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.
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.
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
Pruning:
Instant heals
Healing rain