They are more corrections to the classic form of shaman. Shamans damage was really bad, and changing flurry in a manner that stabilizes the over all dps output will help with that.
Npc’s targeting totems are a problem for things like fire nova, which nerf the damage rate of the shamans more.
Reducing the costs of the totems, and earth shock are done for the same of stabilizing threat, or survival rates.
Increasing the passive mitigation is the easiest and less impactful way to making shamans competitive tanks like they were designed to be.
JNext, for the most part shamans are incapable of raid tanking due to the lack of itemization. Improve Block, Dodge, and Armor will help mitigate that issue.
the biggest drawback shamans have at the moment is threat management. by changing stone claw to tank some of the damage (the 80-120% HP it can store) we help mitigate some of the damage of the shaman, as a sort of “wall” effect if you will, this threat will transfer, which helps solve shamans second greatest issue, aoe threat.
This changes were ment as a way for blizzard to go make some modifications to restore shamans to their rightful place as a competitive tank, which was how they were intended to be played.
Tanking is possible now. I have been tanking SFC, WC, etc the last two days. Iv tanked original wow, and i tanked in heroics in original BC, all with shaman.
The class was designed to do this, it was not until later that these talents etc were removed, and the class ultimately became damage/damage/heal.
I want to buff the 5% Dodge, 5% Block, and 10% Armor to 15 % Dodge and block, and 15% Base damage mitigation from all sources.
The reason for this is because in raids there is no itemization for the shaman for tanking, which is considered by most vets to be the only reason they do not tank Molten core, etc.
These stat increases will resolve that problem. The other aspects are just there to help generate and maintain threat.
Well ignoring the fact those are absurd stats to give to them for just 15 talent points and how DPS Enhancement Shaman can also spec into these things for PvP, Shaman weren’t really intended to tank raids. Blizzard played with the idea but it’s quite clear from looking at the tier sets and the lack of +defense talents that they weren’t intended to actually tank.
Source? I’ve never seen anything that suggests Shaman were intended to be a raid tank.
I agreed with the points you were making, in the frame of a 100% thought experiment - if the goal were to make shamans balanced with warriors as main tanks, your solution could work.
But that’s not going to happen, nor should it. This is Classic 1.12, no more, no less. No changes at all - no balance changes, no QOL changes, nothing but how it was.
Shaman tanks have been a thing for a while, actually, there is youtube videos out about classic release and the restoration of this potential. In fact, a lot of us have gathered in an effort to find ways to validate shaman tanking in mc, through knowledge of mechanics etc.
People made shaman tanking work, just like you were able to tank various 5 mans throughout the game with non tank classes, but shaman were never designed as a tank class. You don’t get to decide what happens at Blizzard, and if you think your changes are going to happen in classic you’re either a fool or a dreamer.
A lot of people can tank the lower level dungeons, including hunter and warlock pets - does that mean they should be raid tanks?
The class clearly wasn’t designed to do it given you have to give them utterly absurd talents for free defensive stats that are unheard of just to give them a chance to tank a hit or two.
The lack of itemization is clearly showing that they were never intended to actually be tanks - their talents are a remnant of Blizzard’s vanilla experimentation. Just like with Warriors and all of their tier sets being tanking, and the same with Paladins/Druids/Priests and healing.
I also have no idea what you mean by, “most vets” because I’ve never even remotely heard of the idea of Shaman being raid tanks and only itemization holding them back.
This is why i suggested an over all durational increase to attack speed to flurry, to help bring enhance dps up, but it also effects tanking since tanks will potentially attack faster. however, this change is not enough to break the class or even get close, enhance are really low on damage in raiding.
You can make the argument that ele and enhance are invalid. They did not become validated until tier 3 sets and even then ele require reduction to spell resistence to work, since most of aq was nature immune.
Except the absurd defensive stats you can get would also buff Enhancement PvP to the point they’d be very hard to kill.
Elemental is bad because it’s a worse mage that doesn’t have an alternative to the nature resist bosses in AQ40. It needs a lot of gear to do anything and still can’t compete with a Mage. Enhancement is in a similar boat, it’s raw DPS is just too low and the main benefit is the utility it brings.
As you said - Elemental didn’t get validated until the end tier. Enhancement tanking was never validated.
I’m a vet and I have absolutely never said that before. We also have zero say in what their, “rightful place” is - especially since Blizzard did nothing to actually show that Shaman were intended to raid tank outside of some mediocre talents that nobody takes.
They do not have a set of talents with 7 talents dedicated to tanking, nor do they have an additional 9/ mechanics abilities dedicated to it.
It was designed that way. I tank as a shaman, as we speak i am doing it. I have been zerg pulling dungeons also, as a shaman tank.
No. Most of the vet players believed shaman and paladin were mirriors to each other.
Alliance gained paladin as a tank, but horde did not get shaman? This means that ally have 3 tanks, 2 heals and horde have 2 tanks 2 heals. This offset the balance of the factions, and its one of the primary arguments to prove shamans were ment to tank (especially when you couple it with their talents and taunts, etc).
This is a false position and will remain false until blizzard says “we will not expand the levels of classic”. People think this, but its a contradiction to what they have said (since they have clearly said they are willing to re-write the history of the game as a “alternative timeline”.
This #nochanges, and classic will not get level expansions is a false position. Im telling you, They will change, they have to. People will get bored of wow and leave after completion of all the content.
you should not get hard stuck on values. They require testing to see if they are enough, or to op. Things can be changed for example, you can say “5% reduction in damage from all sources while using a shield”.
Yes it was. there are websites and forums dedicated to this topic, right now that came about AFTER THIS CLASSIC RELEASE.
Your right, “we” do. That is why this suggestion is being made
So you agree those talents are blah, why are you advocating buffing them will break it then? Shamans dont have defensive abilities like other tanks.
Correct, but they also never bothered to try and make Enhancement tanking valid at endgame. They were there early - that’s it. Why that was there we can’t know outside of speculating it was an experiment they decided not to pursue, as three potential tanking classes that each can tank endgame dungeons (and endgame raids for two of them) well enough already was enough.
Cool, you can tank low level dungeons. Most people can - as can warlock and hunter pets as I said. These pets fall off being able to tank well enough in the 30~40s, same with Shaman.
Paladins are good dungeon tanks but awful raid tanks. Shaman also have two different DPS specs whereas Paladin only have one - how is that fair if they’re supposed to be mirrored?
As I said, I’m a vet and I’ve never really heard of this, “Shaman is a raid tank” claim. Nor even that they were supposed to be a mirror of Paladins.
They’ve also said they’re making it as authentic as possible. While they never said they wouldn’t move past what we have, they also did not say they would - it’s all up in the air and depends on the players.
They have, however, stated that it doesn’t matter how many players are on the servers - it’ll remain there as a museum piece.
