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  1. #1

    Post 9.0 Shaman redesign suggestions

    In the recent Ion 8.2 video he talked about the future of class design. In this thread I would like us to give our own, personal opinions, on where the class and specs should move in 9.0.

    For me:

    Shaman as a Class:
    Core fantasy:
    Totems. A whole lot of totems.
    Today we only use totems as a cooldown, but I would much prefer having totems that give buffs to players like Strength/Agi/Mana regen/WF totems.
    I think Grounding Totem, Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem should be baseline for the class, at least. Don’t put them as “PvP talents”…
    I would also like to see the return of very situational totems that rarely are useful.

    Earth Shock, Frost Shock and Flame Shock.
    Possibly merge Wind Shear with Earth Shock again?

    Signature spells:
    Heroism/Bloodlust.
    Purge.
    Too many classes has similar spells now. It used to be “our” things. I would like to go back to that.

    Pruning:
    No more Stun/CC. To me, Shaman should never have gotten their Hex nor their stun totem. What made Shamans unique in Vanilla/TBC was no CC at all. This meant we had other, more fun, strengths.

    Enhancement:
    Core fantasy:
    Strong burst windows.

    Signature spells:
    Back to a focus on Windfury.
    Back to being a 2H spec.
    Strong hitting Stormstrike.

    Pruning:
    Possibly removing Maelstorm.
    No more procs reseting the cooldown of Stormstrike. It is supposed to be this strong hitting spell that takes a while to get.

    Elemental:
    Core fantasy:
    Strong burst windows.

    Signature spells:
    Lava Burst
    Chain Lightning

    Pruning:
    Removing Maelstorm. Back to using Mana. The Maelstorm gathering abilities into these unsatisfying Earthquake/Earthshock is not fun.
    No more procs reseting the cooldown of Lava Burst. It is supposed to be this strong hitting spell that takes a while to get.

    Restoration:
    Core fantasy:
    Strong hard casted raid AoE healing.

    Signature spells:
    Chain Heal
    Earth Shield - Should certainly not be a lvl 30 talent - It has been core to the spec since TBC..

    Pruning:
    Instant heals
    Healing rain

  2. #2
    Shamans aren't going to devolve back to vanilla/TBC class design. If that's the kind of class you want to play then you should play classic instead of retail.
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  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Unlimited Power View Post
    Shamans aren't going to devolve back to vanilla/TBC class design. If that's the kind of class you want to play then you should play classic instead of retail.
    Good one. Everyone is loving how "evolved" the classes are in BfA. You clearly have not watched the Ion 8.2 speech.

  4. #4
    I didn't know enhancement was a 2 hand specc to begin with

  5. #5
    Titan Grimbold21's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laubman View Post
    I didn't know enhancement was a 2 hand specc to begin with
    In Vanilla, in pvp.

    It was a 1hander from TBC onwards

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Grimbold21 View Post
    In Vanilla, in pvp.

    It was a 1hander from TBC onwards
    I believe the reason they changed it to a Dual Wield spec was because of drop tables. At that point a bunch of specs, like Ret paladins, Hunters, Warriors and to some degree Druids used 2 handers. Only Rogues used 1h agility weapons. In order to blance the drop table they included Enhancement into wanting 1h agi axes, maces and fist weapons. Yes they used to be a Strength based spec.

    Also being a mail user, them being Strength based vs. Hunters being Agi based was not a good fit.

    Noone asked for this change of Shamans and the forums were not pleased.

    The situation in WotLK became even worse with the introduction of DK all specs prefering using 2 handers.

    Today, with personal loot, this should not be a problem.
    Last edited by MiiiMiii; 2019-06-21 at 10:16 AM.

  7. #7
    Two-hand was really removed late TBC.

    I'd love the option for two hand shamans to come back, give us the option. Like Frost DK's, some want to two hand as well. The original enhancement shamans were two handed so it'd be nice if they brought back that class fantasy.

    I'd like to see a return to Fire Nova as well, perhaps changed up a bit so it's based around the character rather then the enemy, charging it up for bigger damage with Lava Lash. I hope they keep down the road of Ghost Wolf being a defensive ability with self healing, etc. It's pretty unique, it'd be better if it gave a flat dmg reduction rather then built up with Spirit Wolves. You could then juggle when big damage was about to be applied to your character, which increases the skill cap.

