IMO the air theme fits enhancement better. Fire is a spellcaster’s niche, and having lava/fire themed spells fits elemental RDPS much better.
Air on the other hand screams speed/agility, which perfectly fits dual wielding melee DPS like enhancement.
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Who dares disturb my slumber?
Anyway, flaming weapons have been a trope ever since humans have had both fire and weapons. Secondly we already have 2 spellcasters with fire based specs. Elemental is currently the only caster with lightning based spells. Which is something that can be used to set it apart from other caster specs.
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no not really id rather see enhancement good again.
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I’d like to see that as well! In addition, let’s get Earth Wardens realized. Trust me we can realize both ideas. Shamans will guide us once more… this time from the front lines.
Just posted in general discussion about 4th spec options for multiple classes, this one for shaman in particular:
Shaman Specialization: Warding (TANK)
The much-requested shaman earth-based tanking spec, though I envision it functioning quite differently from most.
The major gameplay mechanic of the warding spec would be the use of a ‘permanent’ pet: A stone golem, much like those crafted by the dwarves or even the zandalari and other trolls. This golem could change appearance based on the shaman’s race, or via glyphs.
The mastery passive for the warding spec would transfer a percentage of all damage taken by the shaman to the golem, and cause a percentage of all damage dealt by the shaman to heal the golem. This creates a gameplay loop where the shaman’s mitigation relies on keeping his golem alive, and that means cranking out damage with his spells (or having an attentive healer ensure the golem stays alive).
In addition to the golem, the warding spec would have four ward spells: Earth ward, Air ward, Fire ward, and Water ward. These spells would be self buffs that are exclusive with one another - meaning only one can be active at a time. Each ward provides different benefits, and the active ward would need to be changed dynamically to meet the needs of the moment.
- Earth ward would provide an armor increase, and a boost to block chance and block mitigation. Obviously this would primarily be useful when dealing with physical-damage enemies.
- Air ward would provide a significant increase to dodge chance against physical projectile attacks only, making it key against archer/thrower type enemies but not useful against melee or spellcaster enemies.
- Water ward would provide a significant reduction to magic damage taken, making it most useful against spellcasters.
- Fire ward would increase the damage and maelstrom generation of your own abilities, making it ideal when extra threat generation or damage output (and thus golem healing) are needed.
Warding shamans would focus primarily on the use of a 1h+shield combination, and have a mix of ranged and melee abilities. Some abilities, like lava lash (which for enhancement utilizes an offhand weapon attack) would utilize the shield instead: the warding shaman would thus have “Lava bash”, which backhands an enemy target with your shield and unleashes a blast of lava, damaging and burning all nearby enemies.
Warding shamans would use maelstrom and mana in the same style as enhancement and elemental. Most abilities would be maelstrom generators, while earth shock and earthquake would be the primary maelstrom spenders: with earth shock generating high single target threat, and earthquake generating high multi-target threat.
Some other ability suggestions for warding shamans:
- Epicenter: Shifts the ground beneath enemies within 20 yards, pulling them to the shaman’s position.
- Petrify: Encases a target in stone, preventing any action but also preventing the target from taking any damage. Lasts 30 seconds, cast petrify again on the target to remove the effect. Limit 1. This spell replaces hex.
- Burrow: Tunnel underground, greatly reducing the range at which enemies will notice or attack you, increasing movement speed, and reducing damage taken. This ability replaces ghost wolf form.
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Nightlynx! This is amazing. I love this idea! I’ve thrown around the idea of using earth as a way to mitigate damage. Even going so far as to theorize using totems to buff your group into being able to take increased dmg, making everyone in your group a “pseudo tank” but this idea is much more realistic!
What I really enjoy is the interaction with your healer. They’re gonna have to prioritize whether healing you or your golem will be more beneficial at certain times. I would care to see more synergy with healers and tanks in general. Using the elements to “ward” against certain types of dmg gives a shaman tank the tools it needs, but also creates a skill gap which I think is ultimately important. Being able to min/max the spec.
I would encourage everyone following this thread to make their way to this main thread I’ve got running to cut down on clutter concerning Shaman Tanking.
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no please stop…lol
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Yea, the pet tanking idea kinda comes from DCUO, which has earth based tanks that use little golems to soak up damage in a similar manner to what I posted. Always liked the idea, personally.
we have so many tank classes already and will get a new tinker tank class.
please make the pots about shaman tanks stop…lol.
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Tinkers are a terrible idea and should not be supported over improving the classes we already have.
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I don’t want to give up enhance, resto, or elemental to gain a tanking spec.
A 4th spec has never been added out of the blue to any class. I don’t see them changing that now.
