1. #381
    Quote Originally Posted by Tharkash View Post
    Honestly, this is less about class design and more about the them (this guild in which you're talking about) being kinda douche-like. There may be a lot of guild that do this, but that makes it the playerbase that's the problem, not Blizzard's class design.
    No, it doesn't and trying to blame it on the player base is ridiculous. I'm not even talking about myself here; I was in for Lei Shen and Paragons progression at the time, but I know a lot of Shaman (or DKs or Warriors for that matter) who weren't. The goal of a progression guild is to kill the boss as quickly as possible. If there is a strat that makes that easier and cuts down on the progression/learning curve, of course guilds/the player base are going to use it, if they have the roster flexibility to make it happen. The fact that it is possible and creates a major discrepancy in viability across classes is 100% on Blizzard and their encounter/class design.

  2. #382
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    Almost no one did Lei Shen that way, because it made the overall fight easier, especially if you had the option to minimize using classes without immunities. Saying it could be done that way is arguing that it's OK for deficiencies in class design to exist because you can ask the entire guild to tailor their strat around your weaknesses and make it more difficult for everyone else than just bringing in another class to begin with.
    We did for example.

    Paragon also played with Diffusion / Bouncing.

    And you don't ask the guild to change the strat just for you, every one who cannot solo soak needs to be switched out as well and it's usually a decision what is better, not every Raid leader wants to play a strat built on RNG and switching half of your roster.

    Not even mentioning this whole stuff with gear discrepancy.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    I think your point on benching based on class design misses the mark too. Almost no 25 man guilds run with just 25 geared players and only the exact amount of DPS and healers required. Most of them run with at least 35-40 man rosters, swap people in and out on farm bosses (or even do multiple runs) to maximize gear distribution,
    On farm.

    During Progression you pretty much run with the same 25 from start to finish until you need to switch, because the more gear you have, the less likely you get switched out.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    because no one operates around assuming 100% attendance all the time.
    I'm pretty sure that any Hardcore guild is assuming 100% attendance during progress.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    If there are certain classes that are ill suited for certain fights, and the player skill level is about equal, guilds will try and replace out those classes.
    Again, if there is no damage requirement to meet (Which will be there on any difficult Boss) or the utility gain is that high to compensate this.

    And i'm talking about hardcore raiding, which renders the skill argument invalid.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    And regarding Shaman defensive CDs, sure, like I said Ele/Enhance defensive cooldowns are average to slightly below average.
    They are quite good if you don't tunnel vision on "NEED IMMUNITY TO SOAK THIS".

    Take Garrosh HC, those Whirling corruption hit like a truck, as Elemental i have a good reduction for every single one.

    The Belief that Immunity CD's are the nonplusultra when it comes to Def CD is a general bias in PvE as well as PvP.

  3. #383
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    From a PvE perspective, I don't think it's acceptable for a class to have the weakest movement capabilities (at least among ranged classes), be one of the few that have no immunity, and have poor to below average personal survivability cooldowns. What do we have in other areas that compensates for that? The answer on live is arguably raid utility. Guess, what? They just gutted Shaman raid utility under the auspice of "balancing stackable raid utility across classes". OK, fine. But, if our utility is going to be nerfed to be "in line with every other class", then don't we have every damn right to expect our movement/survivability/immunity/raid sustainability capabilities to be buffed up to be "in line with every other class" too? What is the design justification in not doing that?
    I agree that we tend to draw the short stick every time. It was ok overall in MoP because of Stormlash and our amazing off-healing but both got cut in WoD while immunity CD and other tools were barely touched. In the end it will all depend on our DPS, if they bring our DPS up it will be okay.

  4. #384
    Quote Originally Posted by Recom View Post
    I agree that we tend to draw the short stick every time. It was ok overall in MoP because of Stormlash and our amazing off-healing but both got cut in WoD while immunity CD and other tools were barely touched. In the end it will all depend on our DPS, if they bring our DPS up it will be okay.
    No, it won't. Just ask Windwalkers most of this expansion and Hunters in T15. Shaman have just about the crappiest overall raid sustainability of any class. That, plus kind of meh DPS were mitigated by the fact that Shaman brought more utility than almost anyone else. With them moving to normalize raid utility (significantly nerfing Shaman utility), we won't have that any more, and they are doing nothing to bring the other stuff back up to par. Even if Shaman DPS is on par, we don't have the utility advantage, and will end up getting replaced by classes with better ability to cope with movement/survivability on fights where that matters.

