Shaman Hero Talents - Stormbringer should be Resto

Classes Shaman
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Totally unimportant topic, but I keep reading people assuming stormbringer will be for elemental and enhancement, and that far seer will be elemental and resto.

I think it is safe to assume that stormbringer will be elemental, but I think the second spec fits closer to resto in theme than enhancement. I assume folks just hear ‘stormbringer’ and assume lightning damage, and that may very well be the case. But if it is, I still want to make the argument that resto SHOULD be stormbringer. Some points:

  • Resto and Elemental are the two specs that actually cast the spell Stormkeeper, to begin with
  • Resto initially (in WoW) did not have much of an identity - a ‘healing surge’ was vague. Over time resto’s theme developed – they were basically water and storm-based healers. They dealt damage with lightning, healed with rain, caused tidal waves to cleanse and renew their allies. Their healing spells animations changed to a watery blue. Kul’tiran’s Tide Sages seem to be the most developed restoration-themed shaman, and their role in lore had to do with the Kul’tiran’s naval capabilities – control of the ocean and storms.
  • Here is a list of resto spells/talents that relate to storms: Riptide, deluge, healing rain, stormkeeper, tidal waves, acid rain, overflowing shores, flash flood, flow of the tides, cloudburst totem, wavespeaker’s blessing, torrent, current control, tide turner, undercurrent, tidebringer, downpour, high tide. (Some of those may be borderline, but I did not just include every water-based spell there is FWIW)
  • To be fair, enhance has many storm-based skills as well. But thematically, I do not see them as summoning big storms all around them, and instead just using that kind of energy to enhance their melee attacks. Doom winds/windfury, storm strike, maelstrom weapon, crash lightning, these to me do not scream “BRINGING A STORM” but instead say “hitting really swift/hard (thanks to the power of a storm)”. Whereas, if I imagine what a water ascendant is doing… they are just splashing an entire battlefield with a storm of tides/floods/rains, the same way an elemental shaman would but for healing instead of damage.
  • For Far Seer, if it came down to resto versus enhance, I would argue enhance is more closely related to a far seer based on the Warcraft 3 Far Seer unit. Far Seers are the OG source of spirit wolves in Warcraft. When I think of a far seer, I think of an old orc on a wolf, surrounded by two purple wolves. (However, I could see them trying to distance that definition of far seer and have it instead be one who speaks with the ancestors. Ancestral spirit-based spells are definitely present in resto’s theme as well. Earthquake was WC3 far seer’s ultimate, leaning elemental. But if they want to go the ancestral route, I’d give it to resto/enhance.)
  • Totemic could be any spec, but the most common usage of totems does seem to be resto. I really wish they thought of something different than this though as it just seems plain.
  • If I were deciding, I’d replace ‘totemic’ with a different theme altogether and I would have the following hero talent/spec pairings: Elemental (Stormbringer, New Hero Talent Spec), Enhancement (Far Seer, New Hero Talent Spec), and Resto (Stormbringer, Far Seer). As for what that spec could be, heck, just do ‘shadowhunter’, and have the top node turn all elemental (fire, lightning, etc.) damage into shadow damage for enhance and elemental. Lean into voodoo theme (like they probably will with totemic), but do something that is actually a type of shaman. “totem guy” is weak. Even something uninspired like “flamecaller” would make more flavorful sense (and would be the fire-counterpart to stormbringer for elemental.)

TL;DR: Resto shaman can fit all three hero classes really, but it’s main theme, in my opinion, has to do with water/rain/flood/tide-based abilities characteristic of a STORM and are the clear choice for the stormbringer hero spec.

TL;DR2: “Totemic” is boring. Change it. Let enhancement shamans be shadowhunters.

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I mean, the prototypical enhancement shaman (thrall) is also the prototypical far seer…

Resto has the LEAST to do with what is established as a far seer in warcraft. It would represent a pivot (which would be fine, but would definitely be a pivot.)

Not sure why the attitude, friend. This is light, inconsequential, discussion.

You’re also sort of missing the central point. Do you not see how storm-based restoration is? They could even change the name of the spec to something related to storms/weather/water/tides and it would totally make thematic sense.

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:point_left: :point_left: :sunglasses:

Haha.

Hey ya know since my OP, I actually looked over enhance and elemental’s talents, and believe it or not enhance actually has more storm-based skills/talents than elemental does.

I guess what it comes down to is whether ‘stormbringer’ is supposed to be synonymous with lightning, or weather. If lightning give it to enhance/elemental. If weather, give it to resto/enhance (this could work if the idea of elemental is that every elemental shaman should not favor one element more than they already are, but prob wont be the case).

I think the core of my point is that historically resto has always been lackluster in terms of theme/flavor, and that’s been getting better over the years, but totemic is bland AF and it would suck if that’s what they ended up with. And they have the least to do with far seer historically. If they get far seer/totemic, that’s going to be super super lame from a flavor standpoint.

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Far seer has to be elemental/enhance as feral spirits are directly taken from the far seer and so was the whole casting lightning thing.

