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Q u o t e:
As a part of our class Question & Answer series, we are looking for any questions you may have concerning your class and ask that you post in this thread. For more information on our Q&A series, please click here- http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9163981415

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first!

Ok the topic of out of date Totem mechanic has been arising a lot recently

Question: any specific release date for this idea (also note the idea of totem poles ;)


Also on what grounds did you have on 'Make Ghost Wolf Instant' thread for deleting it?
Many people really wanted it to help balance the enchancement talent points as well as generally PvE/PvP

Since all caster DPS classes have a way to convert a mana regaining stat (spirit) to a damaging stat .

Is there plans on doing the same for elemental shamans? Comverting Mp5 to something offensive? Or spread the gear more evenly, most mail caster gear in Ulduar and Naxx has a lot of Mp5 on it?

Are you planning to improve resto shamans in both PvE & PvP?, Also is it intented that we are being forced over to a LHW/Riptide playstyle in PvE even tho Chain Heal is supposed to be our "signature" spell in raid healing?

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Q u o t e:
Are you planning to improve resto shamans in both PvE & PvP?, Also is it intented that we are being forced over to a LHW/Riptide playstyle in PvE even tho Chain Heal is supposed to be our "signature" spell in raid healing?

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This

I would like to talk about enhancement shamans outdated (that word really gets thrown around alot, but this is a serious matter) damage dealing mechanics.

Specifically targetting the RNG nature of our damage.

Frostbrand, Windfury, Maelstrom Weapon (talent), Flurry, Purge (high dispel resistance).

I want to know why enhancement is so focused on random play as it really does diminish the chance to create a distance between skilled and bad enhancement shamans.

Edit: I almost forgot! Elemental Devastation (talent). Another really annoying RNG talent that relies on shock crits, of which our spell crit is naturally low and vs resilience it becomes even more miniscule.

Saft

Will you consider giving us any escape methods for PvP e.g Ghost Wolf removing snares?
Even though you say it would "steal" a core mechanic from druids, you kind of negated that statement with the whole "bring the player, not the class" concept.

Also, any plans on the Stoneclaw totem shield to increase its value through spellpower/attackpower or Earth's Grasp talent?

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Q u o t e:
Are you planning to improve resto shamans in both PvE & PvP?, Also is it intented that we are being forced over to a LHW/Riptide playstyle in PvE even tho Chain Heal is supposed to be our "signature" spell in raid healing?

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The biggest and most important question I have at the moment about shamans is:

Whats the difference between this thread and all the "make suggestions" or all those hundreds of threads just before the "bus-shock" event?

What I mean is, do you plan on listening and answering some / all of these questions? Since many times we have been asked for feedback and suggestions. But they have never been implemented, it even went so far that we never got a real Classreview before Wrath....

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Q u o t e:
Will you consider giving us any escape methods for PvP e.g Ghost Wolf removing snares?
Even though you say it would "steal" a core mechanic from druids, you kind of negated that statement with the whole "bring the player, not the class" concept.

Also, any plans on the Stoneclaw totem shield to increase its value through spellpower/attackpower or Earth's Grasp talent?

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I would like to discuss your first question as it is no longer of any importance. Snares are a non-issue with the new Earthen Power talent. I would be more concerned about Toughness having a useless snare reduction counterpart though.

Your second question about stoneclaw is one that I might ask myself, albeit I'm curious to know why such an effect which is more than necessary for our survival in PVP is a glyph and not baseline?

Saft

PVE Concerns:

Shaman mechanics, which are mainly stationary or highly range-dependant (totems as the former, chain healing/lightning as the latter) in the (mainly mobile) encounters these days.

Low HPs in high raid-damage encounters.

Restoration
Is there any thing that the devs wanna share about improving the AOE healing of the resto shamans

The Raid healer now become the single target healer?

Where is our "raid healer" niche that allways the devs where talking about?

Where is the "oh#%%%" button on the resto shaman? evry other healer have...



Enhancement
Any dev think about bring back the 2H pvp spec?


Elemental
Is TOW will ever scale with gear?


Global shaman Class
where are our class defining ability "The Totems"?



Ty for your time

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Q u o t e:


I would like to discuss your first question as it is no longer of any importance. Snares are a non-issue with the new Earthen Power talent.

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This would be very true... if every shaman was enhancement.
:(

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Q u o t e:


This would be very true... if every shaman was enhancement.
:(

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Good point. But ghost wolf is an enhancement spell you know :X if it benefits resto and ele more than it does enh due to us already not being affected much by snares, that would just be... weird

I don't know. I believe something more creative has to pop up instead.

Saft

Concerns:

PvE:
Itemization/Weapons:
In naxx ele shamans was either forced to take weapons with MP5 or spirit. The BIS items is a healing mace. The only two weapons i can see is tuned for ele shamans are the Wraith Strike (ilvl213) and the Hammer of Astral Plane(ilvl213)
I myself are stuck with Ice Spire Sceptre from Malygos, which have spirit. I do play resto myself and there isn't alot of options for resto either.
Weapons with MP5 is still good for priests and druids, where as spirit weapons have 100% wasted stat points for shamans.

