Why buffing Healing Stream Totem will not be great compensation for losing AG regarding Elemenetal/Enhance:
-It is killable in PvP quite easily, the more it gets buffed the more likely it will be targeted and killed a few seconds after putting it down
-Its an additional global that doesn’t really feel great to press, even if it does a lot of healing. And again it is a difficult global to use in PvP especially with the huge risk of it being killed soon after it goes down. I’d like AG to be replaced with something that is an active button/global but feels like my global is immediately contributing.
What would the ideal type of compensation be for losing such a massive cooldown?
-Making Stone Bulwark Totem baseline while moving Burrow to the class tree would be perfect compensation. This gives PvP shamans more access to their other defensive honor talents that Burrow gets taken over (Stormweaver for Enh and the new one in 11.1 for Ele) while giving PvErs a personal defensive that does not increase their groupwide throughput. There is no other melee class in PvP that has to choose one of their biggest defensives in their PvP talents, they get everything baseline+in their class tree.
Longer thoughts/explanation:
This hits Ele and Enhancement survivability pretty hard in PvP. There are games where AG is doing over 14-15m healing in one 3s match, or 20m+ healing in one blitz match, usually 5-6m+ in 1 solo shuffle round. This also removes some group off healing that ele and enh bring to the table in PvE.
I don’t disagree that AG was too strong, nor do I even disagree with the removal. However, I don’t like the idea of just buffing Healing Stream totem as compensation for the dps specs. I would rather see a new talent replacing AG that has us using active globals on our groupwide healing ie Chain Harvest. I want the global to be felt immediately, not feel like its trickling healing like Healing Stream. And the risk of Healing Stream getting killed is so high especially if it ends up doing a lot of healing that no matter what this can end up as a big negative for survivability in pvp.
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This change was not done for PvP but M+. Blizzard has been slowly trying to get rid of off healing in the game, they nerfed VE, but it prob felt wrong to touch AG considering how Shamans did not really exist in the meta.
Now that Shamans are absolutely dominating M+, Blizzard prob felt this was the best time to hit them with this change, but this change was not out of the blue, but in line w/ Blizzards off healing changes.
It would prob be best if Shamans need stronger off-healing for it to exist in PvP talents else it’s problematic in PvE since I don’t think Blizzard would be in the mindset to make a healing talent that is super noticeable in PvP, but useless in PvE.
Yeah I know it was for PvE, thats why I’m mentioning how it also effects PvP because that’s important too.
Like I said I don’t disagree with the removal and I also know it isn’t out of the blue, things like Natures vigil have been nerfed over time too and they had made attempts in the past to nerf AG as well.
I just want to see something as a replacement that isn’t just buffing healing stream totem because that is just…not it. Its not fun to press for the dps specs. AG was fun to press and noticeable, even if it was ‘passive’ or macrod into ascendance it was still very noticeable.
I dont think it would be problematic in pve if we got Chain Harvest in the class tree. Much easier to tune than AG, something we already had in Shadowlands and it was beloved by all specs of shaman. Its practically a perfect time to introduce that if they wanted to. It would be an active global to use, contribute to damage and healing, etc. I think it’d be a good idea to add.
Still haven’t seen much in the way of personal defensive compensation for Ele and Enh with the removal of Ancestral Guidance.
Please understand this wasn’t -just- a group off healing CD but also a personal defensive in PvP and PvE. For example, over 6 rounds of my last shuffle AG did 40 million healing for me total. Healing Stream totem is not making up for that in any capacity as it can be killed and also requires a ton of free globals which enhance does not have in PvP in order for it to even do 70% of AGs overall healing.
On top of that, AG and Healing Stream do not do the same type of healing. Healing stream trickle heals 1 person every 1.8 seconds for 100k, AG is burst healing over 10 seconds on 3 targets at once. Healing Stream is also killable in PvP very easily.
Maybe think about making Stone Bulwark Totem baseline and moving Burrow to its place in the class tree. Then enhance has more access to Stormweaver (might need a small buff) and Ele is getting a new defensive PvP talent already in 11.1 but will be able to access it more without Burrow in PvP talents.
Ancestral guidance should not be removed from elemental and enhance.
If the devs believe that ancestral guidance is problematic for resto shamans, then remove it for resto shamans and leave it in for ele/enhance or buff healing stream totem further to compensate for AG removal.
Gone are the days of having solid off heals as a hybrid…
That being said, losing AG sucks because we really have nothing to make up for it at all. Just a hit to survivability along with the nerf to our flameshock spread and 30 second burst means ele will struggle even more.
