Vanilla onward
The bus shock happened
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Hahahah you must have not been here for legion to BFA when they forgot to patch shaman not having their artifacts for a whole patch cycle, from 8.0 to 8.1 they where tuned around the artifact still and we had to wait to be fixed.
So no.
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To be fair, it would be more similar to standing at the host stand and being ignored completely. If you are brought to a table, even if it is a long wait for anything, you have at least been acknowledged and someone will be with you eventually.
Shamans are just standing there at the host stand, watching the other classes getting seated and served. And the shaman is standing there asking how long the wait it, or if there will be any tables available tonight, and not even getting the “I will take care of you soon.”.
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Welp, I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. This is EXACTLY how I expected this to go.
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Requires playing SoD though
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I wouldn’t call what we got reworks but rather just balance adjustments.
I’m curious what they/yall define as a rework though. Like for example if they changed molten assault to spread Flame Shock to 5 targets instead of 4 would yall consider that a rework or an adjustment to an ability? Or if they made it 1 point vs it being 2 point? Was the change to how Pwave’s haste buff component considered a rework or a balance change?
I mean we did get substantial balance adjustments between patches. 10.1 Storm got good adjustments, 10.2 they addressed Elementalist’s MSW generation issues and gave you an alternative to playing Lashing Flames in M+, made Tempest Strikes for Storm so you didn’t need to take Elemental Blast for Storm. They just never addressed the big stuff (defensives, flameshock spread)
Generally when multiple talents get changed, moved so that it impacts the way you build and play your character.
See DHs in S3.
See any of the work they have done to Warlocks/Mages/Monks/DKs in the alpha.
Those are reworks. Where you open up your talent pane and go “wow, ok, let me play with this to see what I can do”
Ah ok. I guess I see rework being massive changes. I’m personally of the opinion (at least spec tree wise) that we just need a few changes here and there. Class tree then need to completely rearrange it and add new stuff. Mainly just adjustments like making Molten Assault spread FlameShock to 5 nearby targets rather than 4 or Pwave also applying Flameshock to 5 nearby targets. Whether thats a “rework” or a “rework” could just be semantics. What they did to Frostsycthe for Frost DK is what I would consider them reworking the ability.
Like when I read they are moving away from reworking the hero talents I read that more as they’re not gonna complete change say like Surge Totem into a completely new thing and that changes like making it magic damage instead of physical is still on the table.
I consider what Ret got in DF as a rework. I would say what Enhance got in 10.2 was polish.
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I agree, thats how I’ve seen it. I’ve always held the opinion that Enhance is great but it needs a hell of alot of polish with a few things reworked.
I think some people use the term rework (Not you btw) when they really mean “redesign”. Like what happened to Warlocks from Cata to MoP, or to WW monk going from WoD to Legion, or Enhance from WoD to Legion, then back in BfA to SL.
I think Enhancement us in a uniquely tough spot with regards to design and reworks, because while Elementalist is only in need of refinement, Storm is begging for much more extensive redesign. But the Enhancement spec tree is balanced so precariousy, any significant changes for Storm’s benefit have very real potential to upset the balance of the entire tree.
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Shaman was at its best in wotlk and cata but The moment they introduced mastery in cata the class became a nightmare for them to balance numerically.
Functionally they just keep throwing crap at shaman and hoping itll work. Other class rotations are fluid or streamlined where we smash multiple buttons to track micro buffs to try to be competitive.
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I think at this point it’s shown that while having 2 unique builds is cool and can work, there are so many pitfalls with it and DF showed it. If DF they just hyper focused on Elementalist, I would imagine that at least on the damage side we would have been incredibly powerful for the whole expac despite being target capped. Likewise if all their time was focused on Storm they would have been able to iron out alot of gripes the spec had.
Stormbringer hero talents shows that when they narrow their focus they can do some good stuff. They addressed some issues with Storm by adding some gameplay depth and shoring up missing pieces of Storm, namely being able to do cleave in single target and having good single target damage while specing for cleave. Still degerenerate gameplay from DRE exist but it ends up still ironing out some issues but still is a good foundations.
