Dragonflight Shaman Suggestions Compilation

Classes Shaman
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Hello all! This thread is a compilation of suggestions for all 3 Shaman specs in Dragonflight. There are both my and other people suggestions, so copyrights are preserved :slightly_smiling_face: Most of them are simple, QoL or tuning based, so should not contradict Blizzard’s intent to focus mostly on numbers tuning lately.

Shaman general tree:

  • Frost Shock is an optional pick, but it is gated behind an AoE ability Chain Lightning for Restoration Shamans, which might not even be used, for example in single-target situations and PVP. It is also possible for Elemental and Enhancement to take Icefury / Hailstorm respectively without taking it, which is not good.
    Suggestion: Make Frost Shock a baseline ability for all 3 specs. It is just as iconic for Shamans as Flame Shock and Lightning Bolt (which are baseline abilities) and it would provide baseline offensive abilities of all 4 elements for Shamans alongside Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt and Earthbind Totem.
  • Hex is an optional pick, but Hex variants can be used even if Hex is not picked. While that might be an oversight, instead of making Hex variants usable only if Hex itself is picked, Blizzard could just make it a baseline ability and move its upgrade node to its current position. This would also free a pathing talent where Hex upgrade currently is located to provide more paths in the tree (about that later).
  • Enfeeblement can hardly compete with halved CD for Hex, so could use a buff. Making it slow the target while Hex is active in addition to current effect would make it more useful and competitive.
  • Even though Rogues had Kindey Shot nerfed to consume 5 combo points max and with new PVP trinket set bonus, Shamans still are too vulnerable to stuns in Dragonflight. Thunderstorm and Thundershock are helpful, but not enough, especially against ranged enemies. Making Astral Shift useable in stuns either baseline or via one of its upgrade talents could address that issue.
  • Thunderous Paws is undertuned compared to similar talents of other classes, which have their snare removing capability on around 30s CD. I suggest to reduce its internal cooldown to 30s to match.
  • Guardian Cudgel idea is neat, but with the new PVP trinket bonus it can trigger after enemy recovers from first Capacitor Totem stun, making it too easily counterable. Making it explode with 2.5 seconds delay in PVP only (with 3s delay kept in PVE, so that it is not nerfed there) after first totem was dropped could address that (as first Capacitor Totem stun has 2.55s duration against non-orcs and 2.4s duration against orcs, this allows to chain them as intended).
  • Greater Purge still needs a CD reduction and / or cost reduction to make it actually competitive with normal Purge. It should also provide 2 MSW stacks for Enhancement.
  • Nature Fury is undertuned compared to other classes nodes, which give 2% flat secondary stat bonuses (including critical strike) and too taxing, as it gatekeeps other important nodes in right part of tree like Brimming With Life and Spirit Walk choice node.
    Suggestion: Change it to a flat 2% critical strike çhance bonus per point invested and possibly make it a 1 point investment. This would both increase its power level to other classes nodes and can make mentioned abilities more accessible.
  • Brimming With Life is a talent that does not lead anywhere. As most other talents excluding capstone talents usually still make some other nodes opened, I suggest to make it a path talent as well. To achieve that, move it to current position of Hex upgrade node (which is suggested to be moved to current Hex position and Hex being made baseline), connect with moved Hex upgrade node and Spirit Walk choice node. This would allow to make both Brimming With Life and Spirit Walk accessible from several prerequisite nodes instead of just 1 and provide more choices and build variety for players.
  • Winds of Al’Akir talent is too undertuned for 2 point investment (as similar power talent Spirit Wolf is a 1 point investment) and its totem based movement speed is too conditional, as situations when Shaman has 3 totems active simultaneously are not that often. I suggest to make it a 1 point node and change movement speed bonus to X% per active totem, up to 3 totems. This would achieve 3 goals - make its power in line with other talent, make its movement speed bonus more usable and make Spirit Walk choice node more accessible.
  • Thundershock alters Thunderstorm in a way that is not always beneficial for the player, so they should become a choice node. This would both make more sense and would free a spot for Lightning Lasso alternative, which is suggested next.
  • Lightning Lasso is a decent CC tool, but it is not very compatible with Enhancement Shamans, who would prefer to CC and hit enemy with their melee attacks that benefit from Windfury Weapon and their CDs instead. To address that, I suggest to make Lightning Lasso a choice node with a 4s duration melee range stun with 30-45s CD. This would solve the issue for Enhancement and give an alternative CC option for non-Enhancement Shamans as well, for example in mass PVP, where Lightning Lasso is easy to disrupt.
  • Poison Cleansing Totem is undertuned compared to similar abilies of other classes, which cleanse all poisons and have 8s CD. I suggest for it to also remove all poisons from selected target when used and make it a priority if several allies are affected with poisons within its range. These changes would make it more controllable and more generally useful.
  • Stoneskin Totem is an interesting idea, but its effect is niche and minor. I suggest for it to either reduce all damage taken or have bigger damage reduction percent, if needed compensated with increased cooldown.
  • Lava Burst has bad compatibility with crit builds, as it benefits from crit only during Flame Ascendance, which is Elemental only and with very limited uptime. I suggest to create a talent in general tree that would make its damage scale off critical strike chance all the time and replace its Flame Ascendance bonus with other, for example a simple X% Lava Burst damage increase.
  • Mana Spring Totem has different value for different classes, as they have different amount of Mana in their pools. I suggest to make it restore a percentage of maximum mana when triggered to make its bonus more equal and meaningful.
  • EDIT: Please consider adding Water Shield to general tree. It would allow all 3 Shaman specs to pick between offensive + defensive shield (Lightning + Earth) and two defensive shields (Water + Earth, as more mana = more healing), providing more variety. If Water Shield effect is too unnoticeable for Elemental / Enhancement, it could be adjusted - restore more Mana for them specifically, have more charges, allowed to proc from any kind of damage etc. This would also allow all 3 Shaman specs to access any combo of unleash effects in PVP via Unleash Shield and could open new possibilities there.

Elemental Shaman tree:

  • Earhquake is still a non-optional pick. It might be not needed by single target damage builds, making it a wasted talent point for them. Also, most other specs, including other 2 Shaman specs can skip their AoE ability if they want and Elemental should get similar treatment. Please also consider buffing its damage again, as currently it is severely undertuned for a resource spender.
  • First charge of Stormkeeper is blocked by Unrelenting Calamity, which might be not needed by some builds, for example in PVP. I suggest to swap their positions. This would allow both PVE and PVP players to take universal Stormkeeper and then take Unrelenting Calamity and synergizing with it Flash of Lightning only if they want or need to.
  • Flames of the Cauldron are in similar situation - they are a talent which improves Flame Shock and blocks a general Fire damage increasing talent. Better positioning would be to swap their positions, so that right tree side builds could take a generally useful talent Improved Flametongue Weapon and then could start taking talents from Lava Burst / Ascendance focused left side branch, Flame Shock focused right side branch or both, if the player would want to.
  • Improved Flametongue Weapon is too undertuned - it provides much less bonus than Call of Fire while also being less accessible for no particular reason. It should be buffed to 10%+ bonus to address that.
  • Lava Surge should be able to stack to 2. The necessity for that arose after addition of Heat Wave (aka Primordial Surge) that provides its stacks every 3 seconds. If you try to maximize damage output from different element spells synergy, you occasionally get into a situation that you do not use its stacks in time and waste them, especially if you need to use any utility in Heat Wave burst window.
  • Stormkeeper’s 15s duration has the same issue - if you try to maximize both charges of SK with all modifiers from other elemental abilities and Surge of Power, you can run into a situation that second stack falls off before it is used. Increasing its duration to 20+ seconds could address that.
  • Lightning Rod’s 8 seconds duration makes Elemental burst windows a bit too tight, especially combined with other modifiers to stack and keep track of. Increasing its duration to 10+ seconds could address that.
  • Surge of Power has strange interaction with Frost Shock boosted by Electrified Shocks - it roots only one target if multiple are hit, but the target picked is also random. It should either root all target hits or, if that is too powerful, at least root the initial target, so that you can pick who gets rooted, just as you can do with single-target variant.
  • Elemental Shaman lost its pet 40% damage reduction wall for no particular reason - its mobility and survivability increases from talents are on the level of other classes. As that is not justified and Ele is already quite squishy as is, please either return the pet wall or give Ele other new defensive to compensate, preferrably not tied to a pet, which has 5 min CD and is not compatible with the DPS CD Fire / Air Elemental.
  • Elemental needs a spec specific tool to justify bringing him over other 2 specs. I suggest to either alter Elemental Fury and make it additionally increase crit damage of allies within 40 yds by X% or give a totem with similar effect (in PVE as well). This would give Ele its niche and reason to be brought.
  • Primordial Wave dealing Shadow damage outside of Shadowlands is strange. Just as you changed Spear of Bastion to Physical damage, I suggest to change Primordial Wave to Elemental damage - this would be more fitting for Shaman lore and make it more compatible with its neighbouring talent Elemental Equilibrium.
  • Electrified Shocks makes Icefury Frost Shocks affect 4 enemies, but its synergizing ability Chain Lightning hits 5. This is confusing and counterintuitive, so Electrified Shocks target cap should be increased to 5 as well.
  • Frost Shock is excluded from Mastery and that is not a good thing, especially for Mastery builds that use Icefury. It should be added to Mastety spells list, either baseline or via Mountains Will Fall talent.
  • After the latest changes, Lava Burst crits dealing less damage than Lightning Bolt crits is confusing. Lava Burst can autocrit with Flame Shock, but it is also a CD ability, so having occasions of it dealing less damage than the spammable ability is strange. Please consider buffing its damage a bit.

Elemental Shaman PVP talents:

  • Tidebringer has little usage for Elemental and Enhancement, as Chain Heal is both not desired to take and too expensive to use. Making it possibly affect Healing Surge too and reduce mana cost of affected spells could solve that.
  • Seasoned Winds is primary useful only against one school casters and only if Shaman is their priority target. I suggest to make it reduce damage output of affected enemy and possibly even affect all damage and healing done, if needed with duration reduced to compensate. This would make this talent more generally useful and provide Elemental and Enhancement with a conditional mortal strike effect they currently lack.

Enhancement Shaman tree:

  • Stormstrike has a cooldown and can be reset by procs and Legacy of Frost Witch effect. These mechanics can contradict, as resets can occur right when Stormstrike is about to come off CD anyway. Most other classes with similar reset mechanics usually have 2 charges for the resettable ability to address that, for example Lava Burst for non-Enhancement Shamans and Flurry for Frost Mages. Second charge allows to continue recharging even if first charge was reset, providing full value from both effects. Enhancement should get similar treatment.
    Suggestion: Add second charge to Stormstrike, either baseline or in one of its upgrade talents, for example Stormflurry.
  • Enhancement rotation is very RNG and Haste based and with bad RNG you might have nothing meaningful to press and just use autoattacks. Some people enjoy such playstyle, but there could be an alternative for people, who want to have more control over their rotation.
    Suggestion: Make Stormstrike not replace Primal Strike for Enhancement. This would allow Enhancement Shamans to have a weak filler to use when everything is on CD. Its damage is quite low, so that should not result in much dps increase, but would give them something to use even if RNG is not on their side.
  • Feral Lunge is undertuned compared to other classes movement abilities, which usually have shorted CD or deal decent damage. Making it deal much more damage or reducing its cooldown to 20 seconds could address that.
  • Right side of Enhancement tree is much more point investment heavy than left, making it not balanced with its left counterpart and point starved.
    Suggestion: Reduce Molten Assault and Hot Hand to 1 point nodes. This would address the mentioned issue and make currently gated behind heavy prerequisite point investment Hailstorm choice node and Ashen Catalyst more accessible. MA and HH also both hardly deserve 2 point investment, especially after Hot Hand nerfs.
  • Enhancement lacks a short CD Earth based attack to complement other elemental hits. It could be addressed via returing Rockbiter with its ranged damage capability. However, as Enhancement rotation is already button heavy, it could also become a choice node with other active ability to keep their total number the same, for example with Windfury Totem.
  • Elemental Spirits are both too RNG and can have negative effect on Shaman damage output if summoned Wolves have element that his/her build barely uses. To address that, I suggest to make their element based on latest used ability element (or still random if it was a physical ability or no abilities were used and player wants to gamble as currently). This is a viable compromise - people who want specific wolves can summon them via using correct element ability before them and people who do not mind summoning random wolves can do that as well. However, this can still be not enough total increase over physical wolves, so I suggest for Elemental Spirits to also increase damage done by wolves themselves by X% to make it a viable upgrade node.
  • I suggest to connect Refreshing Waters choice node with Elemental Weapons node. This would provide one additional path to EW and make this node more competitive, as it would become a viable path talent as well.
  • Consider making Elemental Weapons a 1 point investment (with current effect). This would make 7th row point investment balanced (as all other talents have 1 point investment there) and make EW less taxing for single-target damage builds that want to take Feral Spirit.
  • Doom Winds CD change made it align with other Enhancement cooldowns, but the ability value is rather low now. Consider increasing its duration to 10+ seconds to address that. Such change would also help with it being easily shut down by a single disarm in PVP.

Enhancement Shaman PVP talents:

  • Shamanism being both on GCD and with big mana cost is not good and makes this talent much less desirable. Since Doom Winds is 90s CD now and their CDs do not match, it is desired even less.
    Suggestion: Reduce its mana cost, make it off-GCD, possibly increase its cooldown to 90 seconds and duration accordingly to make this talent more competitive.

Restoration Shaman tree:

  • Flow of the Tides has a significant con in absorbing Riptide healing effect, so should have stronger effect for Chain Heal. Currently, it makes it heal additional 63% of Spell Power (base number) for the price of consuming up to 132% of Spell Power (base number) delayed healing. This might be enough to offset itself, but not enough to make it competitive with Ancestral Reach.
  • Wavespeaker’s Blessing is undertuned and hardly competitive. Increasing its duration bonus to 6 seconds could address that.

Restoration Shaman PVP talents:

  • Electrocute is rarely utilized and could use a buff. Making it deal its damage instantly instead of over time would make it more compatible with frequent Purge usage and more competitive. It should also have increased effect if Greater Purge is used.

Thank you for reading!

8 Likes
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Return LotFW back to 5 MSW stacks. I’m really not liking the attempt to switch to 10 stack spenders, and I liked it better when it was an optional node. I get that the other 5% per MSW stack was baked into another talent but I would still like the option to not take Overflowing Maelstrom and this change kinda forces it in there as then you know every time you spend MSW stacks you get the frost witch buff and can plan around it easier.

1 Like
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When a talent is locked behind a potentially useless one, this is a way to increase the cost of the talent. This means that for pvp resto shamans, frost shock costs 2 talent points. I’m not sure if this is the intention, but it is the effect.

I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it, if that is really their intention.

I don’t see a problem with this one. No one would take icefury without taking frost shock. I don’t see a scenario where someone would just not notice that frost shock is not taken and their icefury is dead.

I don’t like this solution, frost shock is extremely situational and it would be a dead skill for a lot of players. I like that skills like these were made optional.

I disagree, flame shock and lightning bolt are mandatory skills for all specs. Earthbind Totem is situational though.

