Feedback: Shamans

In Development Midnight Beta Test
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This thread is dedicated to leaving feedback on Shamans in Midnight. Look in this thread and in the Midnight Alpha Development Notes for adjustments and bugfixes made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

Apex Talents

Many Apex Talents are available for playtesting and may be selected using specialization tree points in the final specialization tree node. The current User interface (UI) is temporary for playtesting purposes and will be replaced with a final UI later in development. As with any test cycle, we will be adding more Apex Talents to the test over time and not all will be available with the start of the alpha test.

To help us refine Apex Talents, please consider the following questions as you playtest:

  • How gameplay-impacting, exciting, and fantasy forward is your Apex Talent to you?
  • Are your Apex Talents and new Hero Talents meeting the approachability goals laid out in our Combat for Everyone in Midnight article?
  • Are there cases you would consider not selecting your Apex talent?
  • Does the Apex talent disproportionally favor a particular talent build or Hero Talent tree?

For feedback regarding the changes on making the combat system more approachable for players of all skill levels, leave your feedback in the Combat Approachability feedback thread.

Thank You

We greatly appreciate all your feedback and are very excited for you to test out all the changes in Midnight!

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Elemental

Our goals with Elemental for Midnight are to reduce the number of rotational abilities and auras tracked, make it simpler to engage with Stormbringer talents, and add new gameplay for using fire spells in AoE. Flame Shock can now be replaced with an upgraded ability, Voltaic Blaze, that applies 6 Flame Shocks and causes your next Lava Burst to hit all Flame Shocked targets, similar to previous designs for Primordial Wave. With this version, we’re looking to allow a quick transition from Flame Shock application to the AoE Lava Burst for simplicity and keeping up with the demands of AoE against short-lived creatures. This is an optional talent path, so for players who want to focus on lightning and maelstrom spenders that’s still intended to be a viable playstyle.

Enhancement

Going into Midnight, we are aiming to reduce the amount of information to track for playing Enhancement Shaman optimally. To achieve this goal, we are looking into reducing the number of buttons, auras, and spell highlights to track, while heavily keeping in mind how it feels to play Enhancement Shaman. In addition to the core Enhancement changes, we are aiming to reduce the overhead of understanding two different Hero Talent rotations. The hero talents have affected the rotation a bit more than we’d like. We’re making adjustments that will allow these Hero Talents to fit into Enhancement’s core rotation more naturally while preserving what is unique about them.

Restoration

Shamans have a bunch of strong utility and many rotational spells, so an important goal for us in Midnight was to balance the number of possible active abilities. We’re also looking to remove talents that add auras that are constantly active or ones that temporarily modify other spells which can often make normal spell casts feel weak.

A significant change here is the removal of Healing Surge and Tidal Waves. We are reducing the base cast time of Healing Wave and Chain Heal to simplify gameplay and adding options for mana management through talents for situations where mana management feels valuable. We recognize there is a loss of a decision point when doing single target healing and will be monitoring feedback closely when it comes to Healing Surge being removed, but our goal is to keep the spell decision-making simple because healing already has dynamic gameplay with target choice.

We’re also updating Healing Rain to last 18 seconds when not playing Totemic. While we want the instant, long duration Healing Rain to be a hallmark of Totemic, it makes the alternative feel less awesome when it has to be cast every 10 seconds.

Another goal for us was to reduce the number of available group cooldowns healers have access to, so Ascendance and Healing Tide Totem are now a choice against each other. We want healers to feel powerful, but having too many powerful cooldowns often leads to needing to deal spiky damage to challenge them.

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I copied my Enhancement Shaman from retail with +85% Mastery and +30% Haste, and despite the stats, the spec still feels off, especially when playing the Tempest Hero Talent. The gameplay loop is overly reliant on spamming Stormstrike, which feels more like a gimmick than a satisfying mechanic.

Core Issues:

  • Stormstrike feels weak unless it constantly resets. Without resets, it hits like a wet noodle.

