Shamans and Dual-Wielding

[Daez]

Just for some perspective...

The ONLY reason that enhancement is a forced DW spec is because of PvP whine. Apparently, casters didn't like getting killed in one hit from a WF 2h at level 60. So, in typical Blizzard fashion they nerfed the hell out of shamans instead of realizing there was a problem with casters when they were dieing in one hit. 20 levels later, casters still die in one to two hits in many cases, but its from even more classes. But hell, at least those nasty shamans will never use a 2h again.

[Blinke]

Just for some perspective...

The ONLY reason that enhancement is a forced DW spec is because of PvP whine. Apparently, casters didn't like getting killed in one hit from a WF 2h at level 60. So, in typical Blizzard fashion they nerfed the hell out of shamans instead of realizing there was a problem with casters when they were dieing in one hit. 20 levels later, casters still die in one to two hits in many cases, but its from even more classes. But hell, at least those nasty shamans will never use a 2h again.

That's the given, I was merely saying the reason they made the dw a talent, was to better separate it from it's caster brethren. We all know why they wanted the dw to be the main focus of enhancement, as it is more dps overall, but less burst. I've seen anything not in plate get 1 shotted in vanilla, though I didn't actually participate, I just spectated hehe.

The focus of the thread is predominately as to why/why not merely allow all shaman to dual wield at some point in their careers, be it 10 or likely 20 if they were to introduce the ability baseline.

[Omanley]

Enhancement is the only spec that has to spec into multiple melee-basic talents such as merely being able to parry attacks, or just to hold another one in the off hand. This is because, as you said, they are predominately a caster class.

Weird resoning.

Druids have two caster tree´s as well, but they are even able to tank AND melee dps and have tons of baseline melee abilities for bear and cat.

Ret is the currently most similar spec to enhance in the aspect that they do both caster and melee damage, but a ret does not have to learn parry through talents, and he does not have to spec into dual wield.

Blizzard even wants to add a baseline melee ability for cataclysm: Primal Strike
This indicates they are aware of the suboptimal situation of enhancement at early levels.

Add the aggro reduction of spirit weapons to another talent and make parry a baseline ability and give us a new talent for the slot

Make dual wield baseline and give us a new talent for it´s slot. They could split shamanistic rage and make the damage reduction the dual wield replacement with some additional new thing to it ( maybe something like the bm hunter/feral ability ) and the manaregenerating part stays as shamanistic rage where it currently is.

Maybe scrap the idea of primal strike and add storm strike as a baseline ability, and give us something new for that as well.

Even enh does a ton of spell damage. I am still rather lost as to why this is, but they are. They went with the archetype of each role for each class. Casters are guys who use 1 weapon and generally stay the hell back. Melee are guys who either use 2 weapons or 1 and have to gain precision for their attacks with things such as hit and expertise. Hybrids of casters and melee (ret and enhancement) generally follow melee rules but deal spell damage. For instance, both are hindered by cooldowns and not resource, whereas all other melee have to worry about resource and somewhat cd's (runes are resource, although they act more like limiting cds.)

you could view hunters or rogues as the same. rogues have their poisons, hunter their traps, shots and stings dealing all kind of damage ( arcane shot, black arrow, explosive shot, fire/frost traps, snake trap/serpent sting )

Ret and Enh can be viewed as melee´s dealing magic damage instead of bleed.

Having a caster dual wield would seem, well, out of place.

i concur. as i´ve made clear more than once, i do not support the idea of a dw caster spec. overpowered lvb crits with dual ft/UL and immortal resto with dual el aside, dw is the core feature of enh and should stay a enhance feature. i hope for baseline dw because of easier lvling and a free talent spot to fill with a exciting talent.

[Kavalir]

Dual wield will after the new talents require only 30 to learn, meaning that will be possible for resto and elemental shamans to get their 51 point ability and dual wield.

At lvl 90 maybe. Thats still requiring 81 points which we wont have access to in cata

[wushootaki]

So if you make DW baseline, warriors should start off with defensive and berserker stance? Warlocks should start off with all their pets? Paladin with all their auras and seals? Priests with shadowform? Druids with all forms?

The whole point of leveling is to see the class grow.

Baseline means you can learn it from a trainer without having to spend talent points on it. It would still be available only when hit lvl 40, except they get it from their trainer rather than spending a talent point on it. Til then it would be a 1h+shield or 2h route.

Are you honestly comparing Shadowform to being able to hold weapons in each hand?


Also, most people are missing my point.

This is not a thread to say let enhancement get free dual-wielding. This is a thread meant to say --- LET ALL SHAMANS DUAL-WIELD REGARDLESS OF SPEC. All that needs to be done is change caster weapons from main-hand only to one-handed. Adjust restoration and elemental to also work out of dual-wielding...and make dual-wielding NOT A TALENT BUT A BASELINE ABILITY THAT WE LEARN AT 40 FROM TRAINER.

Sorry for any previous confusion.