But I guess both farseer and stormbringer can’t both be enhance/ele so who knows. Shaman lore has been butchered over the course of wow so who knows what they will do.

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I feel like shaman started off with one of the best themes in the game, but it received little development attention over the years and they turned it into the “elements” class instead of what the class was based on (shaman, farseer, Tauren chieftain, shadow hunter) from Warcraft 3. Lots of good lore and themes there, but not anymore.

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I hope you realize I am not in charge of this kind of thing. You realize that, right? Haha.

To be clear, elemental is definitely going to be bringing the storm.

I have time to kill while I wait for a call so for fun:

Leave in-game perception behind for a sec and imagine all three specs popping off and what that would look like to witness (with special emphasis on how it relates to a storm):

Lightning-based elemental shaman: Guy standing on a mountain, hands to the sky, directing lightning bolts toward their enemies, everything getting zapped all over, commanding an element of the storm to zap s@#$ around, and with every zap, everything else in the area getting slightly zapped as well. The earth is cracking, and some flinging of lava and fire is occurring, adding to the chaos of… A Huge Storm. Basically, the shaman during the end credits of WC3.

Restoration shaman: A water ascendant commanding huge rainstorms and tides to rejuvenate their allies, splashing all over the place, water bending like a master waterbender, dropping totems to accumulate huge clouds that splash all over the battle field, calling to the sky to help create lightning that bursts at enemies through the chaos. Think of a movie where someone is on a boat in the middle of a raging storm, like Forrest Gump or… the Perfect Storm. That is what a restoration shaman is commanding, albeit one that helps their allies compared to elemental’s harming of enemies.

Enhancement shaman: A warrior with two weapons calling upon the elements around them, and spirit wolves, to enhance each of their attacks. There is an aura of a storm around them, they are static-y, and each strike claps their enemy’s like Thor at the end of Thor Ragnarok. They are the embodiment of a storm, with fast winds being channeled into their weapons for fast strikes, icestrikes giving them the power to throw a hailstorms at enemies at their will. They are not creating a huge storm around the whole battle field, but they are definitely embodying one.

So yeah, you can make the case for all three. And it probably will be enhance and elemental, but one of them SHOULD be resto. It is literally their whole identity.

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I’m struggling to see how Farseer has any synergy with resto at all. So while it makes perfect sense that stormbringer would be for ele/enhance…. Farseer makes more sense to me.

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Yeah, WoW has sort of had limitations that forced the direction of development from how things initially were. If WC3’s far seer didn’t have chain lightning, their auto attacks be lightning bolts, and their ultimate be earth quake, and the shaman unit didn’t say “Storm, earth, a fire, heed my call” (and have lightning shield), there wouldn’t be much tying Vanilla WoW’s shaman to the elements directly.

Then when they added shaman to alliance via draenei, the lore justification was that draenei’s call for help was ‘answered by the elements’, and the elemental aspect basically further developed from there as an aspect that related to all shaman races (so it wouldn’t step on the toes of each race’s culture), but eventually became the primary focus of how we play the class.

So really, by having to stick to universal aspects of a class, the identity of the class really developed away from it’s initial aspect.

Plus the fact that each ‘spec’ was not really meant to be as much of a character’s identity as it was now. This is why combat rogues were changed to outlaw rogues, so they had an actual stand-alone identity.

On that note, since restoration has developed toward water, tide, and weather-based abilities, I really think it is high time to change the name from the redundant (with druids) restoration to something that embodies that identity, like “tidebringer” or something.

They can just have the ancestral aspects of the spec be a thread universal to all specs of shaman/the general class tree (as it already is.) I know they may be a little hesitant to make every race basically a ‘tide sage’ like kul’tirans, but they’ve already made every race able to be a holy priest, and they’ve already made troll shamans (which are basically witchdoctors) lava/lightning flingers that make earthquakes, or dwarf shamans that can cast hex. The game has naturally developed away from those racial identities.

And on that note, I imagine they chose ‘totemic’ because that is more universal to all shaman races compared to something like ‘shadowhunter’ or something more voodoo focused. But that’s stupid. Let any shaman be a shadowhunter, that’s the direction the game has moved. Dwarves have cast hex for a decade now.

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Because you’re focusing on WC3 hero class abilities instead of their themes. The theme of the Far Seer hero was being the wise elder and spiritual leader of their people, which fits the spirit-attuned Restoration best of all three specs, and berserker-adjacent Enhancement least.

The emphasis on Far Seer’s Feral Spirits spell was on spirits, not feral.

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To be clear, all three classes have a solid claim to stormbringer.

Enhance and restoration actually have more talents/abilities named after storm-based concepts than elemental does, believe it or not. So if you think ‘talent names’ is a good metric for who should get the talent tree, then elemental would actually have the weakest claim and it would go to enhance/restoration.

But you probably think that spec theme is more important than arbitrary talent names, and that of course elemental has a stronger claim to stormbringer than resto/enhance does. If that’s the case, then the ‘stormbringer’ talent enhance used to have is irrelevant and you’d instead have to look at enhance and resto thematically, and which one is more of a ‘stormbringer’.

