Evening, Shamans!
We’ve had a lot of recent discussion around a lack of defenses and talents feeing underwhelming. We’ve struck up good ideas mix throughout various threads, so I wanted to create an in depth wish list for the Shaman class. This is primarily centered around the shaman core set and talents, though I may offer a few specialization specific key points as well.
In this list I want to target specific over-arching issues the class has while also refraining from creating a master class. I have no interest in creating a blatantly over powered class. For that reason, I welcome any feedback on areas you feel I over-shot the mark, or under-shot the mark. And, please, add your own thoughts as well! Onto the list.
1. Poor Defenses
To be blunt, the rework has not done Shaman any favors from a defensive point of view. By and large, Shaman has one primary defense with a trickle of spells and effects that don’t add up to anything significant, topped with a primary heal that is ineffective and inefficient that requires far too much investment.
Thoughts and Suggestions:
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Astral Shift is a decent ability on its own but lacks punch and flavor. Our talent choices also leave much to be desired. I suggest making Astral Shift a 40% DR, 10 seconds on a 1.5 minute cooldown baseline, while adjusting Planes Traveler to “Astral shift heals for 35% of your health over the duration.” And Astral Bulwark to “Astral Shift reduces damage by an additional 10%.” This creates a solid reason to use either. DR tends to be very strong in high burst scenarios, PVE and PVP, while Healing can out-pace it if you’re able to stretch your defense out.
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Earth Elemental needs to no longer share an Elemental lock-out with Fire Elemental. There’s no real reason that using a 5 minute cooldown minor defensive should disrupt a player’s burst cooldown in the way that it does. This is simply an outdated mechanic.
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It’s very important to allow Ghost wolf to be a better defensive tool. Spirit Wolf is the best possible candidate for change to create a better, more well-rounded Shaman class. The Spirit Wolf talent needs to be “You may cast Ghost Wolf while under the effects of crowd control abilities. While in Ghost Wolf Form, you take 20% less damage.” The speed benefit of Spirit would need to be shifted to Thunderous Paws, and read “Increases Movement speed by an additional 10% while in Spirit wolf. When shifting into a ghost wolf while snared or rooted, remove all snares and roots and gain an additional 20% movement speed for 3 seconds. This effect can happen once every 60 seconds.”
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I would like to see Healing Surge buffed baseline for all specs and see Focused Insight become a choice node against Healing Stream totem, and swirling currents go away. In additon, rework Focused Insights to “Flame Shock ticks reduce Healing Surge’s Mana cost by 5% and cast time by 20%, stacking 5 times.” This seems drastic, but I feel like this would be a massive benefit to the class design. Removing Swirling currents gives the ability for both Healing Surge and Healing Stream totem to be stronger on their own, and making Healing Steam share with a single-point Focused Insight gives players more ways to reduce keybinds while choosing flavor of healing support.
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It is currently very expensive to reach our Mobility skills and make their cooldowns low enough to be worth the investment. I’d like to see Winds of Al’Akir removed with the change to Thunderous Paws, and move the mobility choice node in its place, and move Go With the Flow up, but adjust the talent cooldown reductions to 10 sec from Spirit walk and 6-7 seconds on Gust of Wind.
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Stoneskin totem is problematic in a general sense. It’s not a fun maintenance buff to try to press every 30 seconds, and it’s mostly only useful in PVE where pure physical damage is much more common. I don’t want to step on PVE players toes with this one, so I had a two-part idea that would combat a few issues involving ability power budget, bloat, and choice.
I would like to see Totemic Recall removed, so that totems can be strong on their own and move Tranquil Air totem its place.
Create a new Choice talent along with Stoneskin Totem that reads “Stone Bulwark Totem: Summon a totem with 5% of the shaman’s health. Grants a large absorption shield to two nearby players with the lowest health. 45 second cooldown.” This provides an impactful cooldown to support allies in a pinch with more up-front impact, while being interesting in PVP, as the shields could be countered by killing the totem instead.
2. Button Bloat
Another major concern for Shaman is our wide array of buttons, many of which could be combined to create more impactful spells that reduce keybind concerns and wasted globals just to be effective. The primary culprit is our totems that require globals to cast, while generally not being impactful enough on their own, or having incredibly long cooldowns because of our bloated kit.
