6. Re: Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07 08/09/2007 03:17:39 PM PDT
Q u o t e:
Windfury Totem has been fixed (for real, this time) so that instant special attacks such as Slam and Sinister Strike will not trigger its extra attacks. On next swing attacks such as Heroic Strike and Cleave will continue to trigger it.
Slam is not instant. Please clarify. Are you saying specials that are not "next melee" will no longer trigger Windfury Totem?
Will extra attacks (eg. sword specialization) proc Windfury?
10. Re: Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07 08/09/2007 03:33:02 PM PDT
The proposed Windfury Change will have so many negative effects Shamans and Warriors, in PVP and PVE, that I strongly urge Blizzard to reconsider its decision.
Shaman Raiding:
At status quo, Enhancement Shamans are only recent additions to the PVE scene and are still struggling to develop a PVE identity. Enhancement Shamans are brought in primarily for their ability to provide beneficial buffs to their groups. Although Raid Leaders understand that Enhancement Shamans do lower damage than Rogues, Warriors, and Casters, they understand that the presence of a Windfury Totem in the melee group and the AP increase makes them justifiable inclusions into a raid. Out of all the buffs Shamans provide, Windfury Totem is the most significant buff. Windfury Totem helps Fury Warriors with their Flurry coverage, helps combat Rogues significantly increase their White damage, and is the main buff that makes Mortal Strike Warriors competitive DPS. By making Windfury Totem affect only normal melee swings, a lot of classes have a far smaller buff from Windfury than they would otherwise. When this same change was introduced in the BWL days, Horde raids noticed their DPS significantly decreased, warriors struggled to have any competitive DPS slots, and many raid members were asked to respec or replaced in raids for DPS classes not dependant on Windfury Totem.
By changing Windfury Totem, Enhancement Shamans will now be struggling for an invite into the melee DPS group, which normally is 3 warriors, an Enhance Shaman, and a TSA Hunter / Feral Druid, while the other group has Rogues and a Resto Shaman dropping SoE/WF. With the massively reduced desirability of Windfury Totem, Shamans are not as wanted in DPS groups and find that their raid spots are no longer there for them. If an Enhancement Shaman is not able to provide as significant DPS to his party-members via buffs that he cannot personally provide, then he either offers less to the raid than a Restoration Shaman who provides Mana Tide and Wrath of Air to a healer/caster group, or another DPS class that is capable of holding his own position in a raid.
Considering the latest changes to Enhancement Shamans, the Windfury Totem mechanic nerf will undercut the upcoming changes and significantly reduce Enhancement Shaman desirability and force greater amounts of pigeonholing.
Shaman PVP:
Before I enter this discussion, I want to point out that Shamans have 3 PVP specs, the most common is the Restoration Shaman, then the Elemental Shaman, and then lastly, the Enhancement Shaman. Shamans all have their shortcomings, which must be explained before we can go into the importance of Windfury Totem. The following comparisons must be made to show that Shamans rely on Windfury Totem to be invited into many PVP groups, and that if the changes go through, Shaman PVP desirability is drastically reduced for Restoration and Elemental Shamans, and completely squashed for Enhancement Shamans.
* Shamans have no ability to CC. Other healer hybrids such as Druids, Paladins, and Priests have the ability to CC opponents with Cyclone, Bash, Fear, Mind Control, Hammer of Justice, and Repentance (which a small portion of Paladins spec for). Shamans lack access to any CC of any kind regardless of spec.
* Shamans have no escape abilities. When other healers are under attack, they have methods of increasing their survivabilty and escape options which Shamans strongly lack. Druids have Bash, Cyclone, and shapeshifting, Paladins have Divine Shield, Hammer of Justice, and Blessing of Freedom. Priests are weaker in this respect, relying solely on fear.
* Shamans have the worst mana regeneration. Other classes have more efficient mana regeneration because they receive a strong benefit to spirit. Priest healer PVP builds allow in combat mana regeneration because of talents in the third tier of the Holy Tree, which all Priests have for PVP healing. Druids have Innervate, which, while dispellable, draws small attention to itself and is perfectly usable in conjunction with CC'ing / killing / LOS'ing / outranging the other team's dispeller, which is particularly important because of the escape abilities of Druids and travel form. Paladins have Illumination, which allows them to spam heal for very long amounts of time in a PVP setting. Shamans have only Mana Tide, which has a large graphic signalling its presence and location, and is easily killed. Although one would argue innervate is dispellable, one single dispeller is easily taken care of in a group PVP situation, Mana Tide is killable by all classes making it extremely hard to use in a group PVP environment.
So why are Shamans invited to arena teams then? Because of Purge, Bloodlust, and Windfury Totem.
By bracket:
2v2 Arenas
In the 2v2 Arena, the most common Shaman PVP spec is Restoration, and secondly Restoration, Enhancement constitutes a near negliglble amount in the 2's bracket once you analyze competitive ratings (2100+). Out of the Top 20 2v2 Shamans worldwide, 10 are paired with Warriors in their teams, and the remainder primarily with Warlocks, and a very small few with Rogues. Now considering the earlier statements about Shaman mana regeneration, survivability, CC, and escape abilities, why would a Warrior pair with a Shaman? As a recent 70 Shaman who broke 2100 with a Warrior, the answer is real simple: Windfury Totem.
