The purpose of this thread is to get our opinions on the matter of shaman mobility to the guys who can bring the change.
It is impossible to know how much (if at all) mmo-c threads are read or even considered when doing class balancing, so I want to make our feedback be seen.
Since it is impossible to make an in detail post on twitter about what we need and why, because of the limited count of letters per message, this thread's link will be posted on twitter, as a means to achieve both: being read as well as doing justice to blizzard's desire to get as high quality feedback as possible, so that they can improve our class.
As such, I ask you, my shaman brethren, to share your thoughts on this matter, to show the developers how we feel about it.
thank you very much.
Warning: A lot of text If you're impatient, skip to Toolkit comparison.
p.s.: I've decided to narrow my post down to enhance mostly but not exclusively (at the bottom you others are included in suggestions), since that's all I have ever played shaman-wise. Feel free to add your points on ele/resto, as I feel that they are underperforming also.
Mobility
Basically, it is the ability to increase/optimize healing or dps uptime despite environmental obstacles.
It can be categorized by specialisation/role, and envirionment (pve/pvp).
This is just my individual POV, but here we go:
1) Mobility, and for that matter utility in general, has higher requirements to be competitive in pvp than in pve. Hence pvp should always be the meassuring stick for mobility/utility design. Many shaman spells functions okay in pve, but turn out to be at severe disadvantages when in a pvp scenario (examples for this are Hex,Capacitor Totem,Frost Shock,Totems in general). Because of this, This post will focus mainly on pvp.
In pve, it's mainly about moving out of bad stuff and back into position, and sometimes you've to walk a little between phases. Outside of that, most of the times consists of uptime for melees, regardless of tools. Bosses usually dont snare/cc and through that hinder you gap closing either.
In pvp however, there are a lot more requirements for mobility to be considered good, or competitive. For that, we have to ascertain the roles mobility has to fulfill and how it does it for the different roles, in my case, melee.
A: Roles of mobility:
1: actual movement enhancing mobility tools:
-Gap creaters => Thunderstorm, Disengage, Blink etc.
Their purpose is to instantly create a gap between the caster/ranged dps and an opponent, usually a melee, to get a breather for counter meassures to keep that distance and the enemy unable to deal damage, via kiting and cc.
-Gap closers => Charge, Heroic Leap, Shadowstep, Deathgrip (kind of reverse mobility when compared to the others, like thunderstorm, but eventually reaching the same goal) etc.
The counterpart to gap creaters, this ability instantly closes the gap of a melee towards his adversary and is the bread and butter in keeping uptime up, and through that, creating pressure by pushing back and interrupting spells, and dealing damage.
-Movement speed boosts => These do not require targets or positioning like the above usually do. A sprint can, because of this, be considered as both a gap closing AND creating tool, but has the downside that it does the job not instantly, but only shortens the time needed to accomplish the task; The higher the movement speed increase, the faster you can get into safety, the faster you can get back into range as melee.
2: tools that allow you, while moving, to help with keeping up pressure (damage/spell pushback/cc etc.):
-Melee/ranged dps Melee are able to dps while on the move, while casters do not have to move as much, because they have ranged abilities
-Instant casts (for enhance, that's shocks, Unleash Elements, Windshear and Purge. They are not sufficient in providing uptime though.)
-Spells that can be cast while moving or mechanics that allow doing so. (mostly relevant for casters)
3: indirect mobility enhancing tools:
- snares, roots, stuns, crowd control => the target is unable to move, hence easier to close/create gaps towards.
