I just got off of lunch here at the office and happen to see this in my blue tracker.
For those of you who can’t read it at work or school here it is copied for you
From Eyonix:
We are making a change to these spells so that their benefits are exclusive in patch 3.1.0. The buffs will be equivalent, but will no longer stack. Mana Spring will affect the entire raid instead of just the shaman’s party. We felt that both paladins and shamans brought too many unique buffs to a group. Additionally, we have been trying to tone down mana regeneration in large groups, and were concerned raids would feel the need to stack paladins or especially shaman to have enough Mana Spring totems. We have also been trying to get more benefits out of the party and into the raid, and Mana Spring previously was still a party only buff. With this change, if there is only one paladin, he or she can bring Blessing of Kings while the shaman offers Mana Spring. If there are two paladins and the second offers Blessing of Wisdom, then the shaman can offer healing or cleansing with their water totem instead.
What does this mean? It means you can’t have both. They are essentially removing another source of mana regeneration from raids. As you can imagine there is a large outcry among both Shamans and Paladins. From the shaman stand point I’m a little upset to be honest, I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop. The comment about Shamans bringing too many unique buffs to the raid made me scoff a bit. Strength of Earth totem which combines STR and AGI buffs gets overridden by a Death Knights horn of winter, often times leading to that being used for Stone Skin which is negligible benefit to the raid at best. Flame Tongue totem gets over ridden by Demonic Pact if you have a demo warlock in the group, and the other flame choices are Frost Resist or doing dps. Which if you’re healing, you arent in range for that most of the time anyways, and taking the time to stop healing run in and drop a magma totem is normally not a good idea. You guys see where I’m going with this.
Here were some suggestions of what we can do with the slot instead, and ultimately what our totems can add to a raid.
Healing Stream Totem. It’s group only, and still has to be in range. If you’re healing, more then likely you’re going to be with the casters in the back, not taking damage. While it does have places where it can be nice, it’s largely wasted in my opinion.
Cleansing Totem. Great for fights where you need to purge Diseases and Poison, but wasted and useless any other time. With curses being more prevalent then Disease and Poison that’s another totem we’ll see situational use out of.
Wrath of Air. Yes we still offer 5% spell haste. Yes that is good, but it is also redundant. Currently two other classes also offer haste. Retribution Paladins and Balance Druids.
Blizzard is trying to simplify raids, and I can appreciate what they are trying to do… to a point. A Lot of people think they are trying to make fights harder by nerfing mana regeneration, posts like this just add weight to that argument. Homogenize every class, and then what do you have left? I posted in my last post that one of the best things about playing a Shaman was the uniqueness of our class, and totems were right up there in that list. Slowly it seems like it’s being whittled away. Streamline don’t make obsolete!
Redundancy is good in a raid, but at what cost?
I’ll update this as time permits today and as updates are brought to my attention.
What are your thoughts?
*EDIT*
Ok, so now that my initial shock has worn off and I’ve had my cup of coffee and a chance to sit and think about it in more depth, I’m not overly concerned any longer, in fact I’m quite ok with it now. This is just another in the series of small tweaks to get everything on a level playing field. The impact to the raid shouldn’t be that big, if anything more raids will see a boost from this then any sort of detrimental outcome.
I think my biggest reaction was just it seemed like a change out of left field, I don’t think anyone saw that coming. I am curious however as to what else will change in the coming weeks. Shamans have their Heroism / Bloodlust shifted slightly to keep it as a “Shotgun” buff and now the Mana Spring totem has been adjusted just a little bit. Lets see what else they tweak.
Don’t worry. I still love Shamans. Unless Paladins get their own Heroism ^^.
That’s really sad. Mana spring is now useless in a 25-man (unless you have a rare 25-man raid with less than 2 paladins). I think it’s 34 mana / 2 sec at 80. With the talent, that’s up to 42.5 / 2 sec or the equivalent of 106 MP5 lost. That’s pretty significant.
I understand that mana is abundant and they needed to do something but I hate that they’re doing it by making our totem useless.
WTT Blessing of Wisdom for Chain Heal, PST
Ambrosines last blog post..So you rolled a paladin…
Ya, seriously what Matt said. Bloodlust/Heroism is still the best buff in the game. It’s so good that I’d literally take a shaman naked over anyone as my 25th spot if I didn’t have a shaman. No other class can boast such a claim in my opinion. In fact, tbh I think another class does need Bloodlust/Heroism even with the elegant nerf to it in order to make it more useful for raids with only a single shaman.
I think you’re really downplaying the usefulness of your situational totems. Yes, a lot of your others are getting trumped by other classes, but I really think you guys still cover a lot of spots relative to other classes making you very useful to a raid. Even just a Shaman’s unique healing style is a great benefit.
