The happiest day of the month (or most dreaded, dependent on who you are) is finally here, bringing with it a sleu of nerfstoenhancepvpD: minor-yet-fun changes to Enhancement PVE, as well as the return of a lovable-yet-diabolical dragon with a bad attitude (and no basis in lore! :P) Now, on to the meaty stuff: Shaman changes in 3.2.2
1. Cleansing Totem: No longer pulses instantly when dropped.
I will probably do a post about this change in particular later. There is no way this is not a nerf in both PVE and PVP, but I’ll be frank and say I will not tolerate whining comments about this change. When I do a post about it specifically, this might change, but for now comments like “omg blizzard is so unfair” will get deleted without a second thought.
2. Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).
For those of us who spec into pvp for Faction champions, this may in fact be a PVE nerf. For those of us who don’t spec into PVP for faction champions, it won’t. 😛 However, this is a slight pvp nerf. It may be warranted- it still removes snares on pulse/drop, it just doesn’t allow us to hand of freedom our entire 5s team for 5 seconds at a time.
3. Bug Fixes:
- Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.
- Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).
- Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.
- Stoneclaw Totem’s pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.
- Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.
Grounding Totem vs. DG was a big issue when 3.2 hit because Grounding Totem recognized the taunt and the pull as two seperate effects, and grounded the taunt. Lava burst change makes sense. Lightning Shield change is fun- nerf to anyone who was trying really hard to spam their lightning shield to get mana back from trinkets!
The last two need a little more time: A) Stoneclaw totem’s aoe taunt has no damage component, nor does it debuff. There is no reason as to why it SHOULD break rogues out of vanish. Bug Fix. For the second, both of these abilities say “this spell is useable while stunned.” Cyclone isn’t a stun. Frozen isn’t a stun. Sapped/Incapacitated both break on damage and are not stuns. Once again, emphasis on the Bug Fix. If you’d like to see these changes actually implemented, post on the suggestion forums, but don’t call these nerfs. They were not working as intended.
4. The Awesomeness that is Flame Shock.
Flameshock received quite a few changes this patch. First off, it is no longer consumed by Lava Burst. Not too amazing for us, but Smellementals will love it. Second, the duration has been increased to 18 seconds- which might be awesome for us. And third, glyph of Flame Shock now allows Flame Shock dots to be critical strikes.
Now, the number crunching at Elitist Jerks is not totally finished, and we can’t be positive, so everything I say is conjecture, but it looks like we will be adding Flame Shock into the Enhancement Damage Priority system. I’m not sure how minor a dps increase this will be (it will be minor- don’t expect to be doing 1k more damage because of this)but, 200 more dps is 200 more dps! Additionally, one of the cool aspects of this is that it makes our priority system a little bit more dynamic- for something that hasn’t changed since 3.0, this is welcome.
Flame shock looks like it will be added into the rotation whenever you would Earth Shock after the Flame Shock debuff has run out. This is important, as Flame Shock will only do competitive dps if allowed to tick fully. So, you Flame Shock to get it up, and then fill in the next (3, normally, unless you get -a lot- of MW5 stacks) shocks with Earth Shock, and then once FS has fallen off you THEN add in a new Fire Dot.
To help make this easier on you, there are two addons you can configure to help you- Shock and Awe and Power Auras.
For Shock and Awe, you have to use the /saa config command to bring up the configuration interface. From there, go to your priority list section and edit in Flame Shock.
I added it in right after MW5 Lightning Bolt and before anything else so that it takes the place of my ES_SS when Flame Shock debuff isn't on the target.
From there, it becomes up to you as to where you add it in. In my opinion, you should add it in right before Earth Shock, as then it will show up on your priority frame whenever Earth Shock would and the Flame Shock debuff is not on the target. This means that, if you’re using the ES_SS second priority “rotation,” you’d put Flame shock prior to ES_SS. If you’re using the cookie cutter MW5->SS->ES priority list, you’d add it in after SS and before ES.
And then, once shocks are off CD, this is what it should look like when FS debuff runs out.
SAA isn’t the only addon that can help you- and, if you’re one of the many that feels SAA is a bit “cheaty” (I’ve heard it quite a bit), there are other ways to monitor your FS. My personal favorite is Power Auras Classic.
The fireball is there to tell me Flame Shock is not on my target.
As the caption said, that little fireball is there to tell me that Flame Shock is not on my target. It does nothing else- especially not telling me where I am in priority to cast it. It just lets me know that FS is not there. How do you set one of these badboys up? It’s easy!
It looks scary, but it isn't.
To bring up the Power auras Classic screen, just type /powa. After that, click “new.” The right screen will show up. (Note- both these screens show up in the screen’s center- you can manually pull them apart, though!)
Now, to set up this debuff, first choose the image texture. As you can see, I dragged it to Texture 13, a nice fireball picture to remind me to cast my fire spell. You can then go to the little color box and choose a color- I thought orange made sense for Flame Shock. You can also choose “random color” if you want to spice it up. (You can also choose later to just make the Flame Shock icon show up. I tend to not like how that looks, though. :x) Size is pretty self explanatory, x axis allows you to move the aura left and right, and y axis lets you move it up and down.
Now, head down to “activation by.” First, you want to use the pulldown bar to bring it to “debuff,” as that is what FS is. Second, you want to write in the name! After that, go to “Show when not active.” This makes it so that the aura shows up when Flame Shock is NOT on the target. If you don’t click this, you’ll have a fireball on your screen for the length of the debuff. Next, check only if in combat/ only if in raid- this will keep it from showing up while soloing and while pvping and stuffs! (If you run a lot of heroics, you might want to choose to not check only if in raid. And, remember- only use FS on fights that will last longer than 18 seconds.)
Finally, check Enemy Target. This will make sure that it’s only checking people you’re hitting for FS- otherwise, this will show up when you’re getting flame shocked by enemy smellementals.
5. Totem of the Quaking Earth now is a 400 AP proc, not 200.
This was needed to bring QE in line with DK/ret relics. This does NOT automatically guarantee that QE is better than Electrifying Wind. QE does not have a 100% uptime, as Lava Lash is late in the priority system and so isn’t used every cooldown, while LB is the core of our dps. This means EW has a 80%ish uptime, and QE has a 95%. This also means that EW is better: A) if your haste EP is over 2.1 and B) if the fight is not an aoe fight where you’ll be using Chain Lightning. For most other purposes, use QE. But own both!
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