Considering there are many comments regarding shamans defence it’s very understandable. Astral shift should be 60% reduc as base, and to implement into the hero tree “Casting riptide reduces the cooldown of astral shift by x seconds”
Mail armor and having to use a shield isn’t cutting it.
Thoughts?
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This helps Resto - which of the three specs, I feel like needs the defensive the least. To me, this does nothing for Elemental or Enhancement, who need personal defensives the most - and have been complaining about that lack for the last two expansions.
I think Resto should argue for a defensive that can be place on others.
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Riptide and lava burst are often interchangeable in this instance.
Would you have any consideration of elemental/enhance earning a different type of shield as a combo of lightning AND earth shield?
For defensives it would be nice if they made totems more interactive and opened them up to diffrent on use abilities.
Take Earthen Wall as an example. If it could be changed to either drop it for an aoe absorb like it does now or give the ability for the player to cast it on someone else as an external for a slighly smaller absorb on that person.
Talents already exist they can work with. They can be updated to be more effective or changed all together as needed.
I think shamans were due for a talent revamp a few expansions ago but there wasnt the time to do them as they were trying to meet release deadlines.
All feedback is good feeback. Hopefully some is listened to and we can improve the class.
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Absolutely. I’d be ok if:
- Earth Shield reduced damage by some amount innately
– this, if combined with existing lightning shield (or frost shield for ele), etc for the two specs would be even better - Casting Healing Surge reduced damage taken by some amount
I think either are perfect candidates for precisely what Enh and Ele are lacking.
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I think part of community perception is always comparing ourselves to Mages. We used to pay a hybrid tax right – but now mages have 5-7 defensives, depending on spec…and they can literally outheal us by casting one global (group shield), which literally does more healing than an Ele shaman could do spamming Healing Surge until they are completely out of mana. This doesn’t seem right to me.
It’s also tough for us as players - to know what to argue for. We largely argue for things that are relevant to the current game. Maybe in the next expansion, damage intake isn’t the limiting factor in high keys. Maybe it’s damage output - or something else entirely.
But in either event - personal defensives are one area that dps shamans (and external defensives when it comes to Resto) are extremely lacking in. It’s a limiting factor in the current meta. But what does next expansion bring? We’re not sure. We can only argue largely, for the here and now…and we’ve been arguing for this for two expansions in a row now.
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Now that is interesting, would you consider incorporating Therazane into this ability like “Therazanes Precognition” or something to keep our Earthen Elemental Lord in mind?
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That would be really cool too. If they could incorporate the elementalist themes into our talents.
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For Ele and Enh it would make a lot of sense to have a benefit to healing surge, It does have an internal amplifier to how much HP is missing, but it isn’t enough.
Maybe when an earth shield charge was consumed it built up a static effect that gradually boosted healing surge?
It would be counter-productive to offer these dps classes a spell like riptide as it would contribute more toward button bloat than it could help.
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Since this tree is focused on spirits and astral spells I think astral shift is the best target for increasing defense here.
Simply reducing the cooldown could work. But the important thing is, will this help shaman survive in the areas where they currently struggle? In PvP, and in high end mythic+? Maybe some more passive defense is needed? I wish we had the old astral shift that procced from getting CCd and to include spike damage in PvE somehow in that mechanic.
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Frost/lightning that has 2-3 charges that explodes on consumption to damage nearby enemies?
-Neptulon related spell name possibly?
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Given our nature, could Astral Projection be possible?
-Casted on an ally , lasts for (x time) and/or when your body/projection has taken damage. This could also allow you to cast from their location like a mind control situation that involves a FOV change?
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I feel like some of these suggestions are like rearranging the chairs on the titanic. I personally just want them to delete the tree entirely and start over.
2 of 12 of the talents ARE already talents in our main/spec tree. I’d honestly respect them more if they just just said: “Sorry guys, Farseer has 10 nodes, but you get +1 core and +1 spec talents to compensate”
The vast majority of the talents are completely passive, or could be summarized as such. For example: Spirit Walkers Momentum could literally just say “extend the duration of SWG by 4 seconds” and honestly it would be strictly better but still sub-standard for a heroic node.
