Feedback: Shamans

In Development The War Within Beta Test
62

Ele shaman on beta is not fun and it feels barely functional.

Class and spec tree:

Once considered the better of spec and class trees, after most other classes got an update/rework, it now feels bad and super bloated with 2 point nodes.

TWW with hero talents is further pushing us into a rigid fire or lightning builds, which was explicitly stated by developers it is not an intent.

Stormbringer:

Except for the talent which gives 3 instant CL, the tree feels sluggish, incomplete and all over the place. Tempest is being cancelled on beta because it is a dps loss. The damage is not impactful, it feels like there is no payoff for how much build up it requires. The visual is mediocre (Lightning rod looks much better) and instant Stormkeeper on a timer felt bad in DF season 2 and it feels bad on beta.

There are more issues, but these are the most glaring ones.

Thoroughly dissappointed with Stormbringer.

Farseer:

The tree feels marginally better and fuctional, but that doesn’t mean much. This tree is forcing us to play DF season 3 and 4 builds, but it feels worse than our current 4 set bonus.

Not only does it force you to pick Primordial, it also forces you to pick NS in class tree.

The ancestors are dumb and won"t cast if you move while they are up, making the whole tree effectively useless on high movements and in pvp.

The Elemental Blast they cast upon expiring can hit targets not in combat. It feels beyond bad that it hits the nearest target instead of your focus target.

The hero talents seem poorly thought, some talents are still not working and Stormbringer breakes the flow of ele.

Having recieved zero changes over the aplha and beta so far, with radio silence from devs is really disheartening and I will for sure switch mains if it stays this way.

1 Like
63

After reading Ion’s interview on Wowhead yesterday, all I can say is that they are so out of touch and living in a world where they think having two specs (resto/ele) without any meaningful buff is fine, while the rest specs/classes bring besides a mandatory buff, damage, utility that is far better than ours and insane survivability into raids and mythic +. Also, quoting Ion, “The different specs have strengths and weaknesses and that no one is so far outshining the others that it feels like it’s the only solution to a given problem players may face.” what the F is that statement do these guys play the game they create? Shall I name such outliers and what it means to be a shaman looking for a group in 2024 with 1/4 of what other classes have regarding buffs/utility/defensives?

I thought they couldn’t be more out of touch but alas, I was wrong once more.

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64

I think , after the interview , Ion should stop touching so much grass and smoking it , and instead focus on actually balancing the game , treating the classes fairly and NOT ruining hard classes with their 0 vision or excuses. its unacceptable right now .

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65

Think you shud stop posting.

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66

TL;DR: Every main Shaman is frustrated because they feel their class has received the least attention and development effort.

Quick Temporary Fix: Give us at least a raid buff! :laughing:

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67

Add people who have shamans as their alts, I keep my alt as my primary alt since TBC and play him a whole lot, and it hurts my heart to see them seemingly very much ignored.

2 Likes
68

Middle path in the shaman talents enhancement,should go for AoE effects, left path pure Storm Strike + Wind fury , and right side should be flame tongue+ lava lash build.

The current shaman talents also allow the possibility for a 2handed weapon use. Frost Death Knight asked the same and it works perfectly, and Shaman would work too.

. New Ascendance skin update

. PvP skill Burrow changed to Shaman Baseline defensive Skill

. Deeply Rooted Elements Talent - should be changed from 7% on each Storm Strike to 4% for each maelstrom consumed with a CD on it’s effect. Can be extended by an extra “x” sec for each maelstrom consumed while Transformed.

. Hailstorm - Change AoE target limit from 5 maximum targets to 5targets + 1 extra target for each Maelstrom consumed

. Ice Strike - change from skill on use to passive.
Ice Strike passive - if 5 or more Maelstrom Stacks are consumed on a DMG ability, your next Storm Strike / Lava Lash will apply Ice Strike on your target “Charging your 2hweapon/main weapon with ice, dealing moderate Frost damage based on the Maelstrom consumed. The damage of your next Frost Shock skill is increased by 15% for each Maelstrom Consumed”

. Wind Fury weapon + Wind Fury Totem - remove from Talented tree to Enhancement Baseline.

. Wind Fury Totem talent replacement:
Weapon Mastery Talent: Your Storm Strike / Lava Lash and Ice Strike passive ability, can now be used/cast from 2Handed weapons. The chance of getting Maelstrom is double if using 2handed weapons.

. Doom Winds Talent Switch placement with Wind Fury Weapon. New Talent added on its old location on treeline

  • Wind Strike ( passive ) - when your Wind Fury successful hits a target, the Cooldown of Doom Winds is reduced by 1.5 sec

. Elemental Weapons Talent effect change to - Your Flame Tongue and Wind Fury imbue effects on 1handed weapons effect are Double and increase your Frost Fire and Nature damage by 5%.