All that said, I think you’re feeling what everyone is. None of us have really huge compelling reasons to be brought anymore which is kinda blizzard’s goal these days.
Veneretios last blog post..What Tier 7 to wear?
Homogenization is the point. My opinion? Just be more awesome than the Paladin next to you (easy in our case).
Don’t get me wrong this is my knee jerk reaction. I’ll edit this and clean it up with afterthoughts as time permits. As I’m still at the office haven’t really had time to sit and digest it.
“paladins and shamans brought too many unique buffs to a group”
He’s got to be thinking Heroism here, but I’m not sure what the Paladin unqiue buff is, maybe Kings.
Honorshammers last blog post..So Malygos
This change is kind of disconcerting. As you point out, our best totems all have direct matches with other classes. Which is fine, it’s what Blizz is doing, but it’s the fact that our totems have drawbacks whereas those buffs don’t. In fights that require a split, your totem only works on half the raid. Whereas buffs that are cast stick with them when they split.
Shaman aren’t gimped by this, of course, but it’s just kind of reinforces how broken totems are.
I love the pic at the top.
This change has different implications for the raid and for the shaman.
For the raid: Probably a change in line with Blizzard’s concerns about overall mana regeneration and its effect on their ability to design content that is class independent. Since Mana Spring Totem currently provides a 105 mp5 buff only to the members of the Shaman’s group (5 people), the increased demand for mp5 sources after the series of nerfs to other healing classes could lead to shaman stacking – one per group, to ensure that both Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem are available. In that regard, I have no problem with the change to eliminate stacking.
For the shaman: Not so pleased. As a resto shaman, I find I have to balance my heals with preservation of mana. I currently sit at about 238 mp5 unbuffed, and run at 600-700 when raid buffed. This is therefore a loss of about 15% of my mana regen capability. And, the mana tide totem continues to require 5 points in the now largely irrelevant Restorative Totems talent. Certainly, I can convert to Flask of Pure Mojo and Spicy Fried Herring to get some of it back, but that is a loss in spellpower of ~170. Blizzard can alleviate some of this by tweaking water shield and/or the cooldown/regen of Mana Tide Totem so they compensate the shaman for this loss of mp5 without buffing the entire raid.
Erm, I think that Wrath of Air’s Spell Haste and a Retribution Paladins’ Swift Retribution do stack. Wrath of Air’s spell haste, according to MMO-Champion’s Raid Comp utility doesn’t share a buff slot with any other class buffs. Ret brings plain Haste %, which shares a buff slot with Improved Moonkin Aura.
If any two buffs are supposed to share a buff slot I think there is a case for Mana Spring to last longer (at least 10 minutes) and buff the whole raid rather than be range limited. Same goes for Battleshout.
*waits on BoKings and MotW sharing a buff slot, you know it’s coming*
I keep forgetting those blinking links… Here is the link to MMO-champs Raid-comp utility:
http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/
There was something to be said for having multiple shaman in your group and stacking mana totems. I can understand why it’s not desirable in the new paradigm, but it’s something that made fast heroic runs easier and was a nice side benefit to the fact that I frequently run instances as resto with an ele shaman. Now I guess that’s less good, since neither of us bring something “new” to the table.
And yeah, guess I’m getting 6 talent points freed up from Restorative Totems + Mana Tide. Not worth 6 points for Mana Tide.
Taras last blog post..Watchmen movie, not a fan
This change could make sense depending on how they will go about this. If they buff BoW and Mana Spring Totem so that they have the power of both combined, then it might be a nice change for 10-man instances and below. A slight buff for 25-man instances as well as that you won’t have to stack shamans for maximum mana regen. Downside is less totem options for shamans in a raid setting. If they don’t buff these spells then replenish will be even more mandatory, which doesn’t make sense.
It would be nice if the shaman totem was stronger than BoW after talents, but without removing BoW. Then shamans would have a reason to use their totem in raids, and BoW still makes a nice buffer.
The Ghost of Warcraft Pasts last blog post..The Emerald Dream
Pretty much my thoughts as well. However, there’s one thing to note: Wrath of Air is the spell version of Windfury, and both of those are on an air slot, not water.
My thoughts are http://www.eveonline.com/apocrypha/index.html
This change isn’t a huge deal per se; but it seems like yet another designer whim of the week. YMMV, but I want more stability in a game if I am going to be investing so much time in it. When I go to read about upcoming changes, it is with trepidation – what will they change next? So why am I paying money for this hassle?
I dunno, I’m quite ok with the change. We never stacked Shamans and are lacking on Paladins. I’m glad to see the totem goes raid wide so we all have the bloody buff and can get Kings from that 1 pala instead. In my guild, this will most likely be a buff, not a nerf.
I sincerely doubt it will make us drop a shaman from the group. Nor will we consider the utility of a Shaman now limited. Instead we have less pressure on min maxing the raid composition.