B: Toolkit comparisson:
Enhancement's toolkiz and how they hold up against other melee specialisations
- Ghostwolf (movement speed increase) 30% +speed, dispellable, makes additionally vulnerable against beast cc (fear beast, hibernate), requires a glyph to not be slowable below 100%
vs
- Travelform 40% +speed, undispellable, makes vulnerable against beast cc BUT immune to polymorph/hex, also usable during polymorph/hex to break it, removes movement impairing effects (snares and roots)
No question, travelform is vastly superior. Not being snarable below 100% with the glyph cant be compared to being able to break snares AND roots baseline. Additionally the glyph is hardly an option, since glyphs like Lightning Shield and (for enhance) Healing Storm have guaranteed places in our glyph slots. The new Glyph of Flametongue Weapon concept to give the imbue the effect of our current enhancement pvp set bonus is likely to become mandatory as well, for enh anyway, because FrS off the shared cd seems scrapped and Flame Shock will become so much more important with the improved Lava Lash perk.
The upside of using it indoors is neglectable in pvp and also neglectable in every open instance. In such cases, there is catform.
Summed up, Ghostwolf is a strictly inferior ability when compared to Travel Form, and no, I do not say that because of a outdated model or something.
Ghostwolf is also the most centric shaman mobility tool. It is avaiable for every specialisation, has no cooldown and can be used for both fleeing and chasing, hence versatile by design.
It is with 30% extra speed to slow to quickly create or close gaps, is easy to counter, has no protection in any form, safe the glyph that only diminishes snares and all in all, offers no advantage that can really hold its ground.
Taking all of this into account, I think Ghostwolf deserves buffs, as it is insufficient in helping shamans in pvp to get where they are supposed to be (away from enemy melees as a caster/healer, or in caster/healer's faces, as melee.
There are not many "no cd movement speed bonus" spells. There's also rogues' burst of speed. Burst of speed is comparable both to GW as well as Spirit Walk, so I'll go into detail about it below.
Enhancement:
Spirit Walk: 60% speed, breakes movement impairing effects, 15s duration, 1min cd
Dash: 70% speed, breaks movement impairing effects, 15 s duration, 3min cd
Here, Spirit Walk seems vastly superior, despite the slightly lower speed increase. The glyphs lower the cd by 25% (-15s for enhance) and 33% (-1m for druids) respectively, so druids catch a little up when glyphs are considered. How affordable/important the glyph is for druids, I dont know. Spirit Walk glyph for one is VERY good (since SW is enhances' best gap closing tool, but has a to high cd), but unaffordable due to LS/HS glyphs being to important, leaving not enough room for real customisation.
Another point to consider is that Dash is avaiable for ALL druid specialisations, where Spirit Walk is enhancement only. Through this, druids are additionally ahead as non-melee specialisations are concerned.
Spirit Walk can be summed up as a movement impairing breaker plus sprint. Aside from druids and Dash, rogues have this with Burst of speed (except that it has NO FRIGGIN COOLDOWN at the expense of not breaking roots). Since it has no cd and breaks snares, it is kind of GW and SW in one ability. The only downside is that it is a talent. For this one talent though alone, rogue mobility trumps that of enhancement's.
As far as melee snares are concerned:
Crippling Poison
Feral:Infected Wounds
Warrior: Hamstring (does not even need to be spammed anymore (which you could do up till now)
Frost: Improved Death Grip (new perk) => automaically adds Chains of Ice after using Death Grip, not incurring it's cooldown
Monk: Disable, spammable snare (like old hamstring), which self applies if you're able to keep close to the target, you can even put a snare on top
Retribution: Seal of Justice
Enhancement: pvp set bonus (gone) => glyph of Frostflame Weapon
So enhancement is, basically, the only specialisation without a 50% baseline melee snare, we have to GLYPH for it.
So you might say: "You have Frost Shock, you dont need a melee snare!". BUT:
1) According to blue posts, it appears the seperate Frost Shock cooldown perk was replaced by a 30% sprint for 4s when casting Unleash Elements.
Because of this, Frost Shock will be on cooldown when we use other shocks. Utility prevented by damage. Flame Shock will become more important for enhancement pvp in WoD, because it's DoT component will reset Lava Lash cooldowns.
