Gaining access to stoneskin and ancestral guidance, while increasing passive healing is a buff for enhancement regardless of the loss to focused insight
Not sure about some of these changes.
Earth Elemental
- Earth Elemental and Primal Earth Elemental no longer taunt or pulse threat to enemies that are attacking a player with a tank specialization.
I think a lot of use cases for Earth Elemental are just being disregarded with this change to the behavior.
There are too many general moments where the Elemental is used defensively, acting like an external cooldown to mitigate some of the damage taken by the tank not just the shaman or the party.
It’s not just a fire and forget ability either for any of these moments. Plenty of times the elemental has to be cancelled early or maneuvered if permissible. But in all cases, it has to challenge the threat of the tank when used in dungeons in order to be useful during fights.
I’m not sure I understand the reason why Earth Elemental was moved out of line from Chain Heal and Lava Burst. It just shuts down a lot of builds access to Earth Shield
Healing for Elem/Enh
Overall healing seems like it’ll be depressed significantly for those that like to actively heal. It’d be nice to see the PvP changes for it reversed, similar to DK’s. Not being able to have both Primordial Fury’s +50% crit multiplier and a 25/30/55% is going to be a massive depression for the active healing kit.
2 Likes
Its a bad change that removes nuance and flexibility from the ability.
If it was a universal change to ALL classes pets then thats one thing, but doing this shaman only means we once again bring a little less utility to the table
4 Likes
im not seeing the good for enh when it comes to the heals. having focused insight move to the enh tree, just means its not going to be taken. We’re already hurting for damage and defenses. Are they expecting us to drop a dps talent for this now? the healing totem and that whole healing path change is going to hurt, and with it i doubt now the healing totem will last long in arenas.
I guess weve got a few extra talent points opened to us in the class tree, i guess thats good. But, i really dont want more buttons to press. in pvp having 26-29 buttons is excessive and in pve is roughly 24-26 buttons. so i guess I’ll try and find some passives to stick my points into.
I would REALLLLLY like blizz to maybe look at making a few talents for ENH passve and or roll a few talents into each other. The amount of buttons we have is becoming too much to handle.
1 Like
Nuance from a theoretical point of view. In practice, the nuance you speak of is rarely useful.
Ideally, shamans should get a toggle whether they want to taunt off tank spec tanks. However, if it’s one or the other, keeping 15% HP for 1 minute is better. There’s less nuance to knowing your 15% HP will ALWAYS GO AWAY after your ele gets 1-shot that you’re not considering.
But why not just give 15% hp for 1 min on cast?, why not change it from while Earth Ele is active, to when Earth Elemental is summoned receive 15% hp increase for 1 minute.
I’m sort of 50/50 with a lot of these changes, while I’m excited for Resto being adjusted I think some talents needed more.
Living Stream Talent is still never going to be picked over Cloudburst, it’s healing cannot compare.
Current Control, reduces HTT by 30 seconds, this should of been baseline rather then a Talent Choice.
I do enjoy Water Shield baseline, I just feel like certain changes and adjustments should of been baseline. Rather then talent points.
The Nerf to Mana Spring is a bad, it definitely should of stayed at 400 not put back down to 200. It’s not like Riptide is spammable.
General tree changes:
- Astral Shift duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
- Planes Traveler no longer increases the duration of Astral Shift.
- Astral Bulwark now reduces damage taken by an additional 20% (was 15%).
- Improved Lightning Bolt removed.
- Thunderstorm has been moved to Improved Lightning Bolt’s position in the talent tree.
- Lightning Bolt damage increased by 20% for all specializations.
- Go With the Flow now reduces the cooldown of Spirit Walk by 10/20 seconds (was 7.5/15 seconds).
- Thunderous Paws can now trigger once every 20 seconds (was 60 seconds).
- Poison Cleansing Totem now removes all Poisons effects from the target (was 1).
- Enfeeblement now applies during Hex and lasts for 6 seconds after Hex ends.
- Ancestral Wolf Affinity has moved to the class tree and removed from all specialization trees.
These changes are quite good.
- Focused Insight has moved to the Enhancement and Elemental specialization trees in place of Ancestral Wolf Affinity.
- Developers’ note: This is intentionally being removed from Restoration to avoid having too many talents that modify heal values.
- Swirling Currents has been redesigned – Increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem and Cloudburst Totem by 10%/20%.
