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  1. #1

    Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Back in vanilla WoW, if you were an enhancement shaman you rolled around with a 2h weapon with windfury attached to it. Even as elemental or Restoration, you used windfury on your 1h because before the epic nerf, it did good dmg for those specs as well.

    Then in Burning Crusade, Enhancement was changed up to promote a dual-wield playstyle. Windfury was made to benefit only enhancement shaman really, as flametongue I believe at this point was changed to add bonus spellpower.

    Now when I first heard about Shaman being able to dual-wield, I was restoration at the time. I was very excited for this news, and ended up spending all my dkp in Molten Core for two aurastone hammers. I was planning to make a dual-wielding restoration spec, simply because I thought it would make for an interesting niche to play as. However, the same day the dual-wielding talent went live, all healing/caster weapons seemed to become main hand only. I was disappointed.

    Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King. At the beginning of the expansion, elemental shaman claimed to be at a very bad place for PVE dps. Their dps was lagging behind others, and they requires a few patches of talent adjustments to effectively bring their dps up to date. But now, come Cataclysm, Blizzard is effectively trying to trim talent trees and provide their abilities through the new mastery/passive buff system.

    Going back to my first paragraph...Shaman were the only class capable of using a 2h weapon that needed to spec for it, whereas other 2h classes were able to simply use them without needed pts. After months of clamoring to make it a baseline ability it was.

    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.

    My main point is...why not add dual-wielding as baseline ability for all shaman. Would the extra spellpower from another flametongue and caster weapon have been enough to have kept elemental's PVE dps on par with others at the beginning of Wrath? Would it have been impossible to balance resto PVE around being able to have another earthliving and caster weapon?

    In Warcraft 3, all shamans dual-weilded. It is in my opinion a core staple of the class that should be granted to all specs, and made useful for all three of them.

    But then comes the PVP aspect, and the ability to use a shield for survivability issues. Talents could be reworked in the elemental and restoration tree that added a certain amount of spellpower IF the shaman was wielding a shield, to make up for any potential loss offered by losing dual-wielding.

    The only real downside I could see to this at all, would be that for PVE then, only Paladins would really require spellpower shields...but these already exist in limited supply, and could be provided through badge gear.

    What are your thoughts?

    tl:dr --- Balance all specs of shaman around dual-wielding, reworking talents to add bonus spellpower to resto/elemental using shields in pvp. Dual-wielding should become baseline ability learned at lvl 40 for all shaman.

    tl:dr x 2 --- I want a dual-wielding caster class.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zaelthon
    do i wanting my cat come the expansion due to signifying a reroll fresh scratch the night elf mage?

  2. #2

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Y'know, come to think of it, there really isn't any balance issue that would come about from giving shamans dual wield as a baseline ability. Since all caster weapons are main-hand only, it's not like elemental or resto shamans could realistically double dip unless they decided to use a non-caster offhand just for the extra enchant (which I suppose some people might do), but that could be solved extremely easily by making the caster shaman enchants main-hand only. I'm all for it myself. Frankly I always hated that enhancement shamans have to wait until 40 to actually play their spec accordingly. I mean hell, there's really no good reason not to give shamans dual wield at 20 like warriors, at least as far as I can tell.
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  3. #3

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    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.

    In my opinion, for a class(specc) that is going to rely on 2x1h ONLY we should start out with dual wield as rogues do. Hunters, warriors, (deathknights) all have the possibility for using 2h, whereas enhancement shamans would suffer quite much from using 2handers, so why even teach new shamans to use 2h? Resto shamans uses for the most part, a 1h and shield, same with elemental.
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  4. #4
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    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    I fully agree.

    And to a further extend:
    Either give us complete two-handed viability, or simply remove any trace of it from shamans.

    Having dual-wield opportunities for elemental and restoration won't do a thing.

    JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD.

    You don't see any warriors running around with daggers either, do you?

    And to an even further extend, how about making every shaman-enchant one-weapon only.
    This will destroy DW resto/elemental and make it clearer for newbie enhancement shamans to either go WF/FT or WF/FB for pvp.

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  5. #5

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    The whole needing to talent up to get dual wielding has always bugged me every time i play a shaman watching other classes get it as a baseline skill makes me emo, in cataclysm they could "Rectify" this error and making it baseline.