I don’t think it is an oversight. There is nothing wrong with that. No one would pick a hex variant without hex, unless they are just trying to path to another side of the tree, in which case, it is just the price they pay to reach the other side.

If that was their intention I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Again with the baseline suggestions. Hex is highly situational and almost never used outside of niche scenarios. There is just no point in making it baseline, if it is just going to sit in the bars of most players unused.

The path is the price you pay to reach certain talents. Reducing this price is not necessarily a good thing.

I don’t understand why you say that. Both are very situational and would just be picked when the situation calls for it.

What do you mean “too vulnerable to stuns”? Why should it be less vulnerable?

Yes, it would, however pointing out a weakness is not enough to justify it’s removal.

The fact that other classes do something better than yours, doesn’t mean that yours should be buffed to match them. Some classes are better at some things than others.

What is wrong with it being counter-able? All your suggestions are boiling down to “Make shamans more powerful”. That is not how class design works.

You didn’t provide a justification for this claim. And why should enhancement shamans receive a bigger buff than the other specs?

Ok, so I have no idea why you claim this is under-tuned. It is a mandatory talent for all 3 specs. It is a strong throughput talent that is competing with utility.

Ok so you keep pointing out characteristics, and providing suggestions on how to change it, but providing no justification for the change. What is wrong with a talent node not leading anywhere? That just means you will pick it for what the talent have to offer. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

While I personally wouldn’t pick this talent, I can see it being picked by a lot of players, since lots of players really really like movement speed. I also can see it being situationally useful in some boss fights.

However I agree that the 3 totems bit is just way too clunky and should be changed. Your suggestion seems very good.

I agree with this one, the current design is extremely awkward, as you might want to pick thunderstorm and stoneskin, but you don’t want your thunderstorm to be made worse by thundershock or lasso. In this case you would need to either go around it, or make one of your skills worse, which just feels awful.

I can agree with a dead node as a form of increasing the price of a talent, however a negative node just feels bad. The suggestion of making it a choice node is a good one.

There is nothing wrong with some classes doing specific things better than others…

Completely dissagree, this is an extremely strong effect that might even secure a guaranteed raid spot for shamans. There is nothing wrong with it being a niche effect.

That is a horrible idea. All guaranteed crit skills make your character need less crit, just like all duration based abilities make your character need more haste, just like certain skills interact well with mastery.

Not scaling with crit is an intentional drawback of Lava Burst. The fact that a drawback exists doesn’t mean it should be removed.

Once again, pointing out a fact about a skill is not enough to justify it being changed or removed.

Yes, the entire second row for shamans is eventually mandatory, there is nothing wrong with that. It is at most something that might be considered strange.

And while you are able to theoretically avoid all aoe related nodes of the tree, that doesn’t mean you are going to be better at single target as a result. Aoe abilities are usually sprinkled throughout most spec trees, and they are usually picked even for single target situations due to being the path to a desired skill.

The fact that ele can’t skip this specific aoe ability is just a random fact that doesn’t justify a change. You can just consider it a built in ele ability just like earth shock.

Also, you are once again asking for buffs without providing ways to compensate.

There is nothing wrong with a dead node in a niche scenario.

The fact that some builds are spread around the tree is intentional. Yes, they could place all fire damage related talents in one side of the tree to make forming a build easier, however that is not their intention. They want you to take complex routes if you want to form a build.

You once again assume a nerf is not justified. And you try to use other classes as a justification. Not all classes should should be as good at specific things as all others.

This is not a thing anymore. Raid comps are once again taking gear types into consideration. There are 3 specs in the game that use int mail, and 3 specs that uses int shields. Having 1 int mail user is not enough for a raid.

There is nothing wrong with having raid utility overlapping between specs of a class.

Once again, you mention a fact, and a way to change it, with no justification. There is nothing wrong with talents scaling better with certain stats.

Completely agree, and do the same for enhancement.

I don’t see anything confusing about it. One is 4, the other is 5… Where is the confusion? Should all aoe abilities affect the same number of targets to avoid this supposed confusion? Why?

Why is it not a good thing? Icefury is already affected by mastery.

Once again, why is it confusing? You just mentioned a random fact that is probably going to pass unnoticed by most players. It doesn’t deal less damage than a spammable ability, it just deals less damage compared to the crits of the spammable ability, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Ok, so you just made a claim about it not being desired and it being too expensive without providing any justification. The talent makes your chain heal cheaper and easier to use in spread out situations. What is undesirable and expensive about that?

Yes, it is a situational talent. The situational nature of a talent is not enough of a justification to buff it. In certain situations this talent is effectively a permanent -15% damage against a specific dps. This sounds very strong to me.

Maybe the meta will not justify this situational pick, but that is not a justification for situational talents to be buffed.

The fact that some specs have ways to prevent wasted procs, doesn’t mean that this spec should too. And sorry but there is a fundamental difference between ele’s gameplay and enhancement.

Enhancement has a cooldown management design. The enhancement player is constantly trying to manage their cooldowns to avoid a dead gcd. In order to do that, the player usually saves high cd skills and resource spending skills for later, and focus on low cd abilities, even if the low cd skills do less damage.

Making stormstrike have 2 charges might seem like a minor change for non enhancement players, however it is almost a complete overhaul of the spec’s design. It basically doubles the number of ways to bank resources, and might even remove the need for cd management completely.

Yes, enhancement is a very reaction based spec, especially with high haste values. If the spec is misplayed, and the player don’t bank resources properly, dead gcds might happen. This is the fundamental core of the spec’s design. That is why enhancement doesn’t have a spammable ability.

If you want to always have a skill to press, there are already several talents that do that. All low cd talent abilities are there with this specific purpose, to make it easier to manage cds, and adding another bankable resource to spend.

Never use other classes as a basis to say something is under or overtuned. But I agree that feral lunge should be changed for another reason. Right now it is an utility ability that is competing with massive throughput.

This is a well loved ability that was now made pvp exclusive, and this feels awful.

The fact that a side of the tree requires more talent points, doesn’t mean it is not balanced.

I agree that this is a problem and I think the solution is a good one. It just feels awful to use a major cd and no benefit comes out of it. Another suggestion would be to make the dogs always 1 nature and 1 fire since frost is a more niche element.

yes, it would add another path. However you seem to assume that more paths is always a good thing, which is clearly not the case. There are several nodes that have such a connection, and this was intentionally not added.

Also, Elemental Weapons is already competitive, arguably being a mandatory talent.

You keep suggesting buffs to strong talents.

Ok so you look at the most important windfury talent and claims it has low value…

Yes, the cost of an ability makes it less desireable. that is not a justification to reduce the cost.

First of all, casting it at the end of riptide results in almost no lost healing. And the increased chain heal healing affects all targets. For skilled players this could be a permanent +30% healing for all chain heals with no draw back.

For less skilled players it does have much less value, and will probably never be picked by them.

You keep pointing to strong talents and claiming they are not competitive…

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When a talent is locked behind a potentially useless one, this is a way to increase the cost of the talent. This means that for pvp resto shamans, frost shock costs 2 talent points. I’m not sure if this is the intention, but it is the effect.

True, but that does make this talent much less viable for them. Having to spend not just 2 talent points, but an additional talent point on a completely not related ability that they might not even use (take AoE ability to get a single target snare / damage on the move tool) is not a good design.

I don’t like this solution, frost shock is extremely situational and it would be a dead skill for a lot of players. I like that skills like these were made optional.

Do you really think that an ability that can be used to deal damage on the move and snare enemies is situational? I am simply confused. And you disliking getting a free ability / talent point which does have its uses is even more confusing.

I don’t think it is an oversight. There is nothing wrong with that. No one would pick a hex variant without hex, unless they are just trying to path to another side of the tree, in which case, it is just the price they pay to reach the other side.

