This has been bugging me for a little while now. I obviously made this character knowing that I can't use swords and I'm 100% fine with that. What kind of rubs me the wrong way, is the lack of being able to use some of what would be best in slot items, if I would be able to use them. We have to settle for daggers or maces (or staffs, but they are never better than 1h + shield). Again, i'm fine with that. This isn't about "looking cool" or "1337omg!" But, when I'm in a raid, party or whatever, I like to be the best I can be. Upon doing so, that includes having as many BiS that I can, enchanting properly and gemming properly.

In Naxx, I would have loved The Turning Tide. However, I was unable to use it. Its stats are perfect for an ele shaman. Instead, our BiS (in Naxx) was Tourch of Holy Fire. Instead of squeezing out a few additional points of haste, or crit or SP, we have MP5 which is completely wasted on us. Also, in the process, I am taking that away from a healer that could get 100% use of those stats.

Caster dps consists of: Mages, Warlocks, Boomkins, Shadow Priests and Ele Shaman. All of which can use daggers. Why not make all caster spell power weapons daggers? Or, to keep variety, shaman could use swords. Not only for this, but I'm sure there are some swords out there that enhancement shaman would love to get their hands on also. And I'm sure casters don't want to be limited to 1 weapon type. Variety is the spice of life afterall. If not, thats fine, but please add 1 or 2 more maces per raid instance that have Spell Power, Spell Haste and Spell Crit.

I know that when WotLK came out, Blizzard made a lot of great changes to make gear more universal. One obvious example is there is no more, + Healing and + Spell Damage. It was combined into Spell Power to benefit both healers and caster dps. Why not make this another change?

One other thing that is a little frustrating, is the very sparce availability of elemental shaman gear. To date, no ideal mail spell power gear (mail with spell power, spell haste and spell crit) is available through emblems of conquest. There is 1 pair of bracers in 10/25 man Ulduar that come from Hodir hard mode in heroic mode. There are none in 10 man. There is only 1 belt that has SP, SC and SH in 10/25 man Ulduar which comes from Heroic Razorscale. There are no mail boots in 10/25 man Ulduar with SP, SH and SC at all.

So my questions are:

1) Will shaman be able to use swords? We can parry only as enhance. Why not add this to an ele or enhance talent to allow us to use more "ideal" weapons. If not, would more maces or daggers become available?

2) Why is there little to no mail spell power gear in 10 man ulduar? And why are there no boots in 10 or 25 man Ulduar that are mail, and have spell power, spell haste and spell crit?

3) A lot of weapons, rings, necks and cloaks have spirit on them. There are very few of those items that do not. Do you plan on ever having spirit be useful to shaman, or would you be more inclined to add more of those items without spirit?

4) What are your future plans for totems, if any?

Is the apparent decrease in Lava Burst damage after 3.1 still being looked into or has that gone by the wayside as of now?

-Do you have any plans to change shamans totems at all? Many people have had ideas to make totems follow you on totemic recall, and another new spell to place them back down. There are lots of ideas people had, was wondering if blizz had any ideas or plans.

-Also was wondering if you could do something with ghost wolf, such as just making it instant...for no talent points.

Is there any plan to bring back a reason to drop totems? Right now they're worse then buffs, they don't stack and you have to constantly redrop them because you move or they just have 5 hp and can be one shotted by a level 1 priest meleeing it.

Is there any plan to increase Shaman health pools?

I am new to playing a Shaman, not to WoW. I don't understand why I have to carry these totems around in my bag to be able to place them on the ground. It's kinda weird coming from playing other classes. I did the Earth and Fire totem quests and they were pretty cool, especially once I found the fire guy. But the water one... well let's just say that one took a bit longer than I thought was necessary for this stage of WoW's existence.

Thanks,
Dga

Itemization is my primary concern right now.

