Shaman P4 PTR Feedback: Rune Layout Adjustments

In Development Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR
1

Rune Purposes:

I think runes should fall into two categories:

  1. Fundamental Runes – essentially baseline spells that enable a particular playstle or modernize an existing ability. (e.g.: Way of Earth, DW specialization, Static Shock)

  2. Stylistic/Situational Runes – add a twist on the general gameplay, and can be switched around situationally (e.g.: Decoy Totem vs Spirit of the Alpha, Ancestral Guidance vs Shamanistic Rage from P3).

A mixture of the two styles gives classes an even balance in competitiveness and customizability. Fundamental runes are great because they can help tune balance and enable new playstyles; but if every rune is a fundamental rune, then a particular playstyle has to completely comply with one specific set of choices (essentially no choice). It’s very rewarding switching up runes to best fit the current encounter, and having different options adds a lot of depth to the game.

Major issues with the current design of P4 Shaman Runes:

  • Moving Shamanistic Rage to a free spot has allowed chaos in the leg slot, enabling extremely tanky resto and ele shamans with Way of Earth & riptide; Earth Shield has taken over for everyone else in pvp, and the amount of passive healing is very high.
  • Much of combat is being decided by instant cast spells that are entirely RNG dependent.
  • Feral Spirits are insanely overpowered.

I believe these issues can be addressed with a mixture of re-arrangement of runes and some rune adjustments. These changes may impact the order in which new players get specific functionality, but the overall health of end-game is more important.

Overall, I believe my changes will significantly nerf the current state of PTR shaman, but hopefully only in removing particularly toxic interactions/playstyles.

(In order of most changes to least)
[UPDATED]: On 06/29, I added in some updates given lots of feedback from resto-shamans. These are all marked with a [UPDATED] qualifier.

Legs (Fundamental & Stylistic)
The combination of Riptide & Way of Earth is unsustainable. Moved them together.

  • Riptide: Riptide is the most important of resto runes; in order to stop the combination of resto shamans taking Way of Earth, this rune must be here.
  • Way of Earth: generally here for Tank Shamans. This rune is available to elemental shamans but they will lose out on riptide(!) and the Burn spell power via Flametongue(!)
  • Greater Ghost Wolf (with proposed changes): Enhancement Shaman struggle to gap close; generally they have to shift out of ghost wolf to drop a totem or cast a shock/heal prior to connecting, making the opportunity cost generally unappealing.
    • Adjust to make Ghost Wolf 1 second faster (or entirely instant); keep the rest.
      • Moving forward Elemental Shaman, are unlikely to have access to the improved ghost wolf talent
    • Allow shocks (perhaps also totems) to be cast without losing ghost wolf; keep the rest.
  • Ancestral Guidance: This rune could stay here to give a niche PvE option for dps.

There is an argument to instead make a very attractive resto shaman weapon imbue like elemental. This is risky in my opinion, as weapon imbue switches can be done mid-combat. I don’t think the WoE/Riptide combination should be permitted.

Ghost wolf might not end up being a competitive enough choice for any PvP playstyle, and some players might default back to doing Riptide. I think it’s okay for hybrid classes to be hybrid and flex into their other strengths.

Belt (Fundamental Rune)
One of the primary PvP issues is how insanely swingy an instant cast, guaranteed crit Lava Burst is. The removal of this spell as an option for instant cast should significantly smooth out the volatility. Damage will have to be made back up in the glove slot.