If that was their intention I don’t see anything wrong with it.

You misunderstand the statement. It is that if you did not pick Hex, you can still use Hex variant spells, just not the frog variant. This is an oversight that might and would be exploited to skip a talent point investment.

Again with the baseline suggestions. Hex is highly situational and almost never used outside of niche scenarios. There is just no point in making it baseline, if it is just going to sit in the bars of most players unused.

Baseline suggestion was to address the mentioned above exploit in other way than just making all Hex variant unusable without talent point invested. And you wrote yourself that it is situational. Now imagine how often people would pick it when they are already point starved, especially since they need to spend 5 points to reach the mobility / root break ability. If Blizzard does not want to have many talents that are rarely if ever picked, some of them should be made baseline. They already did similar with things like Cone of Cold for Mages. As I am sure you are going to write that you see nothing wrong with having niche talents, I will reply already - there is little point to create talents that will be picked very rarely. More generally useful CC / utility talents > more niche, as they have more value to compete with other or throughput talents. If they have too much investment or are too niche, people would just prefer to not take them, resulting in less build variety and less build variety is not good.

The path is the price you pay to reach certain talents. Reducing this price is not necessarily a good thing.

Having more prerequisite choices is better, as it provides bigger build variety.

I don’t understand why you say that. Both are very situational and would just be picked when the situation calls for it.

Both are situational, but when one option clearly is better than other, second should be buffed to make them competitive. For PVE, both variants are arguable. For PVP, 70% snare for 4 seconds in a world of snare dampening effects and gap closers has quite low competition with possibility to spam Hex every incapacitate DR, that is why Enfeeblement could use a buff.

What do you mean “too vulnerable to stuns”? Why should it be less vulnerable?

Because Shaman vulnerability to stuns is one of the reason that keeps them from being competitive enough at higher levels in PVP, alongside bad defensives. While a class should have vulnerabilities, there should not be too many at once.

Yes, it would, however pointing out a weakness is not enough to justify it’s removal.

Answered above. Bad defensives / no immunities are and could be the Shaman vulnerability for enemy to counterplay, it does not need several.

The fact that other classes do something better than yours, doesn’t mean that yours should be buffed to match them. Some classes are better at some things than others.

While some classes are better at doing some things, similar type abilities are usually balanced between them. That is why several classes have 2 / 4% magic damage reduction nodes, several classes have 2% secondary stat nodes etc. Snare break is other shared concept and it should be decently balanced between them as well. Mind you, it is not some 5 seconds difference, it is major - other classes have snare breaks on 25-30s CD and Shamans have their on 60s.

What is wrong with it being counter-able? All your suggestions are boiling down to “Make shamans more powerful”. That is not how class design works.

The wrong thing is that class design, to which you relate, is already unbalanced in PVP. You can compare Capacitor Totem to Chaos Nova and Leg Sweep in PVP - these two are AoE stuns that get + 2 seconds duration in PVP. They have melee range, but Cap Totem can be just destroyed before it initially detonates to compensate. Now compare that to Guardian Cudgel, which is supposedly their analogue for Shaman. + 2 seconds duration is fixed - you cannot counterplay it in any way outside of using trinket. Why then GC should give enemies time to react and destroy the totem to prevent second part of stun without using trinket? If stun was successfully applied, the counterplay to it should be the same - trinketing out of it.

The whole argument also was risen because initially Blizzard added an effect that made GC explode right when the first stun expired, so their own design was to make it chain stun. When they added trinket PVP bonus, this design no longer works. You might say that it is intentional, but it is not, as if they would want to nerf it, they would do that specifically to this ability, as they did with PVP multipliers in latest changes. This is just an oversight that should be fixed.

You didn’t provide a justification for this claim. And why should enhancement shamans receive a bigger buff than the other specs?

Because Purge already gives 1 MSW stack to Enhancement (as other specs are very unlikely to take MSW). This means that to make Greater Purge competitive, it should give 2 stacks of MSW to match all the other benefits of Greater Purge against normal Purge.

Ok, so I have no idea why you claim this is under-tuned. It is a mandatory talent for all 3 specs. It is a strong throughput talent that is competing with utility.

Because it is another aspect shared between classes - nodes that give secondary stats. Most nodes in other classes trees give flat 2% of secondary stat - Haste, Versatility or Crit. Shaman’s node gives 2% Nature abilities crit, which excludes Fire, Frost and Physical (for Enhancement) abilities. There is no reason to keep Shaman node undertuned compared to other classes nodes, as this is not something that other classes can do better, it is just a tuning oversight.

Ok so you keep pointing out characteristics, and providing suggestions on how to change it, but providing no justification for the change. What is wrong with a talent node not leading anywhere? That just means you will pick it for what the talent have to offer. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Justification is to give players more paths and choices, leading to bigger build variety. Possibility to access Spirit Walk node from either survivability node (BWL) ot mobility node (WoAA) allows players to choose what they need more, which is a positive change.

There is nothing wrong with some classes doing specific things better than others…

And again it is not the case. Poison Cleansing Totem has both bigger CD and cannot be controlled if poison affects several allies. Making it more controllable as suggested is a positive change. Other classes would still do it better, as their ability has 8s CD over PCT 45s, this change would just make the totem more usable for Shaman himself, as he would be able to at least pick a target he wants to cleanse on application.

Completely dissagree, this is an extremely strong effect that might even secure a guaranteed raid spot for shamans. There is nothing wrong with it being a niche effect.

10% physical damage reduction is not what I would call an extremely strong effect. Making it more universal or powerful (if needed, with CD increase to compensate) is not a bad thing.

That is a horrible idea. All guaranteed crit skills make your character need less crit, just like all duration based abilities make your character need more haste, just like certain skills interact well with mastery.

Not scaling with crit is an intentional drawback of Lava Burst. The fact that a drawback exists doesn’t mean it should be removed.

Lava Burst having no crit scaling does not reduce your crit requirement for Mastery builds. What it does is it makes crit builds less powerful, as one of the major usable abilities has no benefit from it. Giving an optional talent that allows to scale its damage from crit would not harm non-crit Mastery builds - it would be a 5% damage increse for Lava Burst for them and they can take it or skip it and replace with other throughput talent. However, this talent would be helpful for crit builds, as they would be able to remove a drawback that hampers their builds and that is not a bad thing.

Once again, pointing out a fact about a skill is not enough to justify it being changed or removed.

Once again, a talent that is more generally useful is better than a more niche talent, as it has to compete not only with other talents, but also with throughput talents.

Yes, the entire second row for shamans is eventually mandatory, there is nothing wrong with that. It is at most something that might be considered strange.

And while you are able to theoretically avoid all aoe related nodes of the tree, that doesn’t mean you are going to be better at single target as a result. Aoe abilities are usually sprinkled throughout most spec trees, and they are usually picked even for single target situations due to being the path to a desired skill.

The fact that ele can’t skip this specific aoe ability is just a random fact that doesn’t justify a change. You can just consider it a built in ele ability just like earth shock.

Also, you are once again asking for buffs without providing ways to compensate.

Entirely wrong, even for other 2 Shaman specs. Enhancement can entirely skip Crash Lightning if they want to and have other paths to capstone abilities to avoid taking it. Restoration can entirely skip Healing Rain and has other paths to capstone abilities to avoid taking it. Why should Elemental be an exception? And there is no need for compensation. Other classes received that possibility without any compensation and so should Elemental Shamans.

There is nothing wrong with a dead node in a niche scenario.

There is nothing good in it either. Blocking Stormkeeper with a talent dump node for no reason is not good. If Shamans could earlier spec into it without any additional cost / drawbacks, there is no need to create them now.