    We can't let them get away with the utility nerf with no compensation. Either Shaman utility needs to be left alone, or Shaman need better survivability cooldowns and a movement speed tier added to bring those aspects back in line with everyone else.

  5. #385
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    And regarding Shaman defensive CDs, sure, like I said Ele/Enhance defensive cooldowns are average to slightly below average. Resto on the other hand gets the shaft, and I don't see any reason why Shamanistic Rage isn't baseline to the entire spec at this point.
    i think thats just a pvp thing, resto shamans have been pretty amazing in 3s and giving them SR might just make 3's resto shaman only.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    We can't let them get away with the utility nerf with no compensation. Either Shaman utility needs to be left alone, or Shaman need better survivability cooldowns and a movement speed tier added to bring those aspects back in line with everyone else.
    agreed i've loved utility of ele, losing that i now demand i do equal damage and survival of a rogue, anything less is just making my class a sack of shit for WoD.

  6. #386
    Quote Originally Posted by Socialhealer View Post
    i think thats just a pvp thing, resto shamans have been pretty amazing in 3s and giving them SR might just make 3's resto shaman only.
    But that's an issue with current PvP balance. That will all (in theory) change in WoD, and they should be able to put Shamanistic Rage baseline and balance other things around it.

    With that said, the whole PvP vs PvE balance thing with Resto comes down to the elephant in the room that they refuse to acknowledge or touch - Resto Mastery. It's consistently too strong in PvP, completely terrible in PvP and results in necessary buffs not being given in PvE (and probably necessary nerfs in PvP as well) because of the mastery interaction. They really need to pull their heads out of the sand and recognize that the mastery design isn't working. At the very least, it needs to have different PvE vs PvP scaling if they are insistent on not redesigning it completely.

  7. #387
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    But that's an issue with current PvP balance. That will all (in theory) change in WoD, and they should be able to put Shamanistic Rage baseline and balance other things around it.

    With that said, the whole PvP vs PvE balance thing with Resto comes down to the elephant in the room that they refuse to acknowledge or touch - Resto Mastery. It's consistently too strong in PvP, completely terrible in PvP and results in necessary buffs not being given in PvE (and probably necessary nerfs in PvP as well) because of the mastery interaction. They really need to pull their heads out of the sand and recognize that the mastery design isn't working. At the very least, it needs to have different PvE vs PvP scaling if they are insistent on not redesigning it completely.
    yup they ignored mastery and made totems uncastable while silenced which forced them, literally smacked blizzard in the face and had to give elemental SR because losing totems while silenced was just crippling. it's stupid they nerfed the class because of 1 spec, then was forced to buff other specs, i don't look at blizzard as the think of the consequences type of people, it's really just a knee jerk reaction and to hell with them, then they forced to spend time clearing up their mistakes.

  8. #388
    The fact that Frostbrand Weapon got removed means that Enhancement will FINALLY be free of that awful "trade damage for slow/sprint" decision.

    No class in WoW has to sacrifice so much burst damage to get a mediocre slow/sprint (talented) - and the PvP set bonus can now actually be something good instead of a bandaid.

  9. #389
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    Shaman DPS is on par, we don't have the utility advantage, and will end up getting replaced by classes with better ability to cope with movement/survivability on fights where that matters.
    Other classes deal pitiful damage while moving as well.

    Take Balance druid for example, they take a heavy hit to utility as well, Sp's are in a similiar boat.

    Replacing every hybrid of your raid with Warlocks / Hunters will make your healers cringe, even in their nerfed state those cd's will still matter.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    or Shaman need better survivability cooldowns
    I'll quote myself from my previous post

    The Belief that Immunity CD's are the nonplusultra when it comes to Def CD is a general bias in PvE as well as PvP.

  10. #390
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Other classes deal pitiful damage while moving as well.

    Take Balance druid for example, they take a heavy hit to utility as well, Sp's are in a similiar boat.