I’ve been saying this since burrow was introduced. IMO the best spot would be as a choice node with earth ele
I feel like our pvp talents need some rework
Too many of enhances pvp talents feel mandatory (shamanism, grounding, stormweaver, burrow, ride the lightning). Having to switch a talent feels like you need to sacrifice a core part of your gameplay. If a pvp talent fundamentally changes the way the spec is played, then I dont think that’s where it belongs.
It doesn’t leave any room to play with some of the other cool talents and the rest are too niche or outright useless.
Also, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice a personal cooldown (shamanism) to bring lust to the group
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I honestly think just moving Burrow out from the honor talents and into Stone Bulwarks place in the class tree (while making Bulwark baseline) would fix that issue with honor talents. Shamanism has times you can drop it (usually vs purge specs or mages, they get it off all the time) but if Burrow is moved out then we have an extra slot to play either Totem of Wrath, Stormweaver or Static field since Ride the Lightning is removed. I dont think it needs a rework past moving Burrow out (and ideally Stormweaver but I doubt that will happen).
I think its kind of insane Enh/Ele have such a massive defensive in their honor talents when no other spec has anything remotely equivalent they have to pick like that for survivability. Ret being the closest one with Spellwarding (also an immunity) but they have BoP in their class tree so they have an option outside of Spellwarding anyway and Spellwarding isn’t always needed either whereas Burrow is. Thats where the problem is imo, it is too good of a defensive to be in honor talents, and with AGs removal I think its fine to move it to the class tree and make Bulwark baseline. Imagine Karma for WW monks being an honor talent or Enraged Regen for Fury, it’d be their number 1 complaint because it’d take up a permanent honor talent slot.
What my dream would be is moving Burrow to Stone Bulwarks place, and moving Stormweaver onto a choice node with Ancestral Swiftness. Both ele and resto can make good use of Ancestral Swiftness and already have a hero tree that makes it better (farseer), that entire side is useless for Enh, so I’d like to see something done there. And that would allow Enh to actually offheal in PvE without sacrificing damage which is a problem now that AG is gone. Or just replace AS with Stormweaver for Enh in the class tree doesn’t have to be a choice node.
Hoping this patch does not go live with how squishy Enh and Ele feel on ptr especially in PvP. It is so much easier to die without AG, just losing 4-5 million healing on myself every shuffle round or 6-7m+ in 3s does not feel good at all. I have queued a few arena skirms and war games on ptr and Enh especially feels squishy. It already does on live right now even with AG, probably one of the squishier melee, now it’s even worse.
No other classes lost such a major defensive ability like that. I don’t mind a defensive prune eventually, but it has to happen all at once. So for now, please consider additional personal defensive compensation for ele and enh, it’s fine if it affects resto in the class tree positively as well.
Want to make one last suggestion with this. Enhance dev cooked, feels awesome to play, but the removal of AG is going to hurt both ele and enh, especially enh in pvp. Ele got Storm conduit in its honor talents at least which is quite good, but enh got nothing. The buffs to healing stream do not even remotely compensate the personal defensive loss from losing AG. To give an example, in a blitz I just did Ag did 22 mil healing, 8 mil healing to myself and that healing is being done when I need it. Healing Stream will never do anything like that and even if it did, it is killable in pvp anyway. PvErs lost their main way of providing group off healing, but also lost a personal defensive as well in regards to AG self healing.
Suggestions:
-Move Burrow from Honor talents to the Class tree replacing Stone Bulwark Totem and make Stone Bulwark totem baseline.
Reason: There is no other class in the game with a defensive this strong in their honor talents, its like putting Divine Shield or Turtle or Ice block in honor talents, would feel terrible for those classes. Ideally this should be in our class tree. Its also just a really cool, fun shaman ability that I feel both PvErs and PvPers should have access to.
-If that is not something devs want to do, then maybe this will be better: Move Stormweaver from Honor talents to Nature’s Swiftness spot in the class tree for Enhancement.
Reason: Currently, Nature’s Swiftness is completely useless for Enhance, not a single Enhance shaman in PvE or PvP talents into that side of the tree which is really sad, not a good thing to have a capstone entirely useless for 1/3 specs. Moving Stormweaver there would allow PvE Enh shamans to actually utilize their off heals without sacrificing any damage, with AGs removal they will have no real way of off healing well without sacrificing a ton of damage and that really sucks. For PvPers, it would give us access to another defensive oriented talent that we currently barely get to take since it is in our honor talent tree alongside Burrow/Grounding/Shamanism/Totem of Wrath/etc. Ele got a new defensive honor talent in 11.1 that is really good, but Enhance is currently squishier than ele on live and has gotten no compensation for losing AG, really needs some help in PvP after AGs removal.
Removal of ancestral guidance takes away an important defensive for the shaman.
They really should compensate for this.
Either give Ancestral guidance back to ele and enhance or give them burrow as a PVE talent.
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