The fact that some builds are spread around the tree is intentional. Yes, they could place all fire damage related talents in one side of the tree to make forming a build easier, however that is not their intention. They want you to take complex routes if you want to form a build.

While that is correct, it is most likely an oversight in this case. Talents in that part of tree were shuffled around a lot and after the last tuning just were kept as they are now. That does not mean that they cannot shuffle them again to make the paths better.

You once again assume a nerf is not justified. And you try to use other classes as a justification. Not all classes should should be as good at specific things as all others.

You told me that you do no PVP without actually telling me. Elemental Shaman is very squishy as is, with the pet wall. Without it, it would drop very easily. You might think that they gave a compensation in talent trees, but not really - mobility and survivabilty gains are either on the level of other classes (for example, 4% magic damage reduction mode) or are a choice node with currently available (like Elemental Bond and Refreshing Waters choice node). There is no justification to just take a major defensive from already quite squishy spec. That is not a thing that other classes should do better, it is just a design oversight / mistake.

This is not a thing anymore. Raid comps are once again taking gear types into consideration. There are 3 specs in the game that use int mail, and 3 specs that uses int shields. Having 1 int mail user is not enough for a raid.

There is nothing wrong with having raid utility overlapping between specs of a class.

That still depends on the group. Some of them less care about loot distribution and more about total efficiency and that is where Elemental has nothing to offer. Having mutual raid utility is normal, but having some specs of same class offer unique raid utility and some not isn’t. If Blizzard tunes damage of specs to be competitive both with each other and other specs of same class, why would you want to bring a spec that does damage over a spec that does competitive damage, but also has unique raid utility? Melee vs range argument? That is fight dependant, but when there are no significant advantages for either, you just bring the utility spec, as it is more useful. As a result, Ele should get some unique utility as well, so that even in such neutral fights it has something to offer to be considered taken over Enhancement.

Once again, you mention a fact, and a way to change it, with no justification. There is nothing wrong with talents scaling better with certain stats.

That is correct for some talents that are designed to scale better with such stat. For example, Echo Chamber is clearly designed as a Mastery talent. However, Primordial Wave is not. It has no clear indication in being the Mastery talent, if anything, it has indication to Haste in Splintered Elements. As a result, it should not give Mastery builds clear advantage over Crit builds, especially since it is already tied to Haste.

I don’t see anything confusing about it. One is 4, the other is 5… Where is the confusion? Should all aoe abilities affect the same number of targets to avoid this supposed confusion? Why?

That is because Electrified Shock is a talent that is created to synergize with Chain Lightning. It buffs Nature damage and makes Chain Lightning prioritize targets with its effect. Why should then one ability affect 4 targets and other - 5? That is equivalent to making Master of the Elements buffing Earthquake damage not for all targets, but to random X of them, because reasons. It is not a good design.

Why is it not a good thing? Icefury is already affected by mastery.

Because it makes Icefury less synergizing with Mastery builds than other talents, as Frost Shocks are its primary damage, not the initial cast. Once again, while some talents that should favor specific secondary stat can and should exist, if they do not indicate that, they should be competitive for different secondary stat builds.

Once again, why is it confusing? You just mentioned a random fact that is probably going to pass unnoticed by most players. It doesn’t deal less damage than a spammable ability, it just deals less damage compared to the crits of the spammable ability, and there is nothing wrong with that.

That is very noticeable for crit builds. And no, it is not a good design, as that is equivalent to making Earth Shock (a spender) deal less damage than Lightning Bolt (a builder) baseline, but having higher crit chance to compensate. There is a reason why for entirety of Shadowlands Lava Burst did more damage than Lightning Bolt even with non-crit, and that should be kept.

Ok, so you just made a claim about it not being desired and it being too expensive without providing any justification. The talent makes your chain heal cheaper and easier to use in spread out situations. What is undesirable and expensive about that?

There was a claim about Chain Heal, not this talent, and specifically for Elemental and Enhancement. For both these specs, Chain Heal is already arguable. Talent makes it castable faster occasionally, but it does not address the major problem these specs have with Chain Heal, which is its mana cost. Some specific builds that want to AoE sub-heal can still take it, but that is very niche. And once again, having more generally useful talents > having more niche talents, especially for talents that compete for 3 slots with 1-2 slots being filled with “mandatory” talents.

Yes, it is a situational talent. The situational nature of a talent is not enough of a justification to buff it. In certain situations this talent is effectively a permanent -15% damage against a specific dps. This sounds very strong to me.

Maybe the meta will not justify this situational pick, but that is not a justification for situational talents to be buffed.

If a talent that competes for 3 slots (actually 1-2, as some talents are pretty much constantly picked), it cannot afford to be too niche or undertuned, otherwise it would just not be taken. Seasoned Winds for entirety of Shadowlands is one of the least picked talents and would continue to be if not buffed. Buffing the undertuned / underused talent to make it more usable is a justification.

The fact that some specs have ways to prevent wasted procs, doesn’t mean that this spec should too.

Now that is actually one of the strangest things I have ever read. “Other specs can afford a QoL change to prevent wasted procs, but your spec cannot”. It does not matter that Enhance has different playstyle, if it has wasted procs, it is a design oversight and it should be fixed, just as it was fixed for other specs / classes. And no, having less wasted Stormstrikes would not lead to such a drastic change as you think, as it would occasionally cover a missed GCD and that is it. RNG nature of Stormbringer also does not go anywhere.

Yes, enhancement is a very reaction based spec, especially with high haste values. If the spec is misplayed, and the player don’t bank resources properly, dead gcds might happen. This is the fundamental core of the spec’s design. That is why enhancement doesn’t have a spammable ability.

If you want to always have a skill to press, there are already several talents that do that. All low cd talent abilities are there with this specific purpose, to make it easier to manage cds, and adding another bankable resource to spend.

And that is fine, however, just as I wrote, there could be alternative playstyles within same spec. Having more RNG based Enhance playstyle with Storm’s Wrath and less RNG based Enhance playstyle with Primal Strike is comparable to Fire Mage having Tempered Flames or normal Combustion playstyle or Shadow Priest having Mind Spike or normal playstyle. More playstyles is not bad, as long as there are not too many, as too many is a balance nightmare.

Never use other classes as a basis to say something is under or overtuned. But I agree that feral lunge should be changed for another reason. Right now it is an utility ability that is competing with massive throughput.

This is a well loved ability that was now made pvp exclusive, and this feels awful.

It is another shared thing between different classes, so argument of some classes doing some things better does not work. There is literally no reason to give Enhancement worse gap closer than other classes other than “reasons”.

Also, it being so undertuned is the reason why it is PVP exclusive now. If it was shorter CD or dealt some decent damage, it could become more competitive with other talents in the tree, so that is an additional reason to buff it.

The fact that a side of the tree requires more talent points, doesn’t mean it is not balanced.

It is not balanced, simply because at the very beginning right side was much less bloated - Hot Hand was 1 point investment, there was no Lashing Flames, etc. They also added them to give more choices for Fire based builds, not to make Fire tree side balanced with Wind based side. The result now is that Fire side is point bloated and Wind side is still not, and that is an oversight, not a feature. As such, it should be fixed.

yes, it would add another path. However you seem to assume that more paths is always a good thing, which is clearly not the case. There are several nodes that have such a connection, and this was intentionally not added.

Also, Elemental Weapons is already competitive, arguably being a mandatory talent.

Having more paths is usually good, as it allows to increase build variety and offer more prerequisite choices for players, allowing to take something that they deem most useful. As a result, Refreshing Waters providing additional path is not a bad change.

You keep suggesting buffs to strong talents.

