Then don’t bind them. They are important to Elemental Shaman.
Defensives especially for enhance, less clunky playstyle for ele.
I had an idea for totems back forever ago in my younger days that instead of them being things the shaman dropped on the ground or kept in their bags, they could go around our belt on our character instead and similar to how auras worked for paladin we would select which type of earth, fire, air, and water totem we had on us at the time and they would stay active near us the whole fight.
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Yeah, I think the shocks for shaman are honestly pretty cool and pretty fundamental to the class. Even flame to resto can be important if you combine with lava surge.
I agree with others about icefury for ele, having that long cast time on it is whack. It just feels clunky and breaks up the flow of the spec.
Id love to see primordial wave out of the spec trees. Theres precedent in the paladin Class tree to vary the talents to be appropriate for individual specs. Our class tree has very little going on at the bottom.
Less 2 point nodes. Lunge/wfw baseline.
Defensive. Reincarnate retooled.
A melee spender would be cool.
More effort to make the class talents with limited class wide appeal more appealing to all specs.
Spirit Walk needs to give 2 seconds of snare immunity.
It’s kind of absurd how you are instantly snared again nullifying any benefit from the ability.
Was fighting a warrior. He used his spin. I used my spirit walk. It broke the snare, but I was immediately snared again by the warriors spin before I could get any distance.
Honestly, what is the point other than to break a rooot every minute?
2 Likes
Or…we could give it 2 seconds of CC immunity. Would be real neat.
I think it’s fine and actually a good thing we’re not so bottlenecked into going into the end of the class tree. Putting Pwave in the class tree doesn’t work either since it’s supporting talents work very differently between specs. It either becomes homogenized and deadspace in our class tree or it will force pathing for the class tree which more than often leads to grabbing stuff you’d rather drop in order to grab other talents.
100%
Sure it does; it’s a prime talent for the Explosive Shot/Avenging Wrath treatment, dead center middle with a majority of the class tree beneath it being utility. Middle of the tree as a “core” to the class talent that’s easy to pick up, and then the spec trees can augment it in any number of ways? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
And there’s already precedent for the class tree having talents functioning differently (or being entirely replaced in some cases) depending on the spec.
That only works for those because the same fundamentally the same across specs and do not have mutually exclusive talents associated with them that are heavily ingrained into the spec and completely change how it functions. The whole cleave aspect of Pwave is the same between specs (except its activated by completely different spells for each spec) and you’d have to add 4 to 5 additional talents to the class tree in order to allow each spec access to its current functionality. Otherwise it’s just dead talent in the class tree. Either way it’s just flat out bloating the class tree which is the exact opposite of what we need.
That’s just a bad argument and pretty wrong. Avenging Wrath has multiple talents in the Paladin spec trees that are in the same vein as Splintered Elements, Primal Maelstrom, Continuous/Tumbling Waves, etc, that have major gameplay ramifications.
Paladins also have a different capstone for each spec in the class tree, as do Warriors under Avatar and Monks with their different statues and Brewmaster gets an extra choice node elsewhere.
You’d add the simple overlap ones (Enhance getting Splintered Elements, Elemental getting Elements/Surge choice, and Resto getting both Waves) or just the 2 pointers.
Surging Shields, Elemental Orbit, Maelstrom Weapon, Flurry, Totemic Focus/Surge, Swirling Currents are all talents that are much more bloat than having Pwave in the middle with an immediate single upgrade node beneath it that’s different for each spec (again, precedent already exists) and then having the further upgrade(s) within the spec trees already.
That’s the whole point of “dead center and core to the class”. Besides, the alternative you’re asking for is to have 2 specs burn a (currently deep) spec tree point just to use Farseer for a talent that all 3 specs already use.
Pwave in the center → upgrade node immediately following for each spec (probably the 2 pointers would be best) → other upgrade nodes elsewhere in the spec tree.
Functionally the same but the end result is saving 2-3 important spec tree points by offloading them.
Here’s my question: why Pwave and not DRE? I’d argue it would make more sense to stick DRE/Ascendance into the class tree rather than Pwave given Enhance specifically has builds that do not take Pwave. This is with the assumption that they do not make another tier set that forces Pwave.
They are and guess what: You can fix bloat issues and not stick a mandatory pathing node in the tree.
Hot take: Class tree requiring all specs to absolutely have to talent capstones is dumb design. Early in DF Enhance gained actually gained a significant amount of flexibility because we didn’t need to chase the top end of the tree. That flexibility is very much still present in Raids which is why Enhance was a great choice for Mythic raid comps besides WFT, which is literally the first time thats happened in Shaman’s lifespan where it was brought not sole just for being a raid buff.
Im hoping for…
-10 yards on all our melee abilities. Yes I know they are trying to do away with it, be we (enhancement) are already a quasi ranged of sorts as it is.
-Astral shift CD lowered to 1 minute.
-Astral shift usable while stunned and silenced.
-Earth Shield moved to an aura or sorts, that also heals the shaman when it procs on their secondary target.
-If not the above, I think something with like a 1min cd that consumes all current earth shield stacks into an absorb for 50% of the standard heal value. Usable on friendly player as well to give us some support.
-All shocks and damaging abilities have 2 charges.
-All totems that AREN’T pvp talents un-killable.
-Earthen totem moved to class tree so enhance and ele have access to it.
-Hex being able to be used with MSW stacks again.
Theres probably more, but that’s all I can think of.
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Primordial Wave playstyle is one of the reasons people choose not to play a shaman. It should not be the center of anything. Put it somewhere far off on the right or left side of the tree and stop making it the only available option for tier sets.
2 Likes
In a Resto perspective:
Gameplay adjustments:
- Rework our mastery so it doesn’t drop off during farm, especially with how everyone had to be max health or get one shot.
- Slow down or make tidal waves more useful than over capping and bake in flashflood.
- Make downpour and wellspring relevant again or potentially bake into/replace Healing raid and chain heal respectively
- Raid buff - Winfury/tranquil air, Skyfury, Stoneskin and Mana Spring (mana to resource return) all have uses I think we don’t already have. In a perfect world for me I would love to drop 4 totems again and then have choice nodes to select which of each totem we want, then it would be incentivized to bring two shaman of any spec to the table. And of course it would be balanced towards other class buffs!
Quality of Life changes.
- 60 Minute earth shield and Elemental orbit Baseline.
- Increase the Range of Chain heal (15 yards to 25-30) and remove the bonus off tide bringer. Most AOE is all 40yd range for other classes.
- Move some DPS stuff into baseline, Lava surge and echo of the elements maybe master of the elements.
- Unleashed Life and Natures swiftness only working on chain heal or healing rain. Make healing surge a panic button. Costly and instant with CD.
- Ancestral wolf affinity baseline. Earth living weapon just replacing flame tongue.
- Ancestral Awakening working with chain heal.
Talent Trees:
- Make some totem stuff easier to access on the right side of the class tree.
- Poison Cleansing totem/ Totem that cleanses Bleed effects. choice node. Bleeds hurt and we don’t really have an answer to it.
- Adjust the illusion of Utility with Earthen wall totem/ AP totem. Earth grab totem/ Windrush totem.
- Primordial wave (proc DRE) / Chain harvest. choice node. Far seer felt like vesper to me already and I hated vesper honestly.
- Remove the things we wouldn’t ever take - Flow of the tides or give it synergy.
- Group up the riptide and the chain heal talents so there can be better M+ vs Raid builds. Separate Hightide with primal tide core capstones.
Bonus:
Earthen Shaman TANK - Baelgrim is a “stormward” earthen shaman tank so it just makes sense. Also since its a new spec I can see Blizzard only giving them one hero tree until we get used to it or also giving them totemic down the line.
Ascendance visuals upgraded like Dathea, Upgraded model but with swirling elements and a lot of Rain and wind.
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Enhance switched to earth wind and fire
Rockbiter vs. Windfury as main wep enhancement separating builds early in the tree. Sundering and Doom winds taking the same slot, with sundering being like the previous tier set which grants mastery after cast.
Idk what the other ice skills could change to, but an earth strike that operates like the og stormstrike (increasing nature damage taken), earth shock increasing physical damage taken and something to replace hailstorm, something air oriented like rjw for monk.
Gameplay
General
- Convert Ankh into a “Cheat Death” mechanic
- 2 charges for Astral Shift, or another defensive on a 1-min cooldown (or less)
- Update Earth Elemental’s stamina buff to damage reduction instead
- Primordial Wave replaced with Chain Harvest or Fae Transfusion
- Fourth tank spec
- Streamline all talent trees (including hero talents)
- Less 2-point talent nodes
- Cleaner pathing all-around
- More choice nodes
- Maelstrom Weapon and Flurry moved to Enhancement, or made baseline for Enh
- Better capstones (move and/or update Nature’s Swiftness)
- Lots of flexible utility options to offset lack of raid buff (or just give a raid buff)
- Skyfury totem PvE?
- Better stat scaling and stat scaling options across the board
Elemental
- Resolve Flame Shock cooldown and spreading issues
- Icefury removed or reworked
- Earthquake reworked, chasing the tank isn’t fun in modern M+ frameworks
- Feral Lunge made baseline, if kept
Enhancement
- 2nd “charge” ability (Feral Lunge + ?)
- Rework the Windfury aura from Totemic and have it be baseline for the spec
- Option to utilize a 2-handed weapon
Cosmetic
- Glyph of Ascendance similar to Priest’s Glyph of Shadow
- Spell updates (lightning bolt(s), earthquake, etc)
- Model updates / customization (Ascendance model, totems, etc)
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Does anyone know what reason Blizzard gave for making the SPIRIT WOLF talent take 4 seconds to kick in and fully give us the speed boost with defense bonus? We can’t attack, heal, or do anything in wolf form other than run around.
So what was the purpose of the restriction forcing us to wait 4 seconds? They had to give a reason for it…
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Indeed, the shaman’s survivability should be strengthened, such as returning to the shaman’s wrath.
Boy, a lotta y’all are building yourselves up to be absolutely crushed come patch note day.
Presumably because if it kicked in instantly there wouldn’t be enough trade-off to having instant access to a 20% DR with no CD or resource cost.