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Okay, I get that some people are tired of seeing this subject come up. The greatest thing about a topic is that you can choose which ones you want to look at, and which ones you don't. So if you don't like this kind of topic, don't read it, leave it alone, ignore it. The topic isn't geared towards the people who don't want it, it's for the people to agree and, with some miracle, maybe that Blizzard's WoW team might read this and say, "hmm the community has a good idea. Let's see if we can figure it out". I for one agree that an Earth Warden Spec should be implemented.
My case is this, Druids have four class specs;
- Balance (RDPS/Moonkin/Moon)
- Feral (MDPS/Cat)
- Guardian (Tank/Bear)
- Restoration (Healing/Plants)
It makes sense that this class should have four class specs as towards the lore and what Druids follow “religiously”.
The Shaman class should also have four class specs;
- Elemental (RDPS/Air), {Thunderaan}
- Enhancement (MDPS/Fire), {Smolderon}
- Restoration (Healer/Water), {Neptulon}
- Warden or Earth Warden (Tank/Earth), {Therazane}
The reason I feel it should be added is because of lore, it’s what Shamans believe “religiously” and there are four elements that a Shaman follows!!! A shaman should be able to choose which elemental path they want to pursue.
I like what [Nightlynx] said;
Just posted in general discussion about 4th spec options for multiple classes, this one for shaman in particular:
Shaman Specialization: Warding (TANK)
The much-requested shaman earth-based tanking spec, though I envision it functioning quite differently from most.
The major gameplay mechanic of the warding spec would be the use of a ‘permanent’ pet: A stone golem, much like those crafted by the dwarves or even the Zandalari and other trolls. This golem could change appearance based on the shaman’s race, or via glyphs.
The mastery passive for the warding spec would transfer a percentage of all damage taken by the shaman to the golem, and cause a percentage of all damage dealt by the shaman to heal the golem. This creates a gameplay loop where the shaman’s mitigation relies on keeping his golem alive, and that means cranking out damage with his spells (or having an attentive healer ensure the golem stays alive).
In addition to the golem, the warding spec would have four ward spells: Earthward, Air ward, Fire ward, and Water ward. These spells would be self buffs that are exclusive with one another - meaning only one can be active at a time. Each ward provides different benefits, and the active ward would need to be changed dynamically to meet the needs of the moment.
- Earth ward would provide an armor increase and a boost to block chance and block mitigation. This would primarily be useful when dealing with physical-damage enemies.
- Air ward would provide a significant increase to dodge chance against physical projectile attacks only, making it key against archer/thrower type enemies but not useful against melee or spellcaster enemies.
- Water ward would provide a significant reduction to magic damage taken, making it most useful against spellcasters.
- Fire ward would increase the damage and maelstrom generation of your abilities, making it ideal when extra threat generation or damage output (and thus golem healing) are needed.
Warding shamans would focus primarily on the use of a 1h+shield combination and have a mix of ranged and melee abilities. Some abilities, like lava lash (which for enhancement utilizes an offhand weapon attack), would utilize the shield instead: the warding shaman would thus have “Lava bash”, which backhands an enemy target with your shield and unleashes a blast of lava, damaging and burning all nearby enemies.
Warding shamans would use maelstrom and mana in the same style as enhancement and elemental. Most abilities would be maelstrom generators, while earth shock and earthquake would be the primary maelstrom spenders: with earth shock generating high single target threat, and earthquake generating high multi-target threat.
Some other ability suggestions for warding shamans:
- Epicenter: Shifts the ground beneath enemies within 20 yards, pulling them to the shaman’s position.
- Petrify: Encases a target in stone, preventing any action but also preventing the target from taking any damage. Lasts 30 seconds, cast petrify again on the target to remove the effect. Limit 1. This spell replaces hex.
- Burrow: Tunnel underground, greatly reducing the range at which enemies will notice or attack you, increasing movement speed, and reducing damage taken. This ability replaces the ghost wolf form.
If there are any other classes you believe by lore or otherwise should have another spec, by all means, let me know. If you don’t have a constructive opinion on this particular subject, please have some respect and move on to a subject that fits your fancy.
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Druids did not have a spec added, they had playstyles separated due to balancing issues. This is not the case for shaman. You could already have been a cat dps or bear tank, it was just making class/spec design hard to balance for both in the same tree.
Based on what? Shaman and druids don’t follow the same thing “religiously”.
Why should the shaman be the only class in the entire game have a 4th spec pulled out of the blue and added…when every other class has to lose a spec to gain one?
But nothing about the lore ties a certain element to a certain spec. Elemental shaman are not air based. Enhancement are not fire based.
You are asking to rewrite the lore to fit a narrative…that you are claiming already exists.
