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I apologize in advance for this very, very long post.
As a long time WoW player that has mained shaman for the majority of my time, I have played through the many versions of resto (and sometimes ele) shaman. In all that time, I have seen very minimal iteration with the class, and even fewer amounts of communication regarding the goals and direction for the specs I play. With the announcement of Dragonflight and the stated design philosophy of more evergreen class design, I became optimistic that this would be the time shaman would receive innovation and iteration. I was hopeful that this design direction would open up playstyle choice and the integration of past, well received, spells and tier set bonuses. Unfortunately, throughout the Dragonflight Alpha and Beta, the shaman trees were changed very little.
During the course of the live version of Dragonflight, Blizzard started with the concept of reworks to classes and specs, and these reworks showed that the developers were finally in-tune with the playerbase, by providing detailed information regarding talent changes as well as making changes based on player feedback. This instilled a new hope that shaman would see some attention eventually, and that my voice (among many others) would be heard at last. There was a quick moment of excitement when shaman got a few talent tweaks in 10.0.7. This did positively affect the class and spec I played most, and it was great. Sadly, this would be short-lived as the same pain points reemerged, with the biggest pain points (in my opinion) being class/spec identity, lack of talent options and choice, and button bloat.
Beginning with class and spec identity, I am at a loss as to what makes each shaman spec unique when compared to other class specs within the same role. Often times, the utility a shaman would bring is brought by another class, and the other class’ version is far superior than the shaman version. A good example here would be druid’s Stampeding Roar and shaman’s Windrush Totem. Stampeding roar can be talented to have a shorter cooldown, has a base faster speed boost, and does not rely on positioning of a totem. Conflicts like these become compounded when class raid buffs are applied. Using druid again as an example, if a boss fight favored using run speed abilities, and there is a choice between shaman or druid, druid would always be the right choice. In this example, not only is their speed buff better than shaman, they also bring a necessary 3% buff to versatility.
Looking at broader utility, shaman used to be the only class that brought Bloodlust/Heroism to the group. The change to open this spell up to other classes was a good change, and I firmly believe that to still be true. Where this becomes a problem is when other classes are given the same ability, but also bring additional tools that shaman don’t have. An example here are mages. Mages cast Time Warp and bring Arcane Intellect. Additionally, mages have many personal defensives on top of an immunity. When considering a ranged DPS spot, if the choice was between a mage or an ele shaman, mages would win out every time. Ele shamans may have Bloodlust, but that is where the utility ends. Unfortunately, these are only a few examples regarding the lack of shaman identity, and sadly, there are more I could name.
Moving on to the next topic, I do feel that shaman suffers from a lack of talent options and choice. Being a class that offers a melee DPS spec, a ranged DPS spec, and a healer spec, I can understand the difficulty in creating a class tree that provides attractive options for all of those roles. In fact, the druid tree experiences this issue as well because of all the different roles a druid can play. With that in mind, druid has seen a lot of iteration and updates to their class tree to help provide clarity in the choices and the intentions behind them. Conversely, the shaman class tree has seen very little class tree adjustment in the same time frame. These lack of changes have caused me to almost never change the layout of my class tree because the other options are either not captivating enough to switch to, or require too much investment for the trade in points and/or lost abilities. To help illustrate my point, let’s look at the class tree through the lens of my setup for resto shaman.
When picking my points, I feel almost required to pick up every point on the left side of the tree. The only talent I actively avoid is Mana Spring. I avoid Mana Spring because the talent is very weak, and feels out of place near the very bottom of the tree (where more powerful spells/utility are found in other classes). Moving on to the middle of the tree, I only focus on talents that give me defense and affect my totem abilities. I never pick the middle capstone talent because there has never been a time where either totem can shine and provide meaningful impact. Additionally, even if I wanted to take one of these talents, I wouldn’t because of the overwhelming button bloat shaman has as a baseline. Finishing with the right side of the tree, chain lightning is chosen mostly because of the pathway to Brimming with Life and Nature’s Fury. The talents below those choices are more quality of life and feel better to take since all other choices feel weak or are so unimpactful, I could pick any random talent and not notice a difference.