In most situations, Shaman/Warrior teams rely on the ability for the Shaman to last just long enough for the Warrior to kill a player. If fights turn into large stallfests, the Shaman or Warrior will take too much damage and the Shaman will run out of mana, causing the team to lose. Therefore, these teams rely on the ability for the Warrior to have high rage generation and decent burst. Once Warriors no longer have the strong Windfury Burst in 2's situations, Shamans will offer a low DPS increase, have miniscule mana regeneration, lack the ability to CC or mana burn against stall teams, and will be less desirable pairings. My own 2v2 partner told me that if the Windfury Change goes through, he might have to switch to a Druid partner instead.
Even outside the high-rated brackets, Shamans are paired almost exclusively with Warriors and Warlocks in the 2v2 bracket, and a few with Rogues, by significantly reducing the ability for Shamans to pair with Warriors, Shamans will have harder times entering and being competitive in the 2v2 bracket. And will be forced to give up at certain brackets.
3v3 Arenas
In 3's, the most common set-up is the Warrior / Shaman / Paladin matrix, with the Shaman as either Elemental or Restoration. The Elemental set up is weak because the Elemental Shaman is easily locked down by any Rogue team, and relies entirely on the Warrior's ability to output solo DPS until he gives the Shaman the green light to DPS, at which point the Paladin BOP's the Shaman and the Shaman fires a quick burst combo to help the Warrior kill a player. Until that point, the Shaman does little more than shocking / purging. During the entire time the Shaman is not BOP'd, the team relies almost fully on the Warrior's ability to output DPS with Windfury Totem. With windfury totem's removal, the Warrior will output mediocre solo DPS while the Elemental Shaman is locked down all game, wasting the Paladins mana, and forcing a premature BOP where the Shaman fires a burst that, coupled with the Warrior's DPS, is not enough to kill a player. Nerfing Windfury Totem makes Shamans a poor addition to this matrix, which is the most common 3's set up for Shamans. Shamans will be weaker additions than countless other DPS classes that offer CC and can avoid lockdown, such as Mages / Warlocks / Rogues.
A healing Shaman, Restoration spec, is playing an outlast team that depends fully on the Warrior's ability to do decent damage by himself coupled with Windfury Totem while the Shaman's team, which is low on CC, tries to outlast the other team. With the change to Windfury Totem, Warriors will have low rage generation, low burst, and will not output enough damage to kill anyone. This change will make Restoration Shamans underdesired in 3v3.
Enhancement Shamans are the rarest additions to 3's set ups, and are generally there to buff the Warrior's melee while the Enhance Shaman is susceptible to being locked down by a Rogue, which forces him to "turtle" with a Shield out, removing his DPS, making the team rely solely on the Warrior. Even this scenario is predicated on the Windfury Totem doing its job.
5v5 Arenas
5's are almost fully structured around the MS debuff. The most popular matrix in many Battlegroups is now the 4 DPS set-up. These set ups rely on the ability to output significant DPS. Without a Windfury Totem, Warriors don't get quite as much DPS, and have problems with having adequate rage generation. Similarly, Shamans who are brought in as the Windfury Totem / purge start contributing less to a Warrior team than a second Blessing of Freedom or CC.
But the biggest hit is to Enhancement Shamans. The latest released Shaman changes indicate Blizzard is trying to make Enhancement a viable PVP spec by giving more survivability as well as free healing/spell damage that would make them semi-desirable off-healers / casters, other important Shaman roles in a group PVP environment. By reducing the effectiveness of Windfury Totems, Enhancement Shamans, who are brought in primarily to buff the Warriors and do their own DPS, are now no longer as desirable, even with the Enhancement Changes, as Warriors would benefit more greatly from other class's buffs. Its a shame that the upcoming Enhancement PVP changes will be undercut by a "hotfix" to Windfury Totem.
By removing Windfury Totem, some Shamans will still survive, but the majority of Shamans will be marginalized and replaced. Please reconsider your decision.
12. Re: Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07 08/09/2007 03:47:36 PM PDT
Q u o t e:
Let's hope that what she really means is that slam was made instant.
This messes with warrior DPS, but if it doesn't work for slam, this totally destroys slam as a DPS mechanic, as it delays your white attacks.... unless they really did make it instant (here's to hoping).
I hardly believe that they would change slam and its talent with a hotfix.
1) We can assume that Nethaera does not play a warrior.
2) Nethaera probably received information that says slam and instant attacks will no longer proc windfury and made an error transcribing it into a forum post. If she knew how slam worked, she would know it's not an instant attack. If she didn't know, she would probably just be relaying it based on the information given.
14. Re: Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07 08/09/2007 03:55:15 PM PDT
Q u o t e: They probably did this for BGs and it's a very unpleasant detrement to slam dps. Actually thought we could finally use a 2h for full-time dps.
Yeah, god forbid we actually use a build we like to be viable.
15. Re: Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07 08/09/2007 04:12:37 PM PDT
Yep, very important to know how this affects slam. If slam can't trigger WF 2H DPS builds are really nerfed for warriors. If Slam can still trigger WF it won't be too bad.