  • Your Flame Tongue imbue weapon damage effect on 2handed weapons is double.
  • Your Wind Fury weapon imbue effect on 2handed weapon has 40% chance to occur .

. Raging Maelstrom and Overflowing Maelstrom talents should be merged in 1 single Talent

Many don’t agree with shaman 2 handed. I do, and I would like it to be an alternative.
It’s more than possible to balance it by adjusting the earning of the proc effects like maelstrom to the same rate as a dual wielding weapon.

This is my opinion, and I want to have fun with shaman, and a more versatile gameplay.

. Why is frost shock a talent?

. Why is Flurry a talent on the shaman baseline Tree when enhancement is the only one needing it badly?

. why does this talent “refreshing waters/focused insight” even exists in our Enhancement build instead of being in the shaman baseline build?

. Why is maelstrom not baseline in enhancement spec?

. How many talents do we need to have to fill our talent tree build, because you lack knowledge how to turn this class fun ?

Read posts, read the forums. Plenty of ideas to improve this class and make it fun.

1 Like
69

I’ve not really played the Beta yet as I’m expecting that overall or at least some noticeable changes.

Then I got excited when I say “Skyfury totem resigned” and I had that moment of hope that they’d made a PvE version. That hope was quickly shattered when I realised I was in the PvP section of the patch notes and they’d made a it an appear on a Primordial Wave cast.

Tbh at this stage I’d settle for a statement saying “were not giving Shaman an update” at least then I can deal with it and not make a half hearted attempt to do some testing.

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70

at this stage i fully expect a " shaman patch" to be coming soon
like the hunter rework

or at the very very least an extensive reason as to why shaman wont get changes

5 Likes
71

The shaman needs an urgent update, it feels old, the ascending aspect and the ghost wolf… from cataclysm

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72

“We ran out of time to give some classes and specs the necessary attention they needed. We spent time making mages and DKs looks really coo, so the rest can just twaddle around with the same old boring stuff. Maybe next expansion. Thanks for your patience.”

Something akin to this will be posted shortly.

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73

it it doesnt happen by prepatch, it wont happen for expansion

so you all have a date to expect a change by then

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74

Mr. Blizzard, say something pls…

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75

On another note, I’ve been playing some shadow priest on beta and this concerns not only Elemental in beta but also on live.

Priest’s voidweaver hero tree transforms Mind Blast into Void blast during Rift. When Rift has some seconds to expire and you are in the process of casting Void Blast but the buff wears off, Void blast still finishes its cast and then goes back to Mind Blast.

Now for elemental, when your Lightning bolt is transformed to Tempest (Stormbringer hero tree) and you start casting it with some seconds left on its buff but you don’t make it in time and buff wears off, your cast is cancelled (interrupted) and goes back to Lightning bolt. Now if that was the only issue and the only spell in elemental’s toolkit I would suspect it’s a bug since it’s exactly the same situation with shadow priest’s Void blast, and expect it to be addressed. BUT, since we have the same problem with Lava beam while we are under an Ascendance proc on live, and you start casting Lava beam but Ascendance buff wears off, it cancels Lava beam and goes back to being Chain Lighting.

My question is this: how can you have the tools to make this issue not present in any other class like shadow priests, but when it comes to elemental you somehow manage, even on this matter, to not address it?

Like Jesus man.

2 Likes
76

Hello.

Here is my feedback, from an elemental shaman main since 2011.

General class feedback:

Shaman visuals have always been good and in my opinion, one of the selling points of the class. However, over the years they have started to get a bit outdated, especially for elemental shaman. All of DF we have faced primalist forces who were using a lot of new elemental effects, so it is sad to see that nothing new has actually been added to the shaman class itself. Lightning bolt in particular could use an update to give it some oomph effect. Ascendance model is also outdated and I can’t understand why you removed the Glyph which gave us corresponding elemental form.

Ghost wolf form is also outdated and it doesn’t really make sense for any race except orc. It would be so cool if my draenei could transform into a talbuk. After so many druid form changes and all of Shadowlands Night Fae forms, I can’t see why this wouldn’t be implemented.

As for the gameplay, the whole class is subpar defensive wise, which is why it is avoided in higher m+ keys and as for raiding, not only do we have weak defensives, we also lack a raid buff, which was added even to hunters after years of same feedback.

Not only that, if we compare Astral Shift to Survival insticts, SI is getting considerable buffs and charges. The difference is hunters have a baseline immunity while shamans only have a pvp talent.

Class tree:

At the beginning of DF, shaman class tree was regarded one of the better ones because of lack of troughoutput talents and focus on utility.