  • Ascendance gameplay devolves into pressing Stormstrike repeatedly just to stay competitive, this is not engaging.

  • Lava Lash gets ignored in Tempest builds because you’re too busy fitting in Stormstrike resets. When the RNG gods are with you, you’re flooded with Stormstrike procs from Mastery, Stormblast, and Elemental Tempo, leaving little room to press anything else.

  • Stormblast adds two charges, Elemental Tempo reduces cooldown, and Mastery adds even more resets (currently +17%). This creates a loop that feels chaotic and one-dimensional.

  • Back-to-back MW x 10 procs combined with Elemental Tempo keeps you locked into a loop where you’re sitting on two Stormstrikes. Even with Crash Lightning weapon imbues stacked, you end up sitting on them because the rapid MW10 procs make it feel pointless to press anything lese. You’re stuck between wasting MW stacks or spamming StormStrike / Lava Lash just to brun through imbues.
    This design is mechanically redudant and punishes proactive play. It feels like a filler for the sake of filler, not meaningful decision-making. Worse, it creates confusion: players end up spamming Stormstrike even when MW10 is capped to clear imbuee or dumping MW10 procs. That’s not engaging gameplay, it’s a loop with no agency.

Reset mechanics should not be the backbone of Enhancement’s damage profile. Instead:

  • Make Stormstrike baseline powerful with a fixed CD.

  • Make Lavalash baseline powerful with a fixed CD.

  • Remove the reset dependency from Mastery and eliminate Stormblast charges

  • Buff Maelstrom generation across the talent tree to reduce downtime and improve flow.

  • Design abilities with meaningful impact and smart cooldown-management each button should have a purpose beyond being filler

Talent & Mechanic Suggestion:

  • Tempest Interaction-Talent: Casting Tempest gives a X% chance for your next Stormstrike to be off cooldown, deal increased damage, and generate +1 additional Maelstrom

  • Crackling Fury: Give Enhancement access to Elemental Shaman’s Crackling Fury talent: adds a reliable Maelstrom generator on a short cooldown.

  • Crash Lightning Scaling: Make its weapon imbue scale with auto-attacks and Windfury, giving Windfury a meaningful role. → Remember Stormlash from legion?!

  • Elemental Tempo Rework: Instead of cooldown reduction, make it reset Stormstrike and Lava Lash after consuming 10 Maelstrom stacks.

  • Awakening Storm: After casting Tempest, your next Stormstrike bypasses armor and procs Windfury, which also bypasses armor→ enhancing the Stormbringer fantasy.

  • Ascedance Rework: Make Stormstrike hit like a truck when Ascendance is activated. Increase its cooldown slightly during Ascendance (e.g., 6–8 seconds), allowing room to weave in Lava Lash, Crash Lightning, and other rotational abilities. This Reinforce the idea that Ascendance empowers your strikes, not just resets them.

  • Thunder Capacitor rework: After using 10 stacks of Maelstrom, you generate 1-2 stacks of Maelstrom automatically.

Criticism & Feedback:

  • Why are we given Molten Assault for Lava Lash cooldown reduction and Flame Shock spread, when Voltaic Blaze already accomplishes both and adds AoE crit burst potential? Molten Assault feels redundant and underpowered in comparison. On top of that, it’s a forced talent that will inevitably be dropped in favor of Voltaic Blaze. As seen above, the Stormstrike-loop leaves little room to even use Lava Lash most of the time.
  • Ride the Lightning feels like a lazy design choice. Triggering Chain Lightning from Stormstrike procs lacks depth and creativity. A more engaging alternative could be: Stormstrike applies a debuff to the target, and the next two Nature spells consume it to deal increased damage. This bonus could then be channeled through Chain Lightning, causing the amplified damage to jump to nearby enemies.
    This design encourages deliberate spell sequencing and adds strategic depth to the rotation. Additionally, the current implementation complicates balance due to Stormstrike reset procs and inconsistent damