Honestly, if you are going to give Shaman a stronger freedom button that’s on a 20s CD and redirects a ranged / melee attack on top of that… give Paladin a purge to make it more fair.
Freedom was one of the major reasons why Pally was useful in group PvP and now Shaman gets that on top of their other advantages.
Spirit of the Alpha is also much stronger than Salv directly buffing the tank’s threat by a huge amount rather than needing to waste your only blessing for a player on Salve.
The devs seem to love giving the other faction the unique tools of Pally/Shaman and I’m fine with that I guess even if it probably should not have been done. Kings (better than the original), Salve (better than the original), Freedom (better than the original), two of those going to Shaman.
Alliance gets Tremor totem (also better but only holy can use it now that ret and prot need to take sheath and Exo. Kinda a niche rune that is not even used on fights with fears over the other options.), and WS (this one is huge and more than makes up for the useless tremor totem), so one going to Pally.
I’d like Purge for Pally to be the next rune from Shaman to be added. Or at least a way for Pally to protect people from purge effects as Pally seems to be more defensive than Shaman even though shaman gets a ton of defensive and offensive tools and utility these days.
This would give both factions two purges, even if the Alliance benefits from it less than Horde.
An easy idea if you don’t want to give out purge would be making the target of SS immune to purge, giving it greater utility and a reason for rets to throw it on a FC or healer over themselves.
Right now purge spam cripples Alliance teams, Paladins notice this the most I’m sure. I think it’s only fair to give Pally one of the major Shaman spells if Horde get the major pally stuff to even it out.
Freedom is targetable, decoy totem is not and only works on melee/ranged attacks so probably won’t help out against something like frostbolt. Freedom can only be purged by 2 classes, decoy totem can be killed by every class.
It’s honestly sad how many paladins/shaman are getting upset about the other class and abilities they each have and how they feel the other class somehow is getting some crazy advantage, or how they are the red headed step child which is somehow missing out.
The reality is in classic neither class was brought along to raids other then for buffs and healing and outside of resto/holy all their specs were meme specs. Both classes will need significant buffs to be brought along in endgame.
The melee/ranged attack does not matter for the freedom effect by the wording of it.
Summons a Decoy Totem for 10 sec with 5 health at the feet of the target that will redirect the next melee or ranged attack made against the target to the totem instead. The totem also grants the target immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec.
It should give you the freedom right away with that wording and it sounds like it’s not tied to the totem being up. It sounds like you can target anyone with the totem, but if it’s just the Shaman it’s not as OP and I have less of an issue with it. They are making Shaman great FC with runes in SoD it seems.
Other totems are not worded like that. TBF they all target the group or enemy so it’s hard to say till we see it in the game.
Decoy Totem is going to be a 10 second Blessing of Freedom for the shaman. It doubles as as a grounding totem that works against ONE auto attack from melee OR ranged.
It absolutely does. “The totem also grants the target immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec.”
The target would be the player who had the melee/ranged attack redirected.
Or do you honestly think it gives everyone in the totem radius freedom?
Unless the totem is actually a targetable spell which would be interesting and not very totem-like.
Edit: after rereading it a few times and seeing it has a 40yd range it looks like it might not function like other totems and that is kinda dumb if true. It should function like grounding totem and only give the freedom effect to the person it redirects an attack from. If it is a single target “totem,” then that’s just lazy and it should not function like that
New rune Shaman get in the boot slot with no good competition like SS has with AoW for paladin.
Summons a Decoy Totem for 10 sec with 5 health at the feet of the target that will redirect the next melee or ranged attack made against the target to the totem instead. The totem also grants the target immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec.
It has a 20s CD and is an earth totem.
always a chance, they probably should not have given out the unique stuff from the two classes tbh but I think they should never have added something like windfury into the game (for the party, its fine on just the Shaman). I really do think Alliance needs another purge class, Pally is the only one that it would really work on as any other class getting it would be more busted and not really fix the purge issue.
Nothing is worse than playing versus Horde when their shaman and priest are both smart enough to purge the enemy team. I think too many people undervalue it tbh. It’s cheap mana wise and can be spammed, it cripples the value of Paladin along with a good portion of their damage. Purge off the Wisdom and they won’t last long in the fight as seals and blessings drain Ret too much. On top of removing hots, and the important buffs from other classes that make a big difference in a fight.
I’m not really upset, I don’t mind the two factions getting the unique stuff the other has, I just want another purge for the Alliance as it’s so overpowered in this version of the game. Giving it to another class would make Pally go extinct with how many people Horde side would have it so Paladin is the only real option to get it, and it would match up well with the improved Pally runes Shaman get.
I do not think it’s an AOE, with how it’s worded it sounds like it can be used on anyone and it sounds like the freedom effect is not tied to the totem being up. It has a 40y range while other totems are placed at your feet so I’m sure it can be used on other players.
Yeah I had to keep rereading it and I do not agree with it functioning like a single target spell that gets called a totem. It should function like other totems and have the same drawbacks as totems. I guess that’s on me for thinking it would function similarly to grounding totem, my bad
If lack of purge will cause paladins to go extinct (which I don’t think it will) then there are bigger problems, which need to be addressed, as one spell or lack of it shouldn’t define the viability of a class. Also unless someone gets a group purge, then you can rebuff as fast or faster then they can purge, so I just don’t see purge as that end all spell that somehow is so unbalancing.
That all said if there is a reason for two alliance classes to have purge, then that should be a separate issue about that ability, not a they got this ability, so we should get this one.
You misunderstood me there, If a different class got purge it would kill off paladins as purge cripples the class. If let us say Druid or mage gained purge it would make Pally useless in PvP as they need their seals and blessings to really perform.
Pally don’t need purge to be fine, would just be a nice addition for Alliance to balance it out imo. Horde have always been the better PvP faction and one of the reasons is Shaman getting purge on top of being stronger and pally getting crippled by it. there are other reasons ofc but pally purge or a way to protect someone from purge would balance the factions in PvP a little more.
I’m glad for the STV PvP event so Horde get to see how good Shaman is in person, maybe they will stop pretending it’s a bad class for PvP and carry them in PvE more even if their damage is not top tier in every phase in PvE.