Talent changes - Discuss (was poor title)

[foogy]

The plural for shaman is shaman.

The plural for shaman is shamans, duh.

He's a shaman, They are shaman, lol wut? They are shamans, ahh better. L2english

[Daez]

Healing Rain - 46% of base mana.

Now there's a spell that'll never see an action bar.

Its 46% of BASE MANA. Considering the fact that mana pools will be huge in Cataclysm, that 46% of BASE MANA will be about equal to the cost of a chain heal (by today's standards).

[SolSphere]

I really wish people would stop saying it's only Beta, wait it out...
Beta is the testing phase. It is when the Devs are going to look at our talents. It is when we have the best chance of getting things revamped. Waiting until Cata drops is not intelligent what-so-ever.

but at the same time, this is not the place to voice your concerns. If you have beta access:
PLEASE give feedback to the devs.
Please start meaningful, coherient discussions on the forums
Please give supporting evidence of why things should be changed.

DO NOT post on mmo champion and think the Devs are going to read it. They might, but chances are quite slim.
DO NOT post things about how you think it will be really cool if....
DO NOT compare some other class' abilities and say we have no counter or similar ability.

Tell the Devs where there are weak points and support it.

Oh and please don't listen and get discourged by people who are too lazy to do this themselves, and think it's super cool to point you out as a whiny person because you see a flaw in game design.

[Kindahuge]

My second toon's a shaman, I love the hell out of it. Squishy sometimes, and in need of some enhance cleanup (compared to how faceroll better dps is from quite a few other classes, looking at you, marks and mutilate.) and some elemental love in general would be nice, especially with the t10 set bonuses... but you know, they're giving us movement casting, run speed, and some baseline improvements to each spec, like the lava burst reset from talents. The class has TONS of utility baked into it, some of the meat & potatoes stuff it's getting for Cata is much more important than you getting an AoE sentry totem, OP.

[Vashta]

No it's shaman in plural as well.

Strictly speaking it should be shamasal

[tequila333]

The thing is people see an ott attention seeking title like "Why do blizzard hate shamans?" and think you possibly probably don't have anything interesting to say. Then they don't read the large wall of text you wrote (I didn't), and then troll you.

Maybe if you start your topic with a grown up title instead of one fashioned by a 12yo female or just contribute to one of the 450584344 threads already made, then you could get some decent class discussion going.

[Venziir]

Plurality


"Both shamans and shaman are used as the plural of shaman.
In English, the correct plural form of shaman is shamans. Unlike man or woman, the word sha•man is not derived from the base word man, so the plural form of man cannot be used. The word shaman is actually an incorporated foreign word to the English language (like the French word bureau), and not a word (or derived from a word) from the Middle or Old English like man. Like any incorporated word, it has to follow the same standard English rule for plural forms on nouns (e.g. paper/papers, prima donna/prima donnas) unless it already has a plural form from its original language (like the Latin syllabus/syllabi).
Further, the female form is not shamaness, but rather shamanka.
For more information about the word, please check:"

"The official Blizzard line on "shaman" vs "shamans", despite the English forms of the word, is that "Both Shaman and Shamans are deemed acceptible (sic) as the plural though we use Shaman." [1] Blizzard is not always consistent in their usage of it — their use of "shamans" as a plural can be found in various locations."

[foyton]

10% crit loss? i dont have the quote here but a lot of classes are losing passive stat increases, we are told if we want the strength/stam/SP/crit then get your going to have to acquire it through gear

[Deleted]

The thing is people see an ott attention seeking title like "Why do blizzard hate shamans?" and think you possibly probably don't have anything interesting to say. Then they don't read the large wall of text you wrote (I didn't), and then troll you.

Maybe if you start your topic with a grown up title instead of one fashioned by a 12yo female or just contribute to one of the 450584344 threads already made, then you could get some decent class discussion going.

You're right.

Added a TL;DR at the top for people with adhd.

---------- Post added 2010-07-22 at 05:55 PM ----------

10% crit loss? i dont have the quote here but a lot of classes are losing passive stat increases, we are told if we want the strength/stam/SP/crit then get your going to have to acquire it through gear

I'm just a bit concerned since its a huge loss of crit, and some of our vital mechanics rely on crit to function. Its probably going to be more of a problem for new resto shamans than it is for fully geared ones though.
Its also not my biggest concern, but I believe it needed to be mentioned.