7 out of 12 (more than half) of the nodes are completely different between Ele and Resto. While not inherently bad, it shows a lack of imagination and work.
Where other class’s Heroic talent trees take the common ground between two specs and build something on that common ground. Farseers seems more like one guy built an Ele tree, and another built a resto tree, then just plastered them over each-other.
My complaint is mostly with the development process, not with the specific talents.
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That is the thing, 95% OF THE COMMUNITY HATES these talents and you are the Shaman Community Council gives it a rubber stamp of approval. You have 0 feedback that is negative, you would just give it a passing grade and move on, if that is the truth you should step down immediately.
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Sorry friend I started this like two weeks back, I’m learning as I go.
Thank you for your kind words.
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Blizzard it’s not too late! Change the name of this hero tree to Spiritwalker! It fits with everything you are trying to go for with this tree. Summoning and communicating with ancestral spirits. Spiritwalkers aren’t really known for using any particular spells as attacks so if you want to keep this tree focused on lava burst and riptide then that works too. But plenty of spells fit into this theme you can use for defensives or utility such as spirit walk, spiritwalkers grace, astral shift, ancestral guidance etc.
Then instead of a generic sounding name like Stormbringer, you can rename the Ele/enhance tree to Farseer and focus that tree on Lightning spells, feral spirits, earthquakes (or sundering maybe for enhance).
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If they must keep Primordial Wave as a key part of this hero tree, then I suggest the following:
Add a means of easily spreading flame shock outside of Surge of Power and/or empower Liquid Magma Totem. Here are my suggestions:
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Perhaps bring BACK Chain Harvest. I would even suggest converting Nature’s Swiftness into Chain Harvest.
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Another option is to increase the power of maelstrom spenders, specifically earthquake by having that apply flameshock.
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Chain lightning or earthquake gives liquid magma totem CDR or chance to reset cooldown.
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Some hero talent that gives us reduced cooldown on Liquid Magma Totem and/or a second charge.
Also, unrelated to Flame Shock spread, add improvements to Spirit Walker’s grace. Allow us to cast while moving (maybe limit it to just Lightning Bolt like we had in previous expansion)
Restoration Feedback for Farseer Shaman
Considering the existence of the (yet-to-be-revealed) Totemic hero class that Resto will more-than-likely have access to, I can see the intention to lean AWAY from totems when designing this Hero talent tree, despite Restoration shamans having so many useful totems in their kit.
- CALLING OF THE ANCESTORS - Unleash Life is a dynamic ability with a relatively short cooldown, so it works well as a basis for triggering Call of the Ancestors. The Unleash Life talent is also in the middle tier of the resto spec talent tree, so it’s fairly accessible.
- LATENT WISDOM / ANCIENT FELLOWSHIP - “Make spirits more effective” vs. “Make spirits more frequent”. They’re okay, but I’m less likely to pick RNG options over guaranteed performance though.
- HEED MY CALL / ROUTINE COMMUNICATION - “Make spirits more effective” vs. “Make spirits more frequent”. They’re okay, but I’m less likely to pick RNG options over guaranteed performance though.
- ELEMENTAL REVERB - Decent, but I’d rather gain an additional charge of Unleash Life instead. I think it’d help the Resto + Farseer combo flow much better during gameplay than just adding another charge to Riptide.
- OFFERING FROM BEYOND - Decent, though it favors “Make spirits more frequent” choice nodes.
- PRIMORDIAL CAPACITY - Only really noticeable in extremely challenging content where mana is an issue. Most types of game content won’t notice the increased mana benefits at all. I’d rather see something else here for resto.
- SPIRITWALKER’S MOMENTUM - I personally don’t talent into Spiritwalker’s Grace, so this talent just feels like an all-around loss for me. Can Spiritwalker’s Grace be useful? Sure, but I’d rather simply be able to run while casting Lightning Bolt instead.
- NATURE HARMONY / EARTHEN COMMUNION - Both of these require players to pick up specific talents. Earth Shield is far more accessible than Nature’s Guardian, requires less talent investment, and is more useful significantly more often. Earthen Communion is an obvious winner here. I’d rather see Nature Harmony replaced with something that allows Earth Shield to be place on one additional ally (in addition to the benefits provided via the Shaman class tree’s Elemental Orbit talent).
- MAELSTROM SUPREMACY - Numerically useful, but REALLY weak when it comes to creativity and hero talent identity.
- FINAL CALLING - Another talent which encourages players to pick “Make spirits more frequent” over “Make spirits more effective”. The slant is noticeable across the hero tree.
- ANCESTRAL SWIFTNESS - If this is basically a mimic of the Nature’s Swiftness capstone talent in the Shaman class talent tree (1 minute cooldown, etc), this hero talent feels REALLY BAD for me because I don’t talent into or cast Healing Wave, Chain Heal, Downpour, or Wellspring very often. I’d probably just macro it into Healing Rain. Nature’s Swiftness (on the Shaman class tree) is easy enough to pick up despite being in the 3rd tier, but I’m disappointed that Ancestral Swiftness doesn’t also add an additional charge as part of replacing Nature’s Swiftness… and I imagine that the summoned Ancestor matches the duration mentioned in the first talent: 6 seconds. The whole thing is just weak in its currently proposed form.
Elemental Feedback for Farseer Shaman
Considering the existence of the (yet-to-be-revealed) Stormbringer hero class that Elemental will more-than-likely have access to, I can see the intention to lean AWAY from lightning-based spells when designing this Hero talent tree. However, the one-sided design means “If you build a Lightning shaman, you’ll have to pick Stormbringer. If you build Fire shaman, you’ll have to pick Farseer”. The illusion of choice feels terrible.
- CALLING OF THE ANCESTORS - It’d be better to base this off of Earth Shock and Earthquake, since both Fire and Lightning-centric elemental shamans use those abilities regularly (and the overall usage is higher, so Farseer shamans would have more uptime to lean into their hero class fantasy).
- LATENT WISDOM / ANCIENT FELLOWSHIP - (see comments under Resto)
- HEED MY CALL / ROUTINE COMMUNICATION - (see comments under Resto)
- ELEMENTAL REVERB - I’d much rather see this grant the benefits of the “Mountains will Fall” or “Aftershock” talents from the Elemental spec tree.
- OFFERING FROM BEYOND - (see comments under Resto)
- PRIMORDIAL CAPACITY - Not particularly interesting, but somewhat useful when chain lightning and its overloads generate too much Maelstrom. Some players might want to pull Maelstrom too, though that’s less common.
- SPIRITWALKER’S MOMENTUM - This doesn’t benefit Fire shamans very much, but it might be more attractive for Lightning shamans. Personally, I’d like to see something else in its place so that I don’t feel like I have to pick up Spiritwalker’s Grace in order to avoid wasting the hero talent.
- NATURE HARMONY / EARTHEN COMMUNION - (see comments under Resto)
- MAELSTROM SUPREMACY - (see comments under Resto)
- FINAL CALLING - (see comments under Resto)
- ANCESTRAL SWIFTNESS - (see comments under Resto). With the hero tree’s current talent iteration slanting so heavily to Fire / Lava Burst based builds, this is only a slightly more useful iteration of Nature’s Swiftness since it would not be limited to Nature spells. Ancestral Swiftness can simply replace Nature’s Swiftness in the base tree, and something else more interesting can go here instead.
Additional Feedback (Alternate Hero Talent Suggestions)
- EARTHEN PROTECTOR - Replaces Nature Harmony. Your Earth Elemental is now a weaker but permanent pet which follows and protects you. (Functions similarly to the Warlock Voidwalker pet).
- ELEMENTAL GENERATIONS - Replaces Maelstrom Supremacy. Alternating between damaging and healing spells or different elemental damaging spells increases your Intelligence by 3%, stacking up to 3 times. Triggering the effects of Calling of the Ancestors consumes these stacks to summon one additional Ancestor per stack consumed.
- ASTRAL TRAVELLER - Replaces Spiritwalker’s Momentum. The cooldown of Astral Recall is reduced by 9 minutes, and you can cast Astral Recall during Far Sight to teleport you and your nearby party and raid members to the location of your Far Sight. Cannot be used inside of instances.
