I am a 15x CE mythic raider/raid lead, I get around 2.5-3k io in M+ each season, and I grind at least 1800 in arena every season. I play both PvE/PvP at high levels and also do lots of world pvp and bgs. I’ve played like every day for 18 years…lol.
Please note, this does not make my opinions better or more prevalent than yours, I just want to give context and share my history so yall know I’m not a noob.
Today, I want to talk about Shaman in general and take a moment to explain my gripes with each spec, give feedback to the developers, and engage the Shaman community in a productive discussion!
We’ve definitely gone through a bunch of changes throughout the years, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the worse… but I feel we are very close to being a “perfect” class.
I will start with Enhance…
I would love to see Shamanistic Rage Return as a class tree talent/defensive for all three specs.
Restoration:
Elemental:
Overall, I think shaman is so close to greatness but really, some things need to be simplified, rolled together, and tweaked to really bring out the potential of what a shaman can be in this game.
I think the developers are on the right track but I’m curious to see what the community thinks and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the hero talents and what happens in the future…
Please let me know what you like or dislike about my opinions, or give your own below! Thank you for reading.
For Resto I don’t have a problem with your suggestions but I personally don’t want to use those weird optional spells like downpour and wellspring. I feel like Resto has a really solid spell kit that covers all needs you would have for healing, no more spells required. Separating cloudburst from healing stream would also add another button on a bloated spec.
I really don’t like your suggestions for Elemental. I get that you want the elements to all be used for the spec regardless of how you build, but ditching lightning bolt entirely for lava burst is the last thing I want. I actually want to use lava burst less. First priority should be to make spenders feel good to use, then maybe make ice fury more core to the rotation and incentivize you to use all three elements as often as possible with some kind of passive effect.
See I disagree with you about the Icefury, I wish Elemental would step away from Frost Shock and Icefury all together. I feel like removing these 2 spells would get rid of alot of button bloat in the rotations. However us Ele shamans can’t get rid of Lightning Bolt, that will always be our filler spell. Elemental Blast should feel better to use.
Hard disagree with all points related to 2 hand. It’s not popular in SoD at all with virtually nobody actually playing it looking at data. Before you say “oh thats because of poor tuning” then it becomes apparent that they can’t actually make 2 weapon types balanced in what is a vastly more simplistic game; if they can’t balance it properly in SoD what makes you think they can balance it here? It also shows that people care more for balance rather than the fantasy of swinging a big stick.
Frost DK has arguably become worse since its implementation of 2 hand and for Fury it is largely ignored completely and single minded fury is simply there. The only reason its not as bad for Fury compared to Frost DK is that 2 handers are always better and you have the means to guarantee 2 handers in vault and M+ end dungeon loot via setting your loot spec to Arms; Frost does not have that option for one handers and you very much can end up with the situation of getting vault slots for example eaten up by 2 handers you don’t want when while wanting for 1 handers. As of now, since BoS is considerably better with one handers and 2 hand is better for Obliteration, this can lead to being locked out of the other build when fights may be much more favorable for another build. Enhance would be put in that similar boat as well, especially if they decide to take the route of making one handers for Elementalist and 2-hand for Storm.
I agree with alot of your other points related to enhance but if they want to bring some form of 2 hand enhancement shaman back, it should be purely cosmetic/transmog and have no gameplay associated with it at all.
Please no. Trying to balance DW vs 2H is why frost DK is currently so awful. It limits the talent tree and causes the whole spec to be undertuned just so neither spec is overpowered. As far as warriors- I don’t recall the last time I saw a warrior with a 1H that didn’t also have a shield.
Bringing back 2H is the worst thing they could do for enhancement. People get rose colored glasses over that one time back in vanilla when the rng stars aligned and they deleted somebody in a bg, but in the other 99% of situations dual wield works much better with enhancement’s mechanics.
Enhancement has been dual wield since TBC- please, just leave it that way.
The implementation of 2h to frost didn’t make it worse, it gave people an incentive to play it at all with how many detest BoS. When I’ve played my Frost DK I’d sooner shove a fork into my eyes than play BoS. I will play 2h obliterate over it -any- day even if it is weaker because I find it more enjoyable.
Also its not as balanced in SoD because they don’t CARE about balance, they want it to be imbalanced - they want it to be FUN. The main reason why its not balanced in SoD isn’t even because of the weapons differences themselves it because they buffed rockbiter by over 60% and at 40 you get a 350 AP steroid. (Literally doubles your dps)
Also, I’d say its more so the general lack of any patch notes or attention to Frost DK in general that is the reason for it being so underwhelming rn.
Not to mention is also in the boat of classes to not get a class overhaul this expansion.
The thing is that they could have just tuned Obliteration to be viable compared to BoS and just left it as either DW or 2-hand. Not to mention that for the point where the two builds had parodied each other, it took essentially a whole expansion for the devs to figure it out. For SL there was a large period where DW Obliteration was still better than 2-hand obliteration on single target and it made me want to scratch out my eyes seeing 2-handers in my vault even though I had bis 2 handers (for unholy) already. They got it kinda down now but they now have to constantly play this game between not only tuning the two builds but also tuning things talents linked specifically with 2 hands for example such as MoTFW and Shattering Blade. I say this as a person who vastly enjoys Obliteration over BoS. I’d rather not sandbag Enhance with that whole process.
But another large reason they are not balanced is due to MSW generation. the amount of MSW you generate from auto-attacks is a large contribution to resource generation and damage output and DW will always top in that regard. As it turns out, they can’t just slap a magic number on 2 hand regarding % chance to generate MSW or attack speed buffs to rectify this. A good comparison is looking at one of the important reasons DW is better for BoS is because of runic attenuation generates way more RP with DW vs 2-hand.
So rather than add another cog to the machine the devs have to spend time tuning and essentially doubling the work, I’d rather they focus on many of the other points OP and others have discussed.
My main point with the first part though was disagreeing with his reasoning, 2H didn’t kill frost DK, it gave it another way to play that wasn’t a very hated BoS style. Frost has more issues than 2H enhance would have though as frost DK designed talents specifically for it. And just like SoD, the issues are mainly because of weapon enchants. As ya pointed out as well.
Ideally, the best way to have a solution that satisfies people without causing balance issues is cosmetic. Might have animation shenanigans but, they’re already a damn mess as is lol.
But also another cog in the machine for the devs to tune? Man lets be real here … Neither of the two specs being discussed have even had attention, much less patch notes. Nothing has been allotted to these two. They’re specs that are rotting in the bottom of a pit.
I don’t think its even a balancing struggle really, they just don’t care about the specs. And even the few mentions of them in patch notes, aren’t even things that are attempting to tackle their issues. They’re just a nickle tossed to the homeless on the side of the road.
I don’t know if that’s true about enhance. We’ve been pretty stellar in all of the raids to the point of literally being fight-defining on some bosses with the funnel capabilities we have. M+ we don’t get many complaints other than defensive issues on high keys but lets be real, they balance the game around people being able to do 20s, anything above is the Wild West. They’ve made well-targeted iterations on the spec tree throughout each patch and we have had something other classes haven’t had with having 2 distinct builds that saw play throughout the raid in Season 2. Is there more work to be done? Yes, but I’d argue that more so for the class as a whole. Storm needs a whole lot of work given it is a build that lives or dies on Elementalist being bad. And I would very much believe that adding 2 hand in would lead to more difficulties with making Storm viable.
No, I’m pointing towards Malestrom generation from autos being a large issue contributing to why we’re seeing what we’re seeing in SoD. I however don’t discount the impact that weapon enchants have.
My concern is that it took about 2 years (read: a whole expansion) to figure out how to make 2 hand Obliteration a viable option to compete with BoS. I don’t want the devs to twiddle their thumbs trying to do the same for enhancement when they could just make it a transmog option and focus on more important things the spec/class needs.
Also:
If that was true, then hunters would still be running people down with scorpids.