[serif]

its a beta, things will change by release, so many threads about "blizz hates this class, blizz took this away from us, blah blah fucking blah". Seriously stop whining until cataclysm is released

what makes them change before live? does blizzard just put shit talents in the game during beta for no reason at all and then change them to better talents right before it ships? is that the best way to do it? What would be the purpose of that?

I'm not saying that these talents won't change, I'm simply inquiring about what exactly causes this change you speak of to occur?

The talents that are currently in place in the beta are there because someone in some room somewhere decided that these talents were pretty good - otherwise we'd be looking at different talents, no?

How is this person going to learn of our concerns over the decisions unless we make our concerns known?

If everyone in the player community just kept quiet and went along with it then there would be no reason for anyone to take a second look at these talents because, hey... the shaman players out there must think they're alright if they have no complaints.

next thing you know cata ships with these talents and gameplay suffers... and you think people should just stfu and wait until cata comes out. isn't the purpose of a beta to test the game and give feedback? well consider all of these QQ threads feedback.

I think you should reconsider your stance on the matter.

[Kindahuge]

Finally, we come to the usual topic that trainwrecks shaman threads: The plural form. Solid, indisputable proof that Blizzard hates the OP as much as he claims. In an alternate reality somewhere, his other self is posting chain smileys in a thread titled I'M SO HAPPY I ROLLED A TOTEMJOCKEY, AVALANCHE LOVES ME!!!!

[serif]

And you think whining on a fan site is going to get noticed?

If you want to whine do it in-game using the beta feedback tool, stop posting pointless whine threads about it on here!

Just as a political revolution might start as a discussion between friends before it grows into a change-inducing force, perhaps voicing concerns on a fan site will get the attention of other players who may not have put much thought in to it, eventually enough people will be talking about it that it might get noticed.

yes it would be more effective to post all of this on an official forum, but posting complaint threads here is going to be more effective towards getting changes made than your bitching will be at getting these threads to stop.

[Deleted]

I also got disappointed by the shaman trees, It's like only boring tallents and/or tallents that you have to specc, almost no choices at all.

[serif]

The plural for shaman is shamans, duh.

He's a shaman, They are shaman, lol wut? They are shamans, ahh better. L2english

its true... oh hey! look at those deers over there next to the mooses.

(indeed it is shamans, but to think there are no words that the plural and singular forms are identical is silly. don't be silly)


P.S. "they are shaman" doesn't sound that ridiculous to me. For instance: He's an american, they are american, they are americans. it all works if you ask me.

[Epiclurker]

I don't care about the tree being boring or exciting, I just want it to work.
Totem cost may be an issue because it looks like there may be a return to raid boss that require a lot of movement. I mean Magtheridon phase one amounts of movement.
Blizzard is providing healers something to do during downtimes other then sniffing our own butts out of boredom but the talents mean we aren't killing our mana by doing a little deeps on the side. As far as hit goes we will have all the hit needed at max level. Hit will be rolled into spirit along with mana regen which is something we healers want. I assume that people who want to dps will take Elemental Precision so that covers the required hit that they need.
I have tried out the talents and they leave you a choice as to which build you are going for which is exactly the point of the changes, choice.

[Vargarii]

You don't want to find out why Blizzard hate shamans, for that to happen there would
need to exist an established fact that Blizzard hates shamans, which ofc it doesn't.
You decided that the source of all your problems is that some mystical force (in this case Blizzard)
hates you and it prevents you from doing good, so you came here seeking validation
for your claims, in order to find excuses.
To conclude, Yes, Blizzard hates shamans, do you feel better now?

Honestly I didn't even read your post because of your title. Go cut yourself or something to release some of your inner emo.

If you really think Blizzard hates shaman you should probably just quit the game. Don't even reroll, just quit.

And you think whining on a fan site is going to get noticed?

If you want to whine do it in-game using the beta feedback tool, stop posting pointless whine threads about it on here!

First, there was, at least in the past, tension between the shaman community and WoW devs. It all stems from telling a Dev to get hit by a bus, lots of drama, and GC saying he wouldn't help the shaman community again. It's all in the past, but there is a history that could easily lead to one's take that bliz devs dislike the shaman community.

Second, our current builds are shit. It's fact.