    Replacing every hybrid of your raid with Warlocks / Hunters will make your healers cringe, even in their nerfed state those cd's will still matter.



    I'll quote myself from my previous post
    Balance Druids have Barkskin - which on its own is superior to Shaman L15 talents in most raid settings. They are taking away Symbiosis, but compensating them with Survival Instincts going baseline. On top of that, for movement speed, Cat Form baseline on its own is every bit as good as Ghost Wolf, which is the only thing we have. On top of that, they have Dash, Stampeding Roar, and whatever T15 movement talent they take - allowing them to choose between 124% baseline run speed/155% in Cat Speed (compared to Shaman maxing at 108% baseline/130% in GW), or Leap or Disengage.

    If they are bringing our ability to cast while moving and our utility down to Balance Druid level, they need to bring our movement speed up to our level. Either that, or they should remove the Druid, Paladin and Priest movement talent tiers if they don't want to give something similar to Shaman.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post

    Replacing every hybrid of your raid with Warlocks / Hunters will make your healers cringe, even in their nerfed state those cd's will still matter.

    And, no it won't. It will cause healers to rejoice, because managing healing and raid survivability is the healer's job in the first place and they aren't going far enough as is in removing DPS raid CDs. The more of that stuff they strip off DPS/tanks, the less often you have to deal with the crap where fights in the same tier range from being 3 healed to being 8 healed.

  11. #391
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    Balance Druids have Barkskin - which on its own is superior to Shaman L15 talents in most raid settings.
    Yeah but Shamanstic Rage superior to Barkskin, especially with the glyph on dispel Encounters.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    And, no it won't. It will cause healers to rejoice, because managing healing and raid survivability is the healer's job in the first place and they aren't going far enough as is in removing DPS raid CDs.
    Are you serious?

    My Healers loved me for AG / Healing Tide, this stuff allowed us to very often 2 Heal fights because you could gap the healing intensive phases with those CD's.

    And this stuff with "Healers job to keep the raid alive" yeah that's just your opinion, not a fact, it is everyones job to keep the raid alive and tunneling those roles is not a good design in my view.

    It is discussable who much those CD's will heal, but if you want to limit a specs capabilities to it's role, then you should nerf tank damage into the ground as well, because it's their job to stay alive not to deal damage.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    The more of that stuff they strip off DPS/tanks, the less often you have to deal with the crap where fights in the same tier range from being 3 healed to being 8 healed.
    Yeah that mostly happened in 25man and is very often to blame on the Encounter design as well because there is so much avoidable damage going on that you can easily cut a large number of healer and gap crucial phases with cd's, which will most likely happen in WoD as well.

    But i don't get it, on the hand you say that AG should be left alone for the sake of Elemental raid spot and on the other you say it's a good design that only healers should have the power of raid cd's.

    And you can still bring additional raid healing as Shaman, Storm Elemental also heals, which will be a decent amount if you pick PE as well.
    Last edited by Kralljin; 2014-04-20 at 12:54 PM.

  12. #392
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Yeah but Shamanstic Rage superior to Barkskin, especially with the glyph on dispel Encounters.



    Are you serious?

    My Healers loved me for AG / Healing Tide, this stuff allowed us to very often 2 Heal fights because you could gap the healing intensive phases with those CD's.

    And this stuff with "Healers job to keep the raid alive" yeah that's just your opinion, not a fact, it is everyones job to keep the raid alive and tunneling those roles is not a good design in my view.

    It is discussable who much those CD's will heal, but if you want to limit a specs capabilities to it's role, then you should nerf tank damage into the ground as well, because it's their job to stay alive not to deal damage.
    Yes, I'm serious, but you have just proven my point by referring to healers loving AG on "2 heal fights". Guess what, that AG and other off spec cooldowns is probably what made that fight a 2 heal fight instead of a 3 heal fight (or on 25 man a 4-5 heal fight instead of 6-7). Those cooldowns just cost a healer a raid spot. Those offspec cooldowns are a huge reason why 25H Blackfuse, Paragons and Garrosh can be 3-4 healed (right after a 7-8 heal fight in Thok). Of course, healers are going to hate them, and Blizzard has given that as the reason for removing a lot of them - they are infringing on the healer role.