However, after so many classes got their trees reworked, with excessive underused talents removed and multiple point talent bloat reduced, it now feels bad. Too many two point nodes and capstones are underwhelming. Good example is Nature’s Swiftness, which is inferior to druid version, but occuppies a capstone while on druid tree it is near the top. Wind rush and tranquil air both seem unworthy of a capstone.

Elemental tree:

Heavily bloated with 2 point nodes, too many capstones and we are usually forced to pick up rigid fire or lightning builds, which feels bad. It is an elemental shaman, not fire of lightning shaman. This problem is further excerbated with our hero talents doubling down on this, and if I recall, it was explicitly said this is not the intent behind hero talents. Not only that, but Farseer forces us to pick Nature’s Swiftness on class tree for full effectiveness.

Deeply Rooted Elements could be a topic on it’s own, but I will be brief. I hate this talent with a fiery passion. It especially feels bad in PvP when sometimes it can be heavy rng and do too much damage, other time it procs on 1 FS who gets dispelled a second later, rendering the proc wasted.

It is not a fun talent, and is rng on top of other rng elements in our rotation. I get that elements are volatile and unpredictable, so some rng fits the fantasy, but this is too much. Ascendance is bad and weak for a 3 minute cooldown and it hasn’t been picked basically ever…

DRE should be 1 min activated CD with 5 sec duration or outright removed together with Ascendance, and our damage shuffled elsewhere.

These are general problems with the spec. I will write about hero talents later.

1 Like
77

Shaman hero talents for Elemental:

Stormbringer

I had high hopes for this one because the developers said they are working hard into brining the fantasy of the sole lightning caster…

In it’s current iteration, it heavily underdelivers on that intent. I was expecting something like WC III Forked lightning or MoP Stormblast return.

Instead we got Tempest, and oh my, where do I begin…

The visual itself is underwhelming, Lightning rod looks much better. The ramp uptime is too slow, and the fact it needs ramping up at all feels bad. You made it scale with haste, and that is about the only thing Tempest has in synergy with the rest of our toolkit. It doesn’t scale with mastery and has any interaction with our talents. The damage is pitiful and the payoff for such a hugh ramp uptime feels bad.

In my opinion, and many other shaman players, it should have replaced a spender.

The rest of the tree is nothing to be excited about, only the 3 instant CL talent feels powerful on it’s own.

Farseer

The tree feels better then Stormbringer. The theme is ok, I am actually ok with the visuals and I like the fact spirits are from your race. The tree is leaning heavily on our LvB spam playstyle, which some love and some hate. Last time I logged on beta, it seems the ancestors have been fixed and cast while you move.

With so much focusing around Primordial Wave (which I like, but I know many don’t share that sentiment), you are again forced into a rigid fire build. Also, it would be cooler if ancestors casts scaled with our stats.

The Elemental Blast casted upon expiring should be on our focus target, instead of nearest target. This especially feels bad in PvP.

The defensive nodes are actually OK for pvp, but do little for our PvE survivability.

1 Like
78

Please just give shaman a reason to be brought into mythic raiding, give me a raid buff, just something, anything

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79

Yo be absolutely fair, if Druids can bring Versatility to a group, we could easily add Mastery, Haste, and Critical Strike group buffs/debuffs to other classes. Random ideas:

  • Shamans could offer Power of the Elements granting Mastery (static amount, scaling at max level so it’s on par with Druid buff) or 3% Crit, granted while at least one of their totem is active (would probably need some totem like Windfury that lasts long enough, maybe even change Healing Stream to be such, and unlink Cloudburst from it). [Not haste as we already got Bloodlust.]
  • Death Knights in W3 have Unholy Aura that increases attack speed, so maybe let them have such effect grant 3% haste (same range as paladin auras).

There are thematic options, and the values could be lowered to 2% even and still be good to have.

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80

Hello wielders of the elements!

Over the first few weeks of testing, we gathered a lot of feedback from you. Subsequently, we aligned that feedback with our design goals, and got to work.

We’ve been recently working through a package of updates for Shamans, and we can now confirm that we’ll have the majority of the changes implemented and ready for testing in the next Beta build, next week.

Before then, we intend to deploy some Beta tuning hotfixes for the class in the next couple of days. But please know that this tuning is not a part of the package coming next week.

Thank you for your testing and feedback!

3 Likes
81

Remove 2 point talents,
Combine Acid Rain and Overflowing Shores into one talent,
Combine Primordial Wave talents into 1 point talent,
Group Riptide talents together,
Remove Undercurrent talent,
Stormkeeper baseline ability,
Return the Shadowlands legendary that buff your Chain Lightning then your Chain Heal as a talent node