If I do, do you promise to at least try to like 2/10 of them? I don’t want the effort to be for not…
Yeah but hero talents exist and I think they can serve what a fourth spec brings in this case, better. I agree with orig post. I guess you don’t. Can you provide me with a list of 11 reasons why it is bad and overall a decline for the health of the game in a response to this response? I will be looking for it if so
I don’t, because there really isn’t a configuration of 10 points you can just layer over enhancement to turn it into a fully functional tank spec without it just being “enh that lives longer”
Yall should really try to not be so hellbent on ruining an already functioning spec
again, just add the 4th spec if yall want this so bad, don’t ruin enh for it
Ok, this right here, this is what I was worried about. If you didn’t catch my meaning then I worry about your thought process.
I could buy a jet plane, but I can’t because I don’t have a million dollars. I could go to outer space, but I can’t because I don’t have a rocket ship to fly on.
I mean you theoretically could implement your proposed changes, but can you do it in a reasonable time without impacting other deliverables? The dev team has a bunch of classes to worry about, are you gonna ask them to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make one spec work in two roles and hope it works out? Or (and this is my preference) design a fourth spec that needs to work in only one role?
If thats the case then nothing ‘support’ need ever be added cause we already have it. Sn argument I have made before.
I CANNOT believe this is said with zero irony.
The potential does exist. But the price, and long term direction it takes things in, is not one I care to see.
You are comparing my proposal to buying a rocket ship.
Fine. Make a third hero talents tree called Earthwarder, tank themed.
We will leave totemic alone and nobody can afford spaceships.
…? It was an analogy…? Whatever, lets just leave it there I guess
Your opinion is welcomed and encouraged.
It helps construct points we can hopefully agree on. Open forums are what are needed to get an idea like this to work. The lack of context or actual execution of my idea is validating your reasoning for any hesitation of it actually being a good or working idea.
Don’t misunderstand my responses, they’re part of the process.
We don’t need 11 reasons, because just 1 is absolutely massive:
Balancing.
Using a Hero path to convert a spec’s role into a completely different one makes designing and balancing that spec an absolute nightmare, because the devs can’t change anything for one version of the spec without risking huge knock-on effects to the other role, unless they functionally build two separate trees into the spec tree each dedicated all but exclusively to one role or the other, resulting in reduced choices for either build as any talents outside of their dedicated set are virtually worthless.
We already saw this in Dragonflight with the Elementalist/Storm split, where half the tree was functionally useless to one build or the other due to their almost entirely divorced needs and priorities, and a role split would be even more drastic. Choice would completely cease to exist in the spec tree, reduced to a single selection of which Hero path you’re playing, with all other talent selections locked in from that single role selection.
Even if you cram all the overhauls needed to turn Enhancement into a tank role into only 10 points, the end result would have to be so radically different from DPS Enhancement that it might as well be its own separate spec anyway, and would be infinitely easier to design and balance as its own independent spec than being DPS Enhancement’s conjoined twin.
This, again, is exactly why they split Feral and Guardian into separate specs all the way back in Cataclysm.
You and Sturn are so fixated on the abstract number of talent points and some kind of nebulous philosophical ideal that you’re completely ignoring the practical reality of how this would impact the spec’s design and balance.
I’d like to take the time to offer some ideas, highlight some glaring issues, and also point out reality.
Ideas:
First: In lieu of Totemic, if there should be a change to Enhancement so it has the option to tank, then it should be in the Enhancement Talents, not the Hero Talents. This way players 10-70 can fill the role of tank along the way, learning as they level.
This could be done with a few key nodes being made choice nodes, so you can choose either the DPS or the Tanking option.
