Shamans lose Lava Burst before the launch

Elemental Shamans in World of Warcraft: Forever lose Lava Burst, a day before the launch. Blizzard removes the talent in the development notes of 2 November and puts Call of Thunder in its place. Lightning becomes the heart of the spec: Lightning Bolt hits much harder and Lightning Overload triggers three times as often.

Lava Burst was one of the big new talents in the class deep dive of October. Blizzard does not explain the removal itself. In general, it writes that some changes undo solutions it took too quickly from Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, instead of new ones that fit Forever.

Elemental

Change	What it does
Lava Burst	Removed. Call of Thunder takes its place: 5% more critical strike chance for Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning
Lightning Overload	10, 20 or 30% chance at a copy of the spell (was 3, 7 or 10%)
Lightning Mastery	The new name of Elemental Mastery, with a new icon
Lightning Bolt	More base damage on every rank, 80% more at the top rank. About 78% of the Classic Era damage, with a shorter cast time
Chain Lightning	2.5 second cast. The first target takes about 145% of a Lightning Bolt of the same rank, for about 225% of the mana
Shocks	Back to the Classic Era damage, higher than in the beta

Enhancement

Change	What it does
Stormstrike	150% normalized weapon damage (was 100%), 6 second cooldown (was 8)
Maelstrom Weapon	Triggers twice as often
Mental Dexterity	50, 100 or 150% of your Intellect as attack power (was 33, 67 or 100%)
Flurry	Up to 30% attack speed (was 25%)
Improved Ghost Wolf	Moves from row 2 to row 4

Windfury Weapon and Windfury Totem now show the extra swing as an animation.

Restoration and totems

Riptide costs about 40% less mana but has a 12 second cooldown (was 6) and no longer heals right away: only the heal over time remains. Totemic Projection is now called Totemic Call. It brings your totems to where you stand and has a 30 second cooldown. Elemental Reach no longer shortens it.

What this means for our guides

The new trees are not in the game data yet. Our Elemental Shaman guide and the Shaman leveling guide are still built around Lava Burst, and the talent calculator still shows the old trees. We update them as soon as the new trees are in the game.