TEASER -- TURTLE STRIKE! Also Arcane/Protection Changes

[Manletow]

Mr. Fishslayer has 'leaked' some 'teases' of potential upcoming changes.



"Lightning Strike" is replacing Thunder Head. It's kind of like Holy Strike Jr.
The Tanking Talents are getting a discount in point investment.


Prot Paladin has a new Capstone talent (unknown -- uses Icon for Intervene)
They can take 10% reduced damage w/ Righteous Fury active. (appears the old "35% less dmg at low HP" has been replaced by this)
Also: Theres some other misc changes/additions.



Arcane changes are pretty zany.
I suppose they are trying to reduce the unfunness of getting one-shotted by a PoM Pyroblast.
And they are trying to make Arcane Missiles generally more viable (especially in PVP wherein they are useless due to painfully slow cast channeling).

Smart stuff!

Hopefully they nerf Ice Block (perhaps give it an HP bar so it can be 'broken') as everyone hates Immunity Shields in PVP.
(The video teased something like this -- but it might have been Mr. Fishslayer's wishful thinking.)

[Bigsmerf]

What-...

Okay what the fuck. Please, for the love of all that is holy and UNholy, do not remove stormstrike. I'm begging.

Half of the shaman class identity (as Manlet's already stated) is support, and the enabling of teammates. You could've easily just made stormstrike better for that purpose, AND given it this effect. Instead of a couple instances of nature damage, the damage increase lasts for a set amount of time. Boom, done, fixed. Better stormstrike buff, better damage to go along with it. (Funnily enough I've made this suggestion already, just without the whole... Holy strike ripoff)


Righteous defender looks fine. A flat damage reduction won't do any harm, and the alternative was utter trash anyways.

Arcane power just-... Confuses me. I get mage is a "glass cannon" type class, but not a fucking suicide bomber. (Leave that to the huntards amirite lmao I'm so clever) Anyways, 40% of your mana melted away over 20 seconds is a lot, and trying to gauge whether or not you're going to literally explode and DIE would probably be a bit more harmful than helpful, definitely a stressful playstyle to get used to, especially when it (yes I need to mention this again) drains FOURTY, FOUR ZERO, 40, ONE FOURTY TIMES OVER - Percent of your mana. (That's slightly less than half btw)

Accelerated Arcana looks fine in theory, but do you know what happens when you cast lots of spells in short succession? If you guessed something along the lines of "All my mana's gone, oh noes!" then you'd be absolutely correct! Again, damage buff that keeps the same kind of theme as Arcane power.

With these last two possible (I hope they aren't) additions in mind, there better be some compensation so all this mana being spent doesn't leave you wanding and either forever oom or an arcane scorched corpse.

Goodness gracious that was all very angrily worded...

[Akos1896]

'Arcane power just-... Confuses me. I get mage is a "glass cannon" type class, but not a fucking suicide bomber.'

Yes. This is something I'd imagine for destruction locks with all those lifetap and hellfire shenanigans.

[Ibux]

'Arcane power just-... Confuses me. I get mage is a "glass cannon" type class, but not a fucking suicide bomber.'

Yes. This is something I'd imagine for destruction locks with all those lifetap and hellfire shenanigans.

got to get some use out of that druid battle rez, or some extra soulstones for the new suicide bomber meta.

[Akos1896]

New strongest villain is repair cost.

[Ibux]

New strongest villain is repair cost.

haha yea if you take durability loss. but maybe you don't? like hellfire for lock doesn't take durability when killing you afaik.

[Frantsel]

Well thats gonna be fun haha.

Seeing blizzard fail balancing sod, now twow thinks we need a classic+ with many many new abilities.

I just want a classic+ that honors the blizzard balance with small tweaks.

[Zulnam]

Arcane Power sounds, albeit generic, HILARIOUS. I can only hope that an exploding mage also damages or at least throws around all players around him.

The raiding compilation videos tuned to benny hill alone would be 10000% worth it.


Lightning strike also sounds good, better than Stormstrike (lol at the nature buff).
20% weapon damage as Nature gave me a bit of a stiffy, but it's not as good as holy strike yet. Tbh that nature damage % could be increased, seeing as nature is resistable.

Also I hope they got rid of thunderhead. it was not a good talent, reminiscent of 2005 vanilla when druids where second class citizens taken into raids only to innervate the priest healer all-stars.


Looking forward to see these drop on 7/7. I hope they add 32 new abilities. Why not? This is what classic+ means. New stuff but in the vanilla world.

[Charanko]

Or …hear me out…. What if …
we had both strikes? Since ss has a way too long of a cd anyways?

[Eversongwoods]

these youngins want to turn vanilla into SoD

[Manletow]

Someone just pointed out this very important information to me:

Thunderhead is being replaced with Lightning Strike.
Stormstrike remains independently in its current place.

I can see now (looking closer at the image) that this seems to be the case.
So Enhancement will have two different melee attacks.