2) Except for Paladins (which have Seal of Freedom in combination with a very strong movement speed tier) and rogues (if they decide on Shadowstep over Burst of Speed), everyone else has instant gap closers. So, where others close gaps unbothered, we have to snare on range, at the expense of damage abilities, to slowly close the gaps with a 1m cd sprint, or GW.
3) Also to consider, with the demise of the improved Frost Shock perk, is the demise of elemental shaman pvp, since the perk was the only bigger compensation for their loss of Lightning Bolt on the move.
4) Death Knights can use their Chains of Ice on range as well (in addition to their new perk), so enhancement is not really unique in the regard of ranged snare.
Overall, a ranged snare and weak sprints without freedom to go with it cannot make up for strong sprints WITH freedom (ret) or instant gap closers (the rest), both of which have almost entirely passive snares, all baseline, where enhancement has to spend a glyph it cannot afford.
As for enhancement cc:
Hex is the weakest crowd control spell in the game, besides maybe Capacitor Totem and Remorseless Winter, one of which our other CC spell. Wether you label it
-a silence that breaks on damage and has a cast time
or
-a polymorph that is removable by all druid specialisations, not just resto, and additionally has a cooldown and does not take away control, at the little plus side of not healing said target
Hex has so many disadvantages from so many other spells, it cannot really boast a strenght.
Even worse: In WoD enh will no longer be able to make it instant, not with Ancestral Swiftness and not with Maelstrom Weapon.
A melee with a cc that needs casting, to my, knowledge, exists only for paladins (and theirs at least does not have a cooldown) and for ferals (from WoD on, where they fall subject to the same rule and will have horrible cc outside of their stun).
Capacitor Totemis one of two stuns with a charge up timer, and with that one of the two worst ones. With 5 second charge up it is quicker than RW, and it does not require to stack dispellable charges, but you can outrange CPT easily (unless Totemic Projection) or one shot it with its 5hp.
No decent pvp player gets hit by this, unless the player goes out of his way to at least glyph it OR talent PJ.
So to sum up:
-Ghostwolf is weak
-Spirit Walk (1m cd), Windwalk Totem (1m cd (talent)) and Ascendence (3m cd, doubles (prime use) as dps cd) => to rarely avaiable
=> Enhancement is the only melee specialisation without access to an instant gap closer or freedom sprint
-Enhancement is the only melee without a baseline melee snare
-Shamans have the weakest non-stun CC
-Shamans have, together with DKs, the weakest stun
-Frost Shock disables other shocks (especially taxing for ele, but also increasingly for enh come WoD)
THAT is why enhancement needs mobility improvement. Homogenisation is here slapped on almost every class in terms of almost every type of mobility help, so unique class design isn't gonna excuse this. Enhancement needs competitive ways of closing the distance and keeping o targets with other melees. Likewise, Elemental/Restoration need ways on par with their caster/healer counterparts to keep the distance and run while doing their thing.
Now, for the most important part of the thread: What needs to be done to bring enh back in line with Windwalkers, Rogues, Warriors and Druids (Rets and DKs are also slightly undertuned, but not as much as enhance)
SUGGESTIONS
1) Make Hex instant cast baseline for enhancement. I think it cannot hurt to remove the cooldown for at least elemental shamans at least, looking at how their mobile casting took such a hit
2) Lower Capacitor Totem charging time to 3 seconds baseline. The glyph will make it instant and lower the stun duration by one second. Three seconds is still "removable by quick minded players, and glyphing is supposed to make an ability more interesting/alter it in a meaningful way, not fix a broken spell.
3) Keep Frost Shock on a seperate cooldown, at least for elemental shamans. Perk or whatever. If a so frequently avaiable instant ranged snare on its own cd proves to strong, you can always raise the cd (8 or 10 seconds) to rebalance it.
4) Make FT snare baseline, perk or pvp set bonus if enh does not keep FrS perk.
With cc and snares back on a competitive track, all that's left is gap closer/creaters and sprints, for which there'd be multiple options:
Enhancement as melee needs either a low cooldown sprint with a short freedom effect attached to it, OR an instant gap closer.
