#0 - Feb. 6, 2008, 8:38 p.m.
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.2.0 (2004-12-21)
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Shaman
- Earthbind Totem: Added a 15-second cooldown.
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.4.0 (2005-04-19)
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- Windfury - Fixed a bug that caused an additional attack beyond what
was intended. In addition, fixed a bug that caused the next normal
melee attack to happen sooner than intended.
- Frost Shock - Now subject to diminishing returns in PvP. This is
considered a slowing effect.
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.10.0 (2006-03-28)
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- Shaman will no longer stop falling when they use a Sentry Totem.
(lol)
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.1 (2006-12-05)
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- Rockbiter's weapon functionality has been changed. It is now a damage proc
instead of a flat attack power bonus.
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22)
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- Elemental Focus: This talent now reduces the cost of the next
damage spell by 60%
- Windfury Weapon: Mixing two different ranks of Windfury Weapon
while dual-wielding will no longer increase the number of Windfury
Weapon procs.
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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.2 (2007-06-19)
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- Focused Mind: This ability has been changed to reduce the duration of
silence and interrupt effects, rather than increase resistance to
them.
- Earthbind Totem: This totem will no longer break Rogue stealth.
Chapter 2.
Phase 1 -
Shaman review was supposed to be in patch 1.9 - however the completely gimp state of paladins got through to the devs and they got their patch in that cycle instead. Since paladins at that point in the game had been nerfed into 3rd rate tanks, lowest dps in the game and crappy healers all anyone wanted them for was blessings and cleanse. So this was reasonable. Shamans were told - wait for 1.10
1.10 patch cycle - Paladin buffs make priests cry - Priests get reviewed instead of Shaman. Shaman told to wait for 1.11, mages told they will be in 1.12
1.11 - Mages throw a conniption about the delay - Mage and shaman reviews are combined into the same review cycle. Eyonix is sent to the Shaman forum to start a suggestions and feedback thread and one of the other Devs does the same for Mages.
Phase 2 -
Eyonix goes to E3 - misses about 5 days of work, then at the end of e3 has a gout? flareup and is out sick for several weeks.
Tseric and Caydiem come into the Shaman forums and say they will be gathering feedback in Eyo's place. "search for 'bite sized' to see some of the threads spawned by these posts"
Review period comes to a close - 1.11 patch hits PTR - it contains Mage buffs, Druid buffs and a wide variety of shaman nerfs. There is exactly 1 non resto shaman buff - the craptastic t6 enhance talent is taken out and replaced with +10% melee damage.
Druids get innervate for free ( Edit : that was their last , top tier talent in the resto tree , ie 30 talent points required to get to it !) . Mages get Evocation for free ( Edit : that used to be tier 5 talent powerhouse in arcane treee, ie 21st talent point ! ). Shaman still have to spec 31 resto for mana-tide (despite Mana tide being trainable, bloodlust and hex being the three most common requests during the review period)
Euro forums have a mild eruption - Euro CM looks into the problem and posts there that the Shaman feedback was apparently never submitted to the developers, and it is too late to do so - the patch is going live as is, and shaman have had thier review.
Cross posted to the US shaman forums - general disbelief and outrage occurs.
Phase 3 -
Eyonix gets back from sick leave and pops into the Shaman forum long enough to say "How do you like your review?"
Pure Hatred explodes (including death threats and the "get hit by a bus" statement.
Forum mods spend the next 48hours deleting threads and banning people. Eyonix posts that he will not do anything to help the players because they are not treating him with respect (this seriously happened, search for the blue post archives).
Quote by Vili on the shaman forums:
The problem was, and remains, that we have had "0" feedback/interaction. None. Zip. Nada. Nein. Long before the 0.5 shaman patch came along, shaman were the epitome of professionalism and restraint. We didn't complain because other classes had it worse. Still, we offered suggestions, ways to improve things. We did calculations, gave rational arguments, and were the most mature of any forum.
After many times of having shaman pushed back to a later patch, we finally had our patch coming. We eagerly provided many good arguments on the problems inherent in the shaman class, how they could be reasonably fixed, new suggestions, etc.
We heard nothing.
Some people started getting concerned. Shaman still acted maturely and continued with their suggestions.
We heard nothing.
Suddenly shaman got a post sayin "Here's what your talent review is going to consist of" (sorry about the preposition).
That was it. No "we'll consider your recommendations', or 'what are your suggestions', or 'what input do you have'.
We got told what we were getting. And it addressed NOTHING of any substance. The lack of ANY interaction by a CM or ANY blue at ANY time before, during, or AFTER the talent review, combined with the blindside of a talent 'fix' which IGNORED the problems in the shaman class, made the shaman community very hostile.
So someone makes a juvenile 'bus shock' comment about Eyonix, and THEN he responds. The FIRST and ONLY response by him. To a stupid post. Meanwhile he's not doing his job and completely ignores the VAST majority of substantial shaman suggestions.
So what do shaman want? They want a mature CM who actually interacts with the community. Through that interaction, we would be assured that, yes, they actually do read forum posts. Instead, we get complete and total silence. Maybe once in a while some other CM will pop in and ask for comments and never be heard from again (note: Tseric).
But we have no CM. Haven't for a long number of months now. Long before this stupid 'bus shock' incident. Eyonix is like the guy you hire to do work, and he tells you he's doing work, but you never actually see examples of his work, or proof that he's actually doing work and not sleeping in the back room.
Shaman want interaction. That's it. It could be the worst news in the world, but if a CM explained it, worked with the community, shaman would most likely accept it.
I mean, their frickin' job is to read internet messages and play a frickin' video game! How hard can it be? I don't see them out there delineating wetlands, conducting listed species surveys, or writing environmental impact studies. I don't see any real work being done. Their job is to manage frickin' video game message boards.
And we don't even get that.
That is why we are so very often angry. And justifiably so.
Chapter 3
Eyonix:
Right now the class team is heavily focused on the expansion. We will be announcing details of what's in store for each class in the weeks to come. There are a number of improvements we're considering for Shamans in expansion, such as improved totem UI and functionality. I've also been studying the development of new talents and abilities for each class, and so far I'm fairly excited at what I've seen for the Shaman. [Despite the belief that no one reads the Shaman boards (ironically, our loudest forum), we're fully aware of the feedback that's been expressed here, and will do what we can to address it.] Much of the improvement players are demanding will have to wait until the Burning Crusade launches, which isn't too far off.