Your suggestions/wishes for shaman come Cata?

[Omanley]

So there have been quite a bunch of threads since our class preview.I think there is in general to few and underwhelming info they revealed,
so i thought it a good idea to make a thread in which you can share with others your stroke of genius ideas .

A few ideas i had for the shaman class ( some in general, some with the focus on enhance, my 1st and 2nd spec ^^ ). keep in mind that this is not a "i wont all of these changes" but more of a "hey, this could be nice, or maybe that" thing.

Totems: The totem system has existed since the beginning of wow and as such, should have been the subject to improvement. Sadly, we still have to survive with our immobile, 5hp statsticks with low range, which get also nerfed very often in addition.

change no.1: change pve totems into spells ( windfury, strenght of air, wrath of air, tow ( flametongue gets removed ), manaspring, healing stream, stoneskin (could be merged with soa))

this will improve shaman mobility in pve significally, frees our pve support up for pvp use, gives shaman more of a buffing feeling and emphazises the "totems should be something fun" statement.
( im well aware of blizzard mentioning a pve-totem => spell change come cata some half year ago, but they havent mentioned such a big improvement in their preview, so it´s not too far fetched assuming that they either put it on low priority, or wont improve it alltogether )

as there would a huge amout of totems not being totems anymore, it´s obvious the "one totem of every element" system should be reworked.
i´d say remove elemental brackets in general, do not allow for more than 4 totems to be used, and put a little shared cooldown on them (5-10 seconds )

change no.2: ( haven´t put that much thought into it yet, just some ideas )
ideas to make our already existing totems more interesting for (mostly) pvp:

sentry totem: coupled with a new spell, sentry recall, the shaman is able to teleport his enemy/ally to the location of his sentry totem. 2 minute cooldown, the sentry totem has to be standing on solid ground.

flametongue totem: it changes completely, having a 1 minute cooldown. it´s new function will be to entrap hostile targets walking nearby it, trapping them into a fissure which roots them into place doing fire damage during it´s duration. versus npc´s immune to root abilities, it will serve as a fire dot both ele/enhance can use in their prio-list/rotation(as soon as you target an root-immune target while using it, it will serve as a dot only, so you do not have to worry about walking up to your target as ele).

grounding totem: non-damaging spells wont destroy this totem anymore, and the continued use of non-damaging spells towards the shaman while grounding is up will result into a spellreflect every 3rd spell
( using 2 dots as a warlock for example would result in on being eaten by the totem, the 2nd bypassing it hitting the target, and the 3rd spell, whichever type it is, will be reflected, destroying the totem )

tremor totem: will now work only on targeted allies and oneself and receives a small cooldown (5-10 second maybe), but will be usable while cc´ed.

windwall totem: creates a small barrier around it, which will reflect any hostile melee ability back on the attacker, should he set foot into it. 2 minute cooldown, 6 second duration.

stoneclaw totem: strenghtens the caster with a shield, absorbing some damage and stunning any target attacking you during it´s five second duration for 3 seconds ( diminishing returns, the same target can stun itself up to two times )

earthbind totem: no baseline change, but the elemental talent for aoe root heals the shaman for every target rooted for 5% of his total life, stacking up to 25% and the earthern power talent heals the enhancer and his allies for every slowing effect removed ( only the freed target gets the heal )

passive: totems get 75% less damage through minions ( dk ghouls, warlock demons, hunter pets, feral spirits, water elemental, shadow spirit ) and have a increased hitpoints equaling ~8% of the shamans total amount of health

now to shaman talents: currently, there are many shaman talents in every tree, which would benefit every shaman spec greatly in pve, but are reserved for certain specs. most races have their survivability abilities baseline, in what i see the cause of the "we need survivability plox" issue.

talents im talking about:
earth shield: like water shield and lightning shield ( which are both baseline ) this is part of the shield "ability cluster" slightly nerved for baseline, restricted to the caster only, and greatly improved for restoration ( better heal, can be used on others, lower mana cost/cooldown etc ) this would greatly help shaman survivability in general.