  • [UPDATED]: Earth-Living Weapon: New resto-focused imbue. As many have noted, resto shaman don’t have a great rune choice for the belt slot. Rsham is the only spec where imbues are not very relevant.
    • Rather than making a generic +healing rune, add a tie-in to make Earth-living interact with water totems. Resto shaman lacks cohesion with the totem fantasy. A minor +mp5 stat stick is not impactful; water totems outside of poison/disease cleansing feel irrelevant in SoD.
      • For example, have Earth-living procs cause your water totems to:
        • Healing Stream: Copy the spell to another target at 40% (random %, can be tuned).
        • Mana Spring: Refund 40% of the mana used to cast the spell to the entire group (random %, can be tuned).
    • (Original suggestion for context)
      • Healing Rain + Coherence: Combining this rune with Coherence (which is a very similar style of rune). Currently Healing Rain is fighting for a spot against Overload; from what I can see, it might end up not seeing play. Healers could still decide to use Power Surge, but otherwise don’t have many options in the Belt slot.
        • Most shaman prefer this to be moved to the Boot Slot.
  • Maelstrom: Remove Lava Burst from the options of instant cast spells.
    • This negatively impacts 2-hand shaman in PvP & PvE, and tank sham in some PvE situations. Bonuses are added in Glove rune to make up for it.
    • Given the amount of healing removed from most kits, I recommend revisiting adding Healing Wave back in. Mental Dex nerfs mitigate a lot of the overhealing. Perhaps make Healing Wave go on cooldown when used with Maelstrom?
  • Power Surge: Remove Lava Burst from the options of instant cast spells. Continue to allow the Lava Burst cooldown to be reset by the proc. Add Lightning Bolt as a candidate for instant cast (for a single-target option).
    • This still negatively impacts PvE elemental shaman’s DPS, but keeping the CD reset and adding Lightning Bolt as an option should minimize it a bit.
  • Fire Nova: No changes. (Kind of a useless rune in my experience)

Gloves (Fundamental Rune)

  • Lava Burst: No changes.
  • Earth Shield: No changes, but moved to gloves so as to not give as much access to non-healer roles.
  • Lava Lash: Make this relevant for 2-hand shaman. (Probably the most lazy possible change, but 2-hand will be losing significant DPS due to the removal of Maelstrom & Lava Burst interaction).
    • This can be competitively scaled to make DW and 2H similar DPS. I personally hate Lava Lash but the DW PvE rotation feels much more involved with it in, compared to 2H.
    • Consider making it not proc WF for 2H so as to not give 2H shaman too much access to Windfury triggers (particularly relevant in PvP).
  • Molten Blast: This spell is often not used by tanks in boss fights, instead leaning towards hard-casting lava burst. Hard-casting as a tank because your default spell is bad is seriously weird design.
    • In addition to current functionality: Each cast empowers the shaman’s active fire totem (scaling up across multiple casts)
      • Adding additional power into this rune into an active fire totem (relatively stationary) gives relevancy to different types of totems depending on the encounter. Having it only impact the active totem means you can’t stack a fire nova totem.
      • Consider making this scale by Block Value so as to not make it over-compete Lava Lash.

There is a possibility that some DPS (particularly 2h enhance) choose to load into both Riptide + Earth Shield if the Lava Lash alternative is not competitive enough. My expectation is the damage loss will not be worth it, given the Maelstrom nerf already.

Wrist (Fundamental Rune)

  • Water Shield: Moving this to the rest of the “Lightning Shield” runes aesthetically makes sense and gives an option for every spec within the slot.
  • Static Shock: No changes
  • Rolling Thunder: No changes
  • Overcharged: No changes

I personally liked this approach of making lightning shield a more well fleshed out design for SoD. Riptide never really fit in here, other than it was introduced in the same phase.

Boots(Stylistic/Situational Rune)

  • [UPDATED]: Make Spirit of the Alpha baseline, but remove the Spirit of the Beta affect from the baseline. If a party/raid only has one shaman, they MUST take Spirit of the Alpha. With the additional change of moving Healing Rain to the Boot slot, it will be frustrating for any sham that wants to take a different rune being shoe-horned into SOTA.
    • Adjust this rune to Loyal Beta: Your Spirit of the Alpha is enhanced to give you the general Spirit of the Beta affects when used on someone other than yourself. (Keeps this power-level gated behind a rune).
    • Add in a small, dynamic scaling based on Spell Power / Attack Power to make this enticing to Elemental without buffing Enhancement. (Also to smooth out some of the PvE elemental nerfs targeted towards balancing PvP).
    • (Original suggest for context):
      • Spirit of the Alpha: No changes, unless you want to add some scaling for spell casters given the removal of instant Lava Burst for PvE. (Would have to make it default to one or the other so enhance don’t get both buffs)
  • Decoy Totem: 10 seconds of freedom, in additional to preventing a blow, is simply too strong. Especially with the proposed Ghost Wolf rune changes. This rune needs to be scaled down – two proposed changes:
    • Make the effects of decoy totem end when the totem is destroyed. I personally like interaction with totems; it’s an expression of skill for players to destroy them.
    • Scale this down to 5 second duration.
      • Consider giving a small speed bonus (20-30%) as compensation.
      • Consider giving a physical absorb shield for how much was blocked by decoy totem as compensation (rewards good timing on when to use it – recommended in a Cloak rune as well)
  • [Updated]: Healing Rain + Coherence moved to boot slot
    • Healing Rain + Coherence: Combining this rune with Coherence (which is a very similar style of rune). Currently Healing Rain is fighting for a spot against Overload; from what I can see, it might end up not seeing play. Healers could still decide to use Power Surge, but otherwise don’t have many options in the Belt slot.
    • Ancestral Awakening removed
    • (Original suggestion for context):*
      • Ancestral Awakening: No changes
  • Ancestral Guidance (optional relocation): I don’t think anyone will take it in the legs slot currently. It might get chosen down here situationally.

