Elemental Shaman Volcanic Regalia in Firelands and Beyond

Hello!

In preparation for the Firelands raid, we’ve been working through some adjustments we might make. One frequent topic of discussion is the Elemental Shaman “Volcanic Regalia” 2-piece tier set bonus. This bonus saw a large change during original Cataclysm, along with class changes to the Shaman themselves, between the Firelands and Dragon Soul raids. Here’s a look at the original bonus, and how it was changed:

• Volcanic Regalia 2-piece bonus (original version - patch 4.2): “Your damaging spells have a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem.” (8% Proc chance, 105 second internal cooldown)
• Volcanic Regalia 2-piece bonus (adjusted version - Patch 4.3): “Your Lightning Bolt has a 30% chance to reduce the remaining cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 4 seconds.”

When original Firelands was current content, the Volcanic Regalia bonus felt appropriate and in-line with the power level of other sets at the time. However, when 4.3 was released with class adjustments and a new dragon soul raid, it became clear that this set bonus scaled far too well and vastly overperformed, even when stacked against higher item level tier gear from the Dragon Soul raid. As a result, the decision was made at the time to retune the set bonus.

Now that we’re in Cataclysm Classic, we’ve been reviewing this set and have decided to revert this change and restore the original Volcanic Regalia 2-piece bonus for the Firelands Raid tier. We think that this was a very fun set bonus and in the context of Cataclysm Classic, allowing Shamans to experience this powerful set in its original form makes sense in this specific case.

Nonetheless, we will revisit this with the launch of Dragon Soul raid next year. We’re planning to restore the patch 4.3 version of the Volcanic Regalia 2-piece bonus with the launch of Dragon Soul, as the 4.2 version will certainly create the same issues it did in original Cataclysm.

Thank you for your feedback and commentary on this issue. We’re looking forward to everyone heading into Firelands and getting their hands on this and all of the other awesome loot when the raid releases on November 7!