State of Enhancement Shamans – Beta Build 15662

The last few builds did not have any major changes for Enhancement Shamans, nothing worthy a full post at least. But after 3 builds without comment I decided to share some of the experiences. The Beta Realms have been quite unstable. Crashes, lag-spikes, timeouts in minute intervals. Its slowly affecting motivation of experienced beta testers. Usually Blizzard is quite fast on fixing such builds, hence the delay on this post.

Build 15662

It is not Blizzard-like to have this kind of thrashy builds, can only guess that the D3 stress/beta-event was one of the reasons for the delay so far and that future builds will be a lot more playable.

The new level cap is 88 and can easily reached easily in Kun-Lai Summit zone. While it might have happened in vanilla or TBC that you might run out of quests when leveling up Mists of Pandaria Quest design takes the opposite turn with an abundance of quests. While Valley of the four winds seemed somewhat slow paced Kun-Lai Summit appears more fluent.

Quest hubs are not linear, instead they are marked on your map and you can choose yourself where to proceed. It took about 30-40% of the zone to ding 88.

It is a bit difficult to judge with all the crashes, but I guess it won’t take more than a few hours for Level 87 to 88. 135k experience at the entrance of the zone and roughly 170k experience further in means you’ll have to do around 80-90 quests to reach the 14,6 million xp required for level-up.

Green quest rewards are around item level 414 and blue items at 434. This means it is the end of your heroic Dragon Soul gear. For example blue bracers with 383 agility and 250ish secondary stats. Pretty nice, right?

Speaking of stats, the rating vs stats decay when leveling up is quite harsh, even with the quest rewards my stats appear quite low. Mobs are between 300 and 860k hp and hit you for 9k-12k. Fortunately I am a defensive player, but if I look at others HP the are usually around 40-50% at the end of a fight. Some monsters hit really hard and 2-3-4 can turn out to be quite a challenge.

Enhancement Shaman

Yeah, you might have guessed with the general talk above. There isn’t much to say at the moment. Just some minor tweaks to mana costs. Everything else is like Build 15544.
There are a lot of complaints that Enhancement Shamans suck at the moment. While this is somewhat true let me explain the reason for that.

• Attack Power Buff – Enhancement Shaman gives Spell Power (but does not benefit from it, complain on forums and we might get AP back)
• Strength of Earth Totem – removed
• Yellow Attacks – Stormstrike and Lava Lash damage has been decreased
• Stat Decay – For example at Level 88 it takes 406 crit rating to increase your crit chance by +1%, leveling up makes you weaker with the same gear
• Stormstrike – spellcrit +10% from glyph, removed
• Lava Lash – damage +20% from glyph, removed
• Feral Spirit – additional attack power from glyph, removed
• Talents – Elemental Acuity, Concussion, Elemental Precision, Elemental Weapons, Focused Strikes, Elemental Devastation, removed

As you can see, a lot of spells/abilities/talents/glyphs have been removed or replaced without any form of compensation and this will not happen any time soon. Number tuning is usually the very last step, towards the end of the beta.
Just load your character in Rawr, and deselect above abilities off 😀 My DPS dropped from 38k to ~20k. On top of that remove the stat decay.

Here is Blizzard’s comment on Enhancement Shamans:

Enhancement Damage

It is worth pointing out that one of our goals is for nobody’s damage to drop when you convert your Cataclysm level 85 character to a Mists level 85 character. The sources of your damage may change as rotations change somewhat, but once you’re comfortable with those new rotations, your damage should be similar.

Also remember that number tuning is one of the last things we do. There is no point in spending hours testing numbers if we decide that a particular ability or mechanic was a boneheaded idea and needs to be redesigned. We try to keep the numbers sane enough that players still feel like they can give feedback though.

Don’t judge Enhancement Shamans in their current state! We will get our pass once our abilities are fixed. THEN you can start to whine and not look like a fool.

Positive Changes

Now that we heard enough about nerfs, let us look at the positive side! Even though we are kind of underwhelming in our performance, I still love to play the class. Here a few minor changes, but I welcome them nevertheless:

• Lightning Shield, lasts 1 hour, has no charges and cannot be dispelled!
• Weapon Imbue (Windfury, Flame Tongue Weapon), lasts 1 hour!
• Grace of Air, passive mastery auraGrace of Air
  Level 90

  Empowering winds swirl around the Shaman, granting all nearby party and raid members 3500 Mastery [Rating].

• Burning Wrath, passive spellpower auraBurning Wrath

  Fiery elemental energy emanates from the Shaman, empowering all nearby party and raid members and increasing their spell power by 10%.

• Unleashed Rage, passive melee haste auraUnleashed Rage

  Increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%.

• Spirit Walk, no longer tied to Feral SpiritSpirit Walk
  1.5% of base mana
  Instant; 2 min cooldown

  Removes all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 15 sec.

It is interesting to observe other classes, how they handle stuff and even if they have a better kill rate at the moment, they have their own issues. As mentioned above the mobs hit quite hard and if you get an unexpected add it is easy to run into problems.

Not so for us. Even though Greater Healing Wave and Healing Wave have been removed, there is still Healing Surge, Healing Rain and Chain Heal as direct heals. Add Healing Storm Glyph (+20% healing per stack of Maelstrom Weapon) & Echo of the Elements (duplicates a spell effect, procrate seems quite high for Enhancement Shaman) our healing still seems quite powerful. Healing Surge on Beta heals for more than Greater Healing Wave now on live realms. Blues posted that this is intended, due to increased health pools in MoP.

