One Final Request

Classes Shaman
1

Hey fellas.

I’m stopping by to make a few final requests that I personally feel we all really want. What I mean by, "We all really want", is that these are key functional abilities or passives that are Necessary for us to be competitive and successful. And a few things s e r i o u s l y need to be reworked.

1. Level 40 Talent Row Rework
  • Nature’s Guardian | Ancestral Guidance |Wind Rush Totem

Currently Natures Guardian is a mandatory Talent and is taken in every situation. It dominates the talent row and is frustrating to know that Stampeding roar is baseline but our Wind Rush Totem competes with our key defensive ability. Secondly, Ancestral Guidance needs to be baseline OR extremely buffed to be taken for any situation. I haven’t seen that ability be used in the last 4 expansions because it simply is not competitive. Especially since it only affects 3 nearby players.

2. Level 30 Talent Row Rework
  • Spirit Wolf | Earth Shield | Static Charge

-The issue here is that there is no good option. Straight up, these options are so suboptimal and awful that I genuinely feel someone isn’t giving our developers the time to test their talents in action. First off, Spirit Wolf… Spirit Wolf requires 4 seconds of staying in ghost wolf to get its full affect. Never in any competitive content are you staying in ghost wolf that long, and if you are, you’re wasting SO Much time. Whether in PvE the time wasted DPS (Where mages can blink to their location instantly, warlocks can port or gate, balance druids have tiger dash or feral charge disengage or fly to ally, hunters can move and cast. HECK Druids can move and cast almost permanently with the new starfall change. Excuse my tangent. I’m just so frustrated with this talent. It’s a literal slap in the face to shamans to get a full affect of this movement ability after 4 seconds.

-Secondly, Earth Shield. Bruh. takes a long, slow heavy breath. This version of earth shield is only good on Restoration.
In PvP - Earth shield is taking up a global cooldown, and does not add any benefit. You’ll get hit for 1k, and heal for 100. Nice! Wait. No. Not nice. It translates into a pseudo 10% dmg reduction every few seconds for a few hits. That’s not going to keep you alive in a PvP situation, and if your ally is getting focused by your enemy, you typically don’t have time to spend the global on earth shield just for the 10% extra healing to then spam at MAX 4 healing surges that heal for absolutely nothing.
In PvE - If you take Earth Shield in PvE it’s the biggest waste of a talent out of the entire tree. You shouldn’t be getting hit, and if you do, 10% of the hit being reduced isn’t going to do anything for you. The 10% bonus healing is only useful if you’re healing yourself, and doesn’t work like the Feral Druid passive in the old day that increased their healing received by all sources, which Earth Shield should if its going to be competitive in any Raid/Mythic+ Scenario.

Lastly, Static Charge. Dude, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Lol. Just…really? “reducing 5 seconds for every enemy hit up to 20 seconds” making it a 40 second cool down at best. Guess what?!?!? Another talent that is only useful based on a super specific condition. So Spirit Wolf only useful when moving for 4 or more seconds, right? So now, Static Charge only getting the full benefit when having 4 enemies? Why are these talents only getting full use at VERY SPECIFIC moments?
-In PvP - You’re never going to be stunning more then 3 people in arena and if you do, that’s a rare and hype moment. You’re not going to be using it in RBGs either, since there are rare “mid fights” where everyone is stacked and makes you want to use cap totem every 40 seconds.
-In PvE- If you’re considering taking this for PvE, you’re probably only doing so for Mythic Plus, because that’s the absolute only place it would ever get its use. Never in Raids, you’re not stunning groups of adds every 40 seconds and you’ve got 20 other people with better stuns than you. And in Mythic plus sometimes you can’t mount up in areas so you need movement speed. Spirit wolf gives the movement bonus so you end up taking that over Static Charge.

This whole row is so bad that I sometimes question why I even play the shaman…

Extra Goodies

  • Gust of Wind
  • Lightning Bolt Animation to the 7.3 version or better
  • Ascendance Baseline
  • Ascendance reskinned
  • Extra defensive not in the form of a 5 minute CD Earth elemental covenant conduit
  • Stormkeeper baseline or taken away from competing with anything because it’s too strong for it to NOT be taken.
  • Water walking castable while mounted
  • Earthen Rage passive baseline again. (You wouldn’t make Spriest Auspicious spirits a talent for them to be able to have those, so why would you make our spiky boys a talent. They’re cool and fun, just like the spirits)
  • Echo of the Elements Baseline
  • More Totem engagement or usefulness
  • Straight up more totems
  • If we’re not going to be topping meters, give us auras, raid wide buffs, or reasons to bring us. For instance, Restoration Shamans are known for their Spirit Link Totem. It would be awesome to be given an amazing totem specific to Ele and Enhance that would make you genuinely want to bring them to anything. LITERALLY ANYTHING. You’re never taking an enhance over another melee dps, and you’re never taking ele over another ranged. That’s not an exaggeration. They only get playtime if there is open spots for filler DPS, never for core requirements.

Free up the Talent Tree with some NEW and FUN talents. 2020 is here. Heck, 2021 is almost here. These talents need to be FUN and INTERESTING. The Design Team needs some Dip n’ Dots and a Jump Castle because they forgot what the meaning of Fun is.

I’m looking forward to Shadowlands. It is looking great. However, I’m not looking forward to watching every other spec and class have key core features that I should have. Shamans have to play at 100% Perfection to achieve A Tier and compete with other classes that can play at 60% skill to reach S Tier.
Why play a shaman then? Cause I like zappy bois. That’s why.

