The new builds has just been release on the PTR, and as Blizzard promised, new changes has been added to Lifetap and, of course, the long awaited buff to enhancement tree for Shamans.

Shaman:

Update: The global cooldown on casting totems has been reduced. It is now 1 second instead of 1.5

Feb 27th should be named Shaman Day imo.

Flametongue Weapon now reduces the effectiveness of healing spells on your target by 50%. Lasts 5 seconds and refresh every hits.

All I can say is WoW, a passive MS added to NORMAL attacks. That’s going to be superior to Rogue’s Wound Poison as well as free to maintain unlike Warrior’s. However, Enhancement Shamans usually pair up with one of those 2 because they’re able to snare the target reliably, unlike Frost Shock or Earthbind.

Toughness now increases your armor value from items by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the duration of movement impairing effects on you by -10/20/30/40/50%.

Another sweet change, many Enhance specs can already include several points in Toughness, now everyone will want to max it. With Hamstring and Crippling Poison(already removable via Remove Poison) sticking only for 5 and 6 seconds, the field is definitely looking brighter for Enhance.

Shamanistic Rage now let you regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power instead of 15. Duration reduced to 15 seconds. (Was 30seconds)

Sounds like a nerf, although you do get mana back twice as fast, you lose out on 15 seconds of 30% damage reduction. I guess undispellable 30 seconds of 30% reduction sounded like too much to the devs.

Warlock:

Lifetap now converts 5/12/20% maximum life into 5/12/20% maximum mana.

Nothing huge here, other than making Lifetap garbage at lower ranks.

Looks like they meant it when they said they wanted Enhancement to be viable for 2v2. With ability to healing debuff on AUTO attacks and 50% reduction on snare durations, Enhancement Shamans won’t be taken lightly once these goes live. (Don’t forget the instant Ghost Wolf from previous PTR build - will be powerful with snares at 50% duration.)

Tags: PvP · News

10 Responses to “Enhancement Shaman ftw?!?!”

1. Tahmus Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 12:59 am

   “Flametongue Weapon now reduces the effectiveness of healing spells on your target by 50%. Lasts 5 seconds and refresh every hits.”

   Misinformation. The debuff decreases healing by 50%. So if the healer with this debuff on him casts a heal on anyone, it’s 50% of his normal healing.

   Putting this debuff on a non healing class will do nothing, except warlocks, which will cut the drain/siphon in half.

2. Ziss Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 2:12 am

   Got a source for that Flametongue effect?

3. sempai Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 5:45 am

   Boy does that make hunter MS debuff look like crap with a 3-4s channeled cast. They need to make this a talent for enhancement shaman.

4. ekk Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 7:30 am

   “Lifetap now converts 5/12/20% maximum life into 5/12/20% maximum mana.
   Nothing huge here, other than making Lifetap garbage at lower ranks.”

   seems to forgot that lock itemization (and talent) goes for hp and little to no int
   lifetap will cost a lot hp for little mana return in pvp stuff
   sounds like a good pvp warlock nerf

5. Shamu Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 8:26 am

   “The debuff decreases healing by 50%. So if the healer with this debuff on him casts a heal on anyone, it’s 50% of his normal healing. ”

   Ah so if this is correct, with a shaman and warrior on a healer, his heals will do -50% and he will heal himself for -50%, thus heals will be 75% less effective? That sounds absolultly insane, especially as I run warrior/enhacement shaman/pala already.

6. Sciens Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 11:21 am

   Exactly, shaman warrior would be overpowered. Warrior keeping MS on the kill target while the resto Sham following thier healer around keeping that debuff on.

7. Tyler Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am

   That’s not true. The way flametongue is set to work is exactly like Mortal Strike. Any healing done to that target will have it’s effects reduced by 50%.

8. Lurker Says:
   February 28th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

   Also not mentioned in the news above, but confirmed on the PTR patchnotes page is that NS + EM 10sec shared CD has been removed.

9. the ish Says:
   February 29th, 2008 at 7:19 am

   glad its a test realm, cant wait to run 4 melee dps with a flametongue totem + heroism and watch people drop.

10. Slayoric Says:
    February 29th, 2008 at 8:14 am

    I dont wanna hear another word u say i dont wanna go waste another day whatchu say whatchu say whatchu ever say whatcha gonna do u don’t play

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