Being a Shaman player at heart for almost 2 decades straight now, with a handful of low ranked Cutting Edges, most of which I was raid leading. I’ve always strived to make the Hybrid build of the Shaman viable, generally known as the Battle Shaman, even going back to Mists of Pandaria Challenge Modes, healing as Elemental. Last two expansions brought new highs to the build in the form of Igneous Potential Restoration Shaman in Battle for Azeroth (used widely on Mythic Jaina) and Chains of Devastation Kyrian/Venthyr Elemental or Enhancement Shaman in Shadowlands (completely underutilized by the community unfortunately). The Shadowlands build was probably the most broken thing I’ve played in the game, and I’ve tried Death Knights on the original Wrath of the Lich King’s release (yes, we’re talking this level of power). I had really high expectations for the new Talent Trees at the end of Shadowlands, more choices means wider variations of builds after all, only to get disappointed when I first saw them, as they were single-dimensional. I had the same expectations for the new Hero Talents, only to be even more disappointed. Farseer Hero Talents made for the perfect excuse to conjure something remotely close to what I was wishing for, but that was not the case. Even if we ignore my Battle Shaman aspirations, the talents were uninspired and barely interesting in gameplay, lacking overall synergy, only hitting on the fantasy and nothing else, with the last node arguably being the most problematic node of all…
I’ve heard the take that as Elemental and Restoration are now the only specs that bring no raid utility, the Farseer Hero Talents should, to which I disagree, as it would render them a mandatory pick. Instead, why not make the Farseers Throughput Kings - taking both healing and damage into consideration - jacks of all trades, but masters of none playstyle? This in itself is some form of “raid utility” that could be explored further, for lets say when a fight requires “half” a healer more or “half” a healer less, making both Offensive Restoration and Defensive Elemental valid choices. This is a great way to solve a problem that’s been creeping in the class patch by patch, while allowing for player choice on the other 2 remaining Hero Talent choices for pure damage or healing throughput builds.
I know that during Dragonflight there has been an active effort on reducing off-healing, but I think the defensive creep of the game is mostly to blame, not the off-healing one. Also, the Farseer could be the single niche build in the game that incorporates a variation of both damage and healing done, something we barely see with Discipline priest nowadays. It should never compete with the best damage dealers or healers, even when the stars align in RNG, but it could be up there on both, for either specialization, solving the issue of Elemental and Restoration raid utility in its own way, via sheer numbers. An example of this is the choice of bringing an Augmentation Evoker right now for Keystones, as it brings more defensive utility to the table than any other damage dealer, but your overall dps is going to suffer in return. Now if my “nudge” in this direction falls on deaf ears, I’d be more than happy to just give some inspiration regarding our capstone node.
I’ve compiled all of my thoughts and suggestions into a spreadsheet, to improve readability, but posting links is not allowed here, so I’m going with a wall of text. Verifications about me are also included in the sheet, which is hard to post here. Should you want to see my original work with improved comprehension compared to a wall of text, you can contact me on discord via the name: Gambunt
Notes: All across the tree you’ll find referencies of Progenitor’s Call and Paragon. Progenitor’s Call is the Capstone talent and Paragon is the name of its effect. Having said that, lets move on to the talents.
FARSEER KEYSTONE
Call of the Ancestors: Primordial Wave (Elemental) or Unleash Life (Restoration) calls an Ancestor to your side for 6 seconds. Whenever you cast a healing or damaging spell, the Ancestor will cast a similar spell. Totemic Projection relocates all of your active Ancestors too and its cooldown is reduced to 5 seconds.
Notes: Added an interaction with Totemic Projection, as the location of your Ancestors now matters. Keep in mind that Totemic Projection is off the GCD. The tuning knob for this entire build is basically what “a similar spell” means. Modifying its power can balance the Farseer entirely.
FARSEER ROW 1
Choice Node: Latent Wisdom and Ancient Fellowship
- Latent Wisdom: Your Ancestors’ spells are 20% more powerful.
- Ancient Fellowship: Ancestors have a 15% chance to call another Ancestor when they expire or are consumed.
