Now that we are in the second day of Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational, and the fervor over the Diablo 3 announcement has simmered down a bit - here are some changes that have been mentioned for the Shaman class. Some of these are very very nice, and it sounds like Blizzard might actually be listening to the Shaman community (ala the totem changes in WotLK).

Crowd Control and Anti-Crowd Control
This has pretty much been the bane of the Shaman class, especially in PvP. We had no reliable crowd control, other than a snare (Frostshock, and to a lesser extent, Frostbrand Weapon). There has been a very loud outcry from the Shaman community for the last several years concerning this. Patch after patch, we Shaman never got the CC or anti-CC we were clamoring for. Now, with WotLK, we might just be getting there. How so?

Well first off, we are getting an actual CC ability, called Hex. This 1.5 second cast spell will turn the target into a frog. The affected target can move, but cannot attack or use spells. Much like the hex from the Shaman NPC characters. There is currently a 1 minute cooldown on this spell, but this may change. Also, damaging a hexed target does not break the effect. That means a target can be hexed and focus-fired down quickly.

Next up, and I don’t think this was talked about at the WWI, but has been data-mined from data files, is the Enhancement talent Improved Shamanistic Rage. This 2 point talent, branching sideways from Shamanistic Rage will give the Shaman a 50/100% chance to avoid all forms of Stun, Snare and Movement Impairing effects, while under the effect of Shamanistic Rage. Alpha talent tree here.

In the Elemental Tree, the new talent Storm, Earth and Fire gives a chance of minor crowd control. This talent gives the Shaman’s Frostshock spell a 5/10/15/20/25% chance to root the target in place for 2 seconds. Nothing super major, but it’s a nice addition. This talent it deep into the Elemental tree, but it also adds two other bonuses: Earth Shock’s range is increased by 1/2/3/4/5 yards and Flame Shock’s periodic damage is increased by 20/40/60/80/100%. Very nice indeed!

Weapon Enchantments
Blizzard has heard the Shaman’s cries for changes to the weapon enchantments. As you probably already know, we had four different enchantments, with only one - Windfury Weapon - being used in almost all situations. Blizzard has headed our calls and has taken action! Rockbiter Weapon is going away. In it’s place, we will be receiving Earthliving Weapon, which gives a +Healing bonus to the Shaman. Flametongue will give +Spell Damage and Frostbrand will more reliably snare targets. Windfury Totem will not be a weapon enchantment anymore. Instead it will be a buff, and can be used in bear form or with poison (for Druids and Rogues) amongst other things. This also seems to suggest that it will stack with our personal Windfury Weapon!

Totems
Blizzard is stating that they will be combining many totems together. For example, Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be combined into one totem. But the biggie: Totems will now affect the entire raid. This can be seen as both a positive thing and a bad thing. On one hand, all raid members get some totem lovin’ while on the other hand, taking into account that they are combining some totems - why would you need more than one or two Shaman? Also, totems will not be spells anymore, but will be physical actions. This means you can drop totems when you are silenced, and they cannot be counterspelled!

As well as totems now affecting the entire raid, it seems Unleashed Rage will as well!

There are various other changes and talents that have been known about already, many of which you can view at the WotLK wiki.

So what do you think of the upcoming changes?

The Brewfest event is current up for testing on the PTR. Some quick notes:

• There will be two purchasable mounts this time
  • A Kodo for Horde players only
  • A Ram for Alliance players only
• There is a event-only boss, named Coren Direbrew (pic below). He is located in the Grim Guzzler inside Blackrock Depths. Instead of having to clear all the way to the tavern every time, Blizzard has installed a teleporter that will whisk you on down there. This time around, you get to fight him!
  His drops:
  • [Coren's Lucky Coin]
  • [Dark Iron Smoking Pipe]
  • [Direbrew Hops]
  • [Empty Mug of Direbrew]
  • [Direbrew's Shanker]
  • [Brightbrew Charm]
  • [Balebrew Charm]

As of right now, these are the patch notes on the PTR relevant to Shaman

I am back and looking to continue updating you all on Shaman news in the World of Warcraft. I still have some things going on personally, nothing bad mind you - buying a house, but that is defintely taking up a good amount of my time right now.

So anyhow, let’s see if I can’t get the ball rolling with this thing again! 

Updated 5:43 EST: listed the official patch notes instead of the expected patch notes.

It seems that 2.4 is going live today. MMO Champion has a very comprehensive roundup of what the patch is bringing to the table here

Shaman specific patch notes (note that the fix for Chain Lightning skipping CC targets has been REMOVED):

• Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance, down from 6%.
• Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
• Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
• Flametongue Weapon: Having different ranks of this enchantment cast on two different weapons will no longer cause the enchantments to trigger multiple times per swing.
• Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
• The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
• Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
• Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell, and thus is no longer dispellable. It now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.
• Stormstrike has a new icon.
• Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
• Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement slowing effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.
• Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
• The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate without doing any damage.

Billee of Bloodscalp made a post reporting what he thought was a bug with Bloodlust/heroism:

“Bloodlust still gets removed if you use it when you are too close to a wall and cannot have your body made bigger by the buff. Im not sure if it removes it for the whole group if the caster is too close but i do know that it is removed if you are too close to a wall.

Im sure this is an unintended bug but it can be fairly game breaking to lose 750 mana on something that goes right away.”

To which Hortus replied

So it looks like when you pop Bloodlust/Heroism, make sure you and your groupmates are not standing right next to a wall. Kind of a dumb way to solve the problem, imo.

A few posts from Kalgan concerning class balance and representation in Arenas. I am a little surprised by the numbers for Shaman in 5v5 - the other brackets are about where most would expect shaman to be - underrepresented

         2v2     3v3     5v5

Druid	276.0%	184.0%	80.5%

Hunter	43.0%	50.2%	43.0%

Mage	8.7%	96.0%	96.0%

Paladin	19.7%	29.5%	147.4%

Priest	113.3%	164.8%	185.4%

Shaman	37.8%	50.4%	138.6%

Rogue	144.2%	175.1%	61.8%

Warlock	149.2%	93.2%	111.9%

Warrior	130.4%	90.7%	79.3%

And  for the 1850+ charts

Druid	184.0%	138.0%	92.0%

Hunter	50.2%	50.2%	50.2%

Mage	61.1%	87.3%	87.3%

Paladin	68.8%	88.4%	137.6%

Priest	133.9%	133.9%	154.5%

Shaman	75.6%	88.2%	138.6%

Rogue	154.5%	154.5%	82.4%

Warlock	121.2%	102.5%	102.5%

Warrior	90.7%	85.0%	85.0%

This is what we have so far - the flametongue MS buff has indeed been removed:

• Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.
• Chain Lightning: This ability will no longer jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
• Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
• Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
• Flametongue Weapon: Having different ranks of this enchantment cast on two different weapons will no longer cause the enchantments to trigger multiple times per swing.
• Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
• The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
• Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
• Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell, and thus is no longer dispellable. It now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.
• Stormstrike has a new icon.
• Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
• Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement slowing effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.
• Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
• The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate without doing any damage.

Notice that the wording has been changed for the Toughness entry. Movement slowing effects - so snares. They do not intend this to shorten duration on root type abilities.

Kalgan had this to say about the Flametongue change being reverted

Have been reverted on the PTR, according to game files.

Some patch changes for 2.4

• Flametongue debuff now removes 25% of healing efficiency on the target for 5 seconds and stack up to two times. The duration remains 5 seconds.

• Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins.
• Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with Power Infusion, however.