It has come to my attention that Zezu has access to the dragonflight beta shaman feedback thread

A user named Zezu who posts on the shaman forums also has access to the beta. I am begging you dude, please post in that feedback thread about the lack of ele shaman defensives during hard cc like kidney shot etc. Nobody in that shaman thread is posting anything relating to PvP unlike the other class threads.

A few suggestions could be:

  • add lightning shield glyph as a talent, that existed for most of shaman history that reduced dmg taken by 10% while you had lightning shield up.
  • shamanistic rage back into the game as a pvp talent
  • revert astral shift back to what it does in WOTLK
  • reintroduce stone claw totem
  • damage reduction from spirit wolf talent should be instant so we can pre-wolf vs rogue mage teams
  • add earthen wall totem to class tree instead of just resto
  • add earthen harmony to class tree instead of just resto

Literally only ONE of the above changes would be enough imo. Because currently, blizzard has thrown an 8 second mini wall at the shaman class and pretends thats a defensive capability for the class.

Side note: gust of wind in its current state is just laughably bad, you have to waste 5 points just to get it and then its a 30 sec cd hippity hop.

To be honest, it’s not just an “ele shaman” thing. It’s all Shaman.

3 Likes

You realize a ton of people race change to goblin for a hippity hop on a much longer cd?

That goblin is considered one of the strongest races…because of rocket jump and the utility that brings?

I doubt shamans would race change to goblin for the rocket when orcs are their strongest race since they die in stuns.

Also, I don’t think he’s saying that gust of wind is bad, but it’s locked behind 5 unnecessary talents. Now that I can try the class tree in the ptr, it’s pretty clear that we have to invest a lot of points to get back what it was our main movement CD for years now (spirit walk), I’m enhance main.

1 Like

I keep getting tricked by PVP threads.

Pretty much what we can ask for now is pvp, the enhance and shaman tree looks pretty solid for PvE. I can say tho, that the last change on the right part of the enhance tree is a downgrade in how we chose our play style.

Goblin is really good right now, I’ll likely switch once I get gust of wind on my bars to Dwarf/Orc.

It wins me plenty of games off weird jumps on Blades Edge and Raven arena with the crescent moon jump over platform.

We’ve asked for this stuff over and over again over the years. I don’t think it’s going to happen. And, for what it’s worth, I would bet that the class disigners look at these forums too.

I thought we were getting a minor version of this when they gave us 6% damage reduction in the tree. But then they nerfed it to 4% magic damage reduction only. I’ve already asked that this go back to regular damage reduction.

What has been requested is making Astral Bulwark useable while stunned. That would be nice. Although I think maybe Blizzard wants us to die in stuns since we have good survivability with healing when not stunned.

For ele specifically, a request has been made to allow the primaral ele out at some time as fire which would give ele freer access to the primaral earth ele tools.

I think mainly, though, we’re going to probably have to look to the existing cc/mobility/healing kit for our survival and more realistically this is where maybe we can advocate for some positive changes such as:

    1. instant hex from NS
    1. unleash shield + elemental orbit - knock back into root
    1. focused insight - works with any shock
    1. Earth ele - increases current health by same amount as max health like battlemaster’s trinket and rallying cry do
    1. Feral lunge - give it gust of wind functionality when not targeting an enemy to allow it’s use as a kiting/positioning/movement tool instead of only as a gap closer
    1. Spirit Walk/Gust of Wind - making this talent node alot more accessible/less costly to get to or at least substantially improving the 2 2-point gating nodes

Ele needs primal elementalist to be fixed too its not giving a earth ele wall right now which is vital in any pvp environment.

they took it away with no compensation.

hello zezu,

some good points you have brought up but

  1. As you have stated, 4% to magic only is not gonna cut it IMO. Would it really burn down azeroth if they gave the “surging shields” talent 5% dmg reduction per point for lightning shield? Would it end the world?

  2. The reason I wanted shamanistic rage back is not just because of the useable while stunned aspect, but also because traditionally shaman had access to 2 walls in MoP or WoD (considered one of the best times to be a shaman). Infact in Wod I think you actually had access to 3 walls, earth elemental channeling its buff onto you was the 3rd one.

  3. Instant hex from NS, focused insight, unleashed shield + elemental orbit, earth ele having a battlemasters effect, feral lunge changes you have suggested are great, but I dont think any of them will help with the underlying problem of dieing during stuns. This is truly the biggest problem and I would give up all quality of life suggested changes (like NS effecting hex) in exchange for something that helps shaman live during stun+coordinated burst from rogue mage.

