Why did they remove poison and disease dispel from shamans

Classes Shaman
1

Literally no real reason to remove them.

2 Likes
2

Every hybrid class has two dispels. With magic cleanse added for their healing spec. We have curse cleanse and offensive magic dispel, priests have offensive dispel and disease cleanse, etc. I’m not HAPPY about it. But that’s where we are these days.

1 Like
3

yeah thats false, druid has 3 dispells (magic,curse, and poison) which is very unbalanced but thats only the tip of the iceberg.

5 Likes
4

… Yes. They remove curse and poison as a baseline and resto druids get the defensive magic dispel.

5

There are two topics here:

  1. Why did Shamans lose Poison/Disease cleanse?
  2. Why does it feel other classes like Druids can dispel + cleanse more stuff?

Why did we lose Poison/Disease cleanse?

  1. All defensive dispels were changed across the game so that all healer specs could remove magic effects (the most typical debuff in PvE encounters).
  2. Rogue/DK became more reliant on Poison and Disease DoT damage as burst was reduced across the past few expansions, so to prevent underpowering them or countering them so easily there are limits to who can dispel these effects and how frequently. For example, our AOE pulsing poison/disease cleansing totems were just too strong.
    All Priests can cleanse Disease, all Druids can cleanse Poison and Curses, and all Paladins and Monks can cleanse Poison and Disease. Shamans gained the ability to cleanse Curses and we recently regained one AOE pulsing cleansing totem in the form of Tremor Totem for Fear effects, giving us a bit more defense against Warlocks, Priests, and other Demon, Void, or spirit-oriented enemies.

Why does it feel other classes like Druids can dispel + cleanse more stuff?

I’d argue Shamans have a very strong set of dispels in the game from a quality > quantity perspective due to Purge.

Purge, and the Priest equivalent Dispel Magic, is much more versatile and frequently used than a Druid’s Soothe (Enrage dispel). Paladins, save for Blood Elves, lack an offensive Dispel period, so they gain the ability to cleanse an ally of movement impairments instead. I don’t even know what Monks get as an offensive dispel – Disarm via a PvP talent? – or a defensive dispel to compensate – Diffuse Magic to reverse Magic effects on a 1.5min cooldown?

Shamans may have lost our iconic poison/disease cleansing power, but we’ve gained:

  • Curse cleanse in all specs
  • Magic cleanse via Restoration
  • (Regained) Fear AOE cleanse in all specs
  • Offensive CC via Hex, Capacitor Totem, Sundering, Earth Elemental Pulverize, Lightning Lasso, Earthgrab Totem
  • Self-defense via DPS-spec Earth Shield, Spirit Walk, Thunderstorm, slow-immune Ghost Wolf

Meanwhile, other healer classes were rebalanced in the same way to standardize Magic cleanse within all healer specs and make each class stand out against specific enemies.

3 Likes
6

I wouldn’t be mad if Shadowlands brought back poison cleansing totem.

1 Like
7

and gust of wind, I’ll do anything for gust of wind to return

5 Likes
8

Now we know why, the Zombie crap wouldn’t be fun for the nincompoops if too many classes could dispel the crap and shammy just got the sort end of the stick.

9

There was definitely a reason to remove them.

WotLK released with DKs that worked exclusively with diseases. As the first hero class, being instantly rendered useless by a spammable set and forget dispel didn’t fly.

Enhance hard countered the snot out of DKs on release due to this, many whining on the forums about how the dispel took no thought. Rogues jumped on the bandwagon about poisons.

To keep their precious shiny new hero class OP, blizzard retooled shaman to curse and magic…

2 Likes
10

Yeah, that “un-pruning” still needs to happen.

1 Like
11

I mean, I miss cleansing totem too (loved it in Pit of Saron), but it’s not like Shaman completely lack utility.

1 Like