Should Shaman get a complete overhaul?

[KevyB]

Tesla coil tower totem yes pls

[Pelagic]

I think Resto is fine, engaging and balanced in 6.0... but I think enhancement and ele need attention.

[Nihilan]

Open letter to Blizzard:

1) No more Searing Totem for enhance. (No more totems at all would be nice, but i understand that it will never happen.)
2) Bring back 2h for those who want it. Warriors have two wep styles, Dks, have two wep styles. Fuck off about not being able to make it work for Shammies. Especially with the new passive weapon imbue.
3) Bring back old style Windfury procs. (The ones that always put a smile on your face when they happened, not the wet noodle ones that you dont even notice anymore unless you are parsing a log.)
4) Let players tune your numbers for Shamans because you obviously aren't competent enough to do it.

[Schmilblick]

As a Enhancement main, i would love to see Unleash Elements being passive, that's all what i need right now

[personn5]

As a Enhancement main, i would love to see Unleash Elements being passive, that's all what i need right now

I kinda wish it was removed during the ability pruning and our abilities adjusted for it.

[Nihilux]

I don't know if I would trust Blizzard to do a complete overhaul. I remember...

http://shamanreview.ytmnd.com/
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/6...or-the-record/
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/6...ally-say-this/
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...-are-angry-p2/

But, yeah, the class itself seems to me to have an identity crisis. It almost seems like Blizzard aren't quite sure what to do, something which also is reflected on the talent tree. Which is a shame, since I didn't feel too alienated during WotLK, which was when I quit playing my shaman. Playing it again now, however, feels alien.

[Chiquihuite]

MoP did more good for Shaman than WoD did bad, IMO. I feel like there are just a few key issues that need to be addressed.

#1: Mobility. Relying on SWG, Shocks, and Unleash for movement feels pretty bad. I personally would like mobile LB back, but I'd settle for an alternate solution that's actually reliable and doesn't make me feel so helpless on the move.

#2: Talents. As some have pointed out, a few of the talent tiers are highly disappointing. Mostly 45, though 75 could use a look as well for DPS specs, since Healing Rain, HST, and AG were so heavily nerfed.

#3: Searing Totem needs to be reworked. It's tedious and doesn't feel rewarding to use at all, but is just barely effective enough that you can't ignore it. It's also redundant passive damage on top of our new Mastery on the Ele side. As a band-aid, I'd like to see it given a 1m CD and 10s duration, and have its damage amped up accordingly. (I realize that would mess with the Level 100 talent - but perhaps that could just be its own fire totem?)

I'd also love to have Unleash Elements off the GCD >_>

[Stormspark]

Yes. The whole idea of totems needs to be rethought. In vanilla they were designed to be the counterpart of paladin seals which were basically just buff sticks that sat there. In MOP, they decided to make them cooldowns instead, which isn't a bad idea on paper, but now we have *too many* cooldowns. For resto, all the cooldowns were basically smart heals. And since smart heals have been greatly devalued now, so have totems. Instead of totems being a benefit for having them down, they are now just a penalty for *not* having them down, which is getting into "press this button to not suck" territory (like Inquisition which was removed).

Not to mention they keep removing parts of the totem UI, right now a totem addon is mandatory. Flototem bar works but is insanely buggy if you ever try to move the bars out of the stock position. I'm using TinyExtraBars now.

I would like to see totems as they are now removed entirely. I would actually like to be able to cast things, rather than drop a stick that does stuff for me. It was worse in MOP, where except in difficult content you could cast healing rain/healing stream totem and tab out for 12 seconds between casts.

[Hekili]

I have really mixed feelings about wishlisting, but I would definitely prefer to have one large totem that I can interact with (i.e., shock it for different effects) and have some kind of resource system attached.

I.e., instead of having Searing Totem sitting around by default, you'd have your totem that you trigger by hitting with Flame Shock, which then begins casting the Liquid Magma effect.

Frost Shock on the totem could cause an ice slick to appear between you and your totem.

Earth Shock could cause you to be really sad that you don't have Earth Shock any more.

[infinitemeridian]

Yes. Why are npc shamans like Thrall using spells like summoning fists of earth and hurricanes and we're still using the same spells we've been using since vanilla. Many classes, such as death knights and warlocks take direct influence from the most powerful beings in game and we don't? Shaman isn't terrible to play, but it is severely lacking compared to other classes.

[bloodmoth13]

I got a fairly decent idea on how to fix totems, they should only be tied to ground targeted/zoning abilities and need to have persistent effects. they need to be powerful enough to offset their counterplay (something not really delved into in wow)

They also pretty much need all the bonus talents and glyphs baked into them as standard to make them feel like a real benefit over a non totem spell.

So what they need is:
fot totems to have base health = % of your max health baseline
be able to be placed any where in 30 yards, baseline
Only be applied to abilities that affect an area (healing rain would be a good example of something that could be a totem)
Not be chore spells.

Ill explain that last one some more
Our old totems were all chore totems. all of the buff ones, since we were to be balanced around the fact that we needed to keep them out at all times to deal max dps, were simply chore totems. The reason they felt like crap was because you only felt their impact when you didnt see them, this means that their only purpose was to spread your power through more sources, making you feel less impactful over all.

They went a decent way by removing them all and making them auras, this was a solid move. this meant we could focus on totems that added benefits rather than ones that remove drawbacks.

Searing totem at the moment is one of those chore totems, you only use it because you know you will do less dps if you dont, not because you do more dps. you press the button once per minute, that is all.

If they changed it to deal the same damage over half the time and have a 1 minute cooldown rather than a 1 minute duration, it would feel alot better. its the exact same dps, just alot more impactful. you could go further and make it deal the same damage over 1/4 of the time so it feels like a real cooldown. in that case id enjoy it in my tool kit alot more, it would have a true role.

The shocks also need a rework, the current implementation is unnecessary awkwardness, its tying your one dot to your resource dump. all it serves is to make your rotation awkward and clunky.
There are 2 ways to solve this, remove the shared cooldown or add charges. Im for the second one, this makes multi dotting 2 targets alot smoother for engages and banking 2 earth shocks for movement moments also alot nicer, but the first option is also just fine. This would make the shocks feel like a resource pool, which i think is nice

The shaman class really needs to be thoroughly reworked, its "benefits" are really unnecessary restrictions (totems), its dps is far too linear (all abilities have 2s cast, and dont have significant differences) and its shocks are the definition of clunky