3rd, as far as posting on this site and beta feedback are concerned, not everyone with access to the info is in beta. This means they can't post official feedback, and can't get the word spread without help from people in the beta. A site as large as mmo-champ is a good place to find these people, because a lot of people that bother with forums at all read and post here.

[Elanale]

TL;DR - I do not think Blizzard hates shamans. I do however see a lot of problems with the current implementation of the talent trees.

Um. Why the hell did you go with that thread title, then? I think you have to admit that it is a very, very bad thread title. "Blizzard hates X" is one of the worst thread titles you can have in a WoW forum, and judging by your opening line you're aware of this. So... why?

Looking over the talent changes for shamans makes me depressed. I was intrigued when blizzard announced that they were gonna remove boring talents and make 31 point trees where everyone would get the dps/healing talents they needed and then have quite a bit of choice when it came to utility talents.

Well, we're only on the second pass now. GC's said they're reducing the number of points required for a lot of talents, most notably raid buff talents, and... oh, wait, you go on a bit...

However when looking at the actual trees they've put out my optimism disappeared pretty fast. This is obviously further enhanced by the fact that blizzard apparantly looks at the shaman trees as pretty much done with only minor changes needed.

Ah. And you know this because you're psychic.

Yes, Paladins and Warlocks will both see more iteration than Shaman, but that's because both classes are seeing fundamental mechanics overhauls. The core functionality of Shaman, however, is pretty good right now. That doesn't mean you won't be seeing changes, it just means you won't be seeing an entirely new resource mechanic.

Your final trees won't look like these. Nobody's will. The beta's only really just begun, now that they've implemented the 31 point trees.

Looking at the elemental tree I was firstly surprised at how little it had actually changed. Its pretty much all the same talents with less points in them for the same effect, but without new and interesting utility talents. Flameshock now resetting LvB's cooldown is interesting, but that is literally the only new thing in the tree besides earthquake, and there is still only 2 activatable abilities in the tree.

This is only mildly useful feedback. Are there holes you think need filling? Wanting new mechanics is nice and all- and you did get two, as you noted- but they have to fill some sort of purpose. What is it you feel in your heart of hearts that Elemental really needs?

If you try and make a viable spec you will also end up realizing that there after taking the required talents (and 3 filler points in improved shields), you have 2 points left. Thats not really what I call choice.

I really don't think that Blizzard's done reducing the size of requisite talents, and GC's backed up that take on things. I don't know why you'd think that Shaman trees will go completely untouched for however many months beta will stay up. I don't know why you'd think that ANY trees will go completely untouched for however many months beta will stay up.

There's useful feedback, but just a general "there's not a lot of choice here, there's not been much change" ...um, do you really think the class design team doesn't realize that? That none of them ever, you know, made up a dummy spec for Elemental in the talent calculator? Or, that having done so, none of them realized these pretty straight forward conclusions?

It makes me sad when people make such huge posts without thinking about things like that.

It doesn't get much better if you jump over to enhancement. Here the change is very minor as well. Only new thing is the dot mechanic from searing totem, that probably will end up being useless in fights with more than one target, when searing totem decides its time to attack something it shouldn't be attacking. Here there is also literally one spec with no free points. No choice, no nothing.

Again. Do you really think this is useful feedback? Something the class team doesn't already know from the simple expedient of having made up a dummy spec?

And, again: I am saddened.

At last we reach the Resto tree, which is my home tree as it were. At first glance things does not look good, as we're losing no less than 10%! crit from our healing spells (thundering strikes, tidal mastery). Blizzard has also decided to go against their own philosophy and remove the interesting activatable cooldown that was tidal force, yet have decided to keep the most useless talent in all of wow (totemic focus) and even keep it as a 3 point talent.

The crit thing is pretty useless feedback, because healing effectiveness will be balanced around current talents, not 10% crit you don't have anymore. Now, if you were to say you LIKE having higher crit as part of your healing toolkit, that might not be without merit. However, do remember that most healers as a general rule do not like crit, preferring other stats that are less RNG.

The tidal force and totemic focus points, however, ARE valid ones, and indeed could have made an entirely worthwhile thread in their own right.

In return for these rather pointless changes we get 2 new talents that rewards us for doing damage. If we shock a boss our next heal costs less mana and heals for more and if we spam LB's we get mana back. Now dont get me wrong, I like these new mechanics (Focused insight + healing rain seems like a very potent combo, especially considering rains huge mana cost), but the way they're implemented is pretty horrible.