Thoughts and Suggestions:
- I have previously addressed Healing Spring Totem. A reworked Healing Spring totem and Focused Insight would go a long way to reduce the feeling of “mandatory” buttons to make your heals impactful, this giving players the option for non-button alternatives.
- Earth Grab Totem needs to become a choice node. I recognize the desire to have Earth Grab totem separate from Earthbind. I suggest a choice node with Earthgrab totem - “Stoneclaw - Earth Bind Totem roots all enemies for 8 seconds. Enemies can only be rooted once.” This gives the option of a 30 second root and snare while sacrificing the split snare ability and frees a keybind. Wind Rush could be moved to a choice node with Tranquil Air’s new place where Totemic Recall is, with the proceeding choice node offering a way to make it a more impactful ability, such as removing snares on cast.
- As previously mentioned, Totemic Recall should be removed to allow current totems to be higher budget without risk of being too strong when multiplied.
- Mana spring should be adjusted to a passive. I believe it’s only in Totem format due to class fantasy, but it’s just not a necessary button to press every 2 minutes. It’s a classic example of bloat.
- [Warning, I might get heat for this suggestion] Another interesting change would be to make Spirit Walker’s Grace baseline 1.5 min cooldown and change Graceful Spirit to “Spirit Walker’s Grace is now passive and allows you to move while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and healing surge. While casting these spells you cannot exceed 100% movement speed.” We all miss MOP Lightning bolt. I believe SWG is an ability that has potential to reduce bloat through a passive benefit that is simply more restricted. I also feel that this merits a 2 point investment, which is why I made it a choice following Spirit Walker’s Grace.
- Nature’s Swiftness doesn’t necessarily serve a purpose and is generally weak. I would argue that given other power benefits discussed in this thread, Nature’s swiftness could go away from the class tree and be moved to Restoration, if kept at all.
3. Under Performing Talents
- Previously Discussed, Go With the Flow needs to reduce the cooldown more.
- Nature’s Swiftness, mentioned in bloat, if it is to stay, it needs a lower cooldown or a buff to heals when used for Elemental and Enhancement. I do not believe the right move is to make it affect Hex as that would undoubtedly create balance issues.
- Nature’s Guardian is a very meager heal for 2 point investment. I would like to see it raised to a 1 or 1.5 minute cooldown, and read “When your health is brought below 35% health, you instantly heal for 8/16% of your health and you gain 2/4 seconds of Astral Shift.” (Benefited by Planes Traveler and Astral Bulwark.)
- Elemental warding should be reverted to all damage types, as a 1.5%/3% DR, a toned down version of how it was in DF Beta. Shamans take too high of damage from physical sources. A meaningful DR would make the talent more desirable and create more interesting decisions throughout the tree.
4. Miscellaneous Design Concerns
- Tremor Totem should be castable while feared, but reduce the duration to 6 seconds, possibly raise the cooldown to 1.5 min (?). This would put it a little more in-line with Warrior’s Berserker shout and provide re-bound support for shamans.
- Flurry and Maelstrom Weapon has no place in the class tree. They are simply traps without being functionally different than they are for Enhancement. Please do not give me a reason to use Primal Strike, I don’t need more key-binds.
- Earth and Fire Elemental need to not cancel one another (re-mention).
- Anhk is weighed heavily on the class from a defensive perspective, but holds no real value to PVP and is a poor re-bound mechanic for PVE.
- Lightning Lasso doesn’t work with Ele and Enhance’s kit. I enjoy the risk of using Lightning Lasso, but it needs to give Maelstrom and Maelstrom Weapon stacks per tick.
- Similarly, Frost Shock should provide 4-5 Maelstrom for Elemental to compensate for the frequency it needs to be used in PVP. This is enough to smooth out gameplay without risking overtaking Lightning bolt as the far superior filler for damage and maelstrom.
5. Other Wishes
- Give us more visuals from Primalists, especially an updated Ascendance.
- Water Walking should be castable while walking and affect nearby allies to match the benefits of Death Knight water walking.
- Update Earth Shield graphic.
- Some of us would like to see more of the “spirit” aspect of shamans incorporated into our kit.
- Give us a Lightning bolt update or Glyph to other previous versions.
- Please acknowledge us. <3
Thank you for reading. This is just one Shaman’s thoughts and suggestions and the direction I’d like to see the class go. Please feel free to add your thoughts, challenges and concerns. If I missed anything major, I’ll update the original post. Cheers!