Feedback: Farseer Shaman

Classes Shaman
328

When it comes to our defensive issues specifically, I see many solutions. I would be happy if any iteration of these would be implemented instead of giving us Earth shield charges, or making Nature’s Guardian heal for a little bit more like the current defensive node does.

I would love for Elemental Shamans to either get a buff to earth shield where they get the same passive damage reduction (6%) that resto does, and maybe even possibly remove the charge mechanic altogether.

Alternatively, I think instead of buffing Astral shift to 60% while nice, doesn’t fix the problem we mostly struggle with. Our main issue is not dealing with 1 big instance of damage as much as it is dealing with multiple instances of big damage after that 1 Astral Shift charge is gone.

In contrast, classes such as mage/lock can deal with like 3-4+ of them in a moderate time period. Personally, I would give Astral Shift 2 charges instead so we can use them a little more freely on multiple damage mechanics in higher difficulty content.

I could even see them alternatively reducing the cooldown on Earth Ele to something like (3 minutes?) and giving it a moderate damage absorb for the group/raid when used. This could potentially also be the unique group/raid utility we’ve been asking for higher end content.

Lastly, a pipe dream, I would be enthralled if they gave us the PVP talent Burrow for PVE.

Burrow - Spell - World of Warcraft (wowhead.com)

This could double as the extra defensive we’ve been begging for so long, while alternatively being an offensive cooldown and a CC if we don’t need the defensive at the moment. It would also be very fitting to our earthen theme.

These are just random spitball ideas, but it shows there’s lots of ways to fix us.

We also deal with other issues with our offensive toolkit (Spenders feeling extremely underpowered, fire elemental not feeling like it’s worth its 2.5 minute CD whatsoever etc…) so this is just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s many forum posts outlining all of those so I won’t rehash them again.

We have tons of good ideas and the forums are (mostly) filled with constructive feedback, we just never get anything in response and it’s understandably frustrating for people who love the class and do not want to be incentivized to re-roll due to lack of class parity in terms of dev care/utility/design.

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329

I’d love this…but let’s be honest - we’re still playing catchup with this request. If this were any other class, it would be a combination of Earth Shield (with damage mitigation) and a spec-specific shield (Lightning Shield for Enhance and Frost Shield for Elemental). One cast - no charges - dual shield effect.

Now we’re talking.

Also a great idea. I love it.

Yes…we need to be brought into the current game first - and then improved upon for TWW…otherwise, we’re just still behind. 100%

330

I completely agree! Lightning Shield is a joke, especially for Elemental. Give us a spec specific shield that reduces damage and maybe we can empower it with a CD to increase the amount mitigated , that would be fire. If they want to rework earth elemental to channel an absorb shield on you for a 2.5 or a 2 minute CD while giving astral shift another charge that would be amazing.

I also feel like reincarnate needs to be turned into a brez. We should be able to bring others back to life with it.

331

Honestly why does earth Ele still have a whopping 5 minute cooldown? It’s completely optional and doesn’t impact dps at all really… give us the option to use it more often!

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332

Day 21, still no feed back from devs.

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333

That is because we are the adopted step kids of the wow community. They have to take us because they married our parent but we aren’t even blood related to anyone…

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334

I heard our class is designed by the mage designers (doge face)

335

It would be a good place to put a choice node. Earth elemental or a defensive cooldown.

Or it could be a choice between two earth elementals- one taunts and the other shields you.

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336

Zero Mythic experience.

You mentioned killing Fyrakk on Heroic. Anyone who has done that fight (and me who has progged up to the end of p2) on Mythic can tell you its a completely different experience. I think if you did actual challenging content, you would realize in significant detail how badly our spec plays in regards to other healers.

You’ve mentioned over and over the extra riptide charge being a good thing, but then fail to realize that if you mapped out the riptide count over 21 seconds including PTC, you will find out that your count has grown a maximum of one to two depending on perfect play.