- SONG OF THE ANCESTORS - Replaces Ancestral Swiftness. Your summoned Ancestors do not expire nor lose duration during Bloodlust, Heroism, or similar effects. Also, the duration of Sated, Exhausted, or similar effects is reduced to 5 minutes.
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I don’t mean to keep beating a dead horse, but if we’re going to have an argument then it should be based on sensible logic.
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3 charges of riptide - How does 3 charges of riptide help us at all? Increasing the riptide charge by 1 only increases our output by a MINIMAL amount, because we’re suppose to be keeping it on CD, especially if we’re playing into Primo Wave. Two charges helps us to keep it from over charging during an encounter’s down-time, if you’re not casting riptide and it caps over two and into the third one, there is an issue the hero talents can’t fix. The only reason why this is good is if there is a mechanic that randomly gives us a full charge of riptide.
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Basing your arguments around “I played this spec for xx years so I have basis” is just not a good logic. Do not get me wrong, I respect casual players, and I think they are crucial to the survival of this game; however, if we based the balancing of a core system of an entire patch because someone thinks they would like it on Heroic would make the majority of the active players quit the game. Casual players should be just casual players and play the way it is to enjoy, and not actively changing the systems of the game. I would argue this class (and some others) is so trash is because they tried to accommodate these opinions. Casual players don’t get to use “casual” as an excuse to have low progression and advocating for core system changes at the same time. They definitely can, and should, voice out their opinions but any arguments surrounding mechanics and systems (not including Quality of Life systems) are just a waste of time imo.
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Don’t hate the guy for having different opinions than you. His job is to make our community heard, not to agree or disagree with you. If he sees this much negative response in this thread and not reaching out to someone who can get this thread some exposure, then you can keep mobbing him.
You can call me an elitist or whatever you want, but I only care about class performance at a high level. I simply don’t want another expansion where resto shaman gets buffed 5 patches in a row to play catch up while no raid composition has a slot for resto shamans during the first 4 patches.
As you can see, this is my 2nd post. Ever. My first post was earlier in this thread. I don’t join in conversations a lot, but I really miss playing resto shaman in progression…
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I feel you there and I don’t believe hero talents even optimized can fix this for us. We need a bit of a talent redesign in our general talents too. SLT use to be strong enough to get us into some progression raiding but other healers have since become more powerfull with their raid CDs.
A big issue for this too is that over time our better raid buffs were either removed or given to other classes. Other classes were buffed with raid buffs while ours were outright removed. Wrath of Air Totem back in the day + all other totems we use to have to buff main stats. Bloodlust has been given to other classes over the years. We weren’t the highest on throughput dps or healing wise but we atleast made up for it with the utility brought to raid. Now we are in the same boat compared to other classes. Always mediocre but we don’t bring anything to a raid anymore.
Being desired in raid as resto we’d either need to get a talent or buff that gives the party/raid a permenant buff of sorts or make our healing throughput that high that it alone is enough to warrant a resto shaman in raid.
This is a long rant, it always seems any shaman post ends that way -.- but these hero talents though a nice idea won’t do enough to change our class standing without a bit of a general talent redesign.
Agreed.
This hero “capstone” talent is so uninspired and bad. I just hate to do this but it needs to be said. It’s extremely low effort.
If you go look at other capstone hero talents you’ll see that it serves as a means to tie the whole tree together. Ancestral Swiftness does none of that. It’s also super weak especially for Elemental. A 10% damage increase to a single spell every 1minute is a joke and gives a modicum of value only if it is if its used on Elemental Blast. It also feels really bad to use. I have to press a button thats on a 1Min CD to be able to instant cast another spell? Why not just make it so that Lava Burst and/or Primordial Wave or Ancestral Spirits (the actual hero talent focus itself) cause your next spell to be instant cast and do 10% more damage.
Idk, it just feels like there are so many missed opportunities with this hero tree itself and it feels really bad. And I worry it won’t be improved given the track record Blizz has regarding the lack of fixing other classes/specs.
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