  4. You mentioned that “maybe Blizzard wants us to die in stuns since we have good survivability with healing when not stunned.” , I would say this is very toxic design. I have accepted that having a true hardline defensive (like ice block or dispersion etc) is something blizzard will never give shaman because of “class identity” or w/e. But the dieing during stuns issue is separate from that, no other class has to deal with this actually. Can’t speak for Evoker (idk anything about this class) but for all the other ones, they dont have to deal with this coordinated burst during stuns BS. Actually if I am being super honest, I have heard WW monks have an issue with stuns as well, but they are also getting like 3 walls + touch of karma + escape reality in their DF tree so xd.

And just pumping absurd healing power into healing surge is just very disappointing bandaid design, it makes other players angry when they play against shaman and see 1 healing surge do a lay on hands, and it makes shamans angry because healing surge being overtunned doesn’t help with dieing to coordinated burst during a stun. Its just all around toxic design for everyone involved. Additionally, the overpowered heals are hard gated through mana cost for shaman only, enh legit goes oom in 4 surges and they cant really regain the mana too fast either ever since the patch where blizz added mana costs to all dps abilities for shaman.

Finally, Zezu, im begging you man, give it ONE last try and make a PvP-centric post on the dragonflight shaman feedback thread. PvP is not being represented very well at all in that thread, especially compared to other class threads. Its not gonna be fun to play shaman in dragonflight without stuff like fleshcraft or all the soulbinds in the necro tree that make fleshcraft really tanky or the auto fear at low health etc or access to earthen harmony etc or just the pacing of combat in SL being slower than DF. You can be the hero for the shaman people Zezu, we will tell stories about how Zezu saved the shaman class.

I agree with you that they really trying to give us good heals as our primary defensive and dying in stuns would be our counterplay. But I think that 2 things you said would make shamans more tanky but not OP.

Earth ele as a Rallying cry/health trinket. That change only would make us have a an extra “defensive” in our kit. They just need the way it adds HP. Not asking much on a 5min CD

Spirit Wolf instant DR or at least half time, this would make us survive Stun locks while being a high skill talent. Playing it like a bear form would make shamans tankines decent at least.

Ok. I posted something.

1 Like

I really appreciate you taking the time to write that giant post and it was a pretty strong/compelling post overall. If I was to be super nit-picky I woulda tagged it as elemental/enhance instead of just enhance since alot of the problems apply to both.

I feel like simply moving earthen harmony to the class tree would be the easiest possible fix with clear precedent for it from shadowlands. They put escape reality in the class tree for monks (along with their 3 walls).

I don’t really play ele. So just speaking from my own experience, but the defensive suggestions are changes to the general tree that would affect all shaman.

Seems like they may have considered that and went with surging shields instead. And they’ve already nerfed the earth shield part of it, so I don’t think they’re going to move earthen harmony in as that would just be going in the opposite direction from what they’ve just done. Also, that doesn’t specifically address vulnerability in stuns/silences. It just makes us tankier in general.

Yea thats fair, it is quite unlikely that they would make a change in the opposite direction from which they did a few patches ago. Its very unblizzard-like. Maybe a better suggestion would be to add another line onto surging shields that reads “damage taken while stunned, silenced, or feared is reduced by 5%/10% while any elemental shield is active”. As it stands right now, surging shields is not particularly the best investment of 2 points IMO.

I added this to my beta post btw:

This is a really sick idea actually, and to add to it, if they made unleash shields useable while stunned it would actually fix all problems. You could earth shield + water OR lightning unleash during a stun and have good disruption on enemy 1 shots, atleast on one of the enemies attacking you. It would also be unique to class identity because they wouldnt just be slapping on another big defensive which they seem so hesitant to give shaman. Speaking of mortal strike, isnt it kinda interesting that monk and feral ended up getting mortal strike but now enh and ret are the only ones left without it. Yet ret has extremely solid defensive capability and instant cast CC.

Yeah. The more I think about it the more I really like this idea. Adding water shield and then being able to combine it with elemental orbit and unleash shield would be uniquely shaman and would just be utilizing the existing shaman kit and would be such a great addition for enhance/ele in pvp.

Useable while stunned as well IMO, and I mean alot of melee classes could counter it by simply using an ability of their own to break out of the root and move out of the whirlpool and continue doing their burst. Its just that we would have a way to somewhat disrupt them. The only thing im worried about is, do the devs even read the forums over the weekend? Maybe you could make a super short seperate post on Monday with just this unleash shield + water shield + usable while stunned suggestion.

Was thinking the same that I may make a separate post highlighting the water shield/unleash shield idea specifically. Mana spring totem is awful right now, so replacing it with water shield would be a really great substitute.