So in reality that hero talent from a resto shaman perspective is absolute garbage in the grand scheme of things. I can go on and on but Theun has made an article covering all this more eloquantly than I could ever. You grumble about how people are coming at you but you must understand, “heavy is the head that wears the crown.” By accepting a role that gets you significantly closer to the devs, you have inadvertantly (clearly unintentional due to your reactions here) become the defacto spokesperson. Ergo, its on you to be well informed across the spectrum of Shaman/Resto Shaman.

I emplore you to be a better advocate. You can and should make a difference.

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337

From this expansion, sure. I can see your point, but also Mythic isn’t content all players are exposed to. For one having 20 players on my schedule is difficult because of my Newfoundland Timezone, I mostly play with friends I’ve raided with for the past 10-15 years which is now a group of 5.

Also the time I spent playing this class is irrelevant, it’s in response to Avih comment revolving around him playing for long. Fortunately the class isn’t the same it’s been since then, as most classes change. Some for the better and some for the worse. But that’s mostly on how much experience the player has or the resources available.

Some people work with what they got, and I mostly can’t relate to some of the grievances listed here. But that’s only compared to what I’m exposed to. I’d like to believe I perform well in heroic content, and mythics at 20, I don’t do above 20 either because the difference of 2-3il isn’t worth the extra stress.

338

It wasn’t in response to me. Because you stated previously that you had been playing for 14 years. So I mentioned how long I had been playing. It is what it is…but don’t bring me back into this. I’ve been mostly “on your side” throughout this whole thing. I simply asked a question - and you jumped down my throat.

To be quite honest, I’ve been nothing but polite to you and anyone throughout this whole conversation - as my goal is to simply facilitate proper discourse and help the specs get better.

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339

So what is your true feedback for the shaman class? This class is stuck in the past 3 expacs while all the other classes are moving into the new age of wow and we haven’t even been looked at other than a buff by straight %. That isn’t taking care of the class that is just putting a bandaid on a gapping wound hopping it doesn’t bleed out and die. This feedback so far from most of the Shaman Community has been great to actually show the devs that we NEED help. Like we are desperate for a rework because the class just isn’t cutting it compared to other classes. Thats fine that you don’t run higher keys but when you look at the overall shamans can’t compete with other classes in higher keys.

Then this Hero Tree does nothing to help either spec. As it brings the division of Ele Lightning vs Fire to the forefront, which just deepens the lack of choices you actually get to pick since it’s really locked behind the division of Fire vs Lightning.

340

See, this is my disconnect, I skipped BFA, and SL because of the changes to Shaman and I came back for DF in the last season of Shadowlands, I was introduced to Primal wave after levelling with Chain Harvest lol.
But exclusively Restoration aside levelling during expansions as Elemental, sometimes dabbling in Mythic dungeons as Elemental, when one of my friends wants to heal.

Well from what I see of it, Lava Burst and Riptide benefit core gameplay mechanics of both Reducing cast time of your elemental, providing stats from an elemental blast when the ancestors expire. Adversely Riptide when cast has a chance to summon an ancestor, when expires can spawn another, which also puts an absorb on an ally.

Inner chance of it proccing is a great step considering it would be nice to move from having chain heal as my strongest spell when my current tier set wants me to use Riptide/HS/HW

To say these provide no benefit is unrealistic if you understand how these abilities continuously benefit eachother, Even moreso when the new tier bonuses/trinkets are unknown.

341

I’m guessing you don’t understand that conflict that is plaguing that Elemental Shamans at this moment. We have either a Fire Build or a Lightning build each with different stat priorities, with no illusion of being able to mix and play what you want as you either play Fire and spam lava burst or go with the current less damage lightning stormkeeper build of lightning. IF and only IF the Ancestors are able to proc our Surge of Power and spell benefits for us then it will matter. But if they are just carbon copies of Mirror Image but in Shaman form then it is a total waste of time. The other issue arising from the tier bonuses and trinkets is Now they are going to have to balance each spec to have 2 different 2 sets and 4 sets. Unless they make those generics.