This is concerning to me as Elemental Shaman is already Top Tier in PVP and now they will have very easy access to at least one (if not two) Melee attacks. Kinda busted.
Hopefully Elemental has its burst damage nerfed in some manner.

I will admit that having to put 3 points into "Improved Lightning Shield" in order to get Lightning Strike does kinda 'keep things balanced' cuz no one wants to waste points on bad talents.

However i also see now that Ancestral Guardian is going from 5 points down to 3.
And Spirit Shield is going from 3 down to 2.

Not sure how these needed a buff -- as they were already pretty excellent talents to begin with...
Perhaps reworked in some way(s). idk

[Atreidon]

Going for a melee strike is costing an elemental shaman 6% critchance on lightning & chain lightning as well as spell pushback protection while using heals. They won't go for it outside of some niche builds.
(unless resto also changes dramatically)

[Manletow]

Going for a melee strike is costing an elemental shaman 6% critchance on lightning & chain lightning as well as spell pushback protection while using heals. They won't go for it outside of some niche builds.
(unless resto also changes dramatically)

Not sure what you are talking about.
Not every Elemental Shaman has to go for Natures Swiftness...

Going deep into Enhancement instead is perfectly viable.
And now its going to be incredible.

[Atreidon]

Going for a melee strike is costing an elemental shaman 6% critchance on lightning & chain lightning as well as spell pushback protection while using heals. They won't go for it outside of some niche builds.
(unless resto also changes dramatically)

Not sure what you are talking about.
Not every Elemental Shaman has to go for Natures Swiftness...

Going deep into Enhancement instead is perfectly viable.
And now its going to be incredible.

Even without going for Natures Swiftness, Tidal mastery is pretty much mandatory for elemental shaman. So if someone scarifices elemental mastery & Healing focus /totemic mastery thats a tradeoff to be made and its not necessarily stronger than current ele cookiecutter builds. Even in Pvp where it's strongest, an extra melee swing is only really powerful if you are using a twohander. And loosing 2-3k armor from a shield does hurt. Im plenty worried about other class chances like the arcane mage they teased, but this one is tame as a kitten

[Manletow]

Even without going for Natures Swiftness, Tidal mastery is pretty much mandatory for elemental shaman. So if someone scarifices elemental mastery & Healing focus /totemic mastery thats a tradeoff to be made and its not necessarily stronger than current ele cookiecutter builds. Even in Pvp where it's strongest, an extra melee swing is only really powerful if you are using a twohander. And loosing 2-3k armor from a shield does hurt. Im plenty worried about other class chances like the arcane mage they teased, but this one is tame as a kitten

Melee attacks are quite useful for Elemental Shaman in T-WoW cuz Flametongue can activate Clearcasting.
Having an an additional (excellent) instant melee attack will be huge -- 2hander or no 2hander.
Many Elemental shaman use Staffs by the way.

Anyway It also catches people off guard -- cuz they expect a Caster to have weaksauce melee dmg.

But OK i will admit it -- 'current ele cookiecutter build' is so strong that it is very hard to compete with.

Anyway -- this new melee attack will definitely make my Enhancement/Resto "Poor Mans Paladin" spec more viable. KEK

[Codymb24]

Mr. Fishslayer has 'leaked' some 'teases' of potential upcoming changes.


It appears that Stormstrike is being rebranded as "Lightning Strike" AKA literal Turtle/Nature Strike

I fundamentally disagree with this design.
Stormstrike buffed your teammates via the debuff which was in line with Blizzards vision for the class (as a Supporter) and now it turns a Shield into an offensive ability as well.
HOWEVER I do appreciate now not being 'forced' to follow it up with Earth Shock. Allows for more options.
And they did follow my suggestion (or TBC) by making it a 10 sec cooldown.
I give it a 5/10

Also: it appears Thunderhead is gone/replaced with something different but similar (considering the new icon is Thunderclap)
The Tanking Talents are probably getting buffed to give a threat bonus or something like that. IDK


Prot Paladin has a new Capstone talent (unknown -- uses Icon for Intervene)
They can take 10% reduced damage w/ Righteous Fury active. (appears the old "35% less dmg at low HP" has been replaced by this)
Also: Theres some other misc changes/additions.



Arcane changes are pretty zany.
I suppose they are trying to reduce the unfunness of getting one-shotted by a PoM Pyroblast.
And they are trying to make Arcane Missiles generally more viable (especially in PVP wherein they are useless due to painfully slow cast channeling).

Smart stuff!

Hopefully they nerf Ice Block (perhaps give it an HP bar so it can be 'broken') as everyone hates Immunity Shields in PVP.
(The video teased something like this -- but it might have been Mr. Fishslayer's wishful thinking.)

Storm
Stormstrike isn't going anywhere. That icon used for thunderclap IS lightning strike. It's replacing thunderhead. Stormstrike is staying where it is.

[Codymb24]

Lightning strike is a new ability that corresponds with your shields. Restoring mana, doing bonus damage and healing. It's higher up in the talent tree so we get access to it at lower levels. This probably also means we will get wather shield at level 20 making leveling with this ability a breeze.