I’m a returning player in late BFA/SL (from MOP) that finally got to play his rSham in SL. I mostly PvP and understand WoW is primarily a PvE game, so I took that into consideration when thinking about reworks and people feeling like this class is abandoned.
I’m not a fan of Homogenization…
Shaman has a lot of skill expression which I don’t think anyone wants to really change. To me it’s almost there but there are some QoL things that can help. Without talking about adding X or giving Y here are some thoughts from the last couple of years.
Overall the class tree needs some stuff moved to the spec trees and slimmed down. People are maxed out on talent builds and it’s annoying to bind everything. Again, I like the expression though.
The class is extremely global starved. Some specs have more than 2 sometimes 3 defensive or utility abilities off the GCD.
Healing Stream should be baseline and off GCD.
Earth Shield’s Stacks should just be removed and make it a movable buff like Beacon. Place it and forget it… With having 2 now this eats away at the rotation and adds to bloat.
combine stone and poison totem.
Totems need larger health pools. Both Shaman biggest CDs can be killed in 1 or 2 globals while rdru pops a tree farm off GCD. With rated BGB this is needed or rSham is DOA for BGs.
Windfury totem should just be baked into the wind fury weapon imbue… Bam one less global an annoyance gone.
Enhancement needs a meatier health pool. I’ve heard people mention earth Ele being baseline and it being like a DK pet with on demand Stun… not bad but not sure.
some of the PvP talents should be baseline. Like ride the lightning, etc. There’s too many options that work in too many scenarios.
I want to avoid the mobility creep in PvP, but it doesn’t make much sense to me that some melee like Pala is sudo ranged while the elemental calling melee has to be in someone’s lap to do their basic rotation.
I don’t know why spirit walk or ghost wolf isn’t a root break. Could explore that option in the class tree.
In PvP Ele is fairly fine, I know people are calling for full reworks on the PvE side, so I’ll step away from that convo since in PvP they work with a lot of comps.
The Farseer needs a 10am Monday meeting, yikes for Ele, noooot baaad for Resto…
Anyway, improve on what we have, make some QoL changes and combine tools.
All totems should be off GCD (Shield too prolly), why just this one?
Interesting idea, would be curious about the power of ES vs Bacon. ES is quite strong I would wager a guess… At least twice as strong as Bacon or even double bacon.
Theres a lot of answers to this problem as well. Higher health pools for us would help the totems by proxy. Making them immune to the first instance of single target damage would go very far, especially for grounding totem. Can go even further with this. Totems that are killed give a shield to the shaman. Make it a choice: commit at least 2 globals of resources to kill this totem and heal the shaman in the process or ignore it. This could also lay the groundwork for another ability that lets you sacrifice all your current totems to force that shield per totem. Instead of it being dependent on your enemy to give to you.
They have plans for windfury totem to do something interesting in the totemic hero tree.
Deff not a good idea, if anything brimming with life should be doubled or more. Dont think blizz or the players want shamans to be a pet class. Now that idea for a tank shaman has a lot of merit.
Grounding totem is the biggest offender here, for sure. I assume PvErs would squeel if they had ride the lightning.
Sprit walk 100% is a root beak? Thunderous paws is a snare break. Personally I would love to see feral lunge be skill shot ability like a totem or heroic leap, but only if you are in ghost wolf form first. Enhance is forced into a juggernaut style gameplay (exactly what you imagine it to be) But it doesn’t have the passive survival to actually soak hits to then heal through them, or attempt to. Id prefer that play style as well, Don’t think it’s good for us or the game to compete in the mobility arms race. Better stuns is a more reliable path and will open our options in PvP a lot. Lasso being 30 seconds, Sundering being 30 seconds and a 3 second stun (at least a talent that make that possible), capacitor being an instant stun but channels its stun on the targets over the duration, almost like an aoe lasso. Especially if they implement the immune to first ST damage hit would help that a lot.
