Feedback: Farseer Shaman

Please check out our new Hero Talents preview and let us know what you think in this thread.

4 Likes

The Farseer Shaman (Elemental) is terrible. Yet it is so close to being amazing. Git rid of the Ancestors. Make it summon Fire Elementals. Make the summoned Fire Elementals cast Flame Shock on 2/3 targets. Get rid of the Flame Shock target cap. Optional: make the tree give some CDR on Primordial Wave. Let the targets of those new Flame Shocks get hit by your next Lava Burst.

23 Likes

I’m just very confused. This doesn’t seem all that interesting at all, just triggering a ghost that basically just acts like your mastery, and sets up Farseer vs Stormbringer to be yet another extension of the existing Elemental issue of the “meatballs vs lightning bolt” conflict that has plagued the spec this expansion

42 Likes

If you are going to give us another “pet” why add into the tree things for our fire elementals/storm elementals. This talent should change our elementals into ancestors. It brings up the current issue of Fire vs Lightning build which this Farseer abilities only touch fire abilities. It gives nothing for utilization for Elemental. Just a flat base line buff to damaging abilities. Nothing Special.

15 Likes

Personally, I’m not a fan of Primordial Wave so I don’t ever see myself taking this spec as Elemental.

For Resto, I kind of like it. Depending on what Totemic does, Farseer will probably be my go-to spec for Resto. I like the idea of summoning a healing “pet” and Ancestral Swiftness is pretty cool.

14 Likes

I’d also add that this gives Elemental nothing of note. It literally forces you to select Primordial Wave as it states in the first talent that your PWave summons an Ancestor which this build is based off of. If you want us to use PWave then have the Ancestor cast Flame Shock on targets not affected by them allowing our Lava Bursts to hit them for 75% Crit Damage or whatever you feel is acceptable.

17 Likes

This was a bit of a let-down. Pushing further reliance on Primordial Wave as well as adding further proc-based RNG into a spec that already has a heavy reliance on them (Deeply Rooted Elements procs) is just… not fun. The concept of the ancestors certainly isn’t the worst and they are somewhat thematic to the goal of the tree.

The defensive node is incredibly lackluster compared to others like Spellslinger or Chronowarden, both hero trees of very tanky specs that will only continue to outpace shaman in the defensive department. Something that reduces the cd and/or adds a charge of Astral Shift would be very welcome. The “utility” node increasing Spiritwalker’s Grace by 4 seconds is equally laughable. A better node would have ancestors reduce the cooldown of SWG when summoned/when they cast their Elemental Blast (upon timeout) etc. Extended duration is VERY niche and will very rarely have actual value.

Disappointed that more resource flooding of Lava Burst will be part of the tree. Ele already has issues with an over-abundance of Lava Burst in builds with Primordial Surge & Rolling Magma due to how readily available and how often you can use Primordial Wave. Due to random procs of DRE, ascendance resets this Lava Burst counter to 3, meaning every time DRE procs you get an ‘extra’ lava burst (This is also relevant during Prim. Surge windows as often you can overcap your Lava Burst charges if you get any additional procs, this hero talent alleviates that). Adding in a 3rd charge of Lava Burst turns this build into even more of a one-button spam spec which is unhealthy for both the game and my impending arthritis.

The capstone (Ancestral Swiftness) would work better as a stand-alone active ability that summoned or interacted in any way with the ancestors. As it is, the entire tree is incredibly passive in the already one-dimensional playstyle of Lava Burst-focused Ele.

Adding in literally anything that interacts with this new mechanic would immensely improve the tree outright. Make ancestors increase the power of the shaman rather than fully doing their own passive damage. And for all things holy, please give us a real defensive node!

38 Likes

Can we PLEASE look at getting Chain Harvest or Vesper Totem? I absolutely hate being in Prim Wave jail. Heck, Necrolord wasn’t even a capped faction for me until this patch.
I dislike how Resto is hard-stuck with Riptide and other healing effects simply because we’re spec’d Resto. Being able to choose between Lava Burst/Flame Shock/whatever and Riptide would be neat. I don’t really like the idea of an RNG homie who shows up to do…like, whatever it is he’s gonna do for however long. Having more control over what happens when definitely feels better.

24 Likes

The initial impression of the Hero talent tree after a full read through is that it fills me with nothing but dread. It has done nothing to address meaningful survivability issues(The chosen defensive options in the tree are just not good). The theme of ancestors is quite limp. They don’t seem to suggest doing anything of real interest other than just randomly doing a little bit of damage. Further the tree seems to focus entirely on lava burst and adding more RNG elements to Lava Burst. The ele community wants the fantasy of bringing the elements together but as it stands we are just lava burst spammers with nothing else in the kit. Nothing in this tree addresses this, changes this, or attempts to alleviate this. Even if we were not just spam lava burst on repeat this tree still adds nothing of interest in terms of playstyle, utility, or class fantasy. This is easily the worst hero tree I have read so far. I guess we pray this gets a full rework, or stormbringer is insanely cool…

As for restoration there is some interesting things about this tree, however resto players usually dislike the idea of just spamming riptides and cleaving with pwave healing wave. This tree again doesn’t enhance class fantasy, address survivability concerns, or improve gameplay. If anything this seems to be reverting to the playstyle that people complained about and we received buffs to chain heal to avoid…

28 Likes

Hello. So starting with the good farseer shaman is a very good flavor win for shaman. that is their fundamental role in the horde and communing with ancestors for abilities and things like bloodlust bring it together to have them directly assist them. However the game mechanics of the class really limit the potential and the interest in the hero talents. I am assuming that stormbringer will bring lightning but tying farseer to the lava burst build when people don’t enjoy doing one or the other is going to cause problems. That however is a problem with ele as a whole. in the tree alot of the power is based around rng or seeming filler talents in a hero tree. Spiritwalker momentum and ancestral swiftness are interesting talents that provide bonuses to utility and are in theme. maelstorm supremacy and primordial capacity are completely filler and will never feel more powerful or more like a farseer for taking them. The biggest issue is that they have been tied not only to rng that we already have (routine communion vs deeply rooted elements) But also tied to a build that does not appear to be changing going into the war within will cause shaman to feel like theyre stagnant and not changing. I fear that stormbringer will be similar and cause the spec to feel worse than it already does. Untying it from rng and from one specific already made build would help it to feel better and less rigid in taking the hero tree. Maybe the hero talent needs to come with an overall of the talents but if they dont they should at least change or augment the playstyle in a meaningful way. My character in my head is a farseer but it just doesn’t feel like this meaningfully shows that so whats the point in taking it

5 Likes

Sharing Farseer at the same time as Rides of the Apocalypse is so incredibly frustrating when they both have a theme around summoning npcs to help the character. The latter is incredibly cool thematically and also fairly interesting gameplay wise with the horsemen doing different things. While Farseer is pretty boring thematically and is just mastery 2 gameplay wise.

That’s not even talking about the hyper focus on lava burst that outside of 10.1 would make one think it’s the only spell in the entirety of elemental tool kit, or further focusing on RNG elements that has been not well received the entirety of dragonflight in deeply rooted elements. Or the capstone turning an ability meant for mobility into a dps choice.

Ele is my favorite spec in the game but man dragonflight has completely killed any hope or interest I have in the spec and I’m sad to see TWW will be continuing the trajectory.

26 Likes

The problem is - ele’s in a bad state right now. We’re stuck in an expansion - a few expansions ago. We’re limping along. But we’re still going. People feel like this hero talent tree locks in the things we dislike - and pushes us further from where we need to be.

Also - our main issue - isn’t our abililty to stand meaninglessly infront of a target (or 5 targets) and do damage over the course of 5 minutes. It’s our ability to put out effective damage in practice - in those real-life situations. It’s our survivability. Being one shot by mechanics that our alts can literally stand, tank, and shrug off feels terrible. Spending 5 globals to get your flameshocks out while the rest of the classes demolish the adds you have your flameshocks on - so they’re dead - before you start your core damage rotation into them feels terrible. Nothing in these trees helps any of that. Nothing in these trees indicates a reversal of anything in our existing trees that are part of the issue. Ele’s been on the backburner long enough. We want some attention.

11 Likes

Hi Devs,

I have a few clarifying questions regarding Farseer Shaman.

  1. Can ancestor procs chain off of one another?
  2. Can multiple ancestors be out at the same time?
  3. Do Fellowship proc’d Ancestors work with Offering From Beyond?
  4. When an ancestor casts Elemental Blast does the shaman gain the buff? Do ancestors prefer non-cc’d targets?
  5. Do spells affected by Ancestral Swiftness / Nature’s Swiftness / Lava Surge count for Spiritwalker’s Momentum?
10 Likes

Feels very uninspired + boring.
Adding more RNG procs to resto? please no
Adding an additional charge and cdr to Riptide basically turning it into rejuv

The theme is fine but at least have some sort of gameplay interaction not passive talents with more RNG.
Also pets or an ancestral healing for you is not fun. We do not want druid trees

I also assume this wont actually work with PTC or any of our riptide talents like all the riptide tier sets.

3 Likes

this just feels very half-done, I don’t think adding another “pet” to help you out is the call. as ele your elementals already do no damage, so why not make them good?

you’re forced to take primo. wave with 3 LvB charges that feeds into endless loop of one button spam, which can proc ancestors which can proc more ancestors [which is super similar to DRE already] and ele players hate DRE, especially after the “bad luck” protection which makes you proc only at the end of a pack of mobs if u don’t play around the proc % which means the flame shocks fall off and yet no flame shock maintenance or applying help in the talents besides the fire ele cd reduction that helps to get it more often and with that increasing FS duration so they don’t fall off when you need to cast 30 Lvb’s per pack to proc DRE.

now that’s not all, we also only get 1 defensive option,which is fine. but seems kinda “weak”, why not make it so earth shield has no more stacks and increases healing by X? ele takes it depending on utility needed that week, and it’s such a drag to re-apply it with those little charges, just outdated design?