    But i have a weird feeling they wont
    Oh hi

  6. #6

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by Thafisker
    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.

    In my opinion, for a class(specc) that is going to rely on 2x1h ONLY we should start out with dual wield as rogues do. Hunters, warriors, (deathknights) all have the possibility for using 2h, whereas enhancement shamans would suffer quite much from using 2handers, so why even teach new shamans to use 2h? Resto shamans uses for the most part, a 1h and shield, same with elemental.
    Actually, all shamans start now with a 1h and a shield. Enhancement no longer starts with a 2h, because according to Blizzard, they benefit much more with a 1h + shield than starting with a 2h. Which I won't really argue, because until I got windfury...I level'd as enhancement using a 1h + shield for survivability.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zaelthon
    do i wanting my cat come the expansion due to signifying a reroll fresh scratch the night elf mage?

  7. #7

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    In days gone past, a shaman picked up 2 caster daggers from ...what was his name... 1st boss in black temple and then specced 30/31 or something. HE had like 3k spellpower (a lot at 70) and totally melted faces in pvp. The dagger was made MH after that =)

    OT: Yeah. 2 hands should be removed from shamans, except possibly staffs, and DW made baseline or even lvl 10/20.
    Lag - Network related. High server response time, stop downloading.
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    Dalaran doesn't lag (often) your pc just sucks.

    RIP Paul Gray

  8. #8

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by wushootaki
    Actually, all shamans start now with a 1h and a shield. Enhancement no longer starts with a 2h, because according to Blizzard, they benefit much more with a 1h + shield than starting with a 2h. Which I won't really argue, because until I got windfury...I level'd as enhancement using a 1h + shield for survivability.
    There no such thing (really) as enhance leveling prior to WF/DW
    Lag - Network related. High server response time, stop downloading.
    Low FPS - Your computer can't keep up with the game - buy a better one

    Dalaran doesn't lag (often) your pc just sucks.

    RIP Paul Gray

  9. #9

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Also...All shamans should get parry as a baseline ability...removing it from the spirit weapons talent in Enhancement. Shaman in general have issues with survivability, although they are rectifying this. An extra 5% to parry as resto or elemental would be very nice to have without having to talent for it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zaelthon
    do i wanting my cat come the expansion due to signifying a reroll fresh scratch the night elf mage?

  10. #10

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by wushootaki
    In Warcraft 3, all shamans dual-weilded. It is in my opinion a core staple of the class that should be granted to all specs, and made useful for all three of them.
    What? I'm playing WC3 multi-player right now, and I don't see any dual wielding shamans. Orc shaman units are only using 1 claw weapon, spirit walkers are using an axe in one hand, and a torch thing in the other hand, and my generic Far-seer unit is using a staff in one hand and a shield in the other. Of course, if I'm wrong, please point it out to me.

    I'm pretty sure shaman didn't have dual wielding associated with them until Drek'thar's newer appearance in WoW (which is actually kind of wield, since he wieled a staff in Warcraft Adventures).

  11. #11

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    I don't expect dual wielding weapons to ever by viable for either of the caster specs. Blizzard specifically changed almost all caster weapons to main hand only when they added the dual wield talent for enhancement shaman (they missed like half a dozen odd low level ones) and if taking an off hand melee dps weapon + enchants/gems/flame tongue ever works out to be beneficial I expect blizzard to break it some how. For example making Flame Tongue imbue make the weapons unique equipe so you can only use it on one weapon at a time.

  12. #12

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    there's been posts like this before and there's always people that say it's not worth it anyway, but how do you figure?

    get a melee offhand with haste/crit, with a +63 sp enchant and another 270~ sp from flametongue...that's more stats than a shield will ever give you

  13. #13

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by grandpab
    there's been posts like this before and there's always people that say it's not worth it anyway, but how do you figure?

    get a melee offhand with haste/crit, with a +63 sp enchant and another 270~ sp from flametongue...that's more stats than a shield will ever give you
    Make the spell imbues main hand weapon only, so lvling enhancement can still have dual wield WF, but max lvls cant go EL/EL or FT/FT. Make those ones simply apply to only main hand. It reall is a simple and easy fix, and would allow low lvl shamans a better playstlye, and high end raiding enhancement shamans an extra point to put someplace useful.

