So, I had the first opportunity to play my shaman with my warrior after the patch and was in for a surprise. I noticed a couple of things off the bat, namely that the slow combined dots were not stacking with fast dots any more, the shaman was draining mana at a very fast rate, and that he was getting mega agro. The mana drain appears to be due to some DoTs now having huge mana costs, approaching 15-20k (while others have the old mana costs). The agro appears to be due to dots doing anything over 100k damage per tick usually, in some cases as much as 240k damage per tick. This has a number of implications. Firstly, depending on the DoTs you use, your mana can be used up slowly or extremely rapidly, all for more or less the same damage done. This is not right. The mana cost is vastly different and inconsistent. Secondly, hate management is a big problem. Prior to these changes on a big pull I could load dots on additional mobs while the first was being killed. Doing that is much more dangerous now. It also creates agro management issues for my warrior, who has to actively work hard to prevent the shaman ganking agro even from moderate doting. This is ok on a single mob, but can cause management issues on a big pull. Thirdly, it means that shaman are capable of insane damage output if they lay everything on the mob. This is not balanced, and I would think is not consistent with the original vision for a shaman's role.
Have you tried to adjust your style of play to accommodate the changes? Or are you seriously asking that these changes they have been working on for about a year, and have been on test for a bit, are intended? Did you read the patch notes?
Yep. Chapters have been dealing with this a while. I'm pretty sure it's the intentional DoT update and working as intended. If I'm not actively creating aggro with my SK, chanter can, very quickly, steal aggro with something on the level of 40% of aggro bar per tick. Super aggro for some, usually, really good DPS. That's the trade-off, whether wanted or not.
U can also cast one dot now and do the same dmg as a full load of dots before. If u want to essentially play like before then to that. Agro is still directly proportional to the dmg on dots so if u do not utilize the increase in dmg (by casting fewer dots now than u did then) you wont gain more agro. Cant have more dmg and not get more agro with it
Lol i thought the same thing but there are actually several similar posts around. Guarantee you wont hear any necro complain about too much dps when we get our revamp
yeah we have to watch our mana more but that's kind of inline with orginial eq. Pre DOT revamp I never had to worry about my mana bar draining ever but its a great tradeoff to making us a pretty good DPS class. I like being able to do more dmg in less time. Make a AT for gift of mana if you want to fire your costly chaotic venom dot at no charge /shrug
ive seen several posts, berating the changes, I love em, if you want to be the no damage doing support adps shaman you can still be that, stay with your lion, heals, debuffs, and swift dot or two and one nuke. your playstyle doesn't have to change. you can continue doing as you always have with no penalties or downside, and can continue doing what you have always done. however now we have a CHOICE if something needs to die, we as shaman now have the toolset to assist in its decimation. there is a cost however, increased mana usage and increased agro. hell its been forever since ive had to worry about mana lol, and even longer since ive had to worry about agro control. spell casting subtlelty in now our friend, and I personally will need to remember where I hid that damn silent casting button. (that before now ive never had to use) and it might be worth keeping the spiritual channeling and rabid bear on cool down I box shaman with bard and mage, I'm basically a craptastic boxer and I'm hitting about 40k dps without breaking a sweat on trash mobs I know if I tried it could be considerable more but I hardly consider 40k dps for any class unbalanced, or game breaking in any way. shaman much needed this boost in personal power. and if you don't like the tools you don't have to use them. you can rely on everyone else in your group to kill the mob while you slow, buff, debuff , and heal to your hearts content.
The agro generated needs to be adjusted . Chanters have been saying that for awhile. It's not the same as before because you had the ability to layer them - the initial hate was far less.
Won't work, Chaotic is actually 3 (up to 5 if you hit the chances) spells. GoM will specifically never reduce the cost of the most expensive component since an preexisting GoM will be used by and cannot be replaced by the "Chaotic" bit.
It's not the same as before because the base damage has gone up by 10x. It has nothing at all to do with "layering" whatever the eff that means
There is no adjusting aggro for DoTs. Spell Casting Subtlety doesn't work on them. You get a 1:1 damage to aggro rate every single tic from every single DoT. It's why Necros have always so dearly loved raid events with Aggro wipe mechanics. Edit: And leaving it alone is how they will probably deal with the Debuff cap. More mechanics like that and they don't have to worry about too many DoTs on a mob if Druids and Shaman die whenever they use more than 1 or 2.
Layering or stacking who cares what word I used. The 1 to 1 agro doesn't hold. If you cannot figure out why.... just adjust the modifier o 1st step
The people complaining about too much dps are not shaman mains, they are people running shaman bots (90% of shaman now) who now have agro and mana issues on their previously easy-to-bot but otherwise non-consequential alt. The fact is, the changes to dots is not a big "sustained" dps increase. A total of 7 dot lines that can be used now at any one time; either 7 regular dots, 6 and 1 fast dot, or 5 and 2 fast dots. Casting any 5 regular dots takes anywhere from 35% to over 50% of the shamans mana. Spell canni and AA canni cannot cover the massive mana use, if you use all these dots you will have increased downtime. If you don't want increases downtime, you're left with using fewer dots. If you try to match your previous mana use, you do less DPS. If you try to match your previous DPS, you use more mana now. You can make a small DPS increase with selective use and have a moderate mana increase (too much in my opinion, and not what was promised in the dot revamp). The main benefit is that a shaman can now "Burn" like everyone else has been able to for the past 10 or more years. It is not huge but it is decent and certainly better than the previous complete lack of any ability to pump out DPS when needed. I cannot believe any "main" would consider it too much when it is still less than what druids were capable of before the dot revamp. I saw someone say "600k over 200s" in another post, did not show a parse though. He also left out initially that this was with a chanter and bard helping to pump up his damage. This was also on test which had much different spells than are what are on live. I parse but I do not save them. I will tell you what I've seen so far. Previously, solo I would do about 45k-65k sustained. This is meleeing with pet and lions and running some dots and maybe the sting nuke. I can't give you specifics because it didn't really matter. Any combination of dots gave me about 45k-65k; they did their part but it all just didn't matter that much. I had no ability to burn. Sure I had all the AA and glyphs and whatever, but the base damage on dots was just so small that it didn't matter. My "burn" would be about 75k-85k solo, maybe up to 100k if grouped with a bard or chanter. After the revamp, the options I have are: 1) Try to solo like I used to, meleeing with lions and running some dots. I cannot use regular dots in this instance, they are just too inefficient now, I can only use fast dots and maybe sting-nuke. This results in slight less DPS than previously for about the same mana cost. I can use the 2 fast dots and maybe a lower mana cost regular dot to get about the same DPS as before, but it costs more mana. 2) Give up on the meleeing, load 2 normal dots, and maybe a fast dot. Root mob and cast 2 normal dots and maybe a fast dot. This results in slightly less DPS per mob than my old melee method but I can go pull another mob start killing it the same way. This can get close to my previous DPS, sometime more sometimes less, but uses more mana. But I can sit and med and canni more to make up some of the difference. 3) I do now have the ability to "burn". The DOTs finally have enough base damage for crit modifier spire and twincast to actually make a difference. Every 20 mins I can burst for about 200k moloing. This is with silent casting for pet to tank a bit while I cast dots. I then have to keep us both alive, so in a group situation, maybe I can do a little more than 200k if I don't have to also frantically heal, and maybe a bit more if grouped with another class that can boost me like a chanter or bard. I teamed up with a chanter on test and got up to 270k once while he rune tanked. This was with the higher damage test dots, but we weren't really trying to max anything, just a normal "kill this thing fast" deal. I'll note he also broke 200k while tanking, but whatever, shaman just do too much damage I guess... One thing I keep seeing is that shaman have canni so their mana regen is sooo great and therefor everything else they do has to has some caveat or drawback (spells cost more mana than other classes comparable spells, have longer cast times, buffs are given shorter durations and have weaker effects, and now the dot updates we get less efficiency). Ok, but keep in mind that 1) spell canni permanently takes a spell slot and must be cast every refresh to match everyone's "math" they do to show how great it is, which is just not practical, 2) has a cast time + the cooldown time, no one ever considers this, I can't heal you, dot, nuke, or even move when I'm casting canni, 3) the AA canni hits you for 70k damage, hit that while soloing an xp mob that can quad you for 10-25k per hit and tell me how easy it is. If every benefit of canni has 1-3 drawback, its not really a benefit, its just something extra we have to do to keep even.
Yes but necros can FD to reduce aggro. I'm aware that aggro returns on each dot tick but if you have to you can often stay FD until the mob is dead.
Canni is such a scam. You get more mana... but your spells cost more, you just have to do more work for the same result.
I think the only spells that cost more in order to off set the benefits of canni are the new dots. Im guessing they did that to pevent them from having even more outrageous solo ability via root rotting. From what iv read a shaman will never go oom from juat his heals, buff and debuffs. It is only their dps that is penalized. Plz correct me if im wrong
I think the agro does need looked at. Some of the classes that had dot changes the agro vs damage ratio seems off compared to other classes. Doing less damage than other players in the group my cleric almost always ends up tanking if I use turn undead and the undead dot where everyone else is below 25 agro. Maybe it's a personal issue but just seems crazy to pull agro so quick after waiting half the fight to cast it. I love the damage but it can really annoy the tanks so I just stopped using it.