riptide: shaman lack instant baseline healing abilities, and are easily locked down because of it, especially as enh/ele. as a class that suffers from the hybrid-tax, i´d like us at least being able to get our heals of, to have a advantage of our helaing abilities. riptide provides an instant healing abilitiy with additional hot. would be nice to have for pvp ele/enh, but for survival in pve situations as well.

thunder storm: an aoe knockback for resto to survive when focused, or enhance to get those "melee adds" of your back to chase that healer/caster? yes please.

feral spirit: two wolves doing damage/healing/taunting/stunning AND providing a sprint? sounds to me like a great leveling help for resto/ele, but would do great for survivability purposes for pvp as well.
( baseline damage/healing could be lowered and enhance could get imp feral spirit for increased damage, more wolves maybe, longer stun/sprint, lower cooldown etc... )

healing and damage spells in general will now scale either with attackpower, or spellpower, whichever of the two stats is higher.
your spells will ofc scale better with each point of spellpower than with atp.

for enhancement in specific:
1.) make parry baseline and remove spirit weapons, add a new talent here
2.) make dual wield baseline at lvl20-40 ( resto/ele wont be able to ft/ft )
3.) remove every mana saving/generating talent from the enhance tree ( shamanistic focus, improved stormstrike, the mana generating part of shamanistic rage, etc. )
and give us a talent which does pretty much the same as imp stormstrike, but with any kind of shock ( your flame/earth/frost shock spells have a 50/100% chance to generate 20% of your base mana )

packing all of our mana saving talents into one and making dw/parry base line creates many room for more interesting talents.

shamanistic rage could get a damage done increase, a cc immunity similar to beast master, or ( my favourite ) something along the lines of a cleaving effect during it´s duration ( msw5 chainlightning could hit up to 6 targets ) a sweeping strikes version for shaman basically.

as we would have riptide and earthshield baseline, maelstrom could be made to work with damaging spells only ( hex will be instant baseline)

as a feral spirit replacement, enhancement could get a new melee ability. it should be more of a damaging type ability we would be using regulary in both pvp and pve.

remove charges from lightning shield, but reintroduce manacosts ( wouldn´t be fair for offensive despellers, would you be able to refresh it without any costs ). it now procs lightning shield damage on melee hits baseline, with static shock increasing this chance, and adding another orb (50/100% chance to get additional orb to proc) to the proc

stormstrike will now work as a gap closer aditional to it´s current effect. the shaman is engulfed in lightning, dashing towards his target ( works like a leap ). 30 second cooldown ( so using ss on cd, only every ~4th ss will work like a gap closer ). this ability will free the shaman from any movement impairing effects ( root/snare )

stormstrike will take the place of spirit weapons, which will be completely reforged to the new talent:

hex is currently pretty uncompetitive with other cc.

solution no.1 would be: as it is a silence/pacifying effect, it should work like one. the new hex would only last 3-4 seconds, down from 10, but would be
undispell/decurseable, untrinketable, not breaking through damage, working against druids, instant cast.
with that it would essentially come down to a 3-4 second silence and pacifying with a 45 second cooldown, nothing out of the ordinary, if you check other classes silences.

solution no.2 would be: as it breaks on damage like fear, and with the fear effect serving as a "silence/pacifying of sorts" ( you cant melee/cast while feared, duh ), it could be made into a fear-like spell. duration ( up to 10 seconds ) would remain the same.
it would still break on damage, decurseable and druids would (probably, dunno what blizzard intends to do with them)still be immune to it. it would still have a cast time ( with enh being able to shorten it with msw ), but would have no cooldown anymore. it´s new effect would most likely be a frog, chaotically jumping around ( more like fear than sheep ).

aoe: blizzard intends to give elemental shaman earthquake, it´s what we wanted since forever. HOWEVER, although earthquake would only really help elemental, i think it´s not a bright idea to make it a talent. nobody spends points for aoe talents, in the end, it´s single target that matters.
it also feels pretty lame, creating a "you´ll be able to do decent aoe now" talent.