If there aren’t any compensation buffs to healing, these changes are not good. You just lose a lot of healing for quite questionable replacement or can no longer take talents that you could take simultaneously earlier.
Now about talent placement changes. Here is the new placement order in trees:
Feedback:
- As Ele and Enh, to get Earth Shield, you now need to take Chain Heal, which you almost never use because of its mana cost (both specs) and cast time (as Ele). Quite a bad change.
Suggestion: Move Earth Elemental back to its previous spot or create a new node / connection between Lava Burst and Earth Shield. - As Resto, you still need to take Chain Lightning (AoE ability that you might not even use in many situations) to get Frost Shock (ST ability). Please address that.
Suggestion: Make Frost Shock baseline for all 3 specs. It is just as general and iconic as Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt and Healing Surge. - Brimming With Life is now accessible directly from Chain Lightning. Very nice change!
- All Shaman specs still need to spend 5(!) talent point on questionable talents and the node itself to get their only root break / quick movement ability. That is just too high cost.
Suggestion: Reduce both Nature’s Fury and Winds of Al’Akir to 1 point nodes. They are both not powerful enough to justify spending 2 points on them - Winds of Al’Akir total power is on the level of Spirit Wolf (1 point node) and Nature’s Fury affects only Nature spells, so should either have 4% for 1 point or 2% total crit (as other classes have) for 1 point investment.
Restoration changes:
- Lightning Bolt damage has been increased by 35%.
- Chain Lightning damage increased by 35%.
- Wellspring healing reduced by 30%.
- Water Shield has been removed from the talent tree and is now learned at level 12.
- Resurgence has moved to Water Shield’s position in the talent tree.
- New Talent: Current Control – Reduces the cooldown of Healing Tide Totem by 30 seconds.
- New Talent: Tide Turner – The lowest health target of Healing Tide Totem is healed for 30% more and receives 15% more healing from you for 4 seconds.
- A choice node has been added below Mana Tide Totem:
- New Talent: Temporary Name [Name Not Final] – Increases the duration and radius of Mana Tide Totem.
- New Talent: Spiritwalker’s Tidal Totem – After using Mana Tide Totem, the cast time of Healing Wave and Chain Heal is reduced and the mana cost of Healing Wave and Chain Heal are reduced for 10 seconds.
- Flow of the Tides now grants an additional bounce of Chain Heal in addition to its current effect.
- Unleash Life now converts 40% of Wellspring overhealing to an absorb shield (was 25%).
Mostly positive changes here, but what justified the nerf to Wellspring?
- Ever-Rising Tide has been removed.
- Downpour has been moved to Ever-Rising Tide’s position in the talent tree.
- Nature’s Focus has been removed.
I suppose that was done to reduce button bloat and replace arguable talents, but some compensation buffs to Chain Heal and healing in general could be appreciated.
- The PvP Talent Tidebringer has moved to Nature’s Focus’ position as a 2-point talent.
- A connection has been added between Tidebringer and Primal Tide Core/High Tide.
- Chain Heal’s tooltip has been updated to indicate its jump distance to give more context to the Tidebringer talent.
Tidebringer accessible in PVE is a nice change. Less trouble with AoE healing split teammates and its long cast time. Also frees a PVP talent slot for some PVP environments.
- Call of Thunder has been removed.
- Stormkeeper has been moved to Call of Thunder’s position in the talent tree.
- Acid Rain and Overflowing Shores are no longer on a choice node together. Acid Rain remains in its position and Overflowing Shores is directly below Healing Rain.
Mostly nice changes that free a talent point and still allow to do comparable dps with Nature spells.
While Overflowing Shores being a separate node is interesting, its effect is still minor and arguable to spend a talent point on.
Suggestion: Let it make Healing Rain instant cast in addition to current effect. That would allow to use it much easier in all game modes.
TLDR: Mostly positive changes, but there should be more. Healing buffs in general and to compensate for Swirling Currents change / Focused Insight not available to Resto etc might be needed. New and old issues of talent placement in general tree should be addressed. And so on.
4 Likes
It’s a bad change.
They could just as easily make using the EE, give you a 1 minute buff of 15% hp and leave the Elemental as is. This way the HP increase works independent of when the EE dies or not.
So many other ways to fix the HP scaling issue, then remove a niche feature of Earth Elemental. Shaman is the NICHE class, with utility that is used for specific/niche situations. Don’t always need to break a fear, but tremor is useful for when you do — etc.