    I fully agree tank damage should be neutered. It's been out of control since Cata and it's completely ridiculous for tanks to be anywhere near pure DPS specs in DPS output.

  13. #393
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    But i don't get it, on the hand you say that AG should be left alone for the sake of Elemental raid spot and on the other you say it's a good design that only healers should have the power of raid cd's.

    And you can still bring additional raid healing as Shaman, Storm Elemental also heals, which will be a decent amount if you pick PE as well.
    Compare AG to dps tranq, dps HTT, VE, etc. It blew them out the water. It could show up healer cooldowns which are clearly meant to be stronger based on how they were 2-3x as strong as their dps spec versions in MOP.
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    which is kind of like saying "of COURSE you can't see the unicorns, unicorns are invisible, silly."

  14. #394
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    Yes, I'm serious, but you have just proven my point by referring to healers loving AG on "2 heal fights". Guess what, that AG and other off spec cooldowns is probably what made that fight a 2 heal fight instead of a 3 heal fight (or on 25 man a 4-5 heal fight instead of 6-7). Those cooldowns just cost a healer a raid spot. Those offspec cooldowns are a huge reason why 25H Blackfuse, Paragons and Garrosh can be 3-4 healed (right after a 7-8 heal fight in Thok). Of course, healers are going to hate them, and Blizzard has given that as the reason for removing a lot of them - they are infringing on the healer role.
    Well, then why was one of your "solution" the following:

    [..]Either Shaman utility needs to be left alone[...]
    Do you mean just stormlash with that? Which can be hardly seen as utility since it's a flat dmg gain or do you mean AG?

    I mean you can't say AG and it's Dps cousins infuriate the Healing role while naming the spell as possible solution for the lack of elemental utility in WoD.


    Quote Originally Posted by Raiju View Post
    Compare AG to dps tranq, dps HTT, VE, etc. It blew them out the water. It could show up healer cooldowns which are clearly meant to be stronger based on how they were 2-3x as strong as their dps spec versions in MOP.
    Uhm, yes? What's your point?
    Last edited by Kralljin; 2014-04-20 at 02:16 PM.

  15. #395
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Well, then why was one of your "solution" the following:



    Do you mean just stormlash with that? Which can be hardly seen as utility since it's a flat dmg gain or do you mean AG?

    I mean you can't say AG and it's Dps cousins infuriate the Healing role while naming the spell as possible solution for the lack of elemental utility in WoD.

    It's two seperate arguments.

    Argument 1 - Raid survival cooldowns should only be in the hands of healers. They have not gone far enough and should completely remove Smoke Bomb, Vampiric Embrace, AG (at least as a DPS ability), Rallying Cry and should can the Amplify Magic idea. Having these available to DPS specs trivializes/infringes too much on the healing role.

    Argument 2 - They have removed a large amount of utility from the Shaman class with the excuse of "balancing raid utility across specs". That's fine, but they should then also balance movement speed and survivability capabilities across specs. Shaman utility was frequently used as an excuse (and was a perfectly valid argument) for it to be OK for other aspects of our class design to be lacking. However, the removal of that utility removes that justification. If they want utility balanced across specs, it's no longer fair or reasonable for those other elements to not be brought up to be on par with other classes.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Raiju View Post
    Compare AG to dps tranq, dps HTT, VE, etc. It blew them out the water. It could show up healer cooldowns which are clearly meant to be stronger based on how they were 2-3x as strong as their dps spec versions in MOP.
    I disagree. Shadow Priest and Ele/Enhance overall healing done on live are all pretty similar. Granted, that has to do with the Priest L90 talents as well, but in general AG+HTT is very close to VE+L90 talents on most fights from an offhealing perspective. Looking at our most recent Thok kill - AG (for Enhance) - 5.8 million total healing, VE - 4.8 million. Halving AG and leaving VE as is was not justified. Also, Heart of the Wild DPS Tranq would blow any of them out of the water - including Resto Tranq(just limited to the 8 minute CD).