My last issue with the class tree is regarding the capstone talents themselves. As far as a capstone talent goes, they should feel powerful, but none of these feel worthy of their placement. Starting from left to right, Nature’s Swiftness is not a powerful, nor class defining spell. I don’t feel uniquely shaman or powerful with it talented. This spell is something I use on CD with no thought regarding its useage. I use it mostly to give me a free chain heal cast and then do it again 1 minute later. Interestingly, resto druid’s have a spell with the same exact name, an additional talent to lower its cooldown, and is at the top of their spec tree. Based on the placement of this spell in both trees and the near exact nature of what the spell does, it feels like shaman have to invest way more to get something druid’s have to invest so little for. The spell serves the same purpose in both trees, and is not a powerful, class defining spell in either.
Next on the capstone list is the talent choice of Stoneskin Totem and Tranquil Air Totem. As capstone spells, there is an expectation that these effects feel powerful, and yet, neither of them are. There could be an argument made for Stoneskin Totem because of the damage reduction, but this reduction is so minimal, requires constant upkeep, and no way to feel/show that it had any impact at all. Even with using logs, there is no definitive way to determine how much it was able to contribute to the increased chance of survival. Compare it to Tranquil Air Totem and I don’t know if this totem has ever been picked…ever. Outside of PVP uses (which I believe it’s not useful there, either), it has zero benefit to a PVE focused player. As far as capstones go, these can be removed and I would never notice them gone.
As for the last capstone talent, Totemic Reach and it’s upgrade talent, this capstone can be considered somewhat capstone worthy. It does have uses (mainly for resto shaman) and can directly impact throughput. My only issue with this capstone is something I have mentioned before, button bloat. There are just too many buttons!
Up next on my agenda are my feelings of lack of playstyle choice and options. For this section, I am going to focus on resto shaman as that is my main spec for WoW. The resto shaman tree is a bit of a chaotic mess that is akin to a college student that “hasn’t yet found themself”. From my perspective, shaman appears to be struggling with deciding which playstyles to support. From what I can see, it looks like there are two playstyle choice paths. One path is focused more on strengthening Riptide and spread/cleave healing with Primordial Wave/Healing Wave, and the other path focused on upgrading Chain Heal and tight group healing. Sadly, neither one of these playstyles have a cohesive path in our tree. With Chain Heal and Riptide talents spreadout through the tree, it feels very disjointed to try and build either playstyle without spending way too much on spells that feel useless for either spell or just feel too filler they aren’t noticed.
Another issue that is presented in the spec tree revolves around the actual choices themselves and what they bring to the spec. Right now, I don’t see a point in ever choosing Primal Tide Core, Wellspring, Downpour and Earthliving Weapon. The technical issues with these spells are many, but my top reasons are focused around how the spells feel weak for the investment, sometimes add more button bloat, and/or don’t have any spec gameplay loops that feel like they belong. Wellspring is an example of a spell that felt good to use, but had no spec gameplay loop, and was just another spell added to a stuffed hotbar. When looking at Downpour, Downpour just feels like a burstier Healing Rain, but with none of Healing Rain’s benefits, and just another spell to add to button bloat. Primal Tide Core is a passive choice, which I appreciate, but powerwise, can’t compete with High Tide due to how focused on Chain Heal we are. Earthliving, on the other hand, requires way too many points for it’s power gain. ELW would do better if we spot healed more, but with the over abundance of chain heal casts, and how bursty healing is in Dragonflight, there is little to no true value here. As a side note, while we do cast a lot of chain heals, I am still very much a chain heal enjoyer and am happy it has returned to prominence in our toolkit.
When looking at available spell choice options, I am disheartened at the spell selection that is available to us. My biggest frustration centers around a spell that I have never enjoyed using since its inception, and how forced I feel to use it now. The spell in question is Primordial Wave. Through all of Dragonflight, almost every tier set has highly encouraged the use of Primordial Wave because the sets were very focused on Riptide. Even in the chain heal setup, Primordial Wave is taken because it requires less points to be able to pick up the bottom chain heal talents and still get a third capstone. Even if you don’t use the spell effectively, you still want to press it because it is just an extra charge of Riptide on a longer cooldown, with an additional button to add to the bloat. Seeing as I have not then, and still don’t like this spell now, I would prefer there be a way to path around it while still being able to get the chain heal talents and 3 capstones, or by providing an attractive alternative choice that I would find more enjoyable. Ideally, this choice would be Chain Harvest and the upgrading talents to allow it to work similiarly like it did in Shadowlands with legendaries. This would make me, and at least one other person, very happy.
