Class Tree feedback (again)

Classes Shaman
1

Class tree hasn’t seen updates since the late alpha/very early beta at most. There have been many complaints about it, especially since it was downgraded heavily from TWW not just what we lost but also pathing.

Feedback regarding class tree/changes I’d like to see:

-Make Chain Heal baseline and move Earth Shield into its spot.

  • Right now every spec has to talent into Chain Heal to get to Earth shield which feels awful because Ele and Enhance do not use Chain Heal in pretty much any situation, it is almost always better to Healing Surge if you really need healing. Making it baseline means we would have it in the very very rare niche situations we might use it but don’t have to waste a point on a talent we rarely if ever use.

-Move every node on the left side of the tree up 1 after making Chain Heal baseline and putting Earth Shield in its spot. This leaves us with an empty capstone node since Nature’s Swiftness would be moved up 1. Take Static Field Totem from Honor talents and put it in that capstone node.

  • This would give Shaman as a whole a bit more utility that isn’t as niche as Tremor/Poison Cleansing totem. It would also be relatively unique utility since Warrior got a variation of Tremor totem and Druid has a variation of Wind Rush Totem. Its fun to use and would be great to see in the class tree. Can create a new honor talent in its place at the same time or in the future.

-Take Burrow out of honor talents and replace Totemic Surge (middle capstone) with it.

  • Shaman survivability isn’t bad necessarily but its heavily reliant on passive defensiveness in PvE. We have 2 active defensives both on long cds (Astral Shift 2 min baseline, 1.5min talented) and Earth Elemental (3 minute CD). The main reason for wanting this in PvE is because its such a cool and fun ability to use I hate that we don’t get to use it in PvE. Its very thematic and honestly just cool. This would also free up a slot in honor talents for Shamans which would be great since Burrow/Grounding/Shamanism have been locked in for a while now.

-Make Nature’s Fury a 1 point node and swap its place with Cleanse Spirit.

  • Every single Shaman spec and build takes Nature’s Fury, but you don’t always need Cleanse Spirit nor do you always need Wind rush Totem, the other option is spending 2 points in Static Charge which nobody ever does because its too expensive. This means you have to pick up something you may not need just to continue getting to Nature’s Fury. By making Nature’s Fury a 1 point node and swapping its place with Cleanse Spirit, we can now get to that middle node without taking something we don’t plan on using just to get there. This would also free up a point that we can then spend elsewhere which we definitely need in our tree, theres 5-6 talents we really want but can’t get, this would allow us to at least get 1 of them.
2

We already have more utility in resto than any other healer- interrupt, aoe Sun, purge, tremor/poison totem, remove curse, etc. They can’t give us another stop as well (in fact they took one away from us in thunderstorm), there’s no way they add static field town to the class tree. Especially as it duplicates a signature monk utility.

Same goes for burrow. They removed our knock up, they aren’t giving us a new one. A better call would be to ask for stone bulwark totem back.

If you aren’t taking cleanse spirit in any dungeon with a curse, your healer hates you. And wind rush is an m+ and raid must have, not having them is leaving time on the table in m+, it should be used between every pack its up

You don’t seem to understand the point of a tree. The point is not to get every best talent there is. The point is to force you to make choices. It should be that there’s talents left you really want but can’t get to. If you got all the good ones, then you may as well get rid of the tree and bake it in.

3

I am very well aware of that lol, ridiculous to even say. Making choices is good, but not being able to get 5-6 points you want is bad especially when you get restricted artificially by 2 pointers rather than just having more options throughout the tree, or by bad pathing like Chain Heal being placed before Earth Shield despite only 1 spec using Chain Heal but every spec using Earth Shield.

Don’t always need it. Why are you acting like its everywhere? The entire point is flexibility, do you understand this? If 2 out of 8 dungeons need curse dispel, you can take it in those, but if you do not need it in the other 6 you should be able to drop it while still having a good way to get to Nature’s Fury. In PvP, Wind Rush isn’t really needed (aside from enhance) and its CD is a bit too long so if you dont need curse dispel you don’t have a great way to get to Nature’s Fury. Nature’s Fury is a talent every spec wants, surrounded by niche talents, it should be leading to those not the other way around.

Yeah. They removed our knock up, they removed our ability to reset totems, etc. Just because they removed it doesn’t mean it was the right move. Our class has 1 cc spell thats actually decent (cap totem), removing the knock didn’t really make sense. I’m not sure why you subscribe to the mentality of “well they did x so that means y will never happen again!!” as if they haven’t gone back on things they did mistakenly or wrongly, usually based on players telling them.

Remove Curse gives us our second dispel type, it isn’t utility. Most healers can dispel 2-3 debuff types. Every healer can dispel magic+1 other typically, for Rsham its Curses. Similar to druid, they can dispel Magic+curse+poison. Paladin can dispel magic+disease+poison.

We do have poison cleansing totem, but priests have Mass Dispel on the same cooldown as poison cleanse. Mass Dispel can always get use due to being far less niche, PCT only gets use when poison is relevant.

We do have interrupt, thats a positive, though its a 30s cd now so not nearly as good as before but still, only healer with interrupt is decent.

We do have tremor totem, but warrior also got a version of Tremor totem this expansion through zerk shout.

We do have Wind rush, but druid also has Stampeding Roar (both do similar things with separate positives/negatives)

So the point is, while we do have a lot of utility, it has gotten spread out amongst other classes which dilutes our own utility. Need a tremor? Well if the group has a warrior you don’t really need a shaman. Need a way to root mobs? Well druid has mass root so you can grab one of those. It would not make anything OP to add Static Field Totem to shaman at all, it would be a semi unique piece of utility that other classes do not have aside from Warrior with spear but Static would be a bit different. Distributing shaman utility across other classes has diluted it quite a bit. Its still good to have, but you also do not need a shaman for anything you listed aside from Interrupt if you want a healer with interrupt.