Elemental

• Stoneclaw Totem has been changed to display the amount of damage absorbed. (990 damage for Rank 9)
• Elemental Mastery now gives your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage spells a 15% (down from 20%) increased critical strike chance for 15 sec.

Enhancement

• Shamanistic Rage is now usable while stunned.
• Unleashed Rage range has been increased from 20 to 45 yards.

Restoration

• Restorative Totems has been changed from 5 to 3 ranks and now 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%

There have been some more changes to our beloved class over on the PTR. Some of these are good, some of ‘em are questionable. The changes to resto affect PVE for the most part and the elemental changes finally give us a glimpse of what Blizzard is trying to do for us pew pewers in PVP. I’m going to have my say on some of these changes in future posts to this blog, but for now, I’ll just go ahead and list the changes.

Restoration

• Healing Stream Totem range increased from 20 to 30 yards.
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 91 mana every 5 seconds at max rank. (Old - 34 mana every 2 seconds)
• Nature’s Swiftness changed to - When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell. Nature’s Swiftness shares a cooldown with Elemental Mastery.
• Restorative Totems now Increases the effect of your Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems by 4/8/12/16/20%. (Down from 5/10/15/20/25%)
• Healing Grace has been moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
• Ancestral Healing has been moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3.

Elemental

• Thunderstorm is now useable while stunned
• Lava Flows now Iincreases the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 6/12/24%, and when your Flame Shock is dispelled your spell casting speed is increased by 10/20/30% for 6 sec.
• Lightning Overload changed from 5 to 3 ranks, now Gives your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells a 7/14/20% (Up from 4/8/12/16/20%) chance to cast a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes half damage and no threat.
• Elemental Mastery has been changed to - When activated, your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst spell becomes an instant cast spell. In addition, your Fire, Frost, and Nature damage spells a 20% increased critical strike chance for 15 sec. Elemental Mastery shares a cooldown with Nature’s Swiftness. Instant, 3 min cooldown
• Storm, Earth, and Fire changed to Reduces the cooldown of your Chain Lightning spell by .75 sec (on all ranks, down from 0.75/1/2.5sec), your Earthbind Totem also has a 33/66/100% chance to root targets for 5 sec when cast and the periodic damage done by your Flame Shock is increased by 20%.
• Elemental Reach now also increases the range of your Flame Shock by 7/15 yards.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Totem of Wrath — When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for 5 min. (Old - until cancelled)

Thanks to the good folks at WoW Insider, we have the details of some of the new glyphs making their way into patch 3.1 Here’s what they have listed thus far:

• Glyph of Thunderstorm (new) - Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 7 sec.
• Glyph of Feral Spirit (new) - Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.
• Glyph of Riptide (new) - Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Earth Shield (new) - Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%.
• Glyph of Totem of Wrath (new) - When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for 5 min.
• Glyph of Hex (new) - Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem (new) - Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

There is nothing earth-shatteringly awesome in this list, but there is nothing very weak either. I don’t see anything that would *really* topple the cookie cutter glyphing for resto or elemental raiding specs, but I DO see some interesting PVP alternatives. The Glyph of Stoneclaw, though not a major buff in anyway, has got to help provide another layer of protection against those nasty stun-locking rogues, and 20% extra healing from Earth is a useful 20% increase in passive protection. The two combined might mean that our sneaky friends may have to work a bit harder for their kills! Glyph of Hex, whilst not solving the spells main problems, certainly adds a nice bonus to it. I mean, who wouldn’t want an extra 20% of free face smashin’ time! Any period when you can wail on an opponent without fear of them wailing back on you is a a period that is made of win! The Glyph of Thunderstorm looks ok, and would certainly be useful, but I really cant see myself using it. As a Minor glyph, sure, but not as a major glyph.

Is this what Blizzard meant when they said they were looking at ways to improve Shaman in PVP? If so, here’s hoping it is only part of the picture.

All in all I am not overly excited by these new glyphs, but I’m pretty sure I will experiment with a few of them in a PVP scenario.