10 Likes

Just want to add that this feels very boring and uninspired compared to some of the other trees.

I also dislike how this tree forces you into Primordial wave for Ele and Unleash Life for Resto. Both are fairly deep in the tree and pretty restrictive to what the rest of your build can be (e.g., taking primordial wave when you want to play a lightning build)

9 Likes

Its literally a reskin of monk abilities! What hot garbage!

so TLDR Farseer is just a weaker version of Venthyr : Fllen Order (stolen from monks), Weaker version of Life Cacoon ( stolen from monks) and a button that does the same thing but sommons 1 ancestor.

Pretty much pointless as it dose NOT address any issues the class has with survivability!

It seems like someone was sleeping at bliz and realized they had a deadline in 2 hours and just copy and pasted monk abilitys re named them and submitted them!

PS NO MORE PWAVE PLEASE!

3 Likes

I’m really not a fan of this, for quite a few reasons. Approaching it from a Resto view:

Why does this require us to take specific talents to interact with the core design? I see other hero specs mostly get their ability given to them for free, or it interacts with something baseline, what here is good enough to justify the extra cost imposed? In the “Gameplay and Hero Talents” overview, it’s specifically noted that hero talents should “add new fun without creating new burdens, either in customizing or playing” - what here justifies going against that?

Why is the triggering ability different for Resto and Ele, when Resto can also take PWave? Would it not be easier to just give both Ele and Resto a modified PWave for the first node, with the spirits passive attached?

Why is the capstone just a copy of an existing talent? That feels lazy.

Talking lazy, why is the effect apparently just Ele’s mastery? It could be nice to have that for Resto, but…Ele already has something that copies their spells, why is this just doing that again for them?

From the flavour end, why is it spirits doing this, over it being, for example, elementals? Why is a spirit casting a water bubble to protect my allies, and not a water elemental? Same for Ele, why should a spirit cast Elemental Blast, and not an elemental? Why are the spirits “casting a similar spell” (generic healing/damage?) and not providing specific interesting interactions, like the Riders in the DK “Deathbringer” tree?

Calling to the spirits for guidance would fit in with what I think of when I think “Farseer”, but nothing that they’re doing fits with that, when it seems to be themed around those spirits doing element-based things.

Mechanically, it will probably be good, but there’s nothing here that’s interesting or fun, the design inherently limits talent choice, and the flavour is a thorough fail.

10 Likes

I think this tree is joining Oracle, Lightsmith, San’layn and Trickster for me;

They need to be revisited. Summoning a NPC for a mere 6 seconds where you want to cram casts into to have it deal all the damage… I don’t know it feels weird and doesn’t resonate “farseer” to me.

Nevermind the lackluster doubling down on Nature Swiftness - definitely not a fan of that one.

15 Likes

Call of the Ancestors: Forced again to use primordial wave? Please no. Not again. Unleashed Life is fun for me so I’m okay with this, but if someone didn’t like being forced into it then I could see that being bad. The idea of summoning an ancestor for 6 seconds that mirrors your casts is cool. Not the most original idea, but not bad either.

Latent wisdom/Ancient fellowship: passive increases to a proc. Pick your flavor.

Offering from beyond: CDR for elemental and riptide. Boring, but CDR is fun so Ill take it,

Nature harmony/earthen communion: Not great for defensive talents, but earth shield does a lot of healing so 25% more will probably be good.

Heed my call: passive increase to the proc.

Routine communication: More procs from commonly used rotational spells. Boring, but makes the whole mechanic feel better to play around. This feels almost mandatory.

Primordial capacity: passive boosts

Maelstrom supremacy: passive boosts.

Elemental reverb: This feels unnecessary. 2 charges for these spells feels good to play with. This also makes lava burst even more core to Ele and it has already completely taken over lightning builds.

Spiritwalkers momentum: Incredible for PvP, so far the best talent in this whole thing.

Final calling: damage proc on your damage proc. The water bubble is more smart healing for a spec that has the most smart healing already. Boring, but effective.

Ancestral swiftness: Looks like a better version of natures swiftness. Not bad, but not the most interesting.

Overall thoughts: The theme of summoning ancestors is cool. But other than that, I think this tree is very boring. It has nothing to do with the Farseer from WC3, which is okay, but not what I was expecting.

Ele: This tree focuses on Lava burst and primordial wave, which is a big letdown for me, but I guess I should have expected that considering stormbringer will be the other option for Ele. But I don’t like being forced into primordial wave. I’m tired of playing with it.

resto: This tree isn’t very interesting at all, but it looks like it will be effective and buffs spells that are constantly used so theres that.

4 Likes