But as is stands right now Shaman are in a terrible place, no give no buff, do mediocre damage, and if you want a high key you better switch classes, we have 1 defensive that is a joke.

Please tell me what your actual feedback is other than rubber stamping this uninspired garbage hero talent tree?

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342

How can you say I don’t understand it, I don’t understand where you are coming from with a lot of these claims.

But shamans rarely get declined for content, have utility to counter affixes and can brez with a talent, comparing classes is pointless and regressive to class individuality.

See my initial post in this thread stating my enthusiasm for the hero tree, it remains the same. If anything I am even more excited.

343

But shamans rarely get declined for content, have utility to counter affixes and can brez with a talent, comparing classes is pointless and regressive to class individuality.

Any spec in the game is perfectly capable of completing any content in the game, however at the upper echelons of PvE content shaman is generally not something you’re on the lookout for. That primarily stems from us not bringing a buff to the group and shaman in general needing to be babysat more often than others when it comes to surviving in high mythic+ content (as Leilau pointed out).

When high-skilled players decide what specs to bring for certain content, that’s going to filter down through the rankings and influence what other groups will want to pick (the meta), which is perfectly sensible, why stray from something that others have demonstrated works perfectly well, and you’d have to go out of your way and potentially sacrifice your time and keystone (for m+) to see if something off-meta is worth to bring.

Currently shaman is not a part of the meta, and it’s been pushed to the side for some time by other classes getting favourable reworks (“defensiveness creep” we can call it) and not having a group buff across the whole class. If a spec is not being brought for higher-end content that’s going to negatively impact how many people play that spec, and if that goes on for a couple of patches in a row you’ll see a community that’s craving any change that’s going to get them brought into the groups (case in point all the meh/negative feedback in this thread, more so for ele than resto perhaps).

So when you say that shaman rarely get declined for content, you’re going to be looked at funny, because that’s not what the majority of people playing the class have experienced for some time now.

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344

Ive yet to see any of this babysitting or exclusion, depends on how you perceive the average player has a group to run content or relying solely on pick up groups.

Not everyone has the same experience with group content, its actually been very kind, only had 3 dps leave keys during this season and it was disconnections more than a problem groupwise.

Don’t fall for the meta hype, cant be under the assumption that just because you dont have all these checkmarks passed you shouldnt try

345

Why are you guys arguing with him? He doesn’t do high keys nor any mythic raiding. His experience is limited to casual content and can’t understand what our reality is; he is not going to understand it better until he tries it. Just forego this whole “I’m right you’re wrong” conversation. If he wants to dig into it, he can just go look at raiderio/logs for the class distribution or actually try the content.

Talk about mechanics and numbers. Continue to converse with him is just going to needless bog down this thread and probably won’t bring the devs any faster.

Statements like these should be clear enough. (I probably get 3 leavers per 2 hours of mythic+, just saying)

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346

You are right, he doesn’t have the average shaman experience that most of us players have with the class running different content. The devs probably don’t even care about shaman anyway it’s been over 2 weeks since this forum has been started and we’ve had 0 posts from them because they don’t care about this class anymore. We aren’t ever going to be a priority anymore since we don’t have the playerbase since they destroyed this class.

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347

Please don’t take this as an attack - I’m truly not trying to offend - but this is simply not true of higher end content. I’ve now hit a plateau at level 26-27 keys where getting accepted into pug keys around my skill level is rare. I’m not blaiming it entirely on my class, but part of the reason is a combination of no unique buff/debuff, minimal defensives, lower end damage, and we’re by far the most mana strapped healer. We have a good overall utility package with a short cd interrupt, aoe stuns/knock up, snares, and some useful totems - note the absence of the brez totem, as a preemptive brez with a slew of other restrictions is just not useful. However, any utility we bring is already brought plentifully with many combinations of classes; and in small group content, that means we’re a liability over classes that don’t carry the weaknesses I stated above.