    For cosmetic stuff, water breathing.. I don't know why warlocks kept it but ours got purged. Seriously?
    Perhaps if they want to continue down the ascendance route, actually make the effect so it ascends our character rather then changing him in to a Cata model thats fugly. I'd rather it be a bit like some of the Warlock spells, adding effects to your character rather then a whole model change.

    More Ghost Wolf forms, perhaps even a Ghost Hawk form?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Another thing I thought would be cool if a fourth spec ever did come out.

    I mean everyone and their mother says, Earth Warden, etc. That's cool. I'd be happy with that, but what if?

    What if we, like other classes had a spec that was similar to the others? Priests and Paladins, they both have Holy. Warrior and Paladin's, both have protection. Now what if Shamans and Deathknights have blood? Here me out.

    The shaman has always been a cross between the orcs shamanism and witchdoctor abilities from Warcraft universe, with the foundations planted in WoD with Bleeding Hollow orcs using blood magic and of course the Blood Trolls of Nazmir. Now wouldn't it be cool if as a class we got to mess with this school? Trolls have always been dabbling with blood magic for Grom knows how long, not just the Blood Trolls. You only have to look at the Troll tribes to see it.

    It could even be a ranged tank spec, two handed like the dk or utilising that shield more then Elemental ever has! I think it'd be awesome, of course like the other specs, you'd still have that elemental powers like Earth Shield, but it's tossed their with a lot of bad Voodoo.

    Thats another thing, it's a massive misconception that Enhancement is Air, Elemental is Fire and Restoration is Water. Yes some of their original spec spells have that element, but they also use the others. All shamans heal with water, the biggest damage ability by Elemental is Earth Shock, Enhancement has a primal primer spec where Lava Lash is the biggest damage. Shamans use all the elements, it's just one's a range dps, one's a melee and the other is a healer.

    Anyway, that's just an idea and I think it'd be pretty cool rather then a Earth Warden spec, though I'd be happy with that too! <3

  8. #8
    There is a reason Blizzard moved away from highly niche/unique classes. It doesn't work and is a balancing nightmare. If you give shamans too many unique tools, they will become mandatory for all activities pretty much. If you take away stuns and ccs, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to balance them.

    Also, mana for elemental is boring, what happens when you run out of mana? You melee? What's the point? Earthsthock is boring, but Lava burst "that takes a while to get" is not? What?? Both ele and Enh are already burst specs anyway, you can't global anyone, because it's not fun for people who get bursted on so Blizzard moved from that idea because everyone is always complaining when there is too much burst in the game (look at destro locks and fire mages now).

    To me this thread is just another veiled nostalgia whine about "good old days" when you were young and game seemed more fun. Your ideas would just make shaman class bigger crap than what it currently is. Going backwards in class design isn't redesigning.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by melzas View Post
    To me this thread is just another veiled nostalgia whine about "good old days" when you were young and game seemed more fun. Your ideas would just make shaman class bigger crap than what it currently is. Going backwards in class design isn't redesigning.
    The game has been going backwards in class fantasy since the pruning began, Ion admitted this.

    I mean you call OP's post whining, to me the only one whining is you by replying so negatively about the mere suggestion that a class could be improved. It's obvious Classic had something about it, hence the amazing popularity on Twitch and it's only in beta. I'd say be a bit more adaptable, of course a lot of things were worse in the past but, somethings were better also.

  10. #10
    There are some merits to this, but a load of this is basically:
    Please give me Classic Shaman.

    Which i disagree with because not everything, including class design, was golden in Vanilla.
    Certain ideas simply don't fly anymore, thus they were removed.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Today we only use totems as a cooldown, but I would much prefer having totems that give buffs to players like Strength/Agi/Mana regen/WF totems.
    I seriously doubt that's going to happen.
    Because earlier this year, Ion straight up said they're not going to hand out buffs like MotW to classes unless they need in order to be deemed "useful".

    Aside from that, imagine Totem Mastery being baseline and now applying to the entire group, that's buff totems in terms of gameplay.
    Going back to Cata / Wotlk, buff totems were just inferior versions of regular buffs because of their range limitation and constantly required the Shaman to re drop them.

    Horn of Winter was just better than Strength of the Earth because a Dk pressed it once, everybody has it, even if the DK isn't in range or dies.

