What happened with this? I really hope work isn’t done here.
-Astral Shift was moved down from the first row so now theres only 3 talents in the first row which means to get to Earth Shield Ele and Enhance need to talent into Chain Heal which is a waste of a point especially for Ele (no way to instant cast chain heal means it will never get used). Chain Lightning also costs a point now as well.
-Utility totems are much harder to get than they were prior to the beta. Tremor is now on a choice node with Poison Cleanse and its at the bottom of the tree. Cap Totem CDR is a 2 point node and further down the tree. Totemic Recall was removed (good) but nothing was added to compensate for that (bad) as in stomp protection for totems or just lower totem CDs.
-Many talents became 2 pointers for very little reason. Brimming with Life is a 2 pointer, Winds of Al’Akir is a 2 pointer, Cap totem CDR is a 2 pointer, Nature’s Fury is a 2 pointer, etc. And none of these are 2 pointers on live.
-Stone Bulwark removed and replaced with Totemic Surge (most totems CD reduced by 5 sec) which is an awful capstone. Its a nerfed version of what it is on live and its also just way too bland to be a capstone, it isn’t exciting at all which all capstones should be. Theres so many options that could have replaced Stone Bulwark like Burrow.
It feels like our class tree went backwards. It got some okay additions to it but nothing amazing. I understand we’re pruning buttons, but if Shaman utility is what gets hit the hardest here then we need to compensate with either some extra mobility or defensiveness. Hunter still has x2 Wall, Turtle Exhil and Roar of Sacrifice all in its class tree or baseline whereas Shaman has to use a pvp talent on Burrow (equivalent of turtle/ice block/bubble) and is now getting way less utility in its class tree.
PvP Shamans got a real bad deal here so far. Lost Thunderstorm, Lightning Lasso got moved to PvP talents so its much harder to take, Tremor is on a choice node with Poison Cleanse so we no longer have two good totems into Rogue Lock comps or rogue warrior etc, Stone Bulwark got removed leaving us with 1 less major defensive and no additional passive defensiveness was added to compensate (3 min earth ele is okay but it is not better than having Stone bulwark+5 min earth ele).
25 Likes
All of these issues still persist as the class tree has not gotten touched once since it was “reworked”.
6 Likes
Class tree problems:
Restrictiveness:
-Our class tree has way too many 2 pointers leading to an extremely restrictive tree for no reason. I’m happy with having to make choices, but in this case I’m missing 6-7 talents some of which I really need but can’t get because of how many 2 pointers we have that we also need to grab (Natures Fury and Brimming with Life for example). There was literally a blue post about this in DF or TWW where they said they dislike 2 point nodes and will be using them very sparingly, why did that randomly not apply here?
Defensives:
-We also have to talent into every single defensive we have unlike most other classes. We talent into Astral Shift and then again to make it a shorter CD. We talent into Earth Shield. We talent into Healing Stream totem. We talent into Earth Ele and (nerfed) Primordial Bond. Meanwhile Hunters get Exhil, Feign Death and Aspect of the Turtle basline with talents to improve them in the class tree (PvP talent for Feign Death) and they get Survival of the Fittest for free in their class tree. Its time to apply that to Shamans too, Astral Shift and Earth Shield should be baseline at this point.
-Also, losing Stone Bulwark Totem and 5% Damage Reduction from having an elemental out really hurts Ele/Shaman as we now have less CDs overall to rotate through (which is fine if this was applied to every class in the game, but it was not) and they are all pretty long CDs. Earth ele 3 mins, Astral shift 1.5 mins and Burrow 2 mins if taken in PvP talents. We gained very little in return for losing a solid amount of defensives in both TWW and now Midnight. Maybe replace Stone Bulwark with a passive defensive talent ie Astral Shift gains 2 charges or Earth Shield now gives 10% DR+heals more often or something like that.
Utility:
-We also technically lost utility since Poison Cleansing Totem and Tremor Totem are now on the same node so we can’t have both anymore. Poison Cleansing should be a 30 second CD in PVP, not 2 minutes. Its our only main counter to rogues and was nerfed to a 2 min CD for PvE reasons. We also can’t reset Totem Cds anymore so this would be a good time to go back and look at previously nerfed Totems like Static Field Totem (PvP) and Poison Cleansing Totem
CC:
-All of our CC is talented, nothing baseline aside from Thunderstorm for Ele now. Frost Shock (slow), Hex and Improved Hex, Cap Totem and Static Charge (2 pointer as well), Earthgrab Totem. Lightning Lasso got thrown into PvP talents despite the fact our PvP talents are already crowded with things we really need ie Grounding Totem, Shamanism, Burrow so now in order to take Lasso we have to give up something we were able to have before alongside Lasso which feels awful.