    [Banhammer, Kungen's Bane]

    1.60 sp mace
    150 str
    268 sta
    77 defense
    80 dodge
    93 parry
    "As you look upon the mace, you hear the whining of a thousand fanboys. Something deep with in your soul makes it impossible to think anything but 'lol.'"

  14. #14

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    The better solution would be to make the weapon chant unique so you can not have more then 1 at the time with the exception of WF/WF
    Oh hi

  15. #15

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    I agree with the OP, the baseline DW shouldve been done awhile back. I just hope they actually try to go through with it and not bs around and give us lackluster alternative options. Maybe one day it'll all make sense.

  16. #16

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Definitely no reason for it to not be baseline if they're careful about making caster weapons mainhand.

    If you go flametongue/flametongue do you eve receive the spellpowe bonus twice anyway right now?
    Quote Originally Posted by Leraux
    There no such thing (really) as enhance leveling prior to WF/DW
    It doesn't really matter anyway since shaman leveling is trivial til 60 and trivial to 80 if you manage to acquire decent gear; but you're enh if you put points in it which you might as well since it barely matters til 40 anyway.

  17. #17
    Deleted

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by Tumble
    Make the spell imbues main hand weapon only, so lvling enhancement can still have dual wield WF, but max lvls cant go EL/EL or FT/FT. Make those ones simply apply to only main hand. It reall is a simple and easy fix, and would allow low lvl shamans a better playstlye, and high end raiding enhancement shamans an extra point to put someplace useful.
    Because FT on the mainhand would be AWESOME for an enhancement shaman... right?

  18. #18

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by Girugamesh
    Because FT on the mainhand would be AWESOME for an enhancement shaman... right?
    INORITE...or you misread..I was refering to resto going Earth living/Earth Living and Elemental going Flame tounge/Flame tounge, not enhancement. OHANDBTWIFYOUTHOUGHTTHATSWHATIMENATYOUSHOULDLEAVETHEFORUMSANDNOTRETURN.

    [Banhammer, Kungen's Bane]

    1.60 sp mace
    150 str
    268 sta
    77 defense
    80 dodge
    93 parry
    "As you look upon the mace, you hear the whining of a thousand fanboys. Something deep with in your soul makes it impossible to think anything but 'lol.'"

  19. #19

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    I'm not quite clear what your issue is.

    Do you want to DWield as a caster? You seem to since you open up by saying you were intending to in Vanilla before they reitemized.
    Are you just concerned with enhance levelling pre-DW? That's not really an issue worth potentially unbalancing endgame play over.
    Are you upset that DW costs a talent when rogues/hunters/DKs get it for free? That's kinda silly frankly - and isn't how talents work. Blizz don't care if DW costs enhance more than it costs hunters, they care about keeping enhance DPS and hunter DPS in line.

    DWield baseline would cause more issues than it would solve.

  20. #20

    Re: Shamans and Dual-Wielding

    Quote Originally Posted by Azyoulike
    I'm not quite clear what your issue is.

    Do you want to DWield as a caster? You seem to since you open up by saying you were intending to in Vanilla before they reitemized.
    Are you just concerned with enhance levelling pre-DW? That's not really an issue worth potentially unbalancing endgame play over.
    Are you upset that DW costs a talent when rogues/hunters/DKs get it for free? That's kinda silly frankly - and isn't how talents work. Blizz don't care if DW costs enhance more than it costs hunters, they care about keeping enhance DPS and hunter DPS in line.

    DWield baseline would cause more issues than it would solve.
    I don't see a single issue aside from the fact that FT stacks with FT and EL stacks with EL. If only one of those imbues could actually affect your stats there would never be a good reason to DW as a caster shaman. It would solve the two issues of Enhance playing differently before 40 than after 40 (a little late in the game to make a big change in playstyle) and the fact that there really aren't weapons for Enh shaman before 40 as quest rewards/dungeon drops.

    In case you were curious not only does FT/FT give double spellpower, but if you have the glyph of FT weapon you get double the glyph bonus iirc.

    Quote Originally Posted by Girugamesh
    Because FT on the mainhand would be AWESOME for an enhancement shaman... right?
    You know back in early WotLK if you had a 4 set T7 and a Torch of Holy + Webbed Death you could roll with a FT/FT setup. The spellpower coefficient of FT was constant no matter what your weapon speed.
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