I have lost all faith in blizzard

[Last Starfighter]

How bout the fact that blizzard promissed to fix Elemental movement DPS in 6.1, yet I see nothing to actually fix that.

No they didn't.

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Oh boy here's another typical bash Blizzard "I have no faith because i"m better" type of-

Oh wait, it's about Shamans? Yeah, carry on. I'm glad I chose to go back to my paladin this expansion. It is kinda crazy how they're treating shamans in general so far.

How are they treating shamans?

[Sarcon]

My favorite part is how they agree our talents are crap, and yet the only ones they changed are the ones that got changed with 6.0

Rebuffing AG? Reworking EotE(again)? Come on....

[Jester Joe]

How are they treating shamans?

I would think the fact that they had to rework a talent for the 3rd time should scream somethings up.

And on top of that, the fact that they said shamans would be fine when the game hit yet shamans have been just a laughing joke since then except maybe resto?

[Super Kami Dende]

You give up lots of damage to heal yourself

Welcome to RetPallyville. Our MAIN damaging attack is our Sacrifice for an instant-heal. At least you still have Stormstrike and Lavalash to use that hit hard. If we use a Word of Glory we lose the ability to output our main Ability.

[insegno]

Blizzard must absolutely hate Monks, Shamans, and Warlocks to a lesser extent. I just don't understand it.

[Sarcon]

Welcome to RetPallyville. Our MAIN damaging attack is our Sacrifice for an instant-heal. At least you still have Stormstrike and Lavalash to use that hit hard. If we use a Word of Glory we lose the ability to output our main Ability.

Lightning Bolt is our top priority..

Also you get instant Flash of Lights.. At no cost..

[Super Kami Dende]

Lightning Bolt is our top priority..

Also you get instant Flash of Lights.. At no cost..

The cost is waiting for the CD of Judgement being used 3 times and requires a talent Selfless Healer. Maelstrom procs off everything and is a spec ability.

[RoMarX]

Blizzard must absolutely hate Monks, Shamans, and Warlocks to a lesser extent. I just don't understand it.

Yes of course they hate them, just as much as Rogues, Pallys, Mages, Warriors, Hunters, Priests, Druids and OFC DKs too. You only have to look on each class forum to know how they hate every class.

[Sarcon]

The cost is waiting for the CD of Judgement being used 3 times and requires a talent Selfless Healer. Maelstrom procs off everything and is a spec ability.

By the time you need a heal, you will likely have used Judgement three times. Also, we can sit for some time without getting a Maelstrom proc. You are guaranteed to get yours every time you use yours. And even still, you have options. If the situation is especially hairy you can use WoG. Or, hell, one of your level 90 talents. Ret has some of the strongest hybrid healing in the game right now, in fact.

P.S. Bubble.

[eschatological]

Same time hunters and warriors get solid buffs to their damage. Classes that are already overrepresented simply because they are more viable.
Shaman goes in the bottom of my alt list not to be touched until end of WoD.

They buffed our whole row of level 90 talents. You know why? Glaive Toss and Powershot literally weren't worth the GCD (or more, in PS's case) to cast them. Barrage was okay if there was more than one target, but it costs more than half your focus bar in the current top spec, SV.

Then they buffed Stampede because literally no one ever took it, that's how much it sucked compared to AMoC.

It seems to me they made it about talent parity, more than anything else, not a class re-design.

Speaking from a raiding perspective, we haven't had many DPS shaman in, but our resto is still strong in spite of the perceived weaknesses of the class, and our ele would be fine if he wasn't drunk most raid nights. And we've done 6/7M. And we're recruiting enhance because lol@Margok fire nova.

[Jester Joe]

The cost is waiting for the CD of Judgement being used 3 times and requires a talent Selfless Healer. Maelstrom procs off everything and is a spec ability.

Flash of Light under any circumstance outheals enhance's heal almost I feel like.

Even leveling as both, I could literally sit in combat spamming Flash of Light if I got low, or Lay on Hands or bubble as a last ditch effort.

Even using Healing Stream, Healing Surges, and AG didn't come close to that really. Ret definitely has a lot better self healing than Enhance, yet enhance has more sources of it oddly enough. Which is kinda hilarious to think of, because that seems to be the major complaint about enhance, so much to use, yet none of it is strong compared to others.

[Murderdoll]

Ancestral Guidance, buff. Wont make the spell any less worthless to a DPS shaman. To work correctly with Multistrike, thats great, Enhance for example does not have much Multristrike at the moment as Mastery is better for AoE and Haste is our top dog.

Storm Elemental totem. I am furious about this change. We spent the entire Beta period voicing our hatred of another Guardian Totem 5 minute cooldown. We echoed the same opinions during the AMA Reddit session where the developers acknowledged that our talents feel very lackluster in areas and touched on our dependence/outdated usaged of totems. What do they do, make a totem which shares a cooldown with two other DPS and defensive cooldowns (Fire and Earth Elemental) almost mandatory. This is an absolute joke of a change.

Instead of making it look appealing through numbers make it look appealing through its design.

[Jibberjabber]

My Elemental Shaman is only my alt, but I don't see any nerfs only slight buffs. Better Storm Elemental is nice, Echo a bit less clunky... as it's only my alt I don't know about well they scale, but in comparison to other ppl with 650-660 itemlevel I'm doing very, very well.

the change to echo is a sustained aoe nerf, and the changed to enchanced chain lightning is a nerf to 2 target cleave like twins and brackenspore.