Totemic shows that trying to balance both aspects spreads it too thin even if it works. Playing with on beta it actually “works” for a physical based build and the elementalist build but its held back by parts that play into the opposite build. You look at it an go “ok this makes sense but this part feels underwhelming for x build”; good example is comparing Lively Totems and Totemic Rebound since it would actually make sense if they were choice nodes tbh. Adjustments to the spec tree now has so many implications towards the hero talent set now.
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Frankly, I think it’s talent trees themselves that are the biggest roadblock to build variety right now. Tree-style perk systems can be fantastic for enabling build diversity in single-player or even small group co-op games, but the MMO aspect of a game like WoW completely changes that relationship because it places so much more emphasis on numeric balancing.
A single player game has room for builds that are numerically weak but fun to play, or for builds that break the game, because it’s entirely up to the player whether it’s worth those trade offs. As long as the build isn’t so weak as to be literally incapable of hurting a boss, a player can make it work if they’re passionate and dedicated enough.
MMOs do not work this way, because the inclusion of other players makes equity between those players much more important. We can see this right now at its most extreme with how incredibly boring it is to be jogging along in MoP Remix behind someone with more main stat on their cloak than you have Stamina on yours as they annihilate an entire heroic raid in seconds, too fast for you to even get through a full damage rotation.
To this end, there is a target throughput value the game designs around players meeting, and any build that can’t meet that value is invalidated. Players are heavily incentivized to play only the strongest builds available to them to the degree that only those strongest builds are even considered at all in any discussion about character building. And to be clear, this is not a failing of the devs, but a natural consequence of any MMO that allows players to actually understand how well they are performing.
Talent trees are an absolutely terrible system for delivering build diversity in this environment, because having so much build freedom counterintuitively reduces choice. Imagine if Primordial Wave, Feral Spirit, and Deeply Rooted Elements’ talent lines were all in the first tier of the Enhancement spec tree. There’d be no choosing, we’d just take all of them because they’re the numerically strongest things in the entire tree.
The DF talent trees rely on multiple layers of restrictions to prop up the scant few choices they contain: Point limits and threshold gates, pathing lines and multiple-point nodes, choice nodes and faux mutual exclusivity of design like the stark split between Physical and Elemental damage in Enhancement.
The end result is extreme build rigidity where for most classes the most choice they have is whether to prioritize ST or AoE, which is less of a choice and more the ability to count the number of targets in front of you. Even in cases like Enhancement that actually manage to achieve multiple distinct builds within the spec, you’re really only making one choice, which then cascades into predetermining where the vast majority of your points get spent to support that initial decision.
Despite appearances, the MoP talent system was actually much better structured to allow for build diversity. If the devs don’t want us to have certain talents simultaneously anyway, just making them mutually exclusive directly is way more effective than layering a bunch of weaker limitations on getting them both, and way easier to balance.
The problems the MoP system had by the end of its lifespan were not inherent to the structure, unlike how everything above is to trees, but a combination of lazy talent design (SL Ice Strike, lol), wrongheaded layout decisions (ST vs AoE is not a “choice,” Blizz, it’s just counting), and power system stacking completely destroying any possibility of balancing the base talents (why would you ever spec into Spell A when Spell B gets buffs from 5 different power systems and A gets none).
Talent trees were a mistake.
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You probably don’t need to delete but I think that if we are legit not enjoying how a class plays then we should stop and move away. I’ve been forcing myself to level Shaman first every round I go through but always end the expansion doing more on other classes. It’s ok brother. Just step away and rock a warlock. There is no failure on your part for walking away from a bad relationship.
I don’t mind elemantalist.
I have a few gripes with enhance
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I wish pwave would just hit 5 targets with flameshock to cut down on global bloat and it doesn’t seem that OP.
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doomwinds should be a 1 minute cooldown, or completely reworked to work like a frequent burst window with potentially less power? 1.5 minute cooldowns are just weird.
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ascendance should be a 2 minute cooldown, 3 minute cooldowns absolutely suck to deal with. Especially ascendance with its incredibly short duration… it’s very meh. Warlocks complained until atro was made a base 2 minute cooldown and it still lasts 30 SECONDS LMAO.
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hailstorm shouldn’t be locked behind lava lash but ice strike or LAVA LASH, both should path into hailstorm. I find it odd that you can’t play a storm variant build where you could ignore lava lash and focus on ice strike hailstorm burst for cleave … without picking up 3 talent points of lava lash talents.
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just move feral lunge further up the tree, or make it baseline. A node to make us heal harder is kinda bogus. Just make the healing better or don’t. Place feral lunge in the healing node at the beginning of the tree or where windfury was.
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DRE needs a massive rework or removal. You could have DRE simply instead be a choice node where your storm strike will automatically spend maelstrom stacks at 10 stacks as a storm blast or empowered wind strike. I am not sure, I do know it’s currently pretty bad degenerate rng gameplay to the point where not picking regular ascendance over it, is an absolute troll.
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maybe ele blast should be a capstone talent that out right replaces lightning bolt? I don’t care about either way seems to be a bit of button bloat. Is it up? Press it. Is it not up but you have maelstrom, press LB. A GSE Macro can handle the actual level of complexity here and that’s bad game design.
And for the love of GOD MAKE STORMSTRIKE SCALE WITH MASTERY. Make it nature damage and reduce its damage to compensate.
Also I am not a fan nor hate the current design of permanent wolves that we seem to be continuing to pursue with the new tier set plus wolf doctors witch bones, but I guess we are electric BM hunters now.
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I chuckled at this. Rightly so.
I’ll add that it also needs to be an oGCD since it cuts into melee abilities you can use in that window given how small it is.
Elemental Blast should ideally only be used when you have at least two wolves out or if you’re about to hit two stacks to keep the CD rolling. It’s a huge damage loss to hit it on CD or if you only have one Wolf out. If you’re just spending it whenever you have stacks then you’re probably losing out on a significant amount of damage.
Elemental Blast replacing Lightning Bolt would be a huge hit to Pwave and would make it more frustrating given Elemental Blast is often used after Pwave to spend the 10 MSW stacks on openers and in cases where you wanna get Pwave on CD but don’t want to use Lightning Bolt just yet, say because adds might be coming out soon. That is one of Pwave’s strongest aspects for Enhance, especially for a lot of raid fights. If Elemental Blast replaced Lightning Bolt, then our only option would be to Chain Lightning to spend without using the buff and that sounds terrible in a single target or to hold Pwave which would lead to being desynced from Wolves.
I think at this point, having Lava Lash and Ice Strike being baseline is the move given Storm still “wants” those there. Having Hailstorm in the spot where Ice Strike is would be a good spot since it comes off all MSW talents.
Been having the thought that they could turn regular Ascendance into a Army type CD. It has its long CD but it the duration is longer with it having a damage amp in addition to increasing that amp with every windstrike; essentially something your raid would wanna PI.
If they want to maintain the gambling aspect of DRE, they need to at least add some level of consistent damage to it. Maybe having it be an actual button/CD on a short cooldown so you can plan when you want to use it but still have the random DRE procs to spice it up. A lot of my frustration playing it in season 2 came from it procing at the most useless times like the end of a pack or not at all during lust.
If not this, then make Stormbringer baseline in our mastery and add damage scaling to it.
It’s gonna be strong but my concern if we just have perma Wolves, we going to have so much MSW that trying to spend it will be difficult as hell. For Totemic it might be easier since you have Elemental Blast stack resets but MSW waste is going to affect Stormbringer since you will want to make sure you’re spending MSW to get Tempest casts.
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I mean replaced as in it just is without cooldown or charges. But it’s a capstone sort of justifying the power but maybe that would be too powerful just hitting pwave then ele blasting 5 targets
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