And finally, we get to button bloat. The term says it all. The button bloat in the game as a whole has steadily increased, with resto shamans feeling some of the worst of it. With so many options available in both our class and spec tree that can take up keybind space, I just don’t have enough fingers and the brain power to use them all. Between the class and the spec tree, there is just too much. I desperately feel that a reduction is needed for both my accessibility but also reducing cognitive load. As I have seen with other classes recently, shaman can benefit greatly from the merging of multiple talents that affect the same spell, or by removing talents and adding their effects to the base spell themselves. A few examples from my point of view are:
Class Tree Talents
Totemic Projection
Totemic Projection is a spell that should just be baseline for most totems. Similiar to how Vesper Totem worked, during the duration of the totem, you should be able to click the same totem button to reposition the totem. This would help remove friction for when a tank pulls away from Spirit Link Totem, or Earthen Wall Totem needs reposition because of a random boss mechanic. The talent itself can even remain in the tree, and just “upgrade” the totems it effects.
Earth Shield
This is more of an issue with the amount of buttons required to press per minute, but when Elemental Orbit is talented, it would be a great QoL to have Earth Shield also applied to the shaman if Earth Shield was cast on a friendly player. Many times throughout Dragonflight there have been raid fights that used Earth Shield charges very quickly, and having to reapply it to myself and my target becomes too much when trying to heal with my other spells.
Spec Tree Talents
Stormkeeper
For resto shaman, this is a spell that I would like to see made passive, similiar to how the ele tier set worked. Every x amount of time, lightning bolt or chain lightning are instant cast, and deal more damage. I think this would be a good way to reduce button bloat, but also provide a little more damage that resto can use when able.
Unleash Life
Unleash Life has never been a satisfying spell for me to use, and I actively avoid taking it as much as possible (both because I don’t like what it does, and because it contributes to button bloat). When I do feel compelled to take the spell, I mainly use it to buff Chain Heal during high tide, and no other thought is put in to the use. Rarely do I use it for anything else, and if I were to, I just wish that power was baked in to the base spell itself. This is a spell that I would like to throw away and either provide talents to upgrade the spells it would affect, or just add the upgrades to the base spell. The focus of this spell in the Farseer hero spec has turned me off from ever wanting to try Farseer at this time.
Downpour
As a spell on its own, I like what Downpour does. As a spell in practicality, it feels very close to Healing Rain, and doesn’t get any of the benefits Healing Rain does. I would like to see this talent made passive, and allow Healing Rain to upgrade to Downpour, with all of the same upgrades that Healing Rain gets. For Acid Rain, it could do all its damage upfront rather than over time. Also, since this spell becomes another active button, it also can contribute to button bloat.
Ascendance
In my opinion, Ascendance and Ancestral Guidance are very similiar. Ancestral Guidance spreads healing to a limited amount of targets (with a healing cap) where as Ascendance does the same, but for an unlimited amount of targets (with no healing cap). I would like to see the spells merged, and lower the cooldown (and power) so that shaman still has a strong, short healing CD, but not the need for 2 spells that do almost the same thing.
Conclusion
If you have made it this far, I appreciate the time you have taken to read through my thoughts and opinions. I have to be honest and mention that as a shaman player, it does feel like our class feedback goes ignored, and there is no open line of communication regarding design direction. I hope that it is still early enough in the Beta that changes to shaman can still be realized, and that I can have something to add to the excitement for TWW. I see all the exciting, and positive changes to the other classes and specs, and I want to be able to feel the same way about my own.
Special Request
Please, please, please update shaman spell animations. Ascendance is still using a model from Cataclysm, despite much cooler elemental forms being added to the game since then. Wellspring can also use a glow up, to make it more noticeable and visually exciting. There are others that could use it, too, but these two are the most important for me right now.