Chest (Fundamental Rune): No changes other than relocating Healing Rain to Gloves.

Helm (Fundamental Runes): No changes.
Helm is an easy one as it’s already well designed. Each role has a cookie-cutter designed rune for their role, but there are also strong opportunities to make adjustments depending on the situation. (E.g. resto shamans can delve into Burn to help with DPS, DW enhance could OH FT with Burn for aoe trash, etc.)

Cloak (Stylistic Rune)
Given all of the playstyles shaman need to maintain, there is a huge amount of fundamental rune slots, and very few situational rune slots. Cloak needs to be a situational slot to enable player choice. The current set of choices is not befitting this arrangement, so I’m suggested new rune ideas. These need to all be interested niches that lean into a player’s particular playstyle.

  • Storm, Earth, and Fire: Delay the snare to the first tick after the totem is placed.
    • The option to root everyone is awesome, and super relevant to all shaman specs! But an instant 5 second root with no trigger is extremely oppressive, especially vs a lot of melee. If you delay the snare to the first tick, you provide:
      • Counter-play for melee to kill it prior to getting rooted.
      • The ability to Totemic Projection it in for a root (rewarding good timing = good gameplay!)
    • If the Flame Shock periodic is left in, this will likely become default for all PvE.
  • Empowered Purge: Purge also snares the target (or rapidly reducing slow from 99% to 0%) for 1-1.5 seconds.
    • Taking inspiration from WC3 here. Adds in some cool utility into an iconic shaman ability, allowing kiting, or stopping from getting kited.
  • Totem Absorption: Grounding totem (and Decoy Totem?) provide the shaman a shield for the amount that was absorbed, lasts 15 seconds.
    • Originally I thought about a reflect on Grounding Totem, but it’s already such an oppressive spell. An absorb would be less frustrating and would reward a well-timed grounding compared to a randomly cast one.
  • [UPDATED]: Spiritwalker’s Grace: Give a 20 second buff to allow your next 5 casted Nature spells to be casted while moving. 3 minute cooldown. Magic buff (purgable)
    • Many rshaman have requested SWG for P4 to help with severe mobility issues with resto shaman. This rune is strong enough to be used by other roles in PvP as well; healing while kiting/on the move can be a clutch CD usage.
    • Forcing this to Nature spells only makes it so Lava Burst cannot take advantage of it; kiting decoy totem’d ele sham casting LBs is too strong in PvP.
    • Adjusting this to a charges with a longer duration means a mechanic that has you move once every 5 seconds won’t feel like such a waste for this spell. (A simple 9-10 second duration otherwise is also probably fine)
  • Feral Spirit: Look, I played WC3. Farseer is an AWESOME class fantasy, and Feral Spirits are ICONIC. But as is, it is an “I win” button every 3 minutes. There is NO downside to using it; I cannot see a way this can be balanced. I am in favor of completely removing the rune.
    • If it is not removed…: They are currently dealing 4.5k damage, ~7k if you provide them totems. Essentially un-CCable (immune to roots, you can tremor them out of fears). They are way too tanky; would need 1/3rd the health so they can actually be killed. The healing is insane, the stun is insane… The INSANE SPRINT! PLEASE reconsider this rune.
    • I personally think this should be attached to a tier set bonus activated by a random chance – and make them last significantly shorter (10 seconds?)

Speaking of WC3, have you guys considered getting rid of the AWFUL Warbringer rune for warrior and just give them Windwalk!? 45 second cooldown, 20 rage. Invis for 3 seconds, removes snares and slows, 50% move speed. Can’t be used with Faerie Fire, etc.

