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.