4 Likes
Especially when pvp is still as bursty as it is. Resto’s mastery is about bringing people back from the brink of death. It looks a lot stupider when your heal target goes from 75 to 0 in the space of a global.
1 Like
I actually think this is an overall buff to resto.
It’s not anything that is shooting us up the tier list or anything, but freeing up some talents, and getting some buffs to chain heal is very good.
Honestly, I understand the wellspring nerf. I also think it needs a nerf… in comparison to it’s other option. You essentially would never not get it. With gear getting better you could be pushing to be able to top off an entire raid on a very short cooldown
Good changes are always welcome. Many improvements have been made. But I don’t think this will solve Shaman’s problem fundamentally.
Shaman needs something big instead of a small utility.
Except for enh, in raid, shaman spec suffers from a lack of utility and is completely replaceable.
I want something with solid performance instead of too much and small utility. The mana spring buff was perfect in this respect, but they got it back.
Nice post, I agree with a lot of what you said.
Making Frost Shock baseline would be legit since taking Chain Lightning in PVP is a waste of a talent.
Disappointed they got rid of Ever-Rising Tide, I think it synergized well with Water Shield and Resurgence and is the only “overcharge” ability that resto gets.
The main concerns for resto are the Swirling Currents and Focused Insight changes. If they reverted these (and moved Focused Insight’s position on the talent tree if possible) then Rsham would be in a very good place.
3 Likes
15% HP cooldown every 5 minutes.
This is not even remotely good, even with context. This is nonsense you design when you very literally don’t play the game.
Dragonflight in a nutshell: more developer responsiveness but none of them actually play the game.
3 Likes
I am not liking the changes to Healing Tide Totem in pvp.
- New Talent: Current Control – Reduces the cooldown of Healing Tide Totem by 30 seconds.
- Living Tide reduces the cooldown of Healing Tide Totem by 60 seconds (was 90 seconds) and it heals for 25% more each time it pulses (was 100%).
This is a huge nerf in battleground scenarios.
Same cooldown but now it costs an additional talent point and heals 75% less.
I made a video and shared it. I think some of my concerns are being addressed as in the talent tree was just a mess and things needed to be addressed. I still wish they changed Ancestral Guidenance from Healing to Shield. This would be really useful for both PvP and PvE content as temporary HP aids in healing recovering, which is a major issue for Shamans in both PvE and PvP.
I wish there were some changes for the tree of Enhancement as I discussed in my video. I know Elemental Shamans could use some more damage increases as they already took the LB 20% bonus damage; resulting in net 0 gain in damage while Restoration saw a 33% buff on top of the flat 20% net 0 gain.
I think if Elemental had more sustain DPS and Enhancement had more burst damage, this would resolve the DPS trees for both PvE and PvP content.
EDIT: YT video I was talking about above
1 Like
I said they needed to change it to 15% Damage Reduction instead on a 5 min cd.
omg ty for the talent link! Sooo much easier to visualize now
This is for real? That’s a massive nerf. I was afraid they would nerf tide but thats bigger than expected.
This will hit shamans in pvp harder than any other change I’ve seen. I’ll admit tide was doing crazy good healing in BGs. I’ll miss it.
1 Like
PvP:
SHAMAN
-
Restoration
- Healing Tide Totem healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
This should be all Shamans, not just Restoration. With the new changes to Healing Stream, my Enhancement Healing Stream will heal for around 4700 every 1.8 seconds. Just imagine if that was 100% more or 9400 every 1.8 seconds. This will be of course reduced by 45% in Arena as we get the stacking debuff to healing starting at 10% and there are always some class in Arena that reduces healing by 25-35% (warriors key example).
That’s a better solution too.
Honestly, CB is overrated unless you know a fight really well. Previously, I didn’t spec into either for the extra talent point, and 24 second CD for 3 swirling current charges was really good. They removed that now though, so CB is probably the only viable option…weirdly enough.
While it would be nice, seems kinda random to want it baseline imo.
Well it’s a start.
It was actually changed to “casts” rather than riptide/lavaburst. I’ve seen a few people miss this. (edit: wowhead shows lava burst and riptide, but I’m certain its on all casts. Naturally…servers are down when I go to confirm it. Uhg.)
I also still dislike the nerf.
It’s a lazy change that could be done better, 100%. My previous arguments were purely from “to taunt off tanks or not” perspective, to which we will simply need to agree to disagree.