1.) make earthquake baseline
2.) make a minimum range, so that it wont pay of for elemental to walk up to the target, use magma+fire nova, thunderstorm and then earthquake to do more than twice the aoe others do.

enhancement gets it aoe system reworked as well.
1.) magma totem gets removed
2.) fire nova gets a damage other time component, equalizing the magma totem damage, working similar to an aoe flame shock
3.) glyph of fire nova will give fire nova the ability to stun enemies it hits for 3 seconds, which cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds

-we would have much lower manacost when aoe-ing, because magma every 15-20 seconds drops out
-because the immobile magma totem is gone, and fire nova not being tied to fire totems anymore, we will be mobile while aoe-ing like any other melee
-it happended really often to me, that npcs would destroy my magma totem so that i had to put it down again, AGAIN costing a nice chunk of mana. wont happen anymore.
-one ability less to use, frees up global coolcowns and actionbar place for new abilities, or generally makes enhance less hectic/hard to play.


finisher: baseline passive => elemental execution. your shock abilities will do 300% percent damage against targets at low health, 25 second cooldown.

rough summary: make our hybrid talents baseline and give us more talent-tree specific abilities instead ( a new nuke for elemental, a new melee ability for enhance, a new heal for resto, something along the lines ), rework pvp totems and make pve ones into spells, and make a good aoe for ele/enh.

[iLive]

Earth Absorb - 30 seconds cooldown
Causes the shaman's active Earth totem to absorb energy in the earth, slowly pulling enemies within 10 yards of the totem.

Another idea.

[Vortei]

Fix totems in general so that all the "important totems" arent set as earth, so we can actually do something functionally.

Fix totem smashing so that a priest with no unarmed skill and no weapon cant melee down totems in 1 hit.

[iLive]

Increase range of totem buff: Many classes has received their range of buffs from the class to 100 yards (Unleashed Rage, Demonic Pact, Renewed Hope etc.), and they don't need to press anything for it to occur, and totems stays at 30 yards.

Totem spells: We need more like Fire Nova. Raid wise totems on cool down for increased effects (damage, healing etc.). That sounds cooler than passive bonus agility.

[waddlez]

Fix totems in general so that all the "important totems" arent set as earth, so we can actually do something functionally.

Fix totem smashing so that a priest with no unarmed skill and no weapon cant melee down totems in 1 hit.

wep skills are going away

sooooo

[Hypernetic]

Lava Walking!

[Northy]

IMO just scrap Spiritwalker's Grace and come up with something more imaginative.
Walking and casting isn't exciting.

My new spell idea, since shamans lack any stuns, significant CC, or Defensive abilities :


Stoneclaw Fissure: The next ranged or melee attack used against the shaman will stun the attacker for x seconds. (3-5 secs likely). An on use ability, last 10 secs or until the effect is consumed. 1 minute CD.

It's both a CC and a defensive ability rolled into one and it takes the basic idea from current Stoneclaw totem which can stun mobs attacking it. I'll take this over Spiritwalker's Grace any day. Thoughts?

If only Blizz read these forums :'(

[Northy]

wtb a stun plzzz

[berree]

"sentry totem: coupled with a new spell, sentry recall, the shaman is able to teleport his enemy/ally to the location of his sentry totem. 2 minute cooldown, the sentry totem has to be standing on solid ground."

That actually pretty cool kind of like a reverse demonic teleport . Of course there would have to be some kind of range on it.

[klimon]

I see alot of suggestions about how to improve PvP, which just reminds me how much that is messing up an essentially PvE game.

[TerryBogard]

I see alot of suggestions about how to improve PvP, which just reminds me how much that is messing up an essentially PvE game.

If the game were balanced around PvP first, then PvE could be balanced around that too. Both problems solved

[Hypernetic]

IMO just scrap Spiritwalker's Grace and come up with something more imaginative.
Walking and casting isn't exciting.