For elemental shamans, the pickings in Ulduar are slim. Nearly every piece of gear with spell power on it also has a heaping helping of Spirit or Mp5, both of which are completely useless for Ele (I am not being over dramatic here, either.) You have successfully gotten Locks, Mages, Priests, and both caster druid specs to care about spirit and benefit from it. But that leave Ele shamans out in the cold.

Look at all the Emblem of Valor/Conquest rewards. Every cloth piece has Spirit, every mail piece has Mp5. That tells me that Blizzard unintentionally felt like all people with a mana bar want one of those 2 stats. But ele want/need neither. It has lead to the sad state where several Best in Slot items are those with spirit on them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about the armor type. I have no problems wearing cloth or leather. The problem is how few pieces of any armor type have true elemental stats on them, that is Spell power, Hit, Haste, and crit to a lesser extent.

Will resto shaman be seeing any changes that could make us a more desirable class/spec in small bracket pvp? We lack mobility, on-the-go healing, and defensive cooldowns that are necessary for today's dynamic arena play. Just look at druids and preists -- plenty of defensive cooldowns with plenty of instant healing abilities. Look at paladins with the best defensive abilities, the best mobility cooldown, and the strongest single target healing. Bring shaman up to speed with new tools that don't revolve around praying for totem ticks to make things happen. We're the least desirable healer right now and every dps is much better off paired with another healer class.


Additional resto pvp concerns as I read everyone's questions:

• Can we expect a self-regen spell? Mana tide is a group regen, but does very little in small bracket pvp, especially when I may be the only mana-user. The price is too high to obtain and maintain this totem for shaman-only use.


• Will resto receive a health bonus eventually? Our health pool could use a buff without speccing 20 pts in enhancement for toughness.


• Will riptide be improved? Riptide is only useful for the heal up-front -- the HoT on the backend is usually removed by subsequent riptides.


• Why are we considered the "offensive" healer? We have no practical way to obtain passive pushback protection on our damage spells. No reachable spell-cast reduction on lightning bolt.

ENHANCEMENT CONCERNS

In terms of raiding 25 Ulduar Hardmodes, I find that I have a significantly lower HP pool compared to all other Melee classes. My pool seems to be more on part with mages and priests, and even rogues are rated higher.

I'm aware that recently there was a talent change to allow for ENH shamans to get more stamina (Toughness), but unlike most other classes an ENH shaman has to give up a significant portion of DPS talents to gain those talents. To put our survivability ON PAR with other classes that maintain survivability with class talents or stamina points from gear, ENH Shamans must drop points to get elemental warding or toughness. Significant losses in DPS for a class that is already not (exceptions excluded) outperforming other classes to gain a minimum level of survivability seems out of touch to me. Any plans to either implement more non-armor pen gear or increase the usefullness of armor penetration for ENH shams?

ITEMIZATION

While my concerns about weapons have been met, the majority of mail gear available for hunters/ENH shamans have armor penetration on them, which is a sub-par dps stat for ENH shamans despite the recent armor pen buffs.

A large portion of ENH shaman dmg does not count as physical dmg rendering armor penetration comparatively useless stat for ENH shamans compared to AGI/INT/Crit/Haste/AP.

CHAIN HEAL
When will the Shaman devs re-work Chain Heal's #'s to once again become a competitive heal compared to CoH, PoH, and WG, which were supposedly "nerfed"?

Basically you wanted to get Shaman out of just brainlessly "spamming" chain heal, yet you've made it so we brainlessly spam lesser healing wave. So much for re-working Healing Way, huh?

Going from (Granted none of these crit) 7.5k, to 3.75k, to 1.875k, and if glyphed, to 935, (Far lower numbers if the first hit is less than my example) is extremely weak. There's some hots in this game that tick for almost as much as a chain heal's last jump.

Please take a look at Chain Heal, and if you're feeling sincere, fix it.

