Hope for Shadowlands

[shammypie]

Hi all, it looks like the development of shamans in shadowlands is in full swing. I think it's a good sign for us as BFA i heard virtually nothing until after it's release. I think a return to fulmination will help declutter shamans. I always liked shamans for simplistic design and class flavor. I do miss searing totem and wish they actually put effort into it but i've come to accept Blizzard is not what it used to be.

Anyway is anyone else looking forward to shamans in Shadowlands? What covenant do you think you will take up?

[Skildar]

I gave up temporarily on my shaman when bfa released and now I said farewell to him. It was nice playing him for 10 years but then you play hunter, you play death knight, you play paladin, priest, druid, monk, demon hunter... you finally understand that it is still not this time that shaman will receive the treatment it deserves.
It was clear as day that when bfa got live, the enhancement shaman wasn't ready and needed an overhaul to gain a dynamic gameplay that would be enjoyable. Instead the developers went backwards without a clear vision on what to do with it, tossing everything they had at their disposal into a massive pile of mess. In it they've thrown some stuff they knew served no purpose and didn't play well with other spells (lightening shield, weapon imbues, searing totem, healing stream totem, rockbiter, feral spirits).

And for 3 months they've let that sit until finally they removed the unusable, cleared out what was obviously missing from the start, but the vision is still missing...
The state in which enhancement shaman was at the start of shadowlands alpha is the sign that shows that blizzard development team only just started taking an interest into the case of enhancement and had no idea whatsoever of what to do with it. Starting this late when during the entirety of bfa this spec has not worked (deals damage but gameplay is broken), It made the first alpha class article feel like an insult to the intellect of the shaman community.

What we have today on the alpha is what should have been delivered from the start. Because this is version of the spec where people can actually give some feedback while understanding what the team is trying to accomplish.

[kosajk]

yea there is some hope after last changes on ptr although there are still some issues to be addresed

- no defense expecially in pvp, that may be negated by decent selfheal i supose we will se that later on
- LB + MSW is still hiting for half of SS dmg which is not nice
- sundering should be baseline same as feral lunge imo

beside that things looks promising at this point

[music49]

Good news it they seem to be focusing on a few key classes one being shamans. Which is nice getting attention for once. So far so good in my opinion.

I miss searing totem as well but the point they made with it just being a CD you click and forget made sense. They could have worked it into totem mastery or made it work with either flame shock or flame elemental to keep it in.

I really enjoy elemental blast as an ability but its on the same talent row as echo of elements right now which is mandatory in almost all situations.

I'd like to see a return of ascendance too, it was just fun spamming all those lava blasts

All personal preferences though, can't please everyone.

[shammypie]

Good news it they seem to be focusing on a few key classes one being shamans. Which is nice getting attention for once. So far so good in my opinion.

I miss searing totem as well but the point they made with it just being a CD you click and forget made sense. They could have worked it into totem mastery or made it work with either flame shock or flame elemental to keep it in.

I really enjoy elemental blast as an ability but its on the same talent row as echo of elements right now which is mandatory in almost all situations.

I'd like to see a return of ascendance too, it was just fun spamming all those lava blasts

All personal preferences though, can't please everyone.

yeah i agree ascendance should be baseline again, it makes so much more sense for it to be our cross spec go to CD. i guess they wanted to make totems our focus again while i think Resto seems to accomplish this the dps specs seem like totems are more of a handicap. plus they should be way stronger than normal abilities if they are destroyable. It reminds me of the hearthstone boss where if you can guess what card he's about to use you win.

I do like the new weapon imbues, i'm hoping they return with earthliving weapon for resto.

[Nzx]

I have hope that they'll make something playable out of it, specifically Enhance, but going back in time to class design from 10 or 12 years ago isn't something I want to do anymore. There was a reason they made the changes to Enhance that they made in Legion, and it was almost universally praised for its design at that point, but for some reason they seem completely unwilling to acknowledge what it was about Legion Enhance that made it fun and design around that. Honestly, if they kept Antorus Enhancement (i.e full artifact traits etc), worked in the better Legiondary effects like the Ascendance gloves perhaps as a talent - I would happily play that class for another expansion. If they really have to pull something out of historical expansions, make it the actual good stuff - the Stormblast and old Windfury animations.

I guess I appreciate what they're doing, I just don't understand why they seem completely unwilling to put in the "fun" parts of historical class design. If you're going to bring back Fire Nova, why would you not bring back Lava Lash spreading? The "fun" part of Fire Nova was when the adds lasted long enough that you could get two or three LL's off and then do obscene scaling damage. Now they've brought it back but they've removed that "moment", so they haven't really brought it back. They've brought back weapon imbues, but now they're forced MH/OH WF/FT, so why not just make them passive effects and not bother? It really makes me wonder what their design meetings must be like - again, historically, they gave one specific dev one class, engaged high level players of that class in discussion about its design, and that gave us MoP Warlock, one of the most celebrated designs in the game's history. Why do they insist on reinventing the wheel so often when there's already such an easy way to get it right?