizzard) is to be simple but have a lot of depth. Some people mistake needless complexity for depth.

Meanwhile, we think there is a lot of benefit of getting rid of problematic stats like defense and accomplishing things like letting casters improve by focusing on throughput over mana pool.

Here’s the breakdown.

After Cataclysm, there will be multiple things that will effect your output as a tank/dps/healer:

1. Gear (and, with that, Gems, Reforging and Enchants)
2. Build (with Glyphs)
3. Professions
4. Mastery
5. Path of the Titan

Right now, you can go to any number of popular websites and find THE build and gear setup for your particular class that will make you the best you can be.  If you follow X template, you are the best.  Period.

I think this has led to the issue that the Blue mentions above when they say that players are getting to the point where they memorize a list of BiS and go for those items to the exclusion of everything else because someone told them it was the best.  It’s taken the thought out of gearing and balancing.  I realize a lot of this had to do with the vast number of stats we have to balance to achieve and optimal level of performance, thus the “over-simplification” of stats in the upcoming xpac.

Does this mean cookie cutter specs and BiS lists will go away with Cataclysm?  I don’t think so but my hope is we’ll have a couple of lists instead of one list.  Something like:

“If you went with X Path of the Titan and Y Mastery, then here’s a BiS gear list for you, but this is purely dependent on your reforging and profession buffs.”

And so on.  This means a helluvalot more theorycrafting coming from the think-tanks, which is all well and good and, yes, I will still read it all.  But here’s my hope.

I hope that, with the vast number of combinations of Paths, Mastery, Builds, Reforging, Gear combinations, Gems, Enchants, Profession Buffs and more, people will start to make their own choices.  The simplification of stats allows for this and even encourages it.  There is a whole new glyph system with your chosen Path; a whole set of Mastery tools for your build; possibly new Profession buffs to correlate with the stat changes; and more.  What I’m hoping is that, instead of Cookie Cutter Spec A being used by every Enhancement Shaman in a progressive raiding guild, you’ll have something more akin to the “Top Ten Enhancement Shaman Systems.”

But I want to know your thoughts on it.  Do you think we’ll still have set in stone cookie cutter specs for everyone or do you think a significant change is coming?  Is this good or bad?