Enhance would greatly benefit from something like:
Spirit Siphon (Stormstrike Debuff) - 15% “mortal strike” effect, where 15% of all healing on that target is transfered to the shaman instead. [Limit:1-2] Fits the style and defensive toolkit. And again, our options open up greatly.
I just meant being on GCD, not the actual number of them they have mentioned.
Because it should be baseline. Making all totems off GCD would imo be a balance issue for PvP. Can you imagine the macros? Stream, Ground, Skyfury, Earthgrab all at once. Doesn’t make sense. Maybe 2 additional but something.
Yeah but not act like beacon. Just set it and forget it. One ES, not 2 that have to be juggled. Still purgable, just less to manage from DPS specs.
Not a bad concept. Maybe shield to nearest Ally? or when killed they explode with a wave of healing… Something, Tide and Spirit Link are borderline worthless in PVP at higher rating.
But this is just in the totemic tree… What about stormbringer? It’s still another GCD that dies in one auto attack. Just back it into the Imbue.
Ehh… Idk about that. Enhancement is already a pet class with the need to walk the dogs everytime you can. Maybe that health % is baked into dogs and dogs have a command pet ability… Idk. Enh is survivable in BGs, but with dampening they become paper thin.
ZERO of the top 50 Shamans (Mostly Big Dam) don’t even run spirit walk, because there are too many other mandatory talents. Which is the problem with the class as a whole. Thunderous paws is a snare break, not a clean root break. Class needs just one of them to do that. The skill shot idea is not bad, but meh.
No the game does not need more MS effects. It’s a hybrid class. I USED to think this, I really did… But we don’t need more melee with MS there are already like 9.
I could of been more clear I suppose. Shield/Totems should be on their own GCD.
wot???
Brother, spirit walk DOES do that. Which is what you originally commented on and now are saying again. Regardless of who you say runs it or doesn’t. It does what you are wanting it to do. Maximum confusion. Also…
You said it wasn’t a bad idea but then meh it hahaha. You doing alright?
That’s kind of the point. There are so many because they ARE needed. The game has evolved in a way that not having one puts you in a serious disadvantage. In the past you would be correct. So with us not having access to one as a melee causes major issues in our comp options. Homogenization is bad for the game, but theres always an exception to every rule. Plus this(being the one I suggested above) would help with healing, and could even stack with other MS effects as it has a different %. Which again, is only a good thing. All the other are 25%+ Theres no reason to play with a shaman dps, they don’t actually bring anything to the table that other specs don’t already do better. That is a very important factor here, and is real. Not subjective at all. I get games because I network and make friends and no other reason. And Im a 2400 player. I always thank them for playing and make sure they have a good time. Because THEY HAVE MUCH BETTER OPTIONS.
They die in 1 global. SL’s radius in absurdly small. The fact that it’s even an AoE CD is just meh at best. It’s like Eartern, everyone runs out of it.
I’m sorry I was thinking about spirit walker’s grace. That’s on me.
Yeah it’s not a terrible idea… But Idk, just makes it seem like they should just have outlaw’s grappling hook at that point, don’t you think? Maybe the CD is reduced?
Good point… Do you think Ret should have one as well? I guess the argument is that they have BoP and Sanc… so better teamwide util… But I agree with what you are saying. You’ve changed my mind, they need what you suggested.
SL is really more of an emergency, Idk if I would consider it an AoE thing. The radius is part of the trade off. Its prolly one of the best emergency CDs in the game. Goes through LoS/Cyclone/Icewall/Shadowy Duel, unaffected by MS, can break CC.
I don’t think theres an answer here that will make the community truly feel like its their own ability. The Mobility arms race kind of spoiled a lot of the creative ideas haha.
I mean there is deff an argument that they do need it for sure. Im not an expert on that spec so I cant say with certainty. I would imagine with their toolkit and damage profile (being pretty bursty) it may not be as much of a factor. One of the greatest reasons enhance needs it, if anything, is just to be relevant and wanted. Ret Paladins have many options available to them. But i’m sure there are plenty of reasons why they may need it too. I just wouldn’t know them.