GC's said that healing trees should get soloing items for leveling purposes; my interpretation is that these fall under that heading.

The main reason for this is hit. Without any hit there is nearly 1/5 chance of our shocks or LB's doing absolutely nothing but waste mana, effectively making the mechanic useless without hit. We will obviously not get (or want) +hit on our healing gear, so the only way to get it is to spec into resto for elemental precision.

Hit's less of an issue while leveling, though, since you won't be fighting boss-level adversaries.

This however locks us out of the enhancement tree where we need improved shiels and ancestral swiftness, basically having us trade mana effeciency (water shield), healing effeciency(earth shield) and mobility for mana effeciency through damage.

I think you've misinterpreted the purpose of the damage-dealing talents. Ghostcrawler's been banging his drum about healers not having these damage talents balanced as a core part of their gameplay, but rather just as part of the leveling experience.

Oh, and spirit link is getting scrapped again, and we still dont have a tanksaving cooldown. Shaman healers are looking to be the worst and least unique of the 4 healing classes so far.

The loss of Spirit Link would also have been a legitimate topic in its own thread. You're mixing legitimate feedback on half a dozen topics with pretty worthless feedback on others, the end result being that this thread has no topic... other than the topic you unfortunately chose to give it: "Why do Blizzard hate Shamans?"

Now let me ask you. Do you really think that such a topic will succeed in generating useful discussion?

In conclusion I think blizzard has completely dropped the ball when it comes to shamans, and it would seem like they dont even realize it themselves. There is a lot of places where shamans needed fixing, but instead of focusing on them they decided to ignore shamans completely and basically changing nothing while they decided to give the class that needs the least amount of help a completely new mechanic (holy power) and lots of new and interesting talents.

Really? You think that the people who design the class don't realize that they haven't changed a lot of things?

As for the anti-Paladin rhetoric, no, you're completely wrong there. If anyone needed additional complexity, it's Paladins. I've tried to play that class so many times- I've got two eighties in it- but I just never could hang in there. It's so... one-note. There's just so little going on there.



I think this should've been two or three different threads, and a lot of the stuff you said was kind of just whiney filler. Sorry, but that's my interpretation.

[Kindahuge]

Are you sure about this? I'm fairly certain hit is only rolled into spirit if you've taken elemental precision, which does the conversion for spirit so that there is no need for two types of caster mail.

[Deleted]

46% base mana really isn't that much..

If you think about it,

Base mana for a shaman at 80 is like 6-7k so at 85 it's going to be around 8-10ish. and half of that is 4-5k which is roughly what it would cost to use healing rain.

With resto gear atm shamans break 30k mana

I speculate shamans will have like 45k+ mana unbuffed in cata or something.

Base mana for a lvl 80 Shaman is 4396 mana, not 6-7k. Which actually makes your point stronger.

[Racer]

I really wish people would stop saying it's only Beta, wait it out...
Beta is the testing phase. It is when the Devs are going to look at our talents. It is when we have the best chance of getting things revamped. Waiting until Cata drops is not intelligent what-so-ever.

but at the same time, this is not the place to voice your concerns. If you have beta access:
PLEASE give feedback to the devs.
Please start meaningful, coherient discussions on the forums
Please give supporting evidence of why things should be changed.

DO NOT post on mmo champion and think the Devs are going to read it. They might, but chances are quite slim.
DO NOT post things about how you think it will be really cool if....
DO NOT compare some other class' abilities and say we have no counter or similar ability.

Tell the Devs where there are weak points and support it.

Oh and please don't listen and get discourged by people who are too lazy to do this themselves, and think it's super cool to point you out as a whiny person because you see a flaw in game design.

You my good sir, are absolutely right. I'm just quoting you so others can bask in your capability of of being right (can't think of a better expression :P) If you wanna complain do it now, but with constructive feedback, while it's beta, things are being tested you're supposed to give feedback and say what you think. but do so in the Blizzard forums, here it's nothing but whining and it isn't going to help anybody.

I also feel like our changes are a bit lackluster, but I hope my fellow shamans will post feedback about it on the official forums (since I currently have my account frozen and can't do so) and Blizzard will change us till release.