My point is that if blizzard renamed restoration to something else like they did with combat rogues → outlaw, and they renamed resto “stormbringer”, all of their skills would ALREADY make complete sense thematically with that name. (Although something like ‘tidebringer’ would fit a little better). Thematically, though, they are creating storms across the battle field, throwing waves, waterbending, calling lightning, making rain. Anyone who plays restoration cannot play their character controlling the weather.

If you renamed enhancement “stormbringer” though, it would make a bit less sense. Elemental/restoration shaman create storms large enough to capsize a ship or start a forest fire, enhancement shamans going full storm-mode are more like Thor at the end of Ragnarok.

TL;DR: talent names favor enhance/restoration to be stormbringer over elemental, so if that is your argument, then elemental loses stormbringer. If you think talent names are arbitrary and theme is more important, all three have a claim, but I’d say restoration/elemental have a stronger ‘storm’ theme than enhance does. Take your pick, resto still should have stormbringer.

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Makes sense to me. I have always said Elemental (despite the lightning bolt icon) has continued to be the fire spec and enhance has been the wind spec. Resto obviously water, and the absent earth tank spec =)

I also wouldn’t argue with changing the name of the spec to something for water focused. I don’t think we needs specs with the same names at this point in the development of the game lol.

My gut tells me Resto will get totemic (with ele) and far seer (with enh) though. And then ele/enh will share stormbringer. Hopefully I am wrong.

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Well you’d agree then that shaman, in general, regardless of spec, all have spirit/ancestral-based talents and abilities. Enhancement is not tapping into spirits any less than the other two. They do cast feral spirits after all.

On that note, I don’t think enhance NEEDS to go for Far Seer. My only point is that while all three specs are related to storm-related skills/talents/abilities, if it came down to choosing between enhance and restoration on who got the ‘stormbringer’ identity, I’d argue it relates to restoration’s theme FAR more than enhance’s.

If the point was to lean into the ‘spiritual’ aspect of far seer thematically, I’d be fine with resto getting far seer too. My only point is that “stormbringer” is THEMATICALLY 100% in line with how restoration shamans heal nowadays.

I feel like lots of people don’t even think about how their heals are healing in lore. I know I previously didn’t. It’s easy to understand a fire mage shoots fire, but a restoration shaman just seems to ‘do stuff’ to many people. But if you READ the skills and talents and try to understand what they are doing… THEMATICALLY … they are 1000% waterbenders that are just calling storms and making huge waves like the ones present in… storms. This is blizzard’s opportunity to really hammer down that identity to the community at large. Fire mages throw fire everywhere, holy paladins smack stuff with the light, restoration shamans are commanding water/the tides/weather/storms.

The point looming above my main point is that ‘totemic’ is boring and they should fix it and make it like… shadowhunter, and give that to enhance/elemental. But let restoration, which has historically has had bland identities, actually have a unique identity that ties to the water-and-weather-based identity they’ve developed.

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Sorry I’m not following you. Feral spirits are iconic to enhancement, and also the far seer. Maybe the Farseer hero talents just won’t have anything to do with feral spirits? But then that doesnt leave much to work with other than redundant elemental spells.

And nothing in resto shaman tree relates to the wise leader. I wish that was the current theme of resto shaman, but it’s really not. Over the years blizzard turned away from spiritually wise healer and aimed at water bender.

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I think Spiritwalker would be a good name for Resto. Yeah it kind of ties to Taurens, but I think any race could be one. I don’t like the idea of a water themed name for the spec, but whatever will be will be.

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All 3 of the hero specs fit enhancement really well, so will be weird for 1 to not be for them, but that’s how it has to be.

Totemic Hero is obviously going to be enhance/resto and it’s hard to not see Stormbringer being for enhance/ele. Which leaves the ele/resto one as Farseer, but also means Farseer wouldn’t have the iconic wolves so IDK.

I wish elemental wasn’t the fire spec. There’s already 2 other casters(or 3 if you count evoker) with fire focus, elemental should be more unique than just being a 3rd or 4th fire caster.

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The wolves as part of the Farseer kit is the biggest part of what separates what I loved about WC3 and how WoW’s class abilities were set up. I blame no one, it’s just how things developed. Seeing Farseer as the name for Enhancement/Restoration would make it right some 20 years later.

I agree that Stormbringer does feel appropriate for Elem/Resto more so than Farseer. From Riptides, to Healing Rains, to Torrents. They are rapid changes in the weather that bring benefits to your party. just about every offensive talent in the kit borrows from elemental.

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so tru omg

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…Stormbringer is the name of a talent that affects Stormstrike…

Elemental is fire and lightning (with some earth)
Resto is Water and Ancestors (with some earth)
Enhance is Physical/Wind and lightning (With some fire)

Why would “Stormbringer” not be Enhance/Elemental?

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It’s not so much that stormbringer doesn’t make sense for enhance. It’s that stormbringer makes sense for Resto.

Lightning is only part of a storm. There’s usually a lot of water…