It is mostly to make that row point invested balanced. Forcing single-target builds to spend 2 points to reach a universal ST/AoE ability when AoE builds can spend just 1 is not good.

Ok so you look at the most important windfury talent and claims it has low value…

With 90s CD and effect nerfed - yes, it does. Assuming that its talent weight was balanced with others initially (as its duration nerf implies to that), now that it got a 33% nerf (from 13.33% uptime to around 9%) and a damage nerf, it might have lower value than other talents.

Yes, the cost of an ability makes it less desireable. that is not a justification to reduce the cost.

Do not confuse less desirable and hardly if ever taken. Shamanism is the latter, not former. As such, it does need buffs to make it more competitive.

First of all, casting it at the end of riptide results in almost no lost healing. And the increased chain heal healing affects all targets. For skilled players this could be a permanent +30% healing for all chain heals with no draw back.

For less skilled players it does have much less value, and will probably never be picked by them.

While that is correct, the point still stands - its alternative is just better. It increases healing with no drawbacks and allows to heal an additional ally, which also makes it apply Ancestral Vigor to him. Having CH that heals all party (5 targets) and applies AV to all of them can be more preferrable than having CH that heals 4 targets and has a gimmick that is sometimes beneficial sometimes harmful. As such, Flow of the Tides could use a buff.

You keep pointing to strong talents and claiming they are not competitive…

3 seconds to Riptide duration is not something I would consider strong. As Riptide ticks, it is just a single additional tick in the end of it. Haste could change that, but so do other secondary stats - they increase effect as well. As a result, making this talent more meaningful could help.

5

This ability would always be taken when in a dps build, and would always be taken for a healer in pvp.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a good design. If taken in this niche context it gets more expensive. I don’t see why this would be a problem. If you want it, pay for it, if it is not worth it, don’t. It makes the choice interesting, as opposed to being just the instant pick it usually is. I bet most pvp healers will gladly pay the extra price.

For pve it is useless. And no, there is no such thing as a free ability on a game that is balanced. All other classes are having to spend talent points for utility, why would we be the exception?

Oh, if that is the case, you are correct. I thought it was just a dead node.

There is nothing wrong with rarely picked talents. And I don’t see how making it baseline would make it better. Having a niche skill as a talent means that you can talent into it when you are going to do content that needs it.

For example, if you want to complete a very high level m+, with no concern for the timer, picking hex is very interesting.

You seem to be under the impression that niche talents need to compete with others outside of the niche scenario. It doesn’t. For overall content you should never pick niche talents, you pick the niche when the situation calls for them.

If there is never a situation where you want it, just remove the skill from the game.

Not necessarily. Opening more paths just reduces the cost. Reducing the cost is not always a good thing. having more direct paths don’t necessarily lead to more variety, it might just lead to the bypassed path to become unviable.

Not all talents should be equally strong for all possible modes. If they are arguable for PVE than it is mission accomplished.

To evaluate viability you need to look at the character as a whole, not just point out their weaknesses as the cause of it. If they are not viable, it means that the overall kit is not enough to be justified compared to other kits.

It is obvious that removing weaknesses is a way to make something viable, however it is not necessarily the best way.

Ok, so take a look at the shaman interrupt and see how it compare with other classes interrupts. Shaman has the best interrupt in the game, it is ranged, it is low cd, it can be used by healers. There is no such thing as similar abilities are balanced between them.

Defensives are also all over the place. There isn’t a pattern to be used to justify anything.

If a class is unbalanced in PVP, the devs already know. they have all the stats, and they have all the tweeking tools. They can increase stun duration, add defensives, increase hp, increase the movement speed, the possibilities are endless. The reason classes are not always balanced is not because of lack of ideas on how to fix them, it is because balance is extremely hard due the absurd level of complexity, and the low frequency of tweeks.

Fair enough

There is absolutely no reason to use other classes as a reference. Talent nodes need to be compared to eachother, not with talents of other classes. Shamans will not be viable or unviable because an early talent has a lower impact than the early talent of another class.

My guess for why the shaman talent is only for nature spells is because they wanted the talent to be stronger for resto compared to the other specs.

More paths is not necessarily more choices. More choices are generated by better balance between the paths, not by the number of them.

There is nothing wrong with the poison removal ability for shamans to be worse than other classes, just like there is nothing wrong with shamans having a better interrupt then other classes.

Barkskin is 20% damage reduction on a minute cd, this is a 10% damage reduction for 5 targets. I don’t get why you don’t see the strength.

There is nothing wrong with anything you said.

Yes, your idea would make crit build more powerful, what I don’t understand is why do you want it to be more powerful. Is the logic just “more powerful = better”?

And once again, the point of niche talents is not to be more powerful on average. It only need to be powerful enough for you to pick it on certain situations.

I never said enh needs to pick crash lightning or resto needs to pick healing rain. What I said is that there are aoe talents sprinkled throughout the talent tree and avoiding them is not always the best way to increase single target.

Of couse it is something good. The idea that all nodes need to be equaly valid for all situations is absurd. Aoe talents are most of the time dead for single target. Some talents are useless for pvp, some talents are useless for pve. This means that you can adjust your talents to match situations, instead of just sitting on a build for the entire expansion.

Yes, of course they can shuffle again. If it becomes too akward to form a build, it is a good thing to make less awkward.

And raid leaders that don’t care about loot distribution will be heavily penalised by the new loot rules. They might be very efficient to kill a certain boss, only to have a bow drop with no hunter to use it.

Is enhancement as good as ele for funnel damage? Is enhancement ranged?

Yes, it is a very big thing. The number of melee slots is always very low.

If you don’t want to be at the mercy of the very specific needs for very specific fights, join a stable guild. There is no other way around it.

So there is nothing wrong with talents scaling with secondaries, but talents with relation to different secondaries shouldn’t interact with eachother? Is the goal allowing players to focus on specific secondaries?

Well, I do agree it is odd, and it makes me question why it was designed this way. However but I don’t see this having any negative impact or even being even noticed by someone using the build.

You keep mentioning mastery builds, haste build, crit builds. While I do agree that some build have better interaction with specific secondaries, and change the balance between them, I don’t agree that the goal is to enable secondary specific builds.

So if a non crit spender deals less damage then a crit spammable, it is bad design. Sorry but I don’t get it. A crit is not something you can control. On average it will deal a lot less damage. It would be bad design if the spammable dealt on average more damage, making the spender unusable.

The talent literally says “50% reduced mana cost”…

There is nothing wrong with a talent being the least used, what would be an issue is if this is a talent so bad, there is never a meta that it would be viable. If that is the case I completely agree with you.

It is not a quality of life change, it is a fundamental design change of the spec. Enhancement is a cd management spec just like healers have mana management gameplay. What you proposed is the equivalent of giving more mana for a healer spec and claiming it is for quality of life.

It is nerfed compared to when it was a legendary effect, an effect that was among the best the entire expansion. Now it costs a talent point…

Ok, sorry, but 1 more target is not better in all situations compared to +30 healing… It might be on some situations, and the other one in others, that is the ideal scenario.

Maybe you are correct, however I’m planning to use that talent. I might be completely out of touch and the other ones are better and no one picks this talent, however I’m not seeing it.

6

Consider the following partial talent selection for a fire based PvP build (assuming this is the scenario in question due to the nature of Refreshing Waters / Ancestral Wolf Affinity):

At 18 points a fire build is forced to take Crash Lightning or Storm’s Wrath in addition to Elemental Weapons for efficient access to Feral Spirits and Primordial Wave. Crash Lightning isn’t a bad choice normally but you can make a case for avoiding it in Arena vs multiple ranged enemies.