    One might see something akin to Skyfury totem, but buff totems with 100% uptime are unlikely, nor exactly wanted on my end.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    I think Grounding Totem, Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem should be baseline for the class, at least.
    Grounding totem was primarily removed because it cheesed abilities on raid encounters, lazy on Blizzards end not to check but i doubt they'll check that now with their butchered QA department.
    Aside from that, 3 second immunity against any single target spell in PvE is kinda OP, because the current version of Grounding is vastly superior to the old one.

    Imagine any encounter where an important debuff is applied, you could just bring 2-3 Shaman and they just ground everything.

    Tremor is already baseline.

    Poison cleansing was removed due to rework of dispel mechanics, every hybrid class got two types of dispel, in the case of Shaman, they removed disease & poison dispel and introduced curse dispel as baseline.
    (Dispel for Shaman is currently offensive dispel a.k.a. Purge and Curse dispel).

    It is highly unlikely that a button that has no CD and potentially dispels up to 5 people will return, because Blizzard sticked to the dispel mechanic of Cata for a long time by now.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Possibly merge Wind Shear with Earth Shock again?
    You basically want Elemental / Enhance to choose between damage and interrupts?
    This is one of those concepts that are just straight from Vanilla and don't work anymore.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Purge.
    The only classes that can spam dispel like us are Priest and Mage.
    Priest could do it since Vanilla.
    Mages since TBC.

    The rest are minor dispels such as from Spirit beasts from BM Hunters and DH's (which purges a single buff at a CD) or Warlock's Fel Hunter.

    I could settle for some improvments, such as purge generating Maelstrom, making Shaman a little more favored in terms of dispel, but other classes having also the ability to dispel is nothing new.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Pruning:
    Removing Maelstorm. Back to using Mana. The Maelstorm gathering abilities into these unsatisfying Earthquake/Earthshock is not fun.
    No more procs reseting the cooldown of Lava Burst. It is supposed to be this strong hitting spell that takes a while to get.
    I could shit over Maelstrom all day long, but i still prefer it to Mana, because it's actually a relevant resource to me.
    Mana was not since TBC, because Blizzard simply introduced passives that gave you enough Mp5 to go on forever.

    Also, i don't want to go back to Lava burst being a "super hard hitter", because that's what Destro is with Chaos bolt.

    Elemental should be about using multiple Elements to their advantage, and the unpopular opinion is the fact that only Legion and Bfa (since 8.1) have nailed this fantasy.
    I'm not just some dude that throws Lightning and occasionally a glob of lava at enemies, i weave multiple Elements together, that wasn't the case for a long time.

    That's what Elemental should be about, not just two Elements.

    Especially from Wotlk to WoD, it felt extremely awful that Elemental basically used the same spells as Enhancement except Lava Burst, only that your spells did more damage.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Good one. Everyone is loving how "evolved" the classes are in BfA. You clearly have not watched the Ion 8.2 speech.
    I've said this before, this kind of argument can be used to literally bash anything in BfA / Current WoW.

    Hybrid Dps being actually competitive dps? Well the game was better when they weren't!
    Last edited by Kralljin; 2019-06-21 at 12:24 PM.

  11. #11
    Titan Grimbold21's Avatar
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    If anything, I'd like to see Shamans have a tank spec. If earth shield makes any sense it's with a sturdy spec more than resto.

    In addition, while watching classic videos, CL's audio animation would also be great.

  12. #12
    Pandaren Monk cocomen2's Avatar
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    Only thing that i want for wow, its to remove "Mail" type of armor from a game.
    Hunter=> leather armor, class that moves and shoot with bow.
    Shaman => plate armor, lets be fair rogue in light armor lives more than shaman with Shield in mail... because its all their top surv. capability.
    Please, there a perfect example of hypocritical thinking:
    Quote Originally Posted by Teriz View Post
    If Tinkers had anything to do with Hunters, but they don’t. Unlike Bards which are linked to Rogues.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    There are some merits to this, but a load of this is basically:
    Please give me Classic Shaman.
    I mentioned Lava Burst as core to Elemental. Did not exist in Classic.
    I mentioned Earth Shield as core to Restoration. Did not exist in Classic.
    I mentioned Heroism/Bloodlust as core to the Class. Did not exist in Classic.
    The only spec that you could see as "Classic", is Enhancement.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Aside from that, imagine Totem Mastery being baseline and now applying to the entire group, that's buff totems in terms of gameplay.
    Going back to Cata / Wotlk, buff totems were just inferior versions of regular buffs because of their range limitation and constantly required the Shaman to re drop them.
    Regarding the totems being staticly placed. There are ways they can change this if they want. For instance, what if your party buff totems were rotating around you, kind of like a Lightning Shield, following you around?

