We are mail wearers but can get creamed pretty quickly. What would you change/add to shamans to give them better defense? We all know astral shift is the only thing we have thats comparable to other classes but its not usable in stun sadly.
just lower the CD on astral shift to 1 minute. or remove it and bring back Shamanistic Rage.
Our survivability is really good actually pretty good. The only problem we have is getting through CC burst. If we don’t pre-pop astral shift we are dead and if we do pre pop it you get a kick kidney into blinding to wait it out. All they need to do is allow us to use astral shift while CCd like almost every other class is able to do with their DR. Pretty simple
5 Likes
our surv is actualy above par compared to most other classes due to our self heals where we fail is our damage mit. is down right bad.
What shamans need is earth ele to have a toggle. taunt so we can use it as a defensive tool or enable the earth ele lego to be use full.
and give a slightly weaker primal earth ele barrier to base line earth ele.
OR
make base line earth ele eat the damage taken by the shaman giving us to some degree an immunity but only lasts so long as the earth ele has hp.
The 2nd option I would prefer and would make shamans in line with other melee for raid utility.
1 Like
adding a spell immunity like cloak of shadows would help out a lot. or had some kind of passive healing with like each hit.
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No what they really need to do is make the earth ele lego give you the quake and taunt ability of the earth elemental and reduce your damage taken for 1 min making you into a situational 1 min tank of a 5 min cd THAT WOULD be AMAZING.
This is right in line with old school enh where if we needed to off tank for a little or taunt the boss for a d buff hit we could.
i truly do not agree with anyone who plays a shaman and thinks we have good defensives. druids, mages, pallys, hunters, rogues and warriors all have way better defensives than shamans.
priests are on par… warlock dk dh monk are the squishiest.
but thats evertyhing… being 5th from last is pretty bad?
TL:DR - Ways to give shaman better defensives: Things we previously had in WoW, things inspired by previous abilities in WoW, things inspired by other games that utilize Warcraft Shaman theme (HotS)
A few ways really
Previous Defensives we’ve actually had in WoW
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Add a second defensive via the old Shamanistic Rage that reduced dmg taken during a stun - (from WotLK and Cata) OR give the use during stun functionality to Astral Shift
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make Primal Earth Elemental the baseline earth elemental, giving access to harden and pulverize to every spec baseline - (From WoD)
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Add Stone Bulwark Totem back for a self target and totem protection absorb
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Add 10% dmg reduction when running Lightning Shield (Earth shield has 20% more self healing) - (from WotLK - MoP)
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Add a baseline class passive - Elemental Warding: Reduces incoming Fire, Frost, and Nature damage by 10%. (from Vanilla/Classic)
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add a baseline class passive - Toughness: Increases the contribution of all armor by 10% (from Vanilla/Classic)
All of these are options Shaman have had in the past. And when they did, Shaman was incredibly tanky.
New Ideas based on old concepts could easily be:
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a new baseline passive based on the Vanilla Guardian Totems talent
Guardian Totems (passive) - Reduce incoming damage by 10% when you have an active totem. -
a new passive based on the Vanilla Eye of the Storm Talent (Elemental spec)
Eye of the Storm (passive) - You have a 100% chance to gain Focused Casting for 6 seconds after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. Focused Casting effect grants immunity to interupts and silence effects, and is consumed after casting one spell. This effect cannot occur more than once every 60 seconds. -
a new totem thematically based on the old Windwall totem (Classic/Vanilla)
Windwall Totem - 1 min cooldown - summon a wind totem at the target location that creates a a circular wall of wind pushing outwards in all directions every 2 seconds. Last 6 seconds. (Think of a mix of ring of peace and typhoon) -
a new baseline defensive based on Stoneskin totem (classic/Vanilla)
Stoneskin - The shaman encased themselves in impenetrable stone for X seconds, but cannot move, attack or cast while in this form. (Ice block for shaman) -
bringing back and reinventing Nature’s Swiftness for each spec
Nature’s Swiftness - 3 min cooldown
Enhance: Instantly generate 10 stacks of maelstrom weapons (results in 2 instant heals)
Elemental and Resto: When activated, your next healing spell becomes an instant cast spell. -
add stoneclaw totem back and give it the Statue of the Black Ox treatment, because let’s be real…Statue of the Black Ox is just a stoneclaw totem with more health and a longer duration (( but shaman can’t have gust of wind because it infringes on blink fantasy, wah wah wah ))
Ideas taken from other games (Heroes of the Storm)
- baseline passives to totems based on the following Reghar Talents
HotS - Colossal Totem - Increases the area and range of Earthbind Totem by 50% and it can be reactivated to move an existing totem to a new location once.
