Ramblings on the Cataclysm Shaman Talent Preview

Earlier this week, Blizzard sent out a preview of the Rogue, Druid, Priest and Shaman talent tress for Cataclysm. Some of those had already been announced in their previous class previews, but it was nice seeing the trees themselves, and what they look like. Because I have not played Enhancement since setting foot on Outlands, I’ll just focus on the Elemental and Restoration changes, only noting the changes to those Enhancement talents I usually take with either spec. For the full talent list, you can go to the ever helpful MMO Champion.

Elemental Talents

Talents in Tiers 1 through 4 are unchanged, the first real change to the tree is in Tier 5 where we bid farewell to Call of Thunder, which is replaced by Elemental Mastery. My first guess is that, by dropping our innate critical strike chance, this will raise the relative value of Critical Strike Rating as stat by a small percentage.

On Tier 6, Elemental Precision sees a significant change. Currently, with 3 points you get

Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 3% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 30%.

 The Cataclysm version reads

Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 1/2/3% and increases your spell hit rating by an additional amount equal to 33/66/100% of your spirit.

We lose threat reduction and gain a conversion from Spirit to Hit Rating. Both sides of this change had been mentioned before. Whether that threat reduction is baked into Defensive Stance, Righteous Fury and their ilk remains to be seen. The Spirit to Hit conversion allows a more seemless transition between Elemental and Restoration sets, which should be a good change.

We see Elemental Oath dropping to Tier 7, following Elemental Mastery’s move, along with one of the better DPS improvements for Elemental Shaman, Totemic Wrath (according to the talent calculator) or Wrathful Totems (its placeholder name)

Causes your Fire totems to increase the spell power of your party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%.

First, we get good gear scaling for the signature Elemental totem, and perhaps more importantly, that effect applies to all Fire totems, allowing us to buff our raids AND improve personal DPS at the same time. This is a change that can’t come soon enough if you ask me.

Lightning Overload is replaced by the Elemental Overload mastery, which is improved by the Tier 8 talent Acute Overload

Increases the damage dealt by your Elemental Overload spells by 7/14/20%

It’s free damage, from more sources, what’s not to like?

Tier 9 gives us Earthquake

35 yd range – 1.5 sec cast – 15 sec cooldown – You cause the earth at the target location to tremble and break, dealing 267 Physical damage every 1 second to enemies within a 10-yard radius, with a 40% chance of knocking down affected targets. Lasts 10 seconds.

A welcome ranged AoE to complement the somewhat clunky, placement dependent Fire Nova.

On to Tier 10, where we see a cool new talent, Lava Surge

Gives your Flame Shock periodic damage ticks a 10/20/30% chance to reset the cooldown of your Lava Burst spell.

That’s an interesting talent, to say the least. One of the key aspects of our casting priority list (“rotation” sounds soooo Burning Crusade) is that we want to cast Lava Burst as close to on-cooldown as possible, seeing as it has the highest spellpower coefficient, and it should always crit, thus guaranteeing Clearcasting. Being able to cast it more often should result in a net DPS increase. Another aspect of that change, is that it should raise the value of Haste slightly, since faster Flame Shock ticks would mean more chances for the Lava Surge effect to occur.

Thunderstorm remains unchanged. Nothing to see, move along.

Enhancement Talents

No more Thundering Strikes, and its tasty 5% crit chance.

Restoration Talents

On Tier 1, Improved Healing Wave is changing to reduce the casting time of both Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave.

Continuing the theme of dropping innate crit talents, Tier 4 sees Tidal Mastery going away, being replaced by Focused Insight

After casting any shock spell, your next heal’s mana cost is reduced by 15/30/45/60/75% of the cost of the shock spell, and its healing effectiveness is increased by 5/10/15/20/25%.

I could be wrong, that sounds like an exciting, fun talent. Let’s say it’s encounter with a timer-based giant boss hit, or large AoE damage spike. You can weave in a Flame Shock, and following it up with a stronger heal. It definitely looks like something I want to play with.

On Tier 5, Healing Way’s wording is changing to specify that it affects both Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave.

Let’s welcome Tier 6’s Ancestral Resolve, everyone

Reduces damage taken while casting spells by 5/10%.

Wow. 10% damage reduction while casting should help with those tense survivability fights. I’m going ahead and calling it a mandatory talent.

On Tier 7, Cleanse Spirit becomes Improved Cleanse, and now removes magic effects, to go to with the dispelling and debuff removal changes announced by Blizzard. Nothing too shocking.

Conclusion

There was no mention of the new Restoration spells (such as Healing Rains) in the talent tree, which may mean that particular tree is not as finalized as Elemental.

Elemental, however, received a lot of attention, and I must say I am pleased with the overall results, and will stay tuned for any additional information that comes out.