Whichever we'd get, it would need to be frequently avaiable, with at best a 30 second cooldown for an instant gap closer, or at best 12 seconds for a sprint, lowerable through glyph (rets can get 45% for 3sec once every 6 seconds(!)).
Either
5) Instant gap closer: Feral Spirit's Leap ability would work nicely. If the enemy target requirement were to be removed, it would work like Heroic Leap and would be usable by ele/resto as well, 3 birds with one stone. It could get an additional audio effect (Feral Spirit's Twin Howl sound would be awesome, I miss that ) and turn the user into GW upon impact. With Feral Spirits (enh only obviously) it could additionally order your pets to jump to the same location, for flavor .
6) Freedom Spint:Reduce Spiritwalk's cooldown to 12 seconds, lower the duration to 4 seconds and speed increase to 50%, and give it freedom for that time frame. Freedom uptime would be 33%, lower than paladin's Hand of Freedom, and lower sprint uptime than Paladin's long arm of the Law.
As for ele/resto: (mainly ideas as I've never really played them)The freedom sprint would work for them as well, same with a freely aimable leap. Other options could include:
Elemental: Thunderstorm should remain on its ~20ish second cd it currently has via pvp set bonus, further lowerable through glyph/readiness stat. So if the bonus is planned to be removed, lower TS's baseline cd to compensate. Furthermore, the knockback could be, instead of hitting the enemies, be applied to the shaman instead, working like a disengage.
Glyph of Thunderstorm now, instead of removing the knockback, now applies it to enemies, instead of the caster. This will allow elemental to retain TS's current awesomeness in certain battlegrounds, but baseline will be a more reliable gap creater for Elemental pvp, reliant not on the enemies positioning, but one's own. Could also be nicely combined with good Earthbind/grab placing (and totem placement is an accepted skill factor, right )
Resto: With enh and ele getting their own specialisation specific mobility improvements, Ghostwolf could be vastly improved for restoration usage. Faster speed, able to cast Healing spells with a cast time while in GW and on the move and such could be traits of the new GW. A little cooldown (10s or so) would then maybe be in order, since dispelling would be important to counter resto mobility heals (just a thought). GW could be made resto only as well. With GW improving cast on the move for some spells, GW could turn into a very iconic ability for resto, and give resto a VERY unique healing experience.
The above suggestions for enhance/ele/resto ideas for instant gap closer/creater or freedom sprints could very well be incorporated into a talent also. The place it would take would be the current totem tier, adding totem thrower baseline to work like trap thrower and replace Totemic Projection, and removing the 1totem/per element rule for all but fire totems, baseline (superior form of Totemic Persistance).
If the tier would include specialisation based talents, it could look like this:
talent 1(all specs): Spirit Walk: Instant cast, 12 seconds cooldown. Increases your movement speed by 50% percent for 4 seconds. Also removes all movement impairing effects and makes you immune to them for the duration of the spell.
talent 2(all specs): Spiritual Flight: Soar in the form of a Spirit Eagle towards your targeted location. Instant cast. 30 second cooldown.
talent 3(spec specific)
Enhancement: Spectral Leap: Borrow the power of the spirits of the wilderness and roar, leaping behind your targets, accompanied by your Feral Spirit minions, if present
Elemental: Volcanic Upwinds: Replaces Thunderstorm. Instant cast, 25 second cooldown. A volcanic fissure opens beneath your feet, releasing super heated steam to carry you backwards (disengage range) and root your target for three second in magma slag.
Restoration: Aidance of the Elders: Increases movement speed by additional 10% while in Ghostwolf form and makes you immune to beast related crowd control. While in Ghostwolf form, your instant healing spells are disabled but your Healing Rain, Chain Heal and Healing Wave can be cast 15% faster, while moving and without breaking Ghostwolf.
Thank you very much for reading
edit: If you can look at my two posts directed towards celestalon here, as well as remain updated on eventual replies.