  16. #396
    Quote Originally Posted by Recom View Post
    I agree that we tend to draw the short stick every time. It was ok overall in MoP because of Stormlash and our amazing off-healing but both got cut in WoD while immunity CD and other tools were barely touched. In the end it will all depend on our DPS, if they bring our DPS up it will be okay.
    Do you pvp? Like, at a reasonable rating in bg/arena? You will notice that having bad mobility is a huge drawback. If mobility was from excellent ->decent, nobody would complain.
    The spectrum is much bigger than that, though.
    In terms of melee dps utility, we have both warriors, windwalker and druids at the top (which totally destroy enhancement by comparison). Then comes a big gap and we have rogues, who have very good movement talents with shadowstep or their spammable sprint. They aren't as mobile as the before three, but have huge control to keep enemies close to compensate. Their cc and utility cds are excellent. Then there's dks. Tbh, I'm not as insightful about them. With death grip and chains, I believe they cannot compete on a rogues level, and they dont have good cc either. They're already underperforming, imo. Then come paladins, though they get cc nerfs in WoD, with cc being compensation for only having their freedom+movement tier for gap closing. They are pretty low already, but can get rather frequent a sprint with freedom.

    And then there is enhance, which has to make do with 2 1min cds, 1 3min cd (Ascendence, which is used for dmg most of the time though) and crappy GW. Enh has also the very worst of CC with Hex and CPT. Enh will also experience further nerfs in CC (hex no longer instant) and sealfhealing (HTT gone, AG nerfed, HST nerfed), so I'd like to ask you:

    What justifies horrible cc AND mobility in pvp? Enh can do nice damage, but only if it can maintain uptime, which is where mobility comes into play. This is where your point fails to convince. DMG without uptime is worthless, and in raids, dmg is intended to be as equal as possible, factoring on the nature of the fights and individual spec gameplay.
    As an enh, I'm not asking for warrior-level mobility (three <1min cds). They could, however, give us our wolves' pounce on a 25-30sec cd, to give us something on a reasonably frequent cd.
    Last edited by Omanley; 2014-04-20 at 02:51 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Angoth
    I'm sorry that Blizzard won't just gift wrap awesome in a cup and let you drink your fill.

  17. #397
    The thing that justifies enhance mobility in PVP is that we can one shot you from 40 yards away with eleblast>stormblast.

    With stormblast being nerfed hopefully this allows for better mobility. Same reasons ret's mobility isn't great (though better than ours) because they do so much ranged damage, especially during wings.

  18. #398
    So, I was thinking over the Shaman level 100 talents and, as far as I can tell, Spew Lava is ridiculously strong. It deals 50% SP damage every .5 seconds for 10 seconds. That's a total of 1000% SP on a 45 second CD. To compare it to similar level 100 talents: a Fire Mage's Metoer deals 464% SP on that same 45 second CD, Frost does 315% every 30 seconds (approx 472% every 45, for comparison), and a Lock's Cataclysm does 500% on a 60 second CD, though to be fair that damage isn't split.

    So for aoe it's definitely a solid choice, but for single target, it's absolutely insane.

  19. #399
    Quote Originally Posted by Omanley View Post
    As an enh, I'm not asking for warrior-level mobility (three <1min cds). They could, however, give us our wolves' pounce on a 25-30sec cd, to give us something on a reasonably frequent cd.
    Aight.

    Small mobility - gap closer:
    Spirit Walk *new*
    You shift into the spirit world for 2,5 seconds.
    While in spirit world, you are immune to any physical damage and cannot attack, you take %25 extra damage from spells and can cast spells.
    Maximum of three charges, each activation consumes a charge. Every 25 seconds, shaman generates a new charge.

    Numbers are PH, just to give you the idea.

    Big mobility - gap closer:
    And instead of current Spirit Walk, give us this on a 45-60s cd:


    Remember Malygos' disks?
    Problem solved.

  20. #400
    Quote Originally Posted by Mithgroth View Post
    Aight.

    Small mobility - gap closer:
    Spirit Walk *new*
    You shift into the spirit world for 2,5 seconds.
    While in spirit world, you are immune to any physical damage and cannot attack, you take %25 extra damage from spells and can cast spells.
    Maximum of three charges, each activation consumes a charge. Every 25 seconds, shaman generates a new charge.
    No offense dude.

    But that's a ridiculously dumb idea.

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