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    I mentioned Lava Burst as core to Elemental. Did not exist in Classic.
    And a variety of other things mentioned are clearly from classic.

    Like the Earth shock / Wind shear consolidation, for example.

    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Regarding the totems being staticly placed. There are ways they can change this if they want. For instance, what if your party buff totems were rotating around you, kind of like a Lightning Shield, following you around?
    The entire thing of totems is the the fact that they are static.
    If they float around you, they might as well become a passive aura like in MoP.

    That aside, having a Ball of Lightning float around you is one thing, having four freaking totems constantly floating around you would be annoying in my opinion.

  15. #15
    As mentioned above, duel was brought just for drop table balance and nothing more. I was really surprised when we heard about it but kind of got happy since itemization was a big problem. But now with adaptive stats on items, i think 2 handers will look much cooler on enhancement. Accually i think other specs should be able to use it as well. Resto and elemental are shamans too. Why shouldnt they rock 2h winfurys. We shouldnt look at elemental or resto as a comperative class to mage and priests. Shamans dont have frost nova of shields after all.

    The kind of table top rpg-like stat distribution was reduced and comptletaly removed with introduction of death knights. I think it would be a good time for elemental and resto shamans to use windfury while they kite or cant cast. Shamans dont have things like frost nova so they should use their own class abilities without being gimped too much. Numbers could be argued to some extent.

    For enhancement, "frostbrand / flametongue" curse lingered for too long. It should use shocks instead. Damage is already spread too thin. Take how much frost brand WOULD HAVE hit on a target with %100 uptime and cramp it in a frost shock (same with flametongue). If the burst becomes too much, just turn some of it into damage over time. With stormbringer cd reseting chance on hit AND abilities buffing white hits, players are expected to have %100 uptime or very gimped damage. Very punishing for pve and a nightmare for pvp coupled with low survivability.

    Using same spells between specs isnt a bad thing for me. There isnt a reason why lightning bolt cant be utilized well by enhancement and same for windfury with elemental or resto. Enhancement lightning bolt shouldnt hit like a wet noodle even if it isnt worthy to be in a pve rotation. None of the key binds should feel "watefull" this is a unique problem for shamans and druids since only they have both spell damage and melee damage specs.

    Btw, what is hybrid dps really? Are we really go into it again? Are warriors hybrid class becouse they can tank? Or is it only the healer classes?
    Outlaw rogues can heal much better with crimson vial than enhancement in arena. Is it utility? Outlaw brings much more utility into both pve and pvp than enhancement. With much better dps. Please be done with this "hybrid tax" bs already. You guys are saying we dont want vanilla back but the "hybrid dur dur" mentality is so deep into vanilla and pan/paper rpg.

    What i wanna say is: Every spec should use every shaman spell EFFECTIVELY. While of course preferring what talents make them shine be it melee or spell damage or healing. To abuse given abilities like more proc chance or whatever you know the drill.

  16. #16
    No thanks. I mained shaman in vanilla with enhancement as my main spec, and it was a terrible choice. Even in PvP where a lot more of one's abilities than in PvE back then, it had tons of boring down time where you'd be autoattacking and praying for a Windfury proc, because you'd already used your shock (6 second shared CD), Stormstrike (20 second cd, barely did anything except give an extra chance to proc Windfury), and Fire Nova Totem. It was really only a small step ahead of ret paladins in terms of gameplay quality, and paladins were so unfinished back then.

    Most of the totems were so underpowered or niche that you hardly ever used them, including Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneskin Totem, Searing Totem, Magma Totem, Healing Spring Totem and probably many more that I've forgotten. You pretty much needed an addon for all of them to avoid the obscure ones taking up half your bars, and after a while they started adding 'meta' spells to them like dispelling them to return mana, or moving them, and for good reason. It was a huge pain in the ass to have to spend 4 GCDs on putting down totems everytime your party moved in a dungeon, and in PvP it was a weakness enemy players could exploit without any upsides (it was not as though (enhancement) shamans tended to be particularly strong in PvP if enemies ignored their totems).