9 Likes
in TWW shamn could really quickly switch playstyle and totems based on matchup in seconds, now i have to change my entire tree to optimise for any 1 specific matchup as all the talents are mixed up with very little logic. i see the logic, it just seems thought of by a warr dev ngl
3 Likes
dont get me started on the lack of defensives, say u play into dk rog, u have to trinket wall indtant still lose hp, use healing tide or ns and pray ur team carries u for the next 2 minutes because u have NOTHING else to protect urself
6 Likes
This new class tree is absolutely abysmal.
I hope we’re not stuck with this terrible version for the rest of the expansion.
8 Likes
Feels like the design team collectively spent max 10 hours on it and called it a day.
Including the dev time to make Instinctive Imbuements, which is the only thing they delivered on.
4 Likes
The class talent tree makes no sense to me. So many meaningful talents so deep into the tree and the random 2 point nodes that should absolutely be 1 pointers. Just seems like the design philosophy was completely scattered.
Tremor specifically is my biggest issue… IDK why they put it so far down. I think it being a choice with poison cleansing is also terrible. Poison cleansing has become basically useless anyways due to the fact it is such a long CD for 6 sec of function + having no health, meanwhile tremor is good into 80% of comps.. I don’t understand why PCT can’t be a lower talent instead of having so many 2 pointers.
Also, chain heal should be removed from the class tree and you could move earth shield into it’s place. This would get rid of essentially having a dead talent
4 Likes
Agree with that, Chain Heal should just be baseline and Earth shield should go into its spot. We should also probably get Chain Lightning for free instead of having to spend a point on it depending on if the 2 pointers are reduced and how many are reduced.
The tree to me feels very scattered and random aside from the obvious issues it has. Im really hoping they revisit it before midnight launches. Totemic Surge as a capstone is a bit insulting and the amount of 2 pointers are ridiculous.
Totem CDs also need to be revisited now that Totemic Recall is gone and we can’t reset totems anymore. Poison Cleansing should probably be a 30 sec CD, Static field totem should be a 1 min CD, maybe Wind Rush Totem can be a 1.5m CD (1 min cd if you take the cdr for it), etc. Totemic Surge (5 secs off totems) can be removed from the tree and replaced with an actual defensive capstone node.
3 Likes
Because it was an easy way for them to limit talent points to curb your usefulness and reduce button bloat without being creative.
3 Likes
Some requests for the Shaman class tree:
-Lower CD of certain totems like Poison Cleansing Totem to 1 minute and Static Field Totem to 1 minute after the removal of Totemic Recall and its capstone.
-Move Totemic Surge out of the capstone spot and back up near Totemic Focus (or remove it)
-Replace Totemic Surge capstone with “Improved Earth Shield: Earth Shield now grants the Shaman 8%(?) damage reduction and the healing bonus is increased by 10%” This would give Shamans some much needed passive survivability without the DR effecting other players so it is not overpowered while improving the healing benefit from it. This capstone also makes sense as it would be a direct path from the Earth Shield choice node with Therazanes Resilience and Reactive Warding.
-Make Astral Shift a 1.5 minute cooldown baseline so we can talent into making it 1 minute with Planes Traveler or we can choose to keep it at 1.5 minutes and opt for the improved damage reduction.
-Make some things baseline like Chain Heal or Earth Shield. Chain heal is a wasted talent point for Ele/Enhance but we have to take it to get to Earth Shield. Shaman has to talent into every single defensive both active and passive while other classes get most or a lot of their defensives baseline/for free. Hunter is a good example, DK is a good example, DH is a good example, etc. Shaman also has to talent into every single one of its CC abilities on top of this. It does not feel good to take Chain Heal when it will never be used as Ele/Enh, either it needs to go somewhere else or be a free point or be made baseline with Earth Shield taking its spot.
9 Likes
To be fair I can see Enhance using chain heal. If you have a free heal ready and aren’t at risk of going splat there really is no reason to not share.
That said, the Shaman class tree is a mess for sure.
-Multiple two point nodes and multiple useless nodes that are required for pathing.
-Healing Stream is still too weak for dps to bother with it.
-Totemic Surge is too weak for a capstone. Five seconds is nothing- at the very least it should be percentage based.
-Poison Cleanse Totem being two minutes and a choice with Tremor is madness.
-Spending an extra point to make Rocky a defensive is crazy- just make it a choice node to start with.
I could go on and on. This is not how you prune a class. This is how you make sure no one plays a class.
5 Likes
Exactly this. People have slowly moved away from Shaman over the years due to the inconsistency behind its design (until recently where its had consistency in how Enh plays and ele plays) and how little attention it gets during the beta cycles.