2 Likes
The same could be said for the Elemental shaman. If the Enhancement Shaman is the “Air” aspect and Resto is the “Water” aspect, that means that Elemental take both “Fire” and “Earth” aspects in one. The way I viewed it is the druids were given a fourth spec in order separate or balance out the class/spec design. As it is there are four class specs under the Druid, whither or not it is just a separated spec. This leaves the Druids with four specs while the rest only have three. If the Shaman class were able to Tank back in Vanilla, then why is it that they lost that role while the Druids continued. So by your logic, why is it that the Druids are the only class to be so versatile that they can be MDPS, RDPS, Healer, and Tank, while the rest only get three or two? Regardless of how it used to be, to make it fair and equal to all classes, Druids should lose one spec so they have only three. I don’t think that should be the case at all.
I’m talking about two separate religious beliefs not the same:
-
The Druids have different Sects that follow a certain aspect of the druid specs i.e. Druids of the Claw (Guardian), Druids of the Grove (Restoration), Druids of the Fang (Feral) or possibly Druids of the Wild (Balance). Four religious beliefs under the Druids banner. Which logically gives them four specs to choose from.
-
The Shamans follow the elements. As there are four elements, the shamans have the possibility of performing any role needed, depending on which element they decide to align with i.e. Therazane {Earth} (Warden), Thunderaan {Air} (Elemental), Smolderon {Fire} (Enhancement), and Neptulon {Water} (Restoration).
That isn’t what I meant. If you read some of the other posts, it mentions certain elements to certain specs. This is where I laid out the elements to spec.
By lore, I mean that a Shaman follows the elements and Astral plain, not that a certain spec follows a certain element. These are just suggestions that, from my knowledge would fit into the world, lore or otherwise.
Thank you for your ideas and for pointing out any inconsistencies I might have had.
But Enhancement is not the Air aspect. Resto is not the Water aspect.
As an elemental shaman, I heavily rely on “air”, “earth”, “fire”, and “water” to dps.
Right. The druids had 4 specs under 3 spec options.
Shaman were not actual tanks in vanilla. They were stand in tanks for trivial content. I mean, paladins, bear tanks…were barely tanks in vanilla…and they WERE tanks. If you werent a prot warrior, you werent a real tank.
Because druids were actually intended to dps in cat form, and tank in bear form. Shaman were obviously not intended to be a tank.
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So only Druids get four spec? I get that they could choose between Tank and DPS within one spec before. Why is it such a problem to consider what I, and others within this post, have been proposing? I’m well aware that it’ll probably never happen.
Yet they were able to. Meaning that it is possible for them to have been classed as a tank. It’s is quite possible that the developers didn’t even think about this originally.
Once again I have to stress that I was going off of what other people in the topic have suggested. I never said that this is how it is in the game. What I said was that it could be a way to reason it out. I’m also not against giving all classes a look over in terms of possibly adding a new spec. I personally think Priest should have a light DPS Spec instead of two healing specs and a Shadow. That is just my opinion. Yet this topic is with the Shaman area, so my focus is only on the Shaman class.
My point is they already had 4 functioning aspects, hiding under 3 specs. So it was either get rid of one, or split them apart. its why they have been the only class in the game to get 4 specs, and any other class has a spec basically removed for anything being added. Outlaw Rogue. Survival Hunter.
So for druids it wasn’t so much as added (as would have to be for tank shaman), but split apart what was already there.
Right now, there is no shaman tank option. What might have been able to been done under trivial circumstances 15 years ago doesn’t matter.
I mean. A hunter could also. Time to add tank specs for hunter.
And this involves retconning lore to make it work. Shaman haven’t ever been split up this way, but suddenly we’d have to have all specs reworked, redesigned, spells redone…
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Yet, to do this split, new mechanics needed to be made in order to make them unique. A CHANGE had to be made to the game in order to make this work. Yet there is no room for any new idea/prospect/consideration to be in added.
Yet lore was changed to allow Tauren to be Paladins and Dwarves to be Shaman. This was not in the origional game neither. How many different realms have we gone through where new ideas and new training could be added into the lore of the game?
Why not? Why not bring back the old Spec that has disappeared? Once again, my focus for a Shaman topic was on a Shaman topic. I have always seen Shamans and Druids as two sides of a coin.
They are redone every expansion.
In order to stop this pointless argument, I am going to let this go.
Not sure I would say shaman tank, as even though shaman tank is possible an even was a concept for enhancement, that point is gone. Could see using he totems to add some tanking stats to the shaman while they are active, maybe with some of the totems being used as a form of active mitigation even.
I actually think all four elements would fit a tanking shaman, from the idea of earth being the magic mitigation aspect, wind for movement, fire for threat, and water for physical mitigation.
Though i would rather see a change to elemental to make it a spec that uses, and fuses the four elements. Making it that comboing different elemental spells together creates a new (or enhanced) elemental spell. Like using a fire an wind gets you lightning, earth an fire gets you lava, water an earth mud, and even water an wind getting you ice. It would give the elemental shaman a feel of truly being a master of elements of sort, where the other shamans utilize the basic forms of elements, the Elementalist delves deeper int their truer an combined forms.
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