Patch 5.3 PTR Patch Notes for April 15

Looks like Enhancement got some buffs on the PTR this week:

• Feral Spirit's summoned Spirit Wolves are now immune to root and snare effects.
• Lava Lash now deals 300% weapons damage, up from 250%.
• Mental Quickness now converts 65% of the Shaman's attack power to spell power, up from 55%.
• Stormstrike now deals 450% weapon damage, up from 375%.

Glyph of Lightning Shield

After the Glyph of Unleashed Lightning was removed on the PTR, Shaman got a new Glyph in it's place: Glyph of Lightning Shield. Here's the tooltip as it currently stands:

• Glyph of Lightning Shield causes Lightning Shield to reduce the amount of damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds after Lightning Shield is triggered.

Previously, it just passively reduced your damage taken by 10% at all times. We should still be able to keep 100% uptime on the buff as long as we're being attacked.

Unleashed Lightning No More?

Currently on the PTR for Patch 5.3, the benefits of Glyph of Unleashed Lighting have been baked into the Elemental spec. This follows Aspect of the Fox being removed and allowing Hunters to cast on the move at all time in Patch 5.1. I hope this change for Elemental goes live, but it makes me wonder whether the rest of the ranged DPS classes/specs will see these changes in future Patches. Could Icy Flows for Mages be next on the chopping block?

Steaming Pile of Hotfixes!

This is old news by now, but I'm still surprised by the buffs Shaman received in the March 27 Hotfixes:

•  Chain Heal now heals for 20% more.
•  Healing Rain now heals for 20% more.
•  Restoration:
• Earthliving Weapon now heals for 20% more.

Even though it's nice to see Blizzard showing Shaman a little love, these changes are a band aid at best and don't address the greater problems for Restoration Shaman. If the spec is to receive any sweeping changes, I don't think we'll see them until the next expansion. For now, we'll have to be content with the odd buff here and there.

Patch 5.2 Shaman Notes

Here are the Shaman notes for Patch 5.2:

• Chain Lightning will now deal the same damage to subsequent targets as it does to the first.

• Lava Beam’s damage now increases with jumps. Each jump increases the damage by 10%.

• Elemental Mastery now has a 90-second cooldown (was 2 minutes).

• Shamanistic Rage is now available to Elemental Shaman as well as Enhancement Shaman.

• Conductivity no longer requires that the target be within the area of effect of Healing Rain.

• Healing Rain had its mana cost reduced by 50%.

• Ancestral Swiftness now increases spell haste by 5% and melee haste by 10% instead of 5% each.

• Glyph of Purge now adds a 6-second cooldown to Purge.

• Stone Bulwark Totem now absorbs 25% more damage.

• Primal Earth Elemental and Primal Fire Elemental now deal 20% more damage.
• Elemental Blast now has a chance to increase the caster’s Agility for Enhancement Shaman.

• Glyph of Flame has been redesigned. This Glyph now causes the Shaman to heal for 30% of the damage dealt by Flame Shock.

• Unleashed Fury Flametongue now increases Lightning Bolt damage by 20% (was 30%), and Lava Burst by 10%.

• Flame Shocks duration has been increased by 25%.

• Lava Burst base damage has been reduced by 33% but now always deals a critical strike. When cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, it now deals 50% more damage.

• Totemic Restoration no longer allows the Shaman to instantly destroy a totem to obtain a full 50% refund on cooldown. Any totems that have been destroyed or replaced behave as if the totem had been active for 1 second.

• When summoned, the Stone Bulwark Totem has health equal to 10% of the casting Shaman’s health.

• The talent Nature Guardian now preserves the player’s health percentage when its maximum health boosting percentage expires.

• Ancestral Guidance now copies 60% (was 40%) of the amount healed.

• Conductivity now shares 30% (was 20%) of the healing received from Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave or Healing Surge.

Elemental

• Elemental Focus now increases the Shaman’s spell damage by 15% (was 10%).

• Shamanism now increases the damage of Lightning Bolt by 70% (was 50%).

Enhancement

• Mental Quickness now lowers the cost of shocks by 90% (still lowers the cost of other “beneficial, instant, damaging and totem spells” by 75%).

• Spirit walk now has a 1-minute cooldown (was 2-minutes). 

I’m not going to talk about everything, just a few changes that caught my attention.

I like the new Glyph of Flame. The self-heal makes it a much more interesting choice now. And the baseline duration of Flame Shock has been increased by 25% so it’s a win, win. I see it being used in just about every situation, from questing to soloing old content and raiding.

I imagine the change to Glyph of Purge was made for PVPers. Having an ability that removes two magic effects without a cooldown must have just been too good.

Elemental Shaman gaining access to Shamanistic Rage is a huge defensive boost. I would have killed for this back in Cata when I was questing on my Ele Shaman and felt like I was wearing tissue paper for armor.

Chain Lightning doing equal damage to all subsequent targets will be a nice DPS increase on multi-target fights.

Why Shaman?

I wasn’t sure what the best topic would be to start off this blog. I figured the simplest would be, “Why Shaman?” Well, the Shaman is one of my favorite classes in WoW. For me, they’re behind Rogues and tied with Paladins as my favorite in the game. So what was it that got me playing them in the first place?

The above picture is one of the main reasons. While reading through the Shaman page on Wowpedia, I got to the specialization section and there was this big blue guy at the top. A massive Draenei dressed in very elaborate robes holding aloft a mighty hammer harnessing the power of lightning itself! Suffice it to say, it got my attention. Next thing I know, I’m rolling my first Shaman. So my decision to play a Shaman is mostly thanks to this picture. 
 

Why do I continue playing Shaman? That’s a much longer answer. For starters, Shaman are incredibly versatile. Two DPS specs, one ranged and one melee, and a Healing spec. If I want to feel like a powerful master of the Elements and hurl lava at my enemies from afar, I can play Elemental. If I want to get up close and personal and smash some faces with a fire imbued mace, then I can play Enhancement. And, if I want to get all spiritual and aid my allies, then I can play Restoration. I think this amount of variety is what attracts me the most to the Shaman class. 
 

The lore also factors strongly into why I play Shaman. I love that they can communicate directly with the elements for aid. A Shaman might ask the element of Water to quench their village’s parched crops. If it fits with the plans of the Water elementals, they will grant their power. If not, they will refuse and the crops will wither and die. Shaman are constantly striking a balance between what they want and what's best for the planet. If they were ever to abuse their gift, the elements would abandon them and they would be powerless.

The way of Shamanism is shared by many races on Azeroth including those from other worlds. Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Draenei and Dwarves are the playable races in Wow that can be Shaman, but we encounter so many more on our adventures that follow this same path. Ogres, Gnolls, Furbolgs and many more all share this gift. There is also the Earthen Ring, an organization where Shaman from all races can work together regardless of past aggressions or current hostilities. I like this idea of a neutral organization open to all races. I can’t think of too many others besides the Argent Crusade where people can put aside their differences and work towards a common goal (The Night Elves in the Cenarion Circle haven’t exactly welcomed Tauren, Worgen or Trolls with open arms).

This isn’t much of an introduction, but I wanted to keep it short before I dive into longer articles.