Shaman Talents Released!

[ildon]

I'm really disappointed that people aren't realizing how EXTREMELY streamlined the enhancement tree has become.

Moving onto tier 2 talents, you'll also notice only a single change. Guardian Totems, which replaces the Improved Stoneskin Totem talent, reduces the cooldown of the Grounding Totem by 2 seconds and increases the effect of both the Stoneskin Totem and Windwall Totem by 20%.

At (apparently) the cost of a slight nerf to imp grounding totem (which no one got anyway), this consolidates two talents into one, and adds the bonus to windwall totem (you can stop laughing now, it's still a buff).

Upon reaching tier 3, players will notice that the Improved Strength of Earth Totem talent has been replaced with Enhancing Totems which increases the effect of Earth and Grace of Air Totems by 15%.

This is HUGE. Enhancement is no longer a total trash tree for raiding. A 31 point talent moved to tier 3, for zero talent point cost? I like it. Tier 3 was always tough to fill out before. Now, if you're not really pvping, this is a must-have.

Competing with Parry, at tier 5 will be two new talents:
Improved Weapon Totems (2 points): Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Windfury Totem by 30% and the damage of your Flametongue Totem by 12%.

Every raiding warrior (and some rogues) LOVES windfury totem, and in areas where all the mobs are not fire resistant/immune (aq, naxx) flametongue totem is extremely under rated. It stacks with your choice of goa, tranq, or nr totem. I love this new talent.

Elemental Weapons (3 points): Increases attack power bonus of Rockbiter by 20%, Windfury by 40% and damage of Flametongue/Frostbrand by 15%.

In addition to doubling the buff power of two of the talents and increasing the other two by 50%, this consolidates what was theoretically EIGHT talent points into TWO. Basically, an enhancement shaman can actually have a compelling reason to switch between wf and rockbiter (yeah, the other two are still pretty much a joke) as the situation calls for, without hesitating due to being specced for one or the other.

Weapon Mastery, now the new 26 point talent increases the damage you deal with all weapons by 10%.

Awesome.

Lastly, Stormstrike, now the only 31-point talent option in this tree has had it's mana cost reduced and the cooldown shortened to 20 seconds.

I'd still rather have NS or elemental fury...

Basically, the buffbot raid build for shaman has arrived. It was always something I wanted to try before, but putting like 35 talents in one tree for almost no return was just stupid. Now you can go 25 in the tree and reap all the rewards necessary for raiding, with almost no impact on your healing ability. And if you're a buffbot, you're in the warrior/tank/rogue/(hunter?) group anyway, and manatide is not really helping you. Combine this with the increased duration of totems, and the increased range on totems talent... Enhancement is no longer a "pvp-only" tree.