I can understand your view on this. But in the end, it won’t change all that much to the desirability of your class for a raid group. Min maxed groups will feel the nerf, no doubt… my group rarely managed to minmax it to this extent and I think not that many groups did.
This is a good change. It is clearly a nerf, but a necessary one. I think this would be a great time to rework/tweak restorative totems, that ugly 5 pointer, or even healing stream. We’ll see…
drugs last blog post..Why 3.1 Mana Spring Totem change doesn’t kill kittens
@ Drug, I’ve come to terms with that and agree.
It would be nice to see the talents tweaked a bit as well to reflect the changes to totems but only time will tell.
Lodur,
What are your thoughts on not taking the talents then for restorative totems and Mana tide totem?
How much does this change the idea the stacking int for more mana return from replenishment instead of MP5?
@ Shotax.
as far as MP5 and INT not much has changed for Shamans. We are becoming the base line for mana regeneration. I personally feel you should still have a healthy mix of both MP5 and INT to get the most out of replenishment and passive regen.
To be honest I think Mana Tide Totem is worth the points, and if we are going to be dropping Healing Stream Totem the 25% extra is still a little more bang for the buck. I know it ties up 6 talent points but especially now with the mana regen system being re worked it’s still useful. Lets say you have a boss that removes buffs from the player, you can still toss down your Mana Spring totem. Mana Tide Totem is also a guaranteed percentage that will scale with you as your mana pool grows. Toss a glyph on mana tide it it gets that much better. There’s no reason not to have it.
Now I do hope they rework the talent points on restorative totems a bit, but I still think Mana Tide Totem is a must have.
I’m not sure why people are okay with a 106 MP5 nerf and making mana spring near useless in a 25-man. Did I miss something? If we were the baseline for mana regeneration before this, what are we now? Less than the baseline.
@mekias
I understand where you’re coming from. Right now talented, BoK gives 109.2 mp5, Talented Mana Spring Totem gives 106.25 mp5, if they leave it as is, it’s a loss of 106.25 mp5. But after I calmed down I thought of a couple things. First of all this was an announcement, this hasn’t been implemented in the PTR yet, I assume next build we’ll see it if we see it at all. Blizz I assume has sandboxed it, but I’m pretty confident they’ll let us test it before it goes live. They haven’t yet touched our talents really regarding our mana regen on the PTR, so lets see if they do anything there. With that said, the thread is filled with 26 pages of people with something to say about it (yes I contributed). Recently with Ghetto Hearthing being nerfed and the outcry there blizzard proved it reads the forums. Lets see if blizzard pays attention here.
Right now it’s a waiting game. We need to see if it makes it onto the PTR or not, and I’m pretty sure it will since this is something I don’t even think blizzard would take live without testing.
I hear ya!
Hunters have very few party/raid buffs, and even those were taken away or made non-unique.
BM used to bring the only 3% damage increase to the party, and it used to stack if you had more than one BM. Now Ret Pally does it also, raid wide, and no stacking.
SV used to expose weakness granting big crit boost to the whole raid, now that is for the hunter himself and nobody else.
SV does get to be a mana battery, but the other two classes do it so well that my raid leader told me to throw the replenishment talent points elsewhere since the buff is already covered in our raid.
We also have pets that bring party buffs/debuffs. Wasp reduces armor, but guess what, so does Druid’s Faerie Fire, so keep those wasps in the hive. Wolves buff attack power, but it conflicts with warrior shouts, so put Rover back in the kennel.
From the perspective of any given class, we’re all less unique.
From the perspective of organizing a raid, I’m a big fan of all the raidcomp changes Blizz has made.
Amavas last blog post..Oh noes, the blog
I guess I’m just irritated that they give this announcement and apparently haven’t even thought of the ramifications. While I have a little faith that everything will work out in the end, I don’t relish spending the next 6-12 months in a nerfed state while they figure out how to fix this. But hey, at least I’m not a bear tank in 3.1. No one’s gonna want a bear MT in Ulduar hard mode.
“No one’s gonna want a bear MT in Ulduar hard mode.”
our MT is a bear so we’re gonna do it. = P although i do wonder how the HP nerf on droods are gonna pan out with real bosses…
Also, with highly mobile fights totems are much less of a benefit than a straight buff applied to the person.
I think we are gettin screwed here. I was hoping with all of the recent mana regen nerfs that shaman would come out unscathed….I was wrong.
As a healing pally that almost never heals with a shammy in 10 to 25 mans i’m not going to see much of a loss in this, but while on this subject i’m still feeling the loss of Divine Plea with only 20%, now i actually have to carry mana potions…
As usual though blizz goes through some drastic changes during every major patch to try to find some balence. This is prolly what they think will slow down the raiding guilds when it comes to raiding content. seeing that most high-end raiding guilds on even my server were done with all the content within 2 weeks when WotLK came out.