Healing:
Shamans have the lowest healing output of any classes, both on AoE and single target. Similar geared palas can cast FoL that does as much healing as LHW at a much lower cost and HL that heals for 30% more than HW at same manacost. Also Paladins can regain more mana on Divine Plea tha shaman can with ManaTide, also ManaTide affects our entire grp, so usualy the shamans end up OOM first.


DPS:
When it comes to damage my general consensus is that good enhancement shamans can do as much damage as other classes, but elemental is lagging slightly behind.

Since our totem buffs aren't unique anymore, we basically doesn't bring anything except a heroism.
Anyways, PvE is where shamans do it best now, if you compare it to how we're doing in PvP.


PvP

Here is where the shaman lack most.

Elemental and enhancement is virtually non-existent in arenas.
To be honest that wouldn't concern me much if resto was on par with other classes.
(To elaborate on this; I don't think all classes will have several viable speccs available in arenas, like warriors have Arms thats viable now, palas have holy and ret, etcetc.. I don't think protwarriors ever will be viable either)

Resto-flaws:
At the moment about every class can just simply tunnelvision a shaman down. With my warrior I can kill any shaman within 1-2 minutes, always, where as druids, palas and even priests can survive or kill the warrior for a long time. (I don't mean to balance healer survivability after how long they can tank a warrior..)
Some classes can be tanked much longer, but that is usually with the cost of using earthshield and you end up with virtually no manaregen.

Even when I can use Watershield i end up going OOM when im facing "mirrors" in 2v2 where the other team have a paladin/druid or priest.

As resto shaman you must basically outskill druid/priest/pallas to have same success in arena.
(Yes I have played druid season2--6 in arenas too, it's much easier)

How to fix resto:
Give us better regen, especially in PvP. This could be done with earthshield giging us mana upon taking damage like watershield when we use it on ourself? (it still costs alot of mana to cast, so it's never an ideal situation).

Priest and druids do especially have many trashbuffs, which make you purge forever to get the buffs of them you need to remove, druid have also barkskin which makes purging inntervate impossible.
Shamans on the other had does have very few buffs, so stripping the earthshield of a stunlocked shaman will in most cases be his/her death. Give us more trashbuffs or make eartshield harder to dispel. Maybe give the improved earthshield talent 100% less chance to be dispelled while the shaman is stunned, feared ot crowd controlled in any way?!

I also think the shaman need to take less damage from melee or a better hot/instant, since even with 15k armor we can't tank melee at all.


At last I must say I really hope there will be some shaman changes since we are lagging behind other classes.

I'm crossing my fingers!!


(huh my avatar still says im in a guild I left before wotlk even came out ?!?)

I have 2 questions.
As i have no interest in raiding, both questions will be subjects to arena play.

1) Regarding 51 pt. restoration talent, Riptide: Are you aware that riptide needs a tweak in arena environment and for pvp use? Riptide has 6 second cooldown.It provides extremely useful haste effect with 2 charges and an instant heal AND a hot.So this is an important button to press.

We press it for the haste.
We press it for the instant heal, because we have none other.
NOT for the pathetic hot effect which will be re-writed in 6 seconds.
If you want us to have a hot with it, make it useful, give us a glyph like renew.

2) Regarding Restoration / Mana Tide Totem: Shamans' way of refunding mana.
This is very simple & very important.

Shaman puts the totem down.
Totem waits.And waits.And waits.And pulses out first tick.

Now, against competent players, assuming you have positioned the totem perfectly, this totem does not have a chance for the second tick, 1k absorb shield wont provide it either.Probably didnt tick the first one.

WHY does mana tide waits for the 1st pulse ? Why do i start re-gaining mana 3 seconds after i used my cooldown ? In most situations, Mana-Tide (Protected with Stoneclaw) have a lifetime of 2-6 seconds UNLESS you have a CC cooldown to keep enemy from killing it.Or unless you're matched up with inexperienced unskilled players who has no clue when and how shaman uses this totem.

So this totem needs to be faster to prove useful.Are you aware of that ? Have any plans on it ?

3) Why don't we still have a panic button (dmg reducers & evaders) for restoration shamans ? Don't tell me "YOU GOT NS"

When are totems going to get fixed?
and
As I heard Melee / Healer(Cleave setups in GC opinion...) setups are dominating in 2v2, you are going to nerf(fix) it somehow... Will this effect the Enha shammies also?
and
MS warriors are totally countering Resto shaman in fights, are you planning on doing something about it?

I came up with another set of questions:

Enhancement PVP

Why is our only stun and viable pressure tool stuck to our Feral Spirit cooldown?

Why is our only root-break/sprint tool stuck to our Feral Spirit cooldown?

Why is our PVP health around 19-20k while paladins, warriors, death knights and rogues have between 22-27k?

Why do we have less attack power than other melee in PVP when we are using PVP gear with +AP gems aswell?

Why is our survivability tool (maelstrom weapon heals) stuck to offensive proccing? Why is it linked with our maelstrom weapon damage (lightning bolts)?