My new spell idea, since shamans lack any stuns, significant CC, or Defensive abilities :


Stoneclaw Fissure: The next ranged or melee attack used against the shaman will stun the attacker for x seconds. (3-5 secs likely). An on use ability, last 10 secs or until the effect is consumed. 1 minute CD.

It's both a CC and a defensive ability rolled into one and it takes the basic idea from current Stoneclaw totem which can stun mobs attacking it. I'll take this over Spiritwalker's Grace any day. Thoughts?

If only Blizz read these forums :'(

I'm pretty sure moving while casting is OP as hell, and definitely not boring. Being forced to stand still to do damage is pretty much the biggest disadvantage caster classes have.

[Unbre4kable]

Etheral Spirit
Only Castable Outdoors.
2 sec cast time
Allows the Caster to become one with the Etheral plane transforming the caster into a Wolf/Owl/(insert spirit animal here) granting them flight within the physcial world.
Scales with Flying Skill

How Epic would this be

[Omanley]

Allows the Caster to become one with the Etheral plane transforming the caster into a Wolf

flying wolf? naaaah how about a flying elekk? :P

wtb a stun plzzz

truth is, you currently need one to be competitive, but stuns in general are overpowered.
there are situations in which you can faceroll enemies within stunlock. it´s not about skill anymore.
but it´s pretty unlikely for blizz to either totally nerf stuns into the ground, or simply removing them, so a stun would be neat indeed ( hey, that rhymes ) maybe buff feral spirits bash...
or that stoneclaw thingy we both mentioned ^^

I'm pretty sure moving while casting is OP as hell, and definitely not boring. Being forced to stand still to do damage is pretty much the biggest disadvantage caster classes have.

in general it´s pretty lame for pve. the only ones profiting from this will be pvp elemental shamans.

for enhance, it wont be all that great. for resto, it wont be thaaaat much of a buff.

If the game were balanced around PvP first, then PvE could be balanced around that too. Both problems solved

my thoughts exactly. pve is soooo easy to balance in comparison to pvp. it´s pretty much irrelevant how much what spec does, as long as the boss does go down.
and i dont see any raid breaking suggestions. more like fixes ofissues of mobility/survivability we had since tbc.

[Teriz]

Don't touch spirit walker's grace. That spell will be amazing for PVE and PVP.

My suggestion; Voodoo (Channeled); Makes allies invincible for 30 seconds. Shaman is vulnerable for duration of spell.

[iLive]

Etheral Spirit
Only Castable Outdoors.
2 sec cast time
Allows the Caster to become one with the Etheral plane transforming the caster into a Wolf/Owl/(insert spirit animal here) granting them flight within the physcial world.
Scales with Flying Skill

How Epic would this be

Priests want Angel Form, Warlocks want Meta as flight form, Mages floating/flying in the air with spells, Paladin wings already seen etc. etc. No, it's not epic. :/

[asgarth]

All i want is a cleave strike (LL hitting multiple targets ?)

[Pronaos]

My OMG MAKE US OP list:

An AoE melee attack for enhance shamans (minor glyph to LL would work, also can reduce LL CD)

Get rid of Stoneclaw glyph, instead make an early tier resto talent: Totemic Shields - applies a damage shield to the shaman which absorbs x damage, requires an earth totem be active, 20 sec cooldown (or x/x damage cooldown 30/15)...and take it off the GCD. It's not like I'm asking for Sacred Shield or PW:S here.

Spiritwalker's Grace: Allows casting while moving, auto-attacking, and even in wolf form

Give Static Shock a chance to apply a stun against players/beasts. Then it might have use in PvP. Of course, that would be 'mindless' to the devs.

I'm sure I have more.

[Kpoof]

Could you focus less on PvP since 80% of the player base doesn't really give a shit about PvPing?

[Pronaos]

Could you focus less on PvP since 80% of the player base doesn't really give a shit about PvPing?

Are you talking to me or Blizzard? If Blizzard, I hope they ignore you. If me, I don't give a shit about PvEing, so those are my suggestions.