A windfury build could look like the following which has a MUCH easier time hitting the main PvP and capstone entry point nodes under 20 points:

This is one of the main reasons Windfury builds are preferred over Fire in PvP (setting aside Hot Hands’ unreliability). A path from Refreshing Waters to Elemental Weapons would at least manage similar capstone access at 20 points. Fire builds are still one point short of parity due to the cost of some things like Hot Hands and Molten Assault.

I’m also still not convinced Elemental Weapons is anything more than a hidden talent point tax. If we are balanced around the assumption of a single entry point path to feral spirits (especially for single target), then that’s 2 points that offer no gameplay modifications just to be in-line with all other classes. You have more options if you are certain you can make use of AoE abilities, but it’s a really expensive choke point for single target builds. If that talent ends up just being a wash / required for competitiveness in PvE, I’d rather just see it deleted and baked into the class (or not if the extra talent point elsewhere is equivalent) with Feral Lunge in its place. If we aren’t tuned around it, then well I guess fire build Enhancement shamans are going to be doing 8-10% more damage than any other class on some raid bosses.

7

Return Shamanistic Rage to all 3 specs, Return earth shock to Enhancement, and return the stun and healing to Feral spirits.

8

This ability would always be taken when in a dps build, and would always be taken for a healer in pvp.

Yes, but that does not mean that it needs to be taxed with necessity to take an AoE ability. For both mentioned by you situations, Chain Lightning will not be used - in single-target fights in PVE dps build and PVP builds in general. Contrary to that, Frost Shock is exactly suited for that. As there are even no other prerequisite alternatives to pick Frost Shock, that literally forces Restoration Shaman to waste a talent point in such situations. Having some cost for utility is fine, but that cost should not involve forcing to take a potentially useless ability. Better option is to either give more choices for prerequisite or just make the ability baseline, as suggested. You think it is not good because you rarely use it, but that does not mean that others would as well, and you can just not use it if you do not want to.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a good design. If taken in this niche context it gets more expensive. I don’t see why this would be a problem. If you want it, pay for it, if it is not worth it, don’t. It makes the choice interesting, as opposed to being just the instant pick it usually is. I bet most pvp healers will gladly pay the extra price.

It is bad design not because it costs 2 talents points, but because 1 of them is close to wasted. Compared to some other utility or even utility of other classes, they do sometimes need to spend several points to reach it, but these points have value for them. For example Typhoon - it is gated behind a node that increases range of all abilities. Such a node is useful - it helps Feral and Guardian to have less disconnect from mobile enemies and can help Resto and Balance to reach targets they would not otherwise be able to hit / heal and gives minor range advantage over other ranged specs. Now, opposed to that picking an AoE ability to reach ST damage / snare can have close to zero value - you pick it mostly for PVP and single-target fights and you will not use Chain Lightning there.

And do you really think that people would gladly waste a talent point to reach a useful ability? I doubt that very much.

For pve it is useless. And no, there is no such thing as a free ability on a game that is balanced. All other classes are having to spend talent points for utility, why would we be the exception?

It is not useless in PVE, especially in single-target fights which involve necessity to move. And are you sure about your free abilities statement? How about Cone of Cold, which is a utility and was in talent tree, but then was made baseline? Or Symbols of Death ability, which was in talent tree, but then was made baseline? This means that classes can get some utility / talents baseline and that is not an exception.

There is nothing wrong with rarely picked talents. And I don’t see how making it baseline would make it better. Having a niche skill as a talent means that you can talent into it when you are going to do content that needs it.

For example, if you want to complete a very high level m+, with no concern for the timer, picking hex is very interesting.

Making it baseline allows to utilize it when needed and do not have to pick between throughput and a niche ability. When you have such a choice, ability often becomes a talent that just PVP builds can afford to pick, just as it happened with Feral Lunge. You yourself stated that for FL it is not a good situation, and the same would apply to Hex.

You seem to be under the impression that niche talents need to compete with others outside of the niche scenario. It doesn’t. For overall content you should never pick niche talents, you pick the niche when the situation calls for them.

If there is never a situation where you want it, just remove the skill from the game.

My statement is about too undertuned or niche, not niche in general. Even if they are niche, they should be useful in their specific niche or the niche itself should not be too limited. Regarding Poison Cleanse Totem, it is already niche - it is useful only in situations when poisons are applied. It is also uncontrollable, which makes it inferior to other classes similar abilities, which can target and cleanse a specific ally. Making it more controllable would not step over other classes roles, as their poison cleanse would still have lower CD, but would make the talent more usable for Shaman in the niche it is supposed to occupy.

Not necessarily. Opening more paths just reduces the cost. Reducing the cost is not always a good thing. having more direct paths don’t necessarily lead to more variety, it might just lead to the bypassed path to become unviable.

Paths can easily be talent point balanced to avoid that. Blizzard can make all prerequisite talents for specific ability cost the same amount of both points to pick them and total points invested to reach them from the initial talent(s).

Not all talents should be equally strong for all possible modes. If they are arguable for PVE than it is mission accomplished.

Making a talent in general tree arguable in PVE is not a mission accomplished, but rather design mistake. If talent is supposed to be taken in PVP only, PVP talents exist for that. If it is put into general tree, it should have decent usage in PVE as well.

Ok, so take a look at the shaman interrupt and see how it compare with other classes interrupts. Shaman has the best interrupt in the game, it is ranged, it is low cd, it can be used by healers. There is no such thing as similar abilities are balanced between them.

Defensives are also all over the place. There isn’t a pattern to be used to justify anything.

Shaman interrupt is ranged with 3 seconds duration on 12s CD. Mage interrupt is ranged with 6 seconds duration on 24s CD. It is less frequently usable, but has both increased range and duration to compensate. Warlock interrupt is 6 seconds duration and 24 sec CD. It is pet based, but that is both pro and con, as Warlocks can interrupt enemies even if they are CC-ed. As you see, there is already some balance done between these 3, as each has pros and cons and their total uptime is close to equal. So you are wrong, similar abilities can and should be balanced.

And what exactly defensives are you pointing at?

There is absolutely no reason to use other classes as a reference. Talent nodes need to be compared to eachother, not with talents of other classes. Shamans will not be viable or unviable because an early talent has a lower impact than the early talent of another class.

My guess for why the shaman talent is only for nature spells is because they wanted the talent to be stronger for resto compared to the other specs.

In this situation, it is actually correct to use other classes as reference. They have similar 2% secondary stat nodes which got balanced with each other, as many of them were tuned to do so. As Blizzard clearly designed these to be balanced between different classes, they should address 2% Nature only crit node as well.

More paths is not necessarily more choices. More choices are generated by better balance between the paths, not by the number of them.

More paths do give more choices. And one thing does not contradict the other - there can be more paths and they can be decently balanced with each other.

There is nothing wrong with the poison removal ability for shamans to be worse than other classes, just like there is nothing wrong with shamans having a better interrupt then other classes.

When the already niche ability is additionally restricted by having no control over it, there is something wrong. Making it more controllable would still not make it better than other classes abilities, it would just make the ability better in its niche.

And Shaman interrupt is not strictly better than interrupts of other classes, as explained above. They are actually decently balanced.

Barkskin is 20% damage reduction on a minute cd, this is a 10% damage reduction for 5 targets. I don’t get why you don’t see the strength.

Barskin and SST are entirely different abilities. Barskin applies to all damage types, is usable while CC-ed, has no positioning limitations and cannot be removed. SST affect physical damage only, has position limitation and can be just destroyed. If you look for something to compare it with, compare it with Resto Earthen Wall Totem. One absorbs a fixed value that is usually bigger than 10%, affects all damage taken and has tons of HP, so is not easily destroyable and second absorbs flat 10%, affects only physical damage and can be destroyed much easier. This does make it undertuned.

There is nothing wrong with anything you said.

