5 New Spells and Abilities For Shaman in World of Warcraft Cataclysm

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that they will be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities in their next expansion to World of Warcraft - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. They have already announced some of the changes and the new spells in store for the Shamans.

New Shaman Spells:

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game (at level 3 most shamans are still in their starting zone, so they will learn this new spell before they even leave their starting area). The idea behind this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement viable, since at the moment many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (available at level 4): While the shamans already have an ability called Healing Wave, Blizzard is adding another spell to the class's direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed to Greater Healing Wave. This will effectively add a new healing spell which will be something "in between" Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave.

Unleash Weapon (available at level 81): This will be a new ability with a 15 second cooldown. It will unleash the power of the shaman's weapon enchants for additional effects, for example: 
Windfury Weapon - Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings. 
Flametongue Weapon - Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%. 
Earthliving Weapon - Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman's next healing spell by 20%.

Healing Rain (available at level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. This is new and a very cool ability which will add to the Restoration Shaman's healing spell arsenal allowing them to have abilities similar to Holy Priests Circle of Healing and Resto Druid's Wild Growth. The Healing Rain will last for 10 seconds and it will have 2 seconds cast time. Adding another group/raid HOT to the Resto Shaman's spells will make them even more effective raid healers.

Spiritwalker's Grace (available at level 85): This will be a self-targeted buff when active, shaman's spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by shaman's own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it's necessary to move and reposition during both PvE and PvP combat. As it is now, shamans have hard time healing "on the go" as most of their healing spells require casting time and if they have to move and stand on another spot, they have to cancel their spellcast and start all over when they are repositioned.

From examples above, it is clear that Blizzard has planned to give shamans (especially Resto Shamans) some cool new abilities to allow them to be a bit more competitive on raid healing as well as on healing while the encounter requires a lot of movement.

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