I understand where you are coming from here but I dont fully agree. Part of the survival problem shaman has is its defense being almost all on its healing. In Arenas this is awful because dampening eventually sets in and you run out of options to survive burst really fast. What it needs is DR. Shields should have passive DR back on them at least for the dps specs and getting two charges of Astral Shift would be huge. Personally, I think Astral Shift should make you immune to physical cc just like how DK’s AMS stops magic CC, or at the very least let us turn it on while stunned.
80% of it actually positioning, believe it or not. Keeping your healing out of CC and positioning well keeps you from trading astral for a very long time. Healing is the class design on purpose and that’s fine. More health is worth more to us with % healing we have and totems scaling. The pace of an arena game is supposed to be short, ours being effecting by damp isn’t an argument. All defensive toolkits have a counter. Some can even be removed by other abilities. Everyone gets easier to kill the longer the game goes on, almost equally. It’s a team sport as well. Don’t measure out solo capabilities vs their team trying to put you in a box. You’ll never win that. It’s 3v3 not 3v1.
Yeah this is kind of what I was trying to get at with ES and shift.
I feel like it’s almost there and Burrow was a big addition to that (although not full immune)… Maybe they add a heal to it like communion? Doesn’t have to top you, but tweaking that could also net some better results.
My main concern is that there are too many options that result in too many binds all of which are on the GCD
These are valid points but it’s not just solely that, that’s the problem. The entire kit is bloated and global starved. This to me primarily speaks for Enhance and a bit for resto than Ele.
Ele is fine in PvP, but I know the PvE class has been wanting a full rework.
So, I don’t know how to put this other then you are just wrong. I mean, you are not wrong in assuming that is how things SHOULD be, (In regards to all defensive tool kits should have a counter.) but that is not how things are. Fact is, even after the pruning of defensive cooldowns Shaman is eating dirt in the survival department in arenas, ESPECIALLY enhance. Dampening effects them more then any other class because they lack cooldowns and doubling down on the healing thing wont help them at all in arenas. Positioning means nothing to a melee spec that is getting focused. Enhance is just plain under tuned in a very over tuned meta.
That said, I do like the idea of stealing healing from others like that, and maybe if stormweaver was baseline this would be a good replacement for it, but it still is not going to change much for enhance. It needs just a little more DR to make it in arenas.
Idk how you are going to tell me I’m wrong, when I am putting everything I’ve said into practice. And you know what? I am going to go there:
So unless you are posting on an alternate account (not character) according to checkpvp your highest exp in arena is 1601. And that’s on this warrior in 2s. Speaking of twos… matches start at 35% dampening. And your point is higher damp means enh def = bad? Okay well, considering that at the time of posting this I am currently the rank 1 enhance shaman in North America in 2v2. (3rd in the world) So idk, maybe you are the one who doesn’t know they are talking about?
If you are the one being tunneled, then that means you decide where the fight happens huh? If only there was a place to fight on each map that is more benefit to your team then theirs. Or prevents them from being healed? Hmmm.
Also, defensive pruning hasn’t happened yet? That’s in TWW.
Enhance is the best it has ever been. It just lacks the tools it needs to compete. Completely separate issue. More reliable stuns and the ms effect I stated earlier would be a massive push in the right direction. An easier way to cast hex would also be massive. Access to the Electrocute pvp talent is another. Currently we are a support dps, we bring nothing offensive to the team.
In the past I would agreed completely, but currently I do not. It’s true you are global starved in a min/max pve perspective. But our buttons feel the best to press right now then they ever have. Before it actively felt like we’re going negative in the global economy by using our own abilities. If you narrow your focus and prioritize what’s important for you to do at that moment, not about perfect uptime on everything, you’ll find that you are able to manage with what we currently have. I can go into more detail about what I mean if you want. But I will assume you understand.