Defensive idea´s

Classes Shaman
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Here are some idea’s on how to improve Shaman survivability.
They are not suppose to be super powerful, but they are thematic.
I tied everything into Ghost Wolf, because i personally think that some things need to have a trade-off. Adding additional defensive capabilities might cause a powershift in Shamans elsewhere if they do not make a trade-off like this. Also, Shamans don´t need more buttons anyway.

Soothsayer:
Ghost Wolf removes snare effects. Additionally, your movement speed is increased by 10% and max health is increased by 20% as a Ghost Wolf.

Shift into Ghost Wolf to gain a 20% health cushion, to potentially be able to survive one-shots.

Augur:
While not in Ghost Wolf, you gain Presage every 10 seconds. Stacking up to 4 times.
Taking damage in Ghost Wolf will cause that damage and damage for the next 4 seconds to be reduced by 5% per stack.

The current talent Spirit Wolf promotes a degenerate playstyle of sitting in Ghost Wolf in PvP. 20% damage reduction is more efficient than healing, and the talent encourages you to sit in ghost wolf to gain maximum uptime on the DR.

Augur does the opposite. A skillful Shaman can pre-Wolf incoming damage in PvE or mitigate swaps to the Shaman in PvP.
It promotes regular gameplay, not spending your time sitting in Ghost Wolf to gain DR stacks. It doesn´t activate until you take damage, so Shamans can still use Ghost Wolf for mobility without losing its defensive capability.

Farseer:
Ghost Wolf shifts you into the spiritual plane. A fatal attack that would have killed you will immediately trigger your Reincarnation without death.
If Reincarnation is on cooldown, you die and the remaining cooldown is reduced by 50%

Shamans are considered farseers, they can see what is to come.
Having the ability to predict your own demise, you can shift into Ghost Wolf to prevent it.
Reincarnation is a pseudo-defensive, its a device to prevent shamans from proper defensive tools.

Witchdoctor:
While you are a Ghost Wolf 20% of the damage you take is instead dealt to you over the next 10 seconds.

Another Pseudo-defensive, it doesn´t technically mitigate damage, but it prevents one shots.

Spiritual Barrier:
While in Ghost Wolf, Spiritual Barrier absorbs damage taken.
5% of all damage and healing dealt is converted into Spiritual Barrier, up to 20% of the shamans maximum health.

Do damage and healing, so the next time you shift into Ghost Wolf you gain damage absorption, so you can shift quickly into it if you need to soak some damage.
It has a soft-cooldown, as it requires time to build the shield naturally.

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Lets get something straight:

The problem is not shaman squishines. The problem is other classes have an over-abundance of def CDs and externals.

And not just PvP. PvE also. Look at the MDI, some runs are done with out a healer.

In PvP specifically, its CD stacking the problem. You need defensives because damage is so spiky and your healer has no chance to heal it. Unless you (or him) pops a def CD.

So what needs fixing is the root cause of the problem. Giving shamans more defensives just adds to the problem.

1 Like
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it is easier to temporarily fix the problem with adding a def cd rather than waiting the next 5 years for blizzard to fix the root.

so if we have a mage with 10 defs cds and a shaman with 1 def cd, the shaman will be benched forever.

for 20 keys it all doesnt matter anyways as you dont even need to press a def cd to beginn with in current scaling to even survive a 20.

4

Def CDs matter if you got this 1-shot meta we have now. We did not have it in S2, and so, in S2 those that reigned supreme were not the tankiest speks.

Then just give shamans 20% more HP and your done. More HP more tanky. You survive more stuff, both in PvP and PvE. EZ.

Also, you forget what makes some classes so tanky. Its NOT the buttons they press.

Its the fact that their class stacks versatility. Thats what makes some classes more tanky than others.

Take rogue for example: 45% vers. Its insane to have a 22% PERMANENT DR all the time.

RShamans are really tanky too. Because we stack vers. Ele and Enh unfortunately are not. And because of it, you end up being like DuDus and Aug. They have more buttons than Shaman to stay alive. But… die anyways the most because they dont stack vers.

5

Even with Astral Shift (-40% damage reduction) Rogue can still kill you on the stun… There must be a class easy to kill so others have fun. It happens to be shaman. No body is afraid of this class. It is easy kill.
“Glass cannon” design is a glass only. Survivability issue for shaman is 7+ years discussion in this forum.

Nothing happened to fix it, nothing will happen. Use ankh as you defensive.

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Not really a PvP player, but i am a PvE fanatic.
I do agree, that spirit wolf needs an overhaul.
You dont need to make us get a disgusting amount of health, especially if you dont add the suffix “Gain 20% more health and heal it instantly” otherwise you just get a 20% empty healthbar that the healer has to do.
Thats how earth elemental works currently.
The suffix is on Desperate prayer, but not on Earth elemental.
Also making the damage reduction a bleed, doesnt really make much sense either. Granted you dont get oneshotted, but you still take that damage. Essentially reducing the damage by 0%.
The idea of getting more Damage reduction as you take more instances of damage also doesnt make sense - atleast if you want to combat oneshots. Pretty good against combos of damage and DoTs.
For the shield idea. how do you want to do relevant damage or healing while in ghost wolf?

This is an idea, for Spirit Wolf, i have heard from Wordup:

  • spirit wolf now grant it’s damage reduction inversely. Starting at 20% then slowly decaying. Removing Ghost wolf removes all 20% instantly

Likewise, the suffix for Earth elemental should be added, and the cooldown should be reduced to 3 minute.

Ankh should reset on keystart.
For PvP, i guess on match start.
Also, buff Brimming with life to 15% health, and add an armor talent somewhere in our class tree.

We are contenders for the worst defensives in the game. Battling healer priests, that only have fade, desperate prayer and their external defensive.

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while we have the worst defensives, I must say that we are a billion times more tanky than priests.
I almost get one shotted by a spiteful hit on my priest lol
fade is laughable at best, GS doesn’t reduce any dmg and powerword fail is like 20k absorb.

Disc priest has better defensives than shaman though.
But that is also why Disc is played alot while holy priest is generally also considered as one of the worst healers.
But holy priest at least overtook us damagewise. It quite packs the burst

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Yeah, but its only Holy priest that competes with us. Also, Fade is actually a really good defensive.

They even gave hunters a lot more defensives this expansion. Yet, Shaman got nothing like always.

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the shaman needs an improvement of his defensive and the cc he can perform to be playable at least in the pvp.
The spirit wolf form should be like a druid shapeshift plus the inability to put on slows. The shaman doesn’t need more heals you have the healing surge and the totem, a rework to the earth shield that can’t be purged and gives you a % shield to your max health when you get hit would be very viable and wouldn’t be affected by dampening.
And the most important thing is the cc, you only have a 2s ranged kick that is practically useless, the totem takes 2s to activate and 1 auto destroys it.
The lasso can be a good option but as you are usually the focus it will cost you to perform it well and the same happens with the hex, these last 2 skills should benefit from the voragine, they should be instantaneous.

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Most shamans dont know they can actually heal, even instant heal all the time

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Let me just outheal the oneshot :slight_smile:

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