Blizz out here busting up unions like they’re henry ford
I have never played shaman. So, can someone explain to me what they did that destroyed the vanilla feel of shaman?
technically they restored the vanilla feel for shaman and reverted away from the wotlk design. some folks love that for ele, some folks hate it.
enhance moved the ghost wolf talent from the 2nd row, where every spec would pretty much find it mandatory, to the 4th row, where it’s really just an enhance or hybrid spec thing now.
resto lost some instant healing from riptide, but also lowered the mana cost and I think reduced some of the HoT healing. so now it’s mostly just there to keep your tank heals 25% higher.
there were also a lot of buffs for various things, but people wanted instant ghost wolf and some people for some reason wanted lava burst instead of big chain lightning crits.
that’s pretty much it.
Just really bad choices across the board. Mixed reactions to elemental. It’s more than just Ele regression to Classic. I’m not so sure people wouldn’t be satisfied with a new capstone (maybe a unique new spell that pairs with the lightning caster vibe) over the bland and boring 5% Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning crit talent they replaced Lava Burst with. It’s essentially taking away a button and dumbing down the class even more than it already was.
Ghost Wolf being moved down to 4th row means the instant cast one almost entirely belongs to PvP hybrid builds or enhance. So that’s significant QoL lost for many.
And Riptide was just gutted. Restos were very exciting to be using their riptides all over the place, now it’s on a long CD and is essentially a glorified 12s CD rejuv that buffs Chain Heal.
Lastly, Totemic Projection was reworked. Shamans used to be able to use it defensively and offensively to move their totems. Now it’s called to their feet. Just a terrible, anti-QoL change for seemingly no reason.
Elemental:
11111121111112111112
Resto:
211111121111112111111
In a nutshell.
Can the druids do that to save instant WG and baseline Lacerate?
I glanced at the classic elemental shaman tree, because I thought the lava burst removal was the main issue. Then I saw that classic didnt even have lava burst and the elemental tree was very bare bones. I figured it was the shift to making elemental worry more about the rng of if they get the double cast, but im not hearing people say that.
Yeah, people with overblown egos do like to throw temper fits.
Lava Burst was a Wrath ability. Not like we don’t have Wrath abilities on other specs. Penance is a Wrath ability. Should we revert Disc priests?
As a classic paladin player, yea that feels like classic to me… Spam down ranked flash of light forever.
I can feel for the loss of improved ghost wolf, even as a non-shaman when i saw that i felt it.
Oh no. I guess Shaman players will just have to one of any number of alternate online platforms to discuss the game.
yeah I can too, but at the same time I understand it. It was too easy to get with any spec to the point where every spec would have it.
class discords are still a thing? 
also Shaman players embarassing themselves…always thought Paladins were the most petty of the classes…boy was I wrong!
Follow-up post to the lockdown announcement from earlier.
First and foremost we want to be clear that locking down the server is not an attempt at blackmail or coercion, it is simply an attempt to be heard after weeks of sending feedback through other legitimate channels to no avail. The server will re-open regardless of the outcome here, but while we have your attention We think a little explanation is in order.
The biggest complaints from the shaman community are not throughput related, this is not about damage output.
We repeat, this is not about damage output.
Truthfully, hybrid tax us all you want if the result is a cohesive class with strong class fantasy elements that are actually represented in our playstyles.
This is about fundamental design intent and overall class feel.
Design Issues with Enhancement
Windfury Weapon will not be our primary imbue for raiding, which feels antithetical to the 2-Handed Enhance Class Fantasy.
Spell Power and Intellect gear appears to outperform physical or hybrid gear, especially when considering Maelstrom Weapon and utilizing Flametongue Weapon as our primary imbue.
Changes to Maelstrom Weapon and Intellect exacerbate the spellpower issues rather than solving them.Design Issues with Elemental
PvP perception continues to hold back Elemental’s spec design and Shaman’s class design as a whole. Moving Improved Ghost Wolf is yet another example of this that feels specifically targeted at Elemental PvP and ruins an exciting milestone for all Shamans.
Blizzard has made it clear that Elemental can’t have both [Lava Blast] and [Chain Lightning] , so they’ve chosen [Chain Lightning] . This leaves Elemental without a second school to fall back to in PVP and against nature immune mobs, and [Chain Lightning] is still barely worth using in Single Target because of its high Mana cost, leaving us with a 2 button rotation.
[Flame Shock] was left in our rotation with zero interactions with the rest of our kit. Now it just becomes even more of a boring maintenance DoT. At the very least there should be some form of interaction that lets it feel like a valuable part of the rotation.
Elemental’s Mana situation is dire. While some specs have been given near-limitless access to it. Water Shield should not consume charges when procced from crits, otherwise we’re constantly having to refresh it for worse Mana gained than other specs.
Totemic Projection being changed disproportionately hurts Elemental, as we no longer have an option to project totems from range. Yet another way that fun has been removed.Design Overlap between Elemental and Enhancement
The hybrid Spell power issues mentioned above shove Enhance directly into Elemental’s path, muddling the differences between the two specs’ identities.
This overlap makes tuning one spec without effecting the other nearly impossible, often resulting in Elemental getting the short end of the stick.Design Issues with Restoration
Removing the upfront healing from Riptide fundamentally changes how the spell feels to press and turns it into a sad copy of Renew or -Rejuvenation. Furthermore, it also takes away any decision-making when choosing who to heal, as you’re punished for not healing the person with Riptide rolling.
Just like Elemental, Restoration should not be punished for its PvP perception.
This is what they posted in their Announcement chat. Everything in brackets was an emote so I used words instead.
Edit: And right as I posted, they opened it back up.
Doors are open again. You didn’t think we’d seriously close the Discord for Forever’s launch did you?
we could probably fix this by just making the indoor part a rank upgrade at 40
it would kill the talent, but they obviously didn’t want people to start taking it in any meaningful capacity based on the change
Who cares about the 3 mods whining on the discord this is a pvp realm issue not a class balance issue they all can go play something else.
it’s a class design issue, it’s about what people find fun now
they could’ve tuned numbers on the lava burst version of ele too, so now the community as at war about the gameplay design of ele
Nope it doesnt effect shamans at all on pve servers this is a pvp realm issue.
im glad they removed lava burst and ill keep saying it if its a deal breaker play another class.