    I don't particularly enjoy the rework they made to enhancement in Legion (way too spammy, simple and RNG to my tastes), although elemental shamans had some really fun rotations for parts of Legion, but really the vanilla/tbc enhancement gameplay was absolute garbage compared to warriors and rogues at the time who had actual combat skills to use frequently instead of spending so much time autoattacking and hoping for procs.

  17. #17
    Just kill earthquake for better chain lightning and I'm golden

  18. #18
    I am Murloc! Wangming's Avatar
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    What I find strange in Shamans (shamen?) That despite them talking to the spirits and all, they really don't do that much. Beside ghost wolf and feral spirit, there aren't any spirit related skills. Maybe the next redesign can enhance this aspect. For restoration maybe?

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Beingbob View Post
    No thanks. I mained shaman in vanilla with enhancement as my main spec, and it was a terrible choice. Even in PvP where a lot more of one's abilities than in PvE back then, it had tons of boring down time where you'd be autoattacking and praying for a Windfury proc, because you'd already used your shock (6 second shared CD), Stormstrike (20 second cd, barely did anything except give an extra chance to proc Windfury), and Fire Nova Totem. It was really only a small step ahead of ret paladins in terms of gameplay quality, and paladins were so unfinished back then.
    Ofc no one would want such gameplay. Enhancement wont be using 4 skills every 20seconds in pve. Mages wont spam frostbolt for 4.5hours and warriors wont only use whirlwind and mortal strike.

    But the feeling of enhancement in vanilla was good. It wasnt ONLY about windfury.
    Being able to spam purge without any drawback,
    having solid unavoidable and steady damage from shocks,
    short cd ranged interrupt,
    short cd ranged slow
    grounding totem,
    earthbind totem,
    tremor totem

    This is a very very good toolkit for a vanilla spec. Most specs didnt have half of it. And %20 wf chance wasnt bad. Gameplay was about holding on with this wide tool kit while you wait for your wf. These small but varied tools made your wf hits connect to your enemy. I dont remember having any trouble against casters even without windfury. Yes rogues and warriors ate enhancement alive but that's what was like in vanilla for any class. Warriors and rogues ate anyone up.

    Enhancement may have same tools today. Those tools are made unimportant or distributed too much or has been nerfed. I know it has been for many classes but for enhancement it kind of stripped the feeling away. And with removing the burst too, all our rotation has become filler skills.

    When people say they miss vanilla enhancement, they dont mean having 1 stormstrike against ragnoras. It was a broken spec. Wasnt viable for pve nor pvp. nowhere near "top percentage". But sure as hell isnt now too. But preassure of a good geared enhancement in a bg or duel was there! This flametongue / fb spam is no where near the 3.8 seconds gamble wait. At least it was fun sometimes.

    I've been playing enhancement since vanilla. Played some other classes during some expensions. My eyes are always on shaman related forums, expecting news of enhancement. I think spec needs a good look from devs. I think enhancement spec shouldnt suffer too much from loosing melee range. To be able to kite other melee, and not to be kited too much by range (to an extent ofc). Shocks seems like a good solve as an old idea. Burst damage is a no-no in eyes of devs so i dont think it will ever come back as it was. But they should decide about spec's intentions. Is it gonna be same as other 35 melee specs? Or will it have a different play feel to it? It shouldnt be just about how much damage spec does or how much cc it has. But i wish for feeling of it. It was dangerous for both sides of that 2h axe. And spec lived on that edge. Now its another dull melee spec. Again, im not saying it was good or compatetive but at least it was fun.

    My fear is devs wont decide on anything and it will be another copy paste of fury warrior rotation with slight changes.

  20. #20
    Herald of the Titans Advent's Avatar
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    Just take enhancement, scrap everything done to it from WoD onwards, and iterate on it from there. I don't personally want 2H back because I do not believe 2 different competing weapon styles within a spec works, and I never wanted to wield a 2H in the first place. Ret, Unholy, Fury and Arms already exist. Keep Crash Lightning though, that makes cleave pretty decent imo.

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