in an interview with Ion Hazzikostas about Enhancement getting 2H weapon option back, he basically said no, sighting this for his reasons:
Enhancement shaman players miss-remember moments of massive Windfury procs in pvp… Which is not totally untrue… but I would say that’s a narrow view of the community. Being the “Spiritual Warrior” leader of the horde, and being that the most famous enhancement shaman in all of WoW used a 2H might have more to do with it.
Enhancement shaman players that were still using 2H after burning crusade were “doing it wrong”---- Yes, we were playing our class wrong, and we should not be upset that we play it the way blizzard wants us to. Total agency here… right?
Elemental:
With the unpruning and class updates released for Shadowlands, Blizzard stated that Elemental shamans will be moving away from Lightning bolt and chain lightning as the core of their rotation and using flame shock/lava burst as the core. For me this is a step away from our core fantasy.
Recently I’ve heard blizzard, (and many content creators that report on WoW) have been calling the shaman “Battlemage” which is a very different concept in my head cannon. The current design of shaman reminds me more of a Red Mage from FFXI than the spiritual leaders of Vanilla.
So what do you think, do you like the idea of Shaman being Battlemage’s?
To add some clarity on my view:
In Vanilla, Shaman were a counter to Paladin. A more tribal version of spiritual warriors that focused on communion with elements and spirits. (We wielded the elements, and summoned spirit wolves.)
Totems, spirit wolves, wielding mighty 2H weapons … were part of the ascetic of being Shaman.
In future interviews, Ion would refer to Shaman design criticism by contrasting it with Paladin design… despite both classes becoming available to both factions. What this means, is that The horde centered design of a tribal Spirit warrior has been eroded to line up with the Paladin design, which very much fits with the Alliance centered designs. What I’m saying is this, the “new shaman” this battlemage, feels less like something that evolved from nomadic society that centered around warrior prowess in combat, and has become something more akin to another school of magic studied in a human city.
In the original description via the books, Warriors used Doomhammer as a 2H… Thrall actually uses it in most cinimatics as a 2H the way Uther uses his 2H hammer… it was designed as a 1h for Legion.
I’m not suggesting that WoW is not a cookie cutter style MMO or that it should be a sandbox… However, earlier incarnations of WoW allowed more player agency in gearing, spec design etc… If given the chance, I think a lot of players would enjoy the idea of having more options over less…
This isn’t wrong necessarily, and the hybrid style of melee and casting is a huge draw… But I think a battlemage definitely implies something different than a shaman… the loss of abilities like chain heal and healing rain are some examples.
I think those earliest versions gave the illusion of choice, and no readily available information enhanced the illusion. You can take a fully BiS Enh Shaman to a raid in Classic right now, but you’ll only be doing 30-50% of the damage of equally well geared Warriors.
The only other choice for 2H was to get those posterized WF crits in PvP. That’s been the only niche for 2H from a gameplay perspective.
I don’t understand why you feel this way. Elementally charged attacks, spirit wolf companions, totems, elemental shocks. I’d really like to try to better understand how people come to the flavor conclusions that they do, because I feel the exact opposite about it as you.
Element shamans will be more like the Fire Mage ? That isn’t right . Why do Blizzard want to copy and paste the same class or to mirror one another ? Don’t we all want the Unique and different class ?
OP, to be fair Ion used to be a Shaman in a world top guild before he joined Blizzard. I feel like he knows a bit more about this class than he does about a lot of others.
I kinda agree with him that it was a gimmicky thing, but I also feel with the people who want it back because I remember the fun times I had in wPvP as a 2H Enhance.
People keep saying that, but (I) think people just want options. Just like DK’s wanted 2H frost back, warriors that can DUAL weild 2H weapons want Single Minded Fury back, people like options, and not all enhance shamans want to WF 1 shot people, we just like options and choice.
Me personally, just enjoy the Aesthetics of 2H weapons more than one handed, except on my monk where they ALL sheath on my back. Maybe Blizzard should work on letting people Sheath weapons where they want, and this may go a long way in appeasing the crowds.
I miss when lightning bolt was the main damage spell and other stuff was fillers, for someone who can harness all elements having fire being main is kind of lame especially when we have fire mage. Shaman only one to use lightning it was a nice flavor to have
I never felt that way, but as I think about it, I guess I’m not sure what a Battle Mage is, necessarily. I guess I think of it as an anti-caster, which is more Unholy, but there’s nothing that explicitly says a Battle Mage needs to be anti-caster.
I thought battlemages were just melee spellcasters. They hit you with a sword while also casting magic. Resto Pally, Enh Shaman and all DK specs are classes I consider to be battlemages.
yep its not going to happen so i suggest playing a class with 2hd and after seeing torghast from an ele and enhance point of view from streamers no way im playing a shaman in shadowlands.
I think Ele should be more centered around lighting or you know let meta back in so no one has to build for dps with a cookie cutter and lets have some fun with specs again. I would love a ele that was focused on storms and lighting. Boomy had a hurricane AOE at one time… that would have been a cool Ele spell.
I decided to create this character in Legion because I thought Elemental was all about fire. So this isn’t really any kind of change for me.
I’d like it if they offered glyphs to change the appearance of our shields, like they did with Mages. I think in SL, Mages will have the choice of which shield type/appearance they want to use.
That’s fair. Everyone has their own view-point on the word.
In most fantasy novels and other works a “battle mage” is usually a heavy armored mage that cast spells as well as using melee combat. Basically a hybrid between the Traditional Warrior and Mage archtypes.
Enhancement up to legion was pretty much the more traditional ‘battle mage’ arch type. Using shocks and spells along with melee abilities to deal damage while in mail gear.
Now don’t get me wrong, WoW has multiple specs that tend to fit into the “battle mage”. Unholy DK, Frost DK, and Ret paladins are all “battle mages”. What mage Enhancement stand out as more “battle mage” than those however is due to Elemental (a traditional caster) using the same spells as enhancement, as well as enhancement being able to use spells from a range to pick off a runner or to kite with frost shock.
So this isn’t really any kind of change for me.