[wushootaki]

i concur. as i´ve made clear more than once, i do not support the idea of a dw caster spec. overpowered lvb crits with dual ft/UL and immortal resto with dual el aside, dw is the core feature of enh and should stay a enhance feature. i hope for baseline dw because of easier lvling and a free talent spot to fill with a exciting talent.

]

By adjusting the talents, it could easily be made to not be overpowered. It provides an excellent playstyle for a class that is meant to be jack-of-all-trades. Currently, the only jack-of-all-trades spec is Enhancement. Give a little bit of the love to the other trees. Enhancement is currently following the idea of "I melee faster so I can cast more spells faster".

Dual-wield casting is something that would help set shamans apart besides totems, which are currently provided by several other classes in equal/superior buffs.

[Omanley]

By adjusting the talents, it could easily be made to not be overpowered.

It could be adjusted yes. But implementing dw for caster purposes will
1.) make paladins the only caster shield users
2.) piss of every other caster because shaman will have to snatch 2 caster weapons
3.) it´s kinda ridiculous, as dual wielding comes with the thought of meleeing with them (similar ridiculous as titants grip wearing 2h weapons in 1h )

It provides an excellent playstyle for a class that is meant to be jack-of-all-trades. Currently, the only jack-of-all-trades spec is Enhancement. Give a little bit of the love to the other trees. Enhancement is currently following the idea of "I melee faster so I can cast more spells faster".

jack of all trades in the sense of having several roles spread through the different trees, yes, not having them spread through one and the same tree. enhancement is no real caster/melee hybrid (as they do not exist, grace of the spirit walker will be the only ocasion at which we´ll be able to be one). for us to use casts they have to be instant ( maelstrom weapon, shocks, procs ).

for a resto/ele to fill the same role, they would have to go into melee range healing/casting there to have melee attack procs, and i doubt that´s what you want.

Dual-wield casting is something that would help set shamans apart besides totems, which are currently provided by several other classes in equal/superior buffs.

having something to set shamans apart is fine as long as it´s not in a negative way. caster itemisation is something though that i think shouldn´t be touched.

making dw avaiable to enh from the get go will make lvling easier and create space for more interesting talents.

making dw avaiable for caster will create problems with caster itemisation, will give rise to many non-shammy caster complains, will probably make elemental totally overpowered so there would be very much balancing involved, and in the end the difference is
1.) mostly cosmetic
2.) a big extra junk spellpower through weapon, enchant and imbue, which could be provided by a scaling ele talent instead
3.) a second unleash weapon proc ( i dont think blizz wants to have any case where a imbue is used two times for this new ability )

personal feelings about dw caster aside, i dont think blizz would ever consider it either.

[terrih91]

Now we sit with dual-wielding...a necessary talent to dps as Enhancement, whereas warriors, rogues, dks, and hunters (who only use dual-wielding as a way to stack stats and enchantments) get this ability as baseline.

OK um no. warriors who are fury dual weild 2 2handers. very neccecary for our dps since arms doesnt scale as well. rogues, please your almost as crazy as gary busey right now have u ever seen a 2hander rogue? dks, never heard of frost? hunters yay we have a winner they stack stats from DW. cmon look at a class be4 u QQ about dual weild casters. a 264 1h wep now adays has around 741 spell power or sumthing like that. add 2 of those thats 1400+ spell power from just 2 weps. a staff has the same amount of spell power just more baseline stats. now do you think that having 2 spell 1h weps on ur elemental class makes it fair against a mage warlock preist? no and they wont have a DW like ability becuase of how OP it would be in PVP with all that spell power and resil you ge off the main weps. good idea not well argued. and there was a wep i think in hyjal a spell power wep that eles would DW and it was OP sheet thats why blizz got rid of it

[wushootaki]

OK um no. warriors who are fury dual weild 2 2handers. very neccecary for our dps since arms doesnt scale as well. rogues, please your almost as crazy as gary busey right now have u ever seen a 2hander rogue? dks, never heard of frost? hunters yay we have a winner they stack stats from DW. cmon look at a class be4 u QQ about dual weild casters. a 264 1h wep now adays has around 741 spell power or sumthing like that. add 2 of those thats 1400+ spell power from just 2 weps. a staff has the same amount of spell power just more baseline stats. now do you think that having 2 spell 1h weps on ur elemental class makes it fair against a mage warlock preist? no and they wont have a DW like ability becuase of how OP it would be in PVP with all that spell power and resil you ge off the main weps. good idea not well argued. and there was a wep i think in hyjal a spell power wep that eles would DW and it was OP sheet thats why blizz got rid of it

Learning grammar will help you realize that parenthesis set apart a statement that is intended for what it follows and not the previous listed examples.

Hyjal =\= WotLK or Cataclysm


Adjust talents in course to make the additional gained spellpower not OP, but on par with others. Also, chances are as mentioned by others in this thread, that during pvp many would choose frostbrand to snare melee and get away easier.