In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the shaman class, including a rundown of somecheap wow gold of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.
New Shaman Spells
Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.
Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.
Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however,cheap dvds, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.
Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted bycheap wow gold movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.
Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful 'bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.
Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.
Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target's health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
The first thing that struck me when reading the new abilities was: "damn, they really want Shaman to heal!" Giving the class a new direct heal will be a nice addition, and Healing Rain certainly sounds interesting. That's the first time I've ever heard the idea of a ground targeted AoE heal.
Casting while moving will be cool. It'll certainly have some PvP applications, but I think it's there primarily to address the lack of a reliable instant heal that doesn't involve Nature's Swiftness. For situations where you really have to move but you also need to heal Riptide just doesn't quite cut it. If anything this ability seems underpowered with a long 2 minute cooldown. The ability to heal while moving.. almost sounds like a Resto Druid!
The Totem of Wrath changes constitute a really nice quality of life buff to the class that Shaman players have been clamoring for since the ability was released. The class will also be changed to reflect the new 'three dispel typecheap wow gold per healer' policy, which I assume will leave the Shaman with the ability to dispel magic,led lights, decurse,ugg boots, and offensively purge since cleansing is being removed.
The rest of the changes seem aimed at making the Shaman less of a jack-of-all-trades hybrid and giving them the ability to differentiate into more specialized sub specs. Some very cool changes here, but surprisingly little in the way of buffs or modifications to Enhancement; maybe we'll see more of that as the developers continue to tweak the class.