In terms of using Chain Heal, that is honestly not something I want to do. I’m not an actual healer, that is taking it a bit too far. I dont mind spot healing every now and then in dangerous situations with Healing Surge but I do not want to be pressing aoe heals on my group unless its something like Ancestral Guidance or Vampiric Embrace. Throwing out a global here and there for Healing Stream is fine (but it could use a slight buff). I dont want them designing enhance around being a pseudo-healer because that means we will get less for ourselves as dps players wanting to play a dps spec, they will balance around it.
Also watching warlocks gaining more mobility is making me cringe. A tanky class that just gained even more cc (howl and coil can both be taken now) also just gained more mobility. Rogue just gained more cc via aoe blind. Hunter lost scatter/knock/root, but kept its entire defensive kit most of which is baseline or free in the class tree (survival of the fittest).
I dont think we need more mobility, but I do think we need more survivability via our class tree and they need to go back and look at how much utility we actually lost. I think they underestimate how good Totemic Recall was both for PvP and PvE. Not being able to reset totems is a huge utility loss. I dont want them to add back any buttons, but I do want them to improve what we have.
2 Likes
If we could have a glyph to reduce the spam of random summons and pets that would be nice. Its overwhelming and kind annoying on the ancestor tree
It does very little healing. Tends to be a liability to have it on your bars because an accidental press instead of healing surge could get someone killed due to how weak it is. Costs more mana for like half as much main target healing and trivial healing on secondary targets.
4 Likes
The healing even after the 100% buff is extremely weak. However, I really dont want to press chain heal at all regardless. I wish it was just baseline for resto and not in the class tree. I dont want to be a pseudo healer, I dont want to press a button and heal my entire group instantly like a healer can. I am not a healer, I dont want them pushing enhance towards having healing like that. And you already know whats going to happen if Enh were capable of doing very good healing via chain heal, our dps is going to get tuned around that.
I am okay with supporting the group via single target off heals (which we primarily used on ourselves since its how we survived prior to the nerf) but I do not want to be a dps spec pressing a big aoe heal, that is not okay.
If they want dps shamans to lean towards support more, they can make our utility better ie poison cleansing being a 1 min cd instead of 2 min, healing stream doing a bit more healing (dps shamans dont even take it in pve), maybe Static Field Totem could even become a class tree talent so we can move mobs around, kinda similar to how Mass Grip from blood DK works but this might end up having problematic uses so im not sure.
Our class tree as it stands now is far worse than it was in TWW. They had the opportunity to do so much with the removal of Totemic Recall, not being able to reset totems is a massive hit to our utility but if they would’ve updated Totem CDs so we could use them more often that would have been a great tradeoff while also reaching their goals of reducing button bloat via not having totemic recall.
They could’ve done so much better with the class tree in general, right now it just feels hastily thrown together and in some cases lazily thrown together. Theres not much im excited to pick up in the class tree at all, maybe 2 things. Totemic surge as a capstone was definitely a “cant think of something to put here and need to move off of shaman development soon so ill just put this here for now” kinda move. Its insane thats a capstone. Our class tree literally reminds me of what class trees looked like during Dragonflight beta.
1 Like
I completely agree, losing stone bulwark was bad, and the class tree clearly isn’t designed around us using our utility abilities. It seems to be designed around us having to avoid utility abilities to get as much spell damage (which still is mediocre) and defense(which is lackluster) as possible, while forsaking everything cool that we could potentially do to help a group, turning us into something worse than a mage in ele and something worse than most melee specs in enhance.
4 Likes
Yeah I’m pretty sad to see this not addressed throughout all of beta. I hope its high on the priority list for 12.0.5 at least.
I’ll add in some more requests regarding the class tree
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Make Chain Heal baseline for Shaman and move Earth Shield into its spot. Move Elemental orbit up to Earth Shields spot and then add a new talent below Elemental Orbit that does something like: “Improved Earth Shield: Earth Shield grants the Shaman x% damage reduction and its healing bonus is increased by x%”
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Make Nature’s Fury a 1 pointer like it was before
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Reduce Poison Cleansing Totem to a 1 minute CD now that Totemic Recall is gone
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Add Burrow to the Class Tree. Please god do this already, it’s an easy win for PvP and PvE shaman players, literally all of them. Makes PvP talents more flexible, adds a really cool thematic defensive CD that PvE players can use. Totemic Surge can get moved up somewhere and Burrow can take its spot.
Extra PvP request:
- Make Astral Shift or Burrow useable in CC.
7 Likes
I’ve taken a look through a few classes now, and most of them the left tree has been absolutely gutted for any fun, or usefulness that might be had. If you want something specific it takes you so far away from all the strange damage boosts, and odd defensive boosts that seem to just suck up two points for no reason.
1 Like