Why are our shocks linked in cooldown when the damage isn't strong enough to justify using them on every global? (wind/earthshock excluded for obvious reasons)

Saft

There are loads of these arround with all the same topic, this is mine:

I've read you dont want to buff mail armor, I can live with that but why the hell did you nerf it??? expample:

Tier 7 has 351 Stam
Tier 8 has 324 Stam ??

Isn't tiering up meaning all stats go up, or atleast stay the same?

Other melee's tier 8:

Retadins : 591 Stam
Warriors: 591 Stam
DK's: 591 Stam
Ferals: 530 Stam
Rogues: 388 Stam

And shammies allready have the Lowest base health of all classes.

I'm just sick of dying of aoe in Ulduar and people pointing at me and seeing "dude you died again" and all I can reply is that I got the Lightbom during a tantrum for accemple where nobody else dies from but me. etc etc.

Everyone in raid has more HP then me and i'm a melee. I see other melee's even crossing 30k :) thats 7-8k more then us! I've seen that fellow shammies saw no other options then using 5 talent points in the 10% stam talent or using the Stoneclam Glyph.

That is pure PVP Blizzard dont make me go there, a stoneclaw totem should have no use in Ulduar otherwise you can just delete the enhancing totems talents and let the dk's do there thing. and it's not like we have 5 extra talent points to put into stamina. I know its take the player not the class now, but its seems like you making Enhance Shammies obsolite now, 1st in PVP and now in PVE too.

In the start I'd like to say I'm not going to touch resto even with a long staff because I haven't healed since Karazhan.

Elemental questions:
- Would it be possible to change ToW into an "aura" talent, which would make ALL fire totems grant the spellpower buff.
- Will ToW be changed into a % amount insted of a fixed numer? It is increadibly powerful early on, but gets quickly overtaken by the demonology warlock buff.
- Will shaman finally recieve RAID BUFFS which have, at least ANY effect on dps, I don't mean DEBUFFS on bosses. I think every other class / spec gains dps from buffs like BoK, Intellect buff, spirit and so on.
- Is there any chance of creating some more minor glyphs, or at least glyphs affecting Searing and Magma totems?
- Is there any chance to introduce a ranged cast ability for totems (like hunter traps)?
- Is there any chance of increasing the % of dmg on the 4pt elemental set? 8% seems awfully weak for the ultimate t8,5 bonus. I don't have it so can't be sure, but still it looks kinda meh.
- Are there any chances of slightly increasing the Thunder "knock up" (bad jokes inc) effect so small stones don't make our 51 talent useless, and also, will it finally stop being reflectable?
- Will there be more than I think... 1 whole elemental wepon in all of ulduar? Come on... change a sword to a dagger, remove spirit from a dagger, or simply add a fist wep and a mace from a non-hard mode on a boss.

Enhancement Questions (mostly pvp viewpoint):
- Could we get less RNG in our dmg? WF, Mael, Frostbrand, Crit dependency... we could really use somethign stable. It's fun to put 10k worth of crits in someone, I admit, but not when you hit him for 600 or so when you really need to finish him off.
- Thoughness talent... the shorter snares part is useless whrn you spec into Earthen Power, is there any chance to change it?

General Questions:
- Totems:
We already know you want to get rid of totemstomping macros, yay for that, we have no ETA, but that's somethign I'mused to, we never get only good news.

Could you introduce a spell which would work like a Totem bag - ranks 1-3, rank 1 lets you cast 2 totems as a single spell at an increased cost, 2 - 3 totems, 3 -4. cost increase like... 5/10/15% per totem.You assign totems to it before casting, like glyphs.
This would be increadibly helpful, since in ANY fight, a shaman must use up to 4 seconds on nothing but casting buffs. Its best seen in arenas.

Any chance of making Sentry Totem useful for anything else than book camping in dalaran? Stealth removing pulse, passive stealth detection, anything will do.

- Hex, our only CC-like spell, it's uniqe, because it has the shortest rnage, a cast time and a cooldown. Ok, I get it, we weren't supposed to get a purely good cc. But can we at least have a usefull glyph for it? Increased range, reduced cd, reduced cast time, longer duration, so many possibilities... don't get me wrong, thet extra bit of dmg can be good, but its usually not even being noticed

- Talent trees. That might be just me, but they seem hell lot bloated... I was thinking of a nice ele pvp build, but i wanted toughness aswell, calc shows I woudl need to make some sacrifices which might turn out not being worth it :(

- Purge. Atm in pvp I seem to need at least 3 purges to remove 2 buffs from most ppl, the dispell resistance has gone too far... I understand it's supposed to help all the caster, but come on... enhance dps is too unreliable as it is to use 10 hours worth of gcd's to remove a HoT and a shield from a healer...

- And the last, I think most important question...

Will we get any more dps buffs for elemental?

Cren out.

Edit: A few more things.

Can we have our base hp or hp/1stam increased to be on par with other classes?

Could our Malestrom recieve a chance to proc from hits dealt to us? would be helpful to have an instant heal when you leave that stunlock, hell it might even make it a *gasp* fair fight.