CLASS ICONIC ABILITIES
Shaman used to be a support class, able to give very powerful buffs to classes that no other class came close to. (Extra attack from Windfury, a large amount of strength if in a melee group or a large amount of agility if with hunters. This is pre-wotlk, obviously)

Almost every "unique" buff we had, has been given to another class. There's nothing "iconic" about the shaman class anymore except Earth Shield, the only shield castable on other players, and the now weakest aoe heal in the game, Chain Heal.

Ankh needs re-working. Every combat resurrection in the game has either half, or less than half the cool down as ankh. The glyph is useless, I can carry two stacks of 10 ankhs in my bag, and be set for 20 hours, granted I died every hour. Lower the cool-down on Ankh with the same glyph, or re-work the glyph to make Ankh a half hour cool-down, bring it in line with Soul Stone.

Bring Shaman back as the powerful support class that we used to be.

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Q u o t e:
Why are totems (A static stationary buff) with very limited range becoming worse in comparison to actual buffs the players are able to keep with them. 30mins mobility > 5 minutes limited range.

Many times in some of the fights now even the shaman can not benefit from some of their own buffs due to the amount of movement without constantly casting the totem (Greatest example is Thorim through the gauntlet).

I understand your balance issue, but currently the most unique thing shaman have to their name is a 5% spell haste buff. Which I am sure by me saying this some other class will soon be getting it. Why are shaman so limited in their mobility? I know Thrall sits on his throne all day, but that doesn't mean we want to emulate his lack of movement.

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Pretty much this. If I'm relegated to doing less damage than a pure dps class, atleast give me my buffing potential back. Now it's pretty much bring a resto shaman for wrath of air and bloodlust and then allow another shaman to come if we can't find any more locks, mages, rogues or dks.

So, uh...I guess my question is, "WTF?"

Is the LO adjustment a fix or just a patch until something else better is thought of?

Can you please allow "buff" totems to follow us (similar to bone shield..) and damage totems to be dropped. This will assist with PvE and PvP issues while still allowing them to be removed via dispel?

Any chance of nudging the folks that make/made the Ele gear for instances / badge rewards and tattooing... "Ele Shaman + MP5 = BAD" on their foreheads?.. just for future reference.

Plan to fix Thunderstorm to "not" stop knock backs because of a pebble on the ground?

Can we get a better enchant for shields yet? Like... haste?

Believe it or not... we do like kilts for some odd reason. Can we avoid pants from now on? I have chicken legs.

Any chance for an instant that ISN'T on a CD to assist PvP?

Ghostwolf +20% indoors maybe?

Not really questions as much as concerns.

Weapon itemization for Enhance. I'm only 55 (on my shaman) but I'm already seeing it. "Hey, that sword would be awesome, oh wait, yeah. SWORD. ./cry" It just seems odd that mace and fist itemization is shared with rogues, but swords are a no go. And I haven't checked Ulduar loot tables (Not that this character will see Uld) but Naxx and earlier is pretty light on axes. (And the rep factions are heavy on swords, and we all start somewhere.)

So I guess, more axes, or let enhance use swords (with a talent? Add it to dual wield, or even the wolves)

Four global cooldowns to reapply your four totems when you had to move really far seems punishing. A two or three second, "yank totems" spell would be awesome. I mean, when they get killed they get killed, that's just how this buff is removed (assuming you've retained not liking totem killing macros) but the need for and difficulty of re-dropping based on movement is klunky.

Totem & Fire Totem Questions

Spec/Environment Focus: Elemental, PvE

1) What are some of the Totem design change ideas you're thinking about?

2) What do you think of a Favorite Totems system, where a pre-selected set of totems are dropped all at once, in one cooldown, for additional mana cost or some other minor drawback?

3) Are you planning to redesign Fire Totems in particular, as well as reduce the number of talents devoted to Fire Totems down to one?

4) What do you think of making the Totem of Wrath effect an aura instead of a totem, or a seperate Fifth Element, allowing offensive fire totems to be dropped?