[Deleted]

They buffed our whole row of level 90 talents. You know why? Glaive Toss and Powershot literally weren't worth the GCD (or more, in PS's case) to cast them. Barrage was okay if there was more than one target, but it costs more than half your focus bar in the current top spec, SV.

Then they buffed Stampede because literally no one ever took it, that's how much it sucked compared to AMoC.

It seems to me they made it about talent parity, more than anything else, not a class re-design.

Speaking from a raiding perspective, we haven't had many DPS shaman in, but our resto is still strong in spite of the perceived weaknesses of the class, and our ele would be fine if he wasn't drunk most raid nights. And we've done 6/7M. And we're recruiting enhance because lol@Margok fire nova.

Well, as what you are saying is true and all, i would say that there are three ways to make underperforming talents more compelling:
1. Buff said talents
2. Nerf overperforming talent/s.
3. Tweak design by adding side effects, different than dmg (temp buff to secondary, interaction with specific skill, etc.).

Funny thing is, for top of the class specs they will always choose option 1. That said, not to cause frustration in a major part of the playerbase currently playing the spec (in case of hunters i would say 11-12%). Shamans are somewhere between 7-8%. So im sure they are more interested in keeping major part of playerbase happy, than keeping overall balance intact while nerfing top represented classes. This is what we see every expac, not gonna change.

[Darksoldierr]

Storm Elemental is a really good stuff, to bad it overlaps with the 2 most useable totems in PvP, oh well, i guess neither of the devs remembered that! Small mistake, who doesn't make few i'm right?

[taliey]

So what do you expect us to act in response to your disillusionment?

[Lucetia]

They have confirmed that this is the big one. There isn't another round of changes coming. This is all we get for now.

Um...no they didn't? In fact right before the recent PTR went up with a lot of the changes they said "This is not the one that the tweet was referring to". Unless this was changed somewhere along the line.

Because the build that went up was already done before all the changes. Could be wrong, but I remember that exact quote before it went up.

[Darksoldierr]

Um...no they didn't? In fact right before the recent PTR went up with a lot of the changes they said "This is not the one that the tweet was referring to". Unless this was changed somewhere along the line.

Because the build that went up was already done before all the changes. Could be wrong, but I remember that exact quote before it went up.

Celestion tweeted since that, these are the changes.

[Nythiz]

Well, as what you are saying is true and all, i would say that there are three ways to make underperforming talents more compelling:
1. Buff said talents
2. Nerf overperforming talent/s.
3. Tweak design by adding side effects, different than dmg (temp buff to secondary, interaction with specific skill, etc.).

Funny thing is, for top of the class specs they will always choose option 1. That said, not to cause frustration in a major part of the playerbase currently playing the spec (in case of hunters i would say 11-12%). Shamans are somewhere between 7-8%. So im sure they are more interested in keeping major part of playerbase happy, than keeping overall balance intact while nerfing top represented classes. This is what we see every expac, not gonna change.

You don't get it do you.

Nerfing hunter talents would have made no difference because WE WEREN'T USING THEM AT ALL.

The only thing this patch buffed for hunters is that our talents are now actually WORTH A GLOBAL COOLDOWN, because that's how bad they currently are. Most of them already had side effects and other things, but that wouldn't have made them viable either nor would it be useful. The throughput damage tiers for hunters were garbage.
That said if this makes hunters too strong, they should rebalance them elsewhere. But that takes nothing away from the fact our damage throughput talents sucked as much as most shaman talents do.

That said though. I played shaman early WoD, and I'm glad I sidelined him. Shamans were drawing the short straw over and over and over again. Since TBC/WotLK the class has been a complete mess and in some serious need for a decent overhaul. Every expansion and every patch its bandaid fix upon bandaid fix, unlike most other classes (I switched to hunter which has always been another favorite class of mine and hunters IMO have improved expansion after expansion).

Shaman talents are a giant mess. Most of them are lackluster or disappointing and there are tiers that are complete garbage.

- Tier 15 and tier 30 are a bit lackluster; not saying they're worthless but other classes have similar talent tiers which are a lot more diverse or playful in their design. These 2 tiers also make leveling shaman really lame as there is nothing fun to look forward to.
- Tier 45 is complete and utter trash. Blizzard has mentioned they want to overhaul or improve this talent tier for ages now, but even in this 6.1 patch which can even be dubbed the "Talent rebalance patch" they seem to ignore it yet again.
- Tier 60 is good. I personally think the new EotE is good, because the old one was IMO shitty and too RNG. This new one has some potential and will be useful for PvP and certain PvE fights
- Tier 75 is good for resto shamans (but it could do with tweaking as AG is underwhelming as healer and Conductivity needs love after you swapped CH and HR roles); but it absolute trash for dps shamans. How about blizzard gets fucking real and gives shamans the same treatment as all other hybrids where we get separate talents for separate roles eh ?!
- Tier 90 is decent although I still very much question why Resto shamans need to use dps spells to be viable in raid content (I'm talking EB of course). It could use a little flavor as well.
- Tier 100 is a row I never really liked. The only talent here that peaks my interest is Liquid Magma becuase it's fun and actually good. Elemental Fusion is extremely dull. Cloudburst Totem feels extremely weak and could use a rework. Storm Elemental has always been a joke (though maybe it now holds up a bit better with the buff) and is practically unusable in PvP without the Totemic Persistance talent.

I feel like one of the classes that needed talent fixes the most has once again been sidelined.
Enjoy the Storm Elemental buff though boys.

[shadow3467]

This is a useless change

Elemental mastery is still better

If the charges made your lava surge procs stack twice then it would be worth something, but as it is now this just means more cast time and less dps