Hurray they are out! I will link to the blue post so I don’t have to quote the whole thing.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24038611737/cataclysm-class-preview-shaman/

Restoration:

Spells -

The ‘new’ Healing Wave: They mention it’s the go-to spell which makes me wonder if it’s a multi-target spell. I can’t see us using a single target heal for everything. However, it was mentioned that they were going to make shaman better tank healers, so this could be our version of the efficient tank heal and the new ‘Greater Healing Wave’ will be our Holy Light spell. So far not interested in what it’s described as.

Healing Rain: This actually sounds pretty cool and something new that classes don’t have yet, though I’m thinking priests/paladins might get the same spell. The idea of having such a wide area to heal and how variable it can be (do I put the circle on only a few people or do I want to hit most of the raid?) is pretty cool. With a 10 second cd I’m thinking it doesn’t heal for a whole lot and is probably pretty fast, but most likely very expensive. Unlike WG I’m not seeing shaman using this spell on cd yet.

Unleash Weapon: Increases the next healing spell by 20% with a very short cd. I see a lot of potential with this in both tank healing and mixing it with the new Healing Rain spell. If/when there is a massive aoe attack, we can heal it up pretty quickly. For example, this combination could be used for healing infest - then again, we don’t have numbers or times yet so it’s hard to tell exactly.

Spiritwalker’s Grace: I am most excited about this despite the long cd because not being able to move has been one of the biggest complaints for both Resto and Ele. I can see this being especially good in pvp, because a lot of the time it’s “move and not be able to cast and die, or stand in the attack, heal, and still die”. Paladins are probably going to get something similar to this.

Abilities/Mechanics -

Mana: I have a very bad feeling that with the number of spells we are going to have to work with and the spamability of some of them shaman are going to need to be incredibly careful of mana especially in the beginning stages. Spirit has the potential to trump haste much like intellect did in early WoTLK

Totem of Wrath replacing Flametongue: This is a long awaited change, especially for Ele shaman. But for resto, it will improve 5 and 10 mans a lot and not force a lock to play demo.

New Talents/Changes -

Spirit Link !!!! - This was an exciting talent we almost had. I’m pumped to possibly get it back and experiment. Again this is pointing to shaman becoming better/efficient tank healers.

Mastery -

Deep Healing: So far sounds pretty good, though I get the feeling that other healing classes will have something similar to this. It also means we will be able to use the ‘mana efficient’ spells for longer rather than switching to the big hitter for someone at lower hp.

Overall looking forward to everything, but I’m curious what the changes will be to other classes for comparison!

Yey spirit link! one of the most creative spells known in wotlk beta not to mention to most imba. I hope they work out all the kinks before release :p

the enh changes are dissapoint.

Most of this is pretty disappointing :/
although spiritwalker is pretty exciting

Why disappointing? I liked the changes, though they seemed to be paying particular attention to Resto.

They’re all small improvements and assuming every other class gets these shamans will be in the same position really.

That’s not to say they aren’t improvements, just not quite as exciting as I hoped.

I guess on the plus side we haven’t seen anything, and it is going to give us a lot to work with.

They are also changing all the numbers, so it might turn out that we have similar spells, but they are more powerful for us than say, a holy paladin

Rizaya - 07 April 2010 01:03 PM

Yey spirit link! one of the most creative spells known in wotlk beta not to mention to most imba. I hope they work out all the kinks before release :p

Agreed, it was a lot of fun while it was in during beta - and was definitely OP! ;)

Healing Rain sounds promising…wtb beta key.

hi pezz ^_^

oh man no more bloodlusting shaman

On Time Warp vs. Bloodlust, we are really trying to give groups flexibility in who they bring to 10 player raids to an even greater extent than we did in Lich King. We heard over and over that shaman still felt like the one mandatory class in any raid. The more we hear “now there will be no reason to take me over X class / spec” the happier we will be. The reason should be that you’re a good player, not that your mere presence makes everyone else perform better. It’s fun to feel more powerful in a group – we get that, and we aren’t going to completely marginalize group synergy. But it needs to come secondary to the skill of the players involved.

Complete and utter bull-fucking-shit. Bloodlust is half the reason we are even brought to raids now. Does he even look at group comps from top tier to bottom tier? If Mages had lust, groups now would drop their shaman immediately for a class that does more damage.

I’m hoping that there are enough shaman in the community who will bombard them with complaints that they remove that spell from mages.

I WANT TO HAVE ONE SPELL THAT MAKES ME A UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE GOD DAMN IT.

Don’t worry if things keep going like this by the time they announce paly changes they will have announced free class changes for all shaman.

vasudan - 10 April 2010 07:21 PM

Don’t worry if things keep going like this by the time they announce paly changes they will have announced free class changes for all shaman.

Unless they balance the numbers correctly.

I know it’s just a preview and half the stuff won’t get through, but I will be really sad if Cata hits and Mages still have lust. I’m trying to see the bright side, but it’s hard.

However, after reading the mage changes, it sounds like a lot is going to be reworked for them. I mean, basing a Mastery talent on % of mana is not going to fly or scale well. Deathfrost sounds incredibly stupid, but the fire DoT is maybe okay.

damn maybe shamans will have to be good now.

I had a dream where the expected shaman dps was above mages by 2x. Heh :)