WoW version: Colossal Totems - Increase the area and range of all totems by 50%, and when reactivated during their duration, move to a new location.
HotS - Grounded Totem - Increase the Health of Earthbind Totem by 100%. Enemy Heroes who are Slowed by Earthbind Totem also have their Attack Speed Slowed by 40%. .
WoW Version: Totemic Power - Increase the health of all totems by 100%. Additionally, enemy heroes who are slowed by earthbind totem also have their attack speed slowed by 40%.
HotS - Earthgrasp Totem - When Earthbind Totem is first cast, it Slows nearby enemies by 90% for 1 second.
( I understand earthgrasp exists in WoW, but 90% snare for specs that dont have access to it is huge)
WoW Version - Magnetic Earth - When Earthbind Totem is first cast, it Slows nearby enemies by 90% for 1 second.
OR JUST COMBINE THEM ALL INTO A SINGLE TALENT
Totem Mastery or Earthen Power
- Increase the health of all totems by 100% and area and range by 50%. Upon initial cast, Earthbind totem slows nearby enemies by 90% for 1 second. Enemy heroes who are slowed by earthbind totem also have their attack speed slowed by 40%. Additionally, any totem can be reactivated during its duration to move to a new location.
Everything in this list can be used to increase shaman defensive capabilities. Some we’ve already had, others inspired by what we’ve once had, and others still from other games that utilize the Warcraft IP in new and inventive ways.
8 Likes
Astral Shift isn’t really comparable to anything else, everything else is way better.
Always thought the design of Astral Shift was kinda weird anyway. Would be cooler if it completely removed the Shaman from the world for 6-8 seconds, invisible and invincible to both enemies and allies for the duration. Only thing the Shaman can do during it is move, heal themselves, and use buffs/CDs (Stormkeeper, Earth Elemental).
Regardless, the ability to use it while stunned has to be brought back soon.
I really like the idea of the earth ele taking damage for the shaman. Even like a percentage would be amazing. Also, hello fellow Night Fae shaman!
If Astral Shift could be used while CC’d, and it removes roots/snares as well, that would be good enough probably.
I do like the idea of having Earth Elemental share damage. Maybe it takes 50% of all incoming damage, until x amount (100% of your hp bar perhaps) is taken. This gives us a short burst of increased survivability, rather doubling our health pool for a whole minute, which could allow us to do soaks in raid as well (50% DR + Astral Shift = only take 20% of the damage).
2 Likes
It would be interesting if astral shift was the shamans version of paladins bubble. Just immune to all damage for a certain amount of time. I would love that more than what we have.
To answer your question I would return healing and stun to wolves, i would return Shamanistic Rage and make it so it can be used in stun, and have our Lighting,Earth,and Water shield have passive damage reduction for all sources added on and make it so they could not be purged or stolen.
Bringing back wolves heals yes
Bringing back shaman rage yes
Adding a damage reduction to our shields thay can not be stolen??? They will never add that
And why not just give us a passive damage reduction?
Healing wolves, shamanistic rage, DR on elemental shields, ect
Basically everything suggested before.
Earthwall totem from the resto talent being baseline would be nice. Basically a better anti-magic zone all DK specs have. A defensive and group utility!
Correction, Ele and Resto’s survivability is probably above average, enhancements is by far the worst of all melee DPS and probably one of the squishiest specs in the game period, its toolkit is practically non-existent outside of the one crap wall we have and when you compare the defensive toolkit it has to other melee its an absolute joke of the highest order.
Make Astral Shift usable in cc would fix like 70%.
Allow wolves to heal again
oh no it is above par by far 20k healing surges every few seconds its better then any other class out there. So for sustained fights enh is better for burst damage that will 1 shot we are bad. Lets not forget the healing from our cov abilities they are almost raid healing cds (our chain heal when used is 2x stronger then resto)
If they brought back the mana reduction to ms weapon like we used to have we would be melee healers.
2 Likes
As someone who was part of a server first malygos kill in WotLK, utilizing dual-wield, double earthliving weapon, librarian’s papercutter off-hand and exclusively spamming chain heal on maelstrom weapons…I would be okay with this.
At a certain gear threshold in MoP, Enhance could also melee heal dungeons — which made for amazing queuing and fast groups from the added dps. The only issue was no magic dispel, which because things died significantly quicker, and you could battery mana infinitely, wasn’t an actual problem — we also had healing range, conductivity, and ancestral guidance to help.
Some of the most fun I’ve had with something that wasn’t standard Enhance (The other being dual-wield spellpower weapons with double flametongue — also from WotLK).
cata also had the interesting builds when we wanted a sp off hand in Fire lands or when we where top healers in stack fights for dragon soul.