Notes: Just added “or are consumed”, to include the effect of Progenitor’s Call on Ancient Fellowship. During Paragon, Latent Wisdom makes your duplicated spells stronger, as they are counted as Ancestor spells, thus making your new throughput profile even stronger. Ancient Fellowship can increase the overall duration of the effect, thus making your new throughput profile longer. The choice when it comes to the Capstone talent is: Do you want a stronger output profile or a longer one?
Choice Node: Heed My Call and Routine Communication
- Heed My Call: Ancestors last an additional 2 seconds.
- Routine Communication: Lava Burst casts have an 8% chance to call an Ancestor (Elemental). Riptide has a 15% chance to call an Ancestor (Restoration).
Notes: No changes were made to this node. During Paragon, both Heed my Call and Routine Communication can increase the overall duration of the effect.
- Primordial Adaptability: When an Ancestor expires or is consumed, you gain 1% Versatility for 15 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Successive effects do not increase duration.
Notes: A simple semi-offensive / semi-defensive node that shouldn’t generally be tracked by players. This gives Elemental slightly more survivability on higher Keystones, while also increasing a useful attribute for Restoration, hopefully not its best one, going forward. During Paragon, calling an Ancestor instantly consumes it, causing you to immediately get the extra Versatility.
FARSEER ROW 2
Offering from Beyond: When an Ancestor is called, they reduce the cooldown of Progenitor’s Call by 10 seconds.
Notes: Reducing the cooldown of Fire or Storm Elemental barely affects the throughput of Elemental Shaman, and reducing the cooldown of Riptide is quite boring. This actually affects throughput for both specs in a more interactive manner.
Chains of Devastation: While having an active Ancestor, or during Paragon, casting Chain Heal makes your next Chain Lightning instant cast. Casting Chain Lightning makes your next Chain Heal instant cast. The instant Chain Heal of Chains of Devastation costs no mana (Elemental). The instant Chain Lightning of Chains of Devastation deals 50% increased damage (Restoration).
Notes: Inspired by the Shadowlands legendary of the same name. This also alleviates the necessity to go Fire build on Elemental. During Paragon, Chains of Devastation can create both an offensive and a defensive cooldown for both Elemental and Restoration, paired with Vesper’s Patronage.
Ancestral Relocation: Spiritwalker’s Grace is replaced with Spiritwalker’s Relocation for 15 seconds after it is cast.
- Spiritwalker’s Relocation: Teleport to your closest Ancestor within 60 yards.
Notes: A more appropriate mobility enhancement that’s easy to use with a high skill-cap, as it can prove extremely valuable on the right hands. It’s still tied to Spiritwalker’s Grace that both Elemental and Restoration most often pick, turning Totemic Projection into a possible Blink spell, as long as you have an active Ancestor. It also refrains from adding an extra button to press. During Paragon, Ancestral Relocation has no effect. I didn’t want to make Totemic Relocation a teleport spell by itself, as it doesn’t fit the theme. Now if you consider yourself the “Ancestor” during Paragon, you might argue that Totemic Projection should relocate yourself too, but I wouldn’t go down that road. A teleport every 1.5-2 minutes is enough mobility for a class supposed to be stationary.
FARSEER ROW 3
Choice Node: Nature Caress and Earthen Grace
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Natural Caress: When an Ancestor is called, gain a shield that absorb 5% of your maximum health for 30 sec, up to 20% of your maximum health. Using Progenitor’s Call, grants you the maximum amount of Nature’s Caress.
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Earthen Grace: Reduce all damage taken by 3%, increased by another 3% for each active Ancestor. During Paragon, reduce all damage taken by 15% instead.
Note: A more thematic choice for a defensive node for the class with the least amount of defensive capabilities - Hunter, the other squishy class, got some really nice defensive nodes for example. During Paragon, this also makes the Shaman tankier, as you might need to stand a little closer to enemies or allies, should you want to maximize Vesper’s Patronage.
