Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave, we’re adding another spell to the class’s direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent is for the “new” Healing Wave to be the shaman’s go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.
Here are a few examples of effects we’re considering for this ability:

• 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 (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalker’s Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

Ability Changes

Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to mana more than they’ve had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the Restoration shaman's primary mana-regeneration stat.

We’re making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.
Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming “just in case.”) We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.

Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group’s spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock’s Demonic Pact, so you can’t benefit from all of them at once. We’re also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.

We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We’re considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.

Talents

Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.

We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.

Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.

Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.

Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.

With the Mastery system, we’re also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature’s Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

The Mastery System

Elemental

Spell damage
Spell Crit
Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful “bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.

Enhancement

Melee damage
Melee Haste
Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Restoration

Healing
Meditation: The amount of mana you regenerate in combat as a function of your Spirit.
Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target’s health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.

Miscellaneous Q&A

The Cataclysm is a time of great upheaval. Deathwing’s return to Azeroth tore a hole in the fabric of the universe that tragically resulted in the ultimate and irrevocable destruction of all Sentry Totems. Level designers are contemplating a shrine for the Sentry Totem near that of Uther the Lightbringer. We know shaman players will greet this news with grief, but as with all class changes we’ll have to get into beta before anything is final.

Tauren Paladins & Priests

These ones make much less sense to me, but probably because the lore is still being written for this.

Regarding paladins, about all we know about tauren becoming paladins comes from the story of Aponi Brightmane, and there’s not much there. The tauren race has never been able to use the Holy Light like normal paladins and priests, and they certainly aren’t going to siphon it from a captured Naaru like the blood elves used to. Apparently, tauren paladins will be called “Sunwalkers”, and will draw their power from their sun god (An’she), just as druids draw some of their powers from the moon god (Mu’sha/Elune). It seems likely that Brightmane will become the first of the Sunwalkers when the Cataclysm comes.

Tauren priests probably won’t use the Holy Light either, and will probably also derive their powers from the Sun, like night elf priests draw their powers from the moon. Still too early to say on a lot of this though, an I hope Blizz adds lots of neat new lore on this subject.

Troll Druids

First, the trolls have always had an affinity with nature and the arcane, and traditionally they’ve lived in forest and wilderness areas. Further, shapeshifting is something that many powerful trolls can do – just look at many of the bosses in troll-based dungeons. However, the Darkspear tribe (which is the tribe that all Horde trolls belong to) is much more island-based, so they probably have lost those magic traditions. It makes sense that the tauren have probably taught them the druidic arts, and that the trolls have taken so easily to them.

Blood Elf Warriors

This one’s a no-brainer. If you can swing a weapon, you can be a warrior (though I still think that gnome warriors are ridiculous). The only reason why there haven’t been any blood elf warriors so far (from a lore perspective, at least) is because they all became Blood Knights (paladins). Now that the blood elves have mellowed a little, the appeal of forcibly drawing martial power from the Holy Light probably seems less appealing to many elves.

Alliance

Human Hunters

I had forgotten that humans haven’t been able to be hunters yet. It makes pretty obvious sense though: we’ve seen plenty of human hunters in Grizzly Hills, after all. Maybe the High Elves have been teaching them the art of the hunter, or something. Not much to say on this one, I guess.

Dwarf Mages and Shamans

In Northrend, we’ve gotten to see that the dwarves once had a great affinity with the natural elements of the world, especially since they themselves came from the stone. Essentially, dwarf mages and shamans have rediscovered lost aptitudes, and will be able to wield the elements once more. I guess they’ve learned to wield the arcane somewhere else.

Night Elf Mages

This one goes very deep into elven history. Arcane magic is what transformed the night elves into their current form (from trolls), so has always been a part of them. After they nearly destroyed Azeroth in the Sundering, they gave up arcane magic and switched to druidism. Obviously, some of them are overcoming the taboo against the arcane, especially since the night elves now have regular contact with other cultures who use arcane magic freely. Like the dwarves, they’re learning to use it once again.

Gnome Priests

Gnomes can basically do whatever they want, and they’re willing to try anything. There’s no reason why gnomes couldn’t  be priests, besides just being uninterested in it. Perhaps they now see how useful it can be to be able to heal others with magic.

New Races

The Goblins and the Worgen are very versatile races, and most of their class choices make a lot of sense. The defining characteristics of a race seem to come from whether they can be a druid, paladin, or shaman.

Goblins can’t be druids of course, since they clearly have no affinity for nature – they view nature as being there for the taking. They also can’t be paladins, since they’re far too undisciplined and crazy. But I wonder why they can be priests and shamans. I suppose they’re especially good at commanding various magical forces to do their bidding (like a warlock), and probably don’t bother to “ask” like shamans and priests traditionally do.

Worgen are naturally proficient at shapeshifting, which makes them naturally good at druidism. They, like humans, have no shamanistic tradition, and the Worgen Curse probably prevents them from accessing the Holy Light in ways that the humans do. In fact, they may even be drawing their powers from Elune light the night elves do, since it’s the night elves who save them from their curse.

Ok, there’s a lot of unfounded speculation there, but I was surprised by how much lore was available to support these conclusions. We’ll see if I’m right eventually, I’m sure.