• Healing Surge = 20k
• Healing Surge + Echo of the Elements = 40k
• Healing Surge + Healing Storm Glyph = 40k
• Healing Surge + Healing Storm Glyph + Echo of the Elements = 60k
• Healing Surge crit + Healing Storm Glyph = 80k
• Healing Surge crit + Healing Storm Glyph + Echo of the Elements = 100k

Not so bad, is it? But it is not the only tool we have.

Offensive Abilities

• Stormlash TotemStormlash Totem
  5.9% of base mana
  Instant; 5 min cooldown

  Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster, empowering allies within 30 yards with lightning. While empowered, allies‘ spells and attacks will trigger bursts of electricity, dealing additional Nature damage to their target. Lasts 10 sec.

• AscendanceAscendance
  5.2% of base mana
  Instant; 3 min cooldown

  The Shaman surrenders his physical form to the power of the elements, transforming into a being of raw elemental energy for 15 sec.

  While in the form of an Air Ascendant, auto-attacks and Stormstrike deal pure Nature damage and have a 30-yard range.

• Feral Spirit’s Spirit BiteSpirit Bite
  Melee Range

  Bites the enemy, causing Nature damage.

• Frozen PowerFrozen Power
  Talent

  Your Frost Shock now also roots the target in ice for 5 sec.

Defensive Abilities

• Shamanistic RageShamanistic Rage
  1 min cooldown

  Reduces all damage taken by 30% and causes your skills, totems, and offensive spells to consume no mana for 15 sec. This spell is usable while stunned.

• Stone Bulwark TotemStone Bulwark Totem
  Talent
  8.0% of base mana
  Instant; 1 min cooldown

  Summons an Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 30 sec that grants the caster a shield absorbing (cond($gt(AP * 0.625, $SP), AP * 0.625 * 0.7, $SP * 0.7) * 3) damage, and up to an additional (cond($gt(AP * 0.625, $SP), AP * 0.625 * 0.7, $SP * 0.7)) every 5 sec thereafter.

• Capacitor TotemCapacitor Totem
  5.0% of base mana
  Instant; 45 sec cooldown

  Summons an Air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that gathers electrical energy from the surrounding air and then explodes after 5 sec to stun all enemies within 8 yards for 5 sec.

• Healing Stream TotemHealing Stream Totem
  23.5% of base mana
  Instant; 30 sec cooldown

  Summons a Water Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 15 sec that heals the most injured party or raid member within 40 yards for (31 + ($SP * 0.3124) * 1 * 1) every 2 sec.

• Healing Tide TotemHealing Tide Totem
  Talent
  8.0% of base mana
  Instant; 3 min cooldown

  Summons a Water Totem with 10% of the caster’s health at the feet of the caster for (11 sec) sec. The Healing Tide Totem pulses every 2 sec, healing the 5 most injured party or raid members within 40 yards for 4932.

• Glyph of Shamanistic RageGlyph of Shamanistic Rage

  Activating your Shamanistic Rage ability also cleanses you of all dispellable harmful Magic effects.

• Glyph of Capacitor TotemGlyph of Capacitor Totem

  Reduces the charging time of your Capacitor Totem by 2 sec.

• Glyph of Healing Stream TotemGlyph of Healing Stream Totem

  When your Healing Stream Totem heals an ally, it also reduces their Fire, Frost, and Nature damage taken by 10% for 6 sec.

Other Tools

• Totemic ProjectionTotemic Projection
  40 yd range
  10 sec cooldown

  Relocates your active totems to the specified location.

• Windwalk TotemWindwalk Totem
  Talent
  6.0% of base mana
  Instant 1 min cooldown

  Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 40 yards immunity to movement-impairing effects.

• Earthgrab TotemEarthgrab Totem
  5.0% of base mana
  Instant; 30 sec cooldown

  Summons an Earth Totem with 100 health at the feet of the caster for 20 sec. The totem pulses every 2 sec, causing roots to ensnare the legs of all enemies within 10 yards for 5 sec, preventing movement.
  Enemies that have already been rooted once by the totem will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%.

  Replaces Earthbind Totem.

• Call of the ElementsCall of the Elements
  8 min cooldown

  When activated, immediately finishes the cooldown on all totems with a base cooldown shorter than 5 minutes.

• Glyph of Spirit WalkGlyph of Spirit Walk

  Reduces the cooldown of your Spirit Walk ability by 25%.

These abilities do not look very powerful, but using them in combination they become quite interesting. With Shamanistic Rage, Stone Bulwark Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Capacitor Totem and then on top Call of the Elements to reset all Totem cooldowns you can chain a lot of Healing, Absorbs.
Totemic Projection is also a good example. It looks pretty useless at first, but combined with Earthgrab or Capacitor Totem you get a real interesting tool.
For me as PvE oriented Shaman who loves to solo old raids, the changes are really great and I am looking forward to Mists of Pandaria. If they’d just give us our attack power buff back 😀

Btw, the beta realms are currently down for maintenance and a new patch. If there is anything new, I’ll update.

Videos

At first, here is a Playlist with all MoP Shaman Videos: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEB4780795A501B8A

Ascendance Model

Talent Visuals

Other Shaman Abilities

Source

• Blizzard Forums – http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4366249705?page=1#3
• YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEB4780795A501B8A