9 Likes
2

Having leveled and played all classes with nearly all the runes at lvl 50 and reading a ton of feedback this is absolutely the way forward! This poster did 99% of the work for blizzard here. These suggestions are excellent. Please adopt them and use this model (flavor vs core build options) as the rubric by which you filter other suggestions and modeling of rune interactions. We can see by current PTR changes this is the goal but this poster really nails it. I wish this guy played all the other classes and could give such succinct and impactful feedback. Much appreciated!

3 Likes
3

Removing instant cast lvb would kill shaman tanks. we are currently hard casting that relying on MSW procs. Bad idea UNLESS they actually make molten blast single target viable. Your proposed change doesn’t really fix that, as it doesnt give us the needed damage and threat for tanking. We generally dont use fire totems besides aoe damage, and those don’t give us threat, they give the totems threat. Also MB is 4x too expensive to use on any sort of rotation as described there.
The other ideas seem sound though! I liked the idea of giving us a shield via grounding totem

2 Likes
4

I agree; I knew I was removing a big part of the tank shaman single-target kit with the removal of instant LB. Since I haven’t heard many tank shamans excited about the current setup of Lava Burst, I wanted to target Molten Blast as a way to compensate the playstyle.

We generally dont use fire totems besides aoe damage

This is why I was trying to target it, as it’s an unused part of the kit.
My solution here is a starting point of how to try to make it better. What else can be done, while making sure it can’t be abused in pvp or for enhance?

Fire totem threat transferring to the tank would be a good start (QOL change too because mobs killing fire nova totem instantly is SUPER annoying). A mana refund if it only hits one target? Maybe the enhanced fire totem, after scaling up, begins to refund mana upon landing attacks, thus offsetting the mana requirements?

If the solution isn’t in the glove slot, then does this call for a tank sham specific belt rune? What could be added that couldn’t be abused by other roles?

2 Likes
5

I mean, there are tons of solutions, especially in the glove slots. Make molten blast cheaper, and do more damage the fewer targets it hits. Make lava lash work with a shield, and if it does, have its damage scale on block value and deal additional threat. They have plenty of runes they could use for the hand slot that would work fine if they just did a little work to tweak them to work with a shield. 100% they should make either of those runes work for tanks.

2 Likes
6

solid suggestion to get it in the right direction. hopefully devs see this.

1 Like
7

good suggestions :slight_smile:

1 Like
8

Some great recs for the devs to work with.

1 Like
9

a common suggestion for resto shaman runes is for healing rain to be moved to the boot rune slot, but i don’t necessarily feel this is enough to put us on the same level as other healing classes.

for whatever reason if the class balancing team believes healing rain should stay competing with overload, then give us something fun in the boot slot please!

reworking spirit of the alpha into a throughput rune would also be a nice alternative. either giving the loyal beta buff a flat healing/spell power % buff or even a beacon of light affect (ie: any heals you cast on party or raid members will also heal the alpha wolf for 100% of the amount healed) would be super cool. or if all that sounds convoluted, then simply replace ancestral awakening with something a bit more useful like spiritwalker’s grace or earthliving weapon?

1 Like
10

I discussed this quite heavily in another thread and agree with the Boot Slot adjustment and Earth-Living. I’ll update the original thread since I also think that’s a good idea!

See the [UPDATED] sections of the original post for what changed.

11

I’m hopeful that devs will read this but I am unconvinced. Waiting for Shaman Tank changes since P2 has been so painful.

12

What is this in reference to? I don’t recall seeing Lava Burst being removed from Maelstrom

13

It’s another part of my recommendations – removal of Lava Burst from being activated for instant cast by both Power Surge and Maelstrom. Instead, you’d be left with Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt, which are still strong but less volatile compared to a guaranteed LB crit.
These adjustments are in regards to this bullet point:

14

NGL, I think this is pretty bad. Even with 2H changes getting an extra button, spending Maelstrom on a Lava Burst is LIFE lol

15

Make molten blast work for tanke by increasing the damage done to the target enemy and reduced damage to others around it. Could also add that if you have a 2 h weapon equiped it no longer causes additional threat. This would give 2h shaman a second button plus some aoe. Also damage numbers would need to be tuned to be competitive with lava burst.

1 Like