For any spec. Great leveling, great end game and all specs are fun to play and are all viable.
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I’d cream my pants if Lava Burst hit the same as it did in Wrath, man that was the good days.
Just all around, Shaman was fantastic to play
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Am I the only one who quit WotLK Enh Shaman because getting spell hit capped to benefit 50% of my damage profile felt so annoying? That is basically all I remember
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I love the old shaman quests on the draenei islands.
What i remember in wrath was having shocks, totems, real defensives and good self healing.
Why did they remove shamanistic rage? That defensive was off the gcd shorter cd than astral shift. I remember in MOP, astral was a talent on the same row as Nature’s guardian which was the preferred talent for nearly all shamans in pvp and pve. Astral shift sucks.
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Shamanistic Rage’s only thing it has on Astral Shift is that you could use it while stunned. When compared to other melee defensives Shamanistic Rage falls woefully short just like Shift because all it does is reduce damage, but nothing else. Most melee defensive cooldowns have something added on to them. When a dps is pumping damage with offensive cooldowns neither Shift nor Sham Rage cut it in the long run. Enhancement NEEDS another defensive given to us, or Shift needs to be made stronger be it that Shift grants 100% dodge when activated, an absorb, or even a strong heal that isn’t affected by dampening.
(Rogues evasion/cloak do not provide DR, but they do completely negate damage which is far stronger than DR more so when combined with their ability to just exit a fight whenever they wish with Vanish.)
Another big thing is, to beat this dead horse further, Enhancement not having an instant on demand CC severely gimps our defensive capability. A dps wants to pops its offensives on you and just start pumping? Get to juke casting that hex as you get wailed on, or waste (and you’ll love this) a CROWD CONTROL SO YOU CAN CROWD CONTROL! Because nothing feels better than using Capacitor Totem/Sundering just to get off a cc that your opponent will just trinket leaving you with no subsequent form of CC?
Last but not least buff our healing to match the fact that its a choice once again that sacrifices damage not just something we can spam three times with only two casts of Rockbiter and a couple melee swings.
Also revert the damage/healing scaling “buff” to Maelstrom Weapon, and just balance our damage output based off the base damage/healing of the spells themselves. The Maelstrom Weapon change isn’t an interaction its a punishment.
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For those talking about WotLK days it wasn’t Shamanistic Rage that made it great by any means. Back during Wrath we had so, so much more.
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Earthbind removed all slows from you everytime it pulsed (was formerly a really broken aoe freedom for 5secs, and was later nerfed to 1 slow per tick).
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Stoneclaw Totem gave us an undispellable buff around every 3/5 secs (can’t exactly remember) that was a pretty strong absorb, and anyone that attacked Stoneclaw Totem had a 100% chance to be stunned for 3secs.
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Our healing was amazing when utilized properly and with timing you could easily end a 1v1 without ever feeling pressured, and even in multi v 1 scenarios combined with our other utility you could come out on top.
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Feral Spirits was an amazingly powerful cooldown that when used demanded that the enemy either CC you and run, or use a defensive because the pain train was coming. Healing, an on demand stun that made your wolves leap to the target, a mini freedom for 5secs on top of 60% movement speed for 15secs, could easily keep up with people even on 310% flying mounts (I personally tested it back in the day was pretty funny to watch), and they hit like trucks as well. Like any other dps using their major offensive cooldown Wolves = Death.
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HEX WAS AN INSTANT CAST. I just can’t even properly put into words how much this changed our spec as a whole when it was added, and even more when it was removed during WoD’s “Great rebalancing of the CC’s which actually didn’t do anything to balance melee CC outside of nerfing Enhancement to not be able to instant cast Hex anymore.”
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FROZEN POWER! You know that thing frost shock does for Ele when they have the Surge of Power talent? Yeah that was our thing except it wasn’t stuck behind a gimmick talent it was passive that any target 15 yards from you was rooted in place by Frost Shock for 5secs.
Bit by bit since MoP came out these six things have been chipped away or outright removed entirely. We need them back.
4 Likes
Apparently we had a good defensive and Blizzard cant let shamans have good defensives. I know ghost wolf used to be able to be used while stunned also. I remember popping them on a rouge that had open stunned me. But ghost wolves had healing back then also.
I loved chaining natures swiftness, tidal force, (both of which were off GCD) and healing wave. It was like having a pocket size lay on hands on just a 3 min CD.