Yes, your idea would make crit build more powerful, what I don’t understand is why do you want it to be more powerful. Is the logic just “more powerful = better”?

There is, and it is gimping crit based builds with having one of major spammable abilities not scale with crit at all. This leads to a situation where two different secindary stats builds are harder to balance, as Blizzard cannot assume that number of X points in each stat leads to 1% damage increase - for crit based builds this is not true because Lava Burst does not scale with crit and for Mastery builds it is not true because Frost Shock is not affected by Mastery and Icefury Frost Shocks do not overload. It is both better and easier to address these issues and tune these builds to be still dps balanced than have such exceptions that they often do not take into account when doing tuning, resulting in not balanced dps builds.

My idea is not to make crit builds better than the Mastery builds, my idea is to make them scale properly and tune damage of both crit and Mastery builds accordingly, so that they both remain competitive.

And once again, the point of niche talents is not to be more powerful on average. It only need to be powerful enough for you to pick it on certain situations.

I am not saying than niche talents should not exist. I am saying that some niche talents are undertuned even for their niche, with examples like Poison Cleansing Totem. There is a difference between just niche talents and too niche / undertuned talents.

I never said enh needs to pick crash lightning or resto needs to pick healing rain. What I said is that there are aoe talents sprinkled throughout the talent tree and avoiding them is not always the best way to increase single target.

At least they can avoid their AoE ability if they want to. Elemental has no such possibility currently.

Of couse it is something good. The idea that all nodes need to be equaly valid for all situations is absurd. Aoe talents are most of the time dead for single target. Some talents are useless for pvp, some talents are useless for pve. This means that you can adjust your talents to match situations, instead of just sitting on a build for the entire expansion.

This is not the stated idea. The stated idea was that it is better to have a universal talent leading to more conditional branches than a conditional talent blocking the universal. It applies to both Unrelenting Calamity and Flames of the Cauldron.

If you don’t want to be at the mercy of the very specific needs for very specific fights, join a stable guild. There is no other way around it.

Or you can just give different specs of same class unique utility, so that they are competitive in range neutral fights.

So there is nothing wrong with talents scaling with secondaries, but talents with relation to different secondaries shouldn’t interact with eachother? Is the goal allowing players to focus on specific secondaries?

The goal is for talents that have no direct relation to specific secondary stat to be useful for other secondary stats as well. Primordial Wave synergizes with primarily Haste, so it should not give Mastery builds additional advantage over crit builds.

You keep mentioning mastery builds, haste build, crit builds. While I do agree that some build have better interaction with specific secondaries, and change the balance between them, I don’t agree that the goal is to enable secondary specific builds.

Having specific secondary stat builds is normal. Having different secondary stat builds being competitive is even better. If you can play Haste + Mastery Enhance competitively with Haste + Crit, it is a benefit, as results in bigger build / playstyle variety and helps to adjust to loot drops with secondary stats on them or fixed secondary stats on tier set items better.

So if a non crit spender deals less damage then a crit spammable, it is bad design. Sorry but I don’t get it. A crit is not something you can control. On average it will deal a lot less damage. It would be bad design if the spammable dealt on average more damage, making the spender unusable.

It is just a tuning oversight. Take Fire Mage’s Fire Blast - it is a guaranteed crit, but it still does more baseline damage than spammable Fireball, because it is a CD ability opposed to a filler. How is Lava Burst vs Lightning Bolt situation different?

The talent literally says “50% reduced mana cost”…

Tidebringer reduces cast time, not mana cost. It also increases jump distance.

It is not a quality of life change, it is a fundamental design change of the spec. Enhancement is a cd management spec just like healers have mana management gameplay. What you proposed is the equivalent of giving more mana for a healer spec and claiming it is for quality of life.

It is a QoL change mainly, because its effect on dps output is not as impactful as you think. Besides, if it would lead to too big dps numbers for Enhancement, they can and would just tune it. This would still result in having tuned damage with other classes / specs, but with the proc wasting protection effect attached.

It is nerfed compared to when it was a legendary effect, an effect that was among the best the entire expansion. Now it costs a talent point…

It was already nerfed to be a talent point cost initially, as its proc chance was reduced to 75% and duration to 8 seconds. Latest nerf was made to compensate for buffs to elemental hits damage, not because the effect itself was too powerful for a talent. However, with this nerf they made its previously tuned to compete with other talents value much lower, whih might result in being undertuned.

Ok, sorry, but 1 more target is not better in all situations compared to +30 healing… It might be on some situations, and the other one in others, that is the ideal scenario.

And in which specific situations you think that having your AoE heal affect 1 less target with healing / maximum health boost and consume your HoT to get bigger number is better? I am even curious.

9

Uhhhhh lol…. Raid comps are most DEFINITELY built around the buffs that they bring. Who told you groups are bringing specs based on the type of gear they wear LOL?

10

We are talking about Dragonflight, an expansion that has the group loot system, which means it will follow the same logic as before personal loot was implemented. Back in the day, a very big concern for raid leaders was to bring users of every item type, otherwise loot would be wasted, and the guild would be harmed because of it.

Most ele shaman slots are only usable by resto shamans and the new invoker healer. Shamans also use int shields, which is usable only by resto shamans and holy paladins, and you don’t want only one of those on your raid, you will probably want at least 2 to optimize loot distribution.

11

Yes I’m aware we’re talking about DF. Once again, groups will be formed around buffs, not armour types, not a single person cares if you have a duplicate piece of mail with only one mail user in group, but they do care if all your casters are all losing 5% damage because you have no DH.

Maybe deep into farm if you’re trying to fill slots people are missing you run based on armour type? Or maybe the WF guilds do when running splits first week… other than that, no lol

12

Ok, so currently have about 6 raid buffs that have special seats. However there is absolutely no reason for raid leaders to just throw loot way. If your class is not one of the 6, you will still have a reserved seat due to item usage. Guilds that don’t care about it will be left behind.

Please explain to me why are raid leaders not going to revert back to their behavior pre-personal loot.

13

The rest will be determined by:

a) needed utility
b) damage
c) ranged vs melee
d) useful but not needed utility

If they have everything they need, and the specs damage isn’t awful, maybe they will bring you for your armour type lol. Unlikely though.

14

Ok, so why did they care so much about armor type before personal loot?

15

They didn’t. Getting a bad piece of loot was unfortunate, not killing a boss because your raid comp was made up based on gear type was not done.

Idk maybe your guild did, I can assure you you were in the minority

16

What a coincidence that all my guilds over several years and expansions all cared about this a lot, and stopped caring all of the sudden when personal loot showed up. I must have had a magnet for “armor type enthusiasts” or something.

Ok, so dragonflight will be up in a month and we’ll see if your theory of “Raid leaders don’t care about wasted loot” holds up.

17

Sure. I can promise you raid leaders care more about killing bosses than the occasional piece of wasted loot

18

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

19

I’m simply stating that killing bosses takes precedence over loot stacking. Being a shaman does not guarantee you a raid spot because you need to have multiple mail wearers. A raid buff does

20

Yes, raid buffs are a big concern, but they are very easy to fill. But you don’t seem to take into consideration that you need loot in order to kill bosses. If your raid group wastes loot, it will need more weeks of farming to reach the same power level as a guild that cares about loot distribution.

If you don’t have int mail users, you are basically throwing away 1/7th of all loot drops, and the effect of this missing loot on the raid group will make the entire raid group a lot weaker over time.

Having a weaker group is not the best way to kill bosses.

Don’t get me wrong, if you are all progressing on a boss for the first time, and you are struggling, you might be tempted to sacrifice your raid comp in order to overcome that specific challenge. It is a viable short term strategy, however it is very damaging on the long run.