I labeled this as my One Final Request because I know if I continue writing anything before Shadowlands that it’s going to get negative and probably be useless feedback like so many people do on these forums. I don’t want to turn into someone who just complains and never offers constructive feedback, but I am beginning to feel let down. So, here is my One Final Request.

Thanks y’all
Gubby

13 Likes
2

You missed one crucial request. Replace Ion with a game director competent in multiple aspects of the game, and not just raid design.

7 Likes
3

I just don’t know enough details about Ion to say that. I really don’t want to blame one individual for the performance of the entire game, especially if the game is now under a big name like Activision who controls half their decisions.

Maybe I’m just being optimistic or giving too much of the benefit of the doubt… but I’d hate to think Ion is clueless.

1 Like
4

He’s not when it comes to raiding. He was the guild leader of Elitist Jerks, one of the best guilds in regards to writing guides on how to progress through content. That being said, when it comes to class design, statements like Ankh is a defensive, and ‘You shouldn’t be playing demonology’ just make me think class design takes a back seat to everything else…which in my opinion, should be at the forefront because its te largest piece of content you interact with.

1 Like
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Dont forget his playing 2h enhancement was the wrong way to play shaman. He said that one also

6

AG is pretty legit in SL with it being off GCD. As Ele it would probably be my go-to in that row. In M+ you can probably heal your entire group with it to full in certain situations.

99.9999% of the playerbase is not playing WoW at a level where this happens.

There have been a tooon of changes on SL because of feedback. Thy may not post back, but they have done a lot of in game changes based on the feedback people have given.

But Blizzard isnt under Activision. And they are completely capable of making the wrong decision themselves. They made plenty of wrong decisions before Activision came into the picture. And I doubt Activision (who Blizzard is not under) is saying that Shaman shouldn’t have more totems. Or Lightning Bolt animations. Etc.

I mean. It was from an optimal stand point.

1 Like
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lol, more like 20 final requests :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hahaha You’re not wrong, friend! lol

9

But people still played it up until it was they changed our attacks in legion it was how they wanted to play.

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And I would say they were playing it wrong.

If you just want to be able to hold a 2h weapon and use a suboptimal play method, you still have that ability.

11

You still had access to all of your abilities unlike today.

Personally i prefer dw but to the people that loved 2h enhancement it was what made the class whole for them and they should have thr right to play 2h.

Where is player agency for those that want 2h enhancement? Its not optimal but it was fun for them.

12

Then they can continue having fun with the current set up.

Its not optimal. But if they really like 2h for the sake of 2h, equip a 2hander and find a group/raid that doesnt mind hard carrying you like they would have had to do before Legion.

Even when you had “all of your abilities” able to be used, a 2h shaman was worthless in a group unless they drastically overgeared the content.

13

You sound a lot like a dk who fought for 2h frost not to be returned. She said the same thing you just did. People now mostly have her on ignore.

Its not about always being optimal… The game is supposed to be fun. If people want to run around with a 2h weapon as enhancement they should be able to and have access to all of our abilities.

I have agreed with you.on somethings in the past but this we will just have to agree to disagree.

14

I am not against it returning in theory. I am against the limited dev time it would take to make work.

One of the issues WW Monk is having, per blue post, is making scaling work with both dw and 2h. So instead, MW is looking incredibly broken/bad atm.

15

Well i am not saying it has to return. I am just saying Ion crapped on how people played shaman because it wasn’t Optimal in his opinion. And its like him saying your not supposed to be playing Demonology Warlock.

People want 2h enhancement and yes it will have the dame issues as 2h and dw frost and monk.

And it should comeback correctly. Just tired of the its not Optimal and if you want to do that than you can do it right now.

And no 2h should not come out at the start of this expansion if it comes out it should be part of the first big patch of the expansion. When they have had time to work on it.

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They will be spending so much time on fixing covenants the first patch of SL, I doubt they will have time for anything else

17

mate, you should became game design, i’m not even joking here, you seem to know better then Ian, but i don’t think that its a pretty hard thing. I’m clapping hard here for yout comment either way! Since Ian steped in things just went from bad to worse. WoD, Legion, BFA… class balance is non-existent, pvp balance is non-existent.

18

While I appreciate the kind words, I would fall apart at any mathematics that would need to be done. Ion is a great raid designer, but as far as other things he has overseen (lack of pvp vendors in previous xpacs despite constant outcry for them) just seems ridiculous.

Ghostcrawler said it best as to when he left — he felt that at Blizzard there was a stigma of “We are the rockstars” which was basically that the developers knew better than the players. We’ve seen that to be wrong several times — with PvP Vendors — with Azerite Gear — with Classic WoW.

“You think you do, but you don’t.”

Its just frustrating that the same issues continue .to plague specs year after year, with no change.

Enhance didn’t get an unpruning…it got reverted.

Shaman got flametongue and primal strike, 2 dead abilities for Resto and Elemental as part of the “unpruning”.

What a joke. Primal Strike wasn’t even an original shaman ability ffs.

It just feels like so much spite from the end of the developers (maybe its just projection) but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had made the new shaman starting experience start with a 2h just to take it away at lvl 10 as a further slap in the face.

2 Likes
19

Thats true. But what I am trying to get at is telling people they can do 2h now is a bad move… People should be able to play how they love so if people want to be a 2h enh shaman then let them. Its not optimal but it is fun for them. And yes 2h enhancement should come back. But as i have said with 2h frost and 2h monk it needs to be as balanced as it can be.

Blizzard is working hard to make 2h frost work.

20

As Stated Bubblies you should be a class design. The fact that you actually listen and can counter with good arguements for players to get an ability or not is something that well blizzard never does they just say this is how its going to be.