It makes absolutely no sense that staves are still in the loot table for Resto/Ele without there being some changes, it’s probably the most frustrating thing about this class for me.
Recommendation (or just changing weapon skills for shaman): Innate passive that gives you armor equal to what a shield would be to match the item level of an equipped staff, that also lets you use shiel- imbuing spells on it in addition to weapon imbuement spells.
This problem has been made even worse in TWW, for example the resto Totemic spec has a strong talent choice Supportive Imbuements which gives Tidecaller’s Guard that literally requires a shield to use. Not to mention, the armor loss from using a 2h, which is about 50% of my total armor.
I finally just got a big weapon ilvl upgrade, and it’s a staff it’s very frustrating. Shamans also cannot use too many different 1h caster weapons, so staves currently make up a pretty good size of the available weapon pool in Raid/Delves/M+
Blizzard, please? 
11 Likes
Itemization and quest rewards seems to be a perennial challenge for them, which is baffling considering you’d think it would be dead easy. I remember in BfA when it was almost impossible to get an AGI dagger via world quests. Daggers are the only weapons that work with most of an Assassin Rogue’s kit, but because they TECHNICALLY can use swords and maces those were what was dropped for the spec. They were told about this early on, and it took most of the expansion to change, by which time it had ceased to be relevant.
They need to just get rid of staves as a supported Shammy weapon.
Both of my resto shamans (1 horde, 1 alliance) j have been caught with only a 2-hander equipped. It was totally my fault, I should not have equipped a 2-hander, I should have noticed that I was getting rid of my shield. I was blinded by the big ilvl jump, though. I know better now, I hope!
I do wish that a weapon that’s not in my best interest did not drop for me, tho.
They just need to remove all staff from Shamans personal loot tables.
It’s baffling that they ever were in there to begin with.
Staves have never been better than one handed plus shield in any version of the game. Even without the shield imbues you’re giving up free physical damage reduction from not using a shield.
Agreed. Hpals have a similar issue with 2 handed maces and not being able to use Shield of the Righteous.
Yep and I get two 616 items and the weapon I was hoping to get was a 2hander. Ugh. As resto I hate to lose 4 seconds on healing/cloudburst. I only do m+. Is losing that, that big of a deal or no? I think it is but maybe 4 seconds isn’t as big of a loss? 2% loss to healing also.
What’s the bonus to using a shield other than a meaningless in the grand scope of things armor value?
If you think a 50% bonus to armor and not being able to use one of my buffs is meaningless, I don’t know what to tell you
In the grand scheme of things, the armor is useless against spell attacks and your block chance is pitiful. For a method of defense, it’s pretty trash by itself, I’m less squishy on my clothies.
If they added other bonuses, I can see wanting shields, but traditionally I preferred staves. I mog em to 2h melee weapons.