Ancestral Healing and Healing Grace have swapped places in the Restoration talent tree.
Mana Tide Totem: This spell no longer costs mana.
Restorative Totems: Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. Increases the effect of your Mana Spring Totem by 7/12/20%, and increases the amount healed by your Healing Stream Totem by 15/30/45%.
Mana Spring Totem: This totem has been redesigned. It now provides the same mana benefit as Blessing of Wisdom to the entire party or raid, but is exclusive with that effect.
borrowed from this blog which was borowed from blue chats i would assume
“Why 3.1 Mana Spring Totem change doesn’t kill kittens”
A minor correction: SoE overwrites Horn of Winter; furthermore, talented SoE is superior to that of Horn of Winter, making it a unique buff.
I want to point that Stoneskin totem offers a significant increase in EHP for tanks, so it is definitely a nice buff.
This is a nerf in every way and not one i’m necessairly pleased with. I am under the opinion that shamans are in a slight need of a mana regen buff as to allow more power or haste to hit our sockets. However, with earthliving weapon on our side i find myself holding my thoughts to myself usually. I’d love to have more haste personally but i just can’t afford to go OOM.
The mana nerf isn’t at all desirable for anyone, espically for shamans who are on the bottom rung of mana regen currently. Our mana totem will not be used nearly as often which will free it up for another – probably our disease/poison cleansing totem. I’m not 100% sure about this, but I’m pretty sure that Ulduar will be much much rampid with curses and diseases than Naxx is. Almost every freakin’ pull could use this totem working for the raid.
I love seeing totems move raid-wide. I hope all totems will be moved to a raid-wide buff. Seeing the end of thought-out totem placement? I doubt it but we’ll see.
One more concern that I’d like to address here has to do with our Str of Earth totem. There seems to be a mild misunderstanding of the benifits it brings. Aside from a very clear addition to melee and hunter DPS, Str and Agliity are much much better than AP every will be. Not only will both Str and Agil sacle up with BoKings and class tallents, but they both are very important in mitigating damage for tanks… you forgot about that didn’t you 🙂 Str adds Parry and shield block while agility adds dodge… clearly superior than AP ever ever will be in almost every way. Sure AP adds dps for the melee and threat for a tank, but ap and agility do all that and more.
I’d like to see Blizz think this out just a little more before letting it go Live.
BTW, what tha heck is the point of Blood Lust/Heriosim haveing a 5 min cool down and a 10 min debuff?!?! Obviously so it cannot be used more than once on a boss while alive (the debuff goes away if a person dies ie. a raid wipe). Not happy there at all. /gay imo
I still <3 shamans till die.
God Love and Game On!
^^Guessur from above again^^
I’d like to add a calculation really fast. I just thought about this and figured that it might be helpful to some. Food for thought:
I’m an engineer for a living (not bragging but letting you guys know that this comes from a reliable source) and have gone through bum-tons of math classes that teach us how to normalize numbers to make more sense to the common application of said numbers. I hope this sheds light on the gravity of the mana nerf at hand.
Let’s just say that we are loosing 110Mana/5 seconds (110Mp5) and we would like to get that Mp5 back through gearing. Replentishment gives us 0.25% mana/1 second OR 1.25% mana/5 seconds (1.25% Mp5). Clearly, we need to expand our mana pool by adding more intellect. Here’s how much you would need to get that 110Mp5 back:
110 Mana 0.0125 Mana (shown as a decimal not as a %)
————– = ——————
5 secs 5 secs
110 Mana
————– = 8800 mana
0.0125
8800 mana
————————– = 586.667 intell = 587 intellect to undo the proposed nerf
15 mana/1 Int
587 is the amount of additional intellect that you would need on you player to undo this nerf from replentishment ALONE!! This amount of additional intellect is not achieveable in any way. Sockets and gear swaps wouldn’t even come close to reaching this number… even with the Darkmoon Card of Greatness (90 intell).
***Please note that this does not include BoK from pallys nor does it include 10% bonus from shaman tallent points. It does not include getting an intervate. It does not include Mana Tide Totem. It doesn’t factor in the idea that you would have more mana to burn through before you would exhaust your mana pool entirely. The reason I have not included this data/information is because it is very situational and depends on the class that you play and your sequence of healing… all of which change every fight, every encounter, everytime.
If you would like to see more math on this, I would be glad to provide it to you guys for a shaman. I can do it for pallys, but I would need to research them a little before I could release accurate data.
Pretty interesting, eh?!
God Love and Game On!
I just realized that I can’t add more than a few spaces in these posts so my seudo equations look a little funny. Sorry about that. I hope you can still make sense of them.
GL and GO!
109.2 mp5 =P
I have another post on this topic in the works. Look for it soon.
^^
*patiently awaits*