Vesper’s Patronage: When an Ancestor is called, they gain Ancestral Patronage. Casting Earthquake relocates all active Ancestors to target location (Elemental). Casting Healing Rain relocates all active Ancestors to target location (Restoration).
- Ancestral Patronage: Your next damaging spell or ability will cause the Ancestor to radiate Nature damage to up to 6 enemies nearby, and your next healing spell will heal up to 6 allies nearby.
Note: Inspired by Vesper Totem, the Kyrian ability of Shamans during Shadowlands. After all, these are Elemental - Restoration talents, so some hybrid abilities are bound to exist. Works extremely well with Chains of Devastation, allowing for a quick relocation of your Ancestor via Totemic Projection, into a quick cast of Chain Heal and Chain Lightning (in any order) to maximize throughput. The Earthquake and Healing Rain interactions are just quality of life changes to remove the need for Totemic Relocation.
Final Calling: When an Ancestor expires, they cast Elemental Blast on a nearby enemy (Elemental). When an Ancestor expires, they cast Hydrobubble on a nearby injured ally (Restoration).
- Hydrobubble: Surrounds your target in a protective water bubble for 10 seconds. The shield absorbs incoming damage, but the absorb amount decays fully over its duration.
Notes: Just added “or is consumed”, to include the effect of Progenitor’s Call. During Paragon, calling an Ancestor instantly consumes it, causing Final Calling to proc. This means that as Elemental you start your cooldown window with at least one buff from Elemental Blast and as Restoration you start with at least one big shield on someone, on demand.
FARSEER CAPSTONE
Progenitor’s Call: Instant, 3 minute cooldown. Call an Ancestor to your side for 6 seconds and consume every active Ancestor, ascending into the Paragon state. The duration of this effect is increased by twice the duration amount of all consumed Ancestors. During Paragon, whenever an Ancestor is called, you gain its duration added as the duration of Paragon, consuming the Ancestor thereafter.
- Paragon: Whenever you cast a healing or damaging spell, two similar spells will be cast. These spells are considered Ancestor spells. Ancestral Patronage remains active on you for every damaging or healing spell or ability, and its radius is doubled.
Notes: Completely redesigned this node - arguably the most problematic one - to make it more synergistic with the rest of the talents. This gives Elemental a much needed bursty damage profile, adding an offensive cooldown every 2-2.5 minutes, based on Offering from Beyond, while also allowing for a substantial amount of off-healing during that period. Similarly, Restoration gains an extra cooldown every 1.5-2 minutes that can be used in an offensive fashion, if necessary. This still keeps the RNG aspect of the Farseer at heart with its duration and cooldown being dynamic, but adds more reliability on your cooldown window. Skilled players will track active Ancestors for every moment, maximizing the potential of Progenitor’s Call. Remember that calling an Ancestor during Paragon gives you all benefits of both calling and consuming an Ancestor immediately. Also, Keep in mind that maximizing the throughput of this ability might require you to get a bit closer to your enemies or allies, due to Vesper’s Patronage, but you’re more durable for its duration, thanks to either Nature’s Caress or Earthen Grace. The theoretical way to maximize throughput would be to go into melee and spam Chain Heal into Chain Lightning, for both specs. Adding Ancestral Guidance to the mix, only makes this better. The base duration of this is 12 seconds, increased to 16 seconds if Heed my Call is selected. With one active Ancestor, e.g. casting Unleash Life on the previous global, this becomes a maximum 23-31 second duration ability. Calling Ancestors during Paragon only further increases the duration by 6-8 seconds though, consuming them immediately, which procs Final Calling and can proc Ancient Fellowship for an even longer duration. Same as Ascendance, RNG modifiers can be added here, to minimize edge cases, when reaching above 30-40% uptime. The intention here is for Progenitor’s Call to be a big button to press once in a while to dish out offensive attacks, while keeping your allies healthy, making both Offensive Restoration and Defensive Elemental valid choices of raid utility.
Again, should you want to see my original work with improved readability compared to a wall of text, you can contact me on discord via the name: Gambunt
Thanks for reading, your feedback will be much appreciated.