Alternately, this could be done with the very first node where you select Stormstrike. It could become a choice node, with the player choosing from Stormstrike (in which absolutely nothing changes from the way it is now) or Stormbreaker which would give (just throwing numbers out there, balancing would obviously be different) a 33% damage dealt reduction, +Armor, +threat, Lava Lash becomes Magma Wave, and casts a short wave of magma in a 180 degree arc in front that has extra high threat. Crash lightning makes Stormbreaker hit all enemies in X yards., etc.
Additional Alternate: If we can do this for the melee centric Enhancement, why not do it for Elemental as well? Elemental Shaman would gain a lot of extra survivability, range would get limited to what Dracthyr currently are at, and it would focus more on shocks, totems, and RNG’s for insta-cast chain lightnings.
Glaring issues:
Raid Finder/Group Finder would become REALLY big issues, because a bunch of mouthbreathers would queue as Tank, play as DPS, and wonder why the healer can’t keep them up.
Reality:
For many, many technical reasons there should be a division between tank and dps specs, and it is not likely Blizzard will try to mix the DPS and Tank specs again. They had that originally with Druids. They tested it with a few million Death Knights. They concluded that they wanted them seperate.
Also, enhance is a DW spec, and one of the biggest arguments for Shammy tanking is that we have shields. Well, the shield specs for Shammy are Elemental and Resto, so either there’s a new spec, Elemental becomes the tank spec, or (and honestly as I type this out I realize it’s actually probably the better option from a technical standpoint) Restoration becomes the split spec.
Shammy Tanking should be a 4th spec is the conclusion one should reach about all this.
Whichever abilities are affected by Stormstrike in the enhancement tree are also mirrored onto the new tank version of Stormstrike, which would be Boulderfist in this case. Add in tank themed variants.
Stormblast in the enhancement DPS talent tree for instance. It is now Boulderblast when you spec “Earthwarder” Hero tree, add whatever tank theme variant to it’s actual effects. Stormblast isn’t touched if you are Totemic or Stormbringer spec. How is that a balancing nightmare? Tier sets could also have variants built into the DPS tier set.
All the ground work is done. Instead of building from the ground up with a new specialization, work off of what is already there.
A fourth spec for tanking as a shaman isn’t a bad idea and is the most logical choice based on the game as we know it, just like Guardian druid sure, but the hero talent tree has potential to do something different and actually work.
Balancing would happen the same way it would for a fourth spec. The abilities changed, either pruned or altered, would not change the DPS variant.
Changing the DPS variant of Stormblast talent for instance, would not alter the tank version of “Boulderblast”. Moving or taking away something elsewhere would be easy enough to offset DPS tree pathing changes as well.
Hero talents are definitely new and I don’t think their potential has peaked.
Guardian and Feral split were a product of the time, hero talents didn’t exist at the time. If they did, would something like Feral Guardian hero tree worked?
Also, looking to Season of Discovery, the runes are so simple yet so effective. Saying 10 talents wouldn’t be enough to cram everything into is not definite.
Having 2 or 3 passives in 1 hero talent wouldn’t be too wild. Astral shift and Ascendance could easily be one talent point node passive that converts into whatever tank variants, lets say Earthskin and Therazane’s Champion?
What if Earthskin is too weak/strong and needs tuning, change it, it doesn’t change Astral Shift for DPS enhancement Stormbringer or Totemic.
I am not fixated on it, I just see the potential. My mind is open and I think something like that could definitely work with minimal impact on balancing as you suggest.
This is a really good point Thunderstone. I wonder if they could force spec when entering the instance like they do for main specs?
The dual wield issue would be a shield imbuement trade-off. Instead of flametongue weapon, do a shield warding imbue tank style.
Hero talents cannot facilitate assigning a new role to a spec. They can however tweak how they function in their current role. Should they get around to adding another hero tree, it could be possible to make 2h dps enh. You can debate as to whether it should happen, but I believe it could be possible.
Nah. /Tenchar
Yeah this would be a great way to bring 2h back
Enhance shaman, was the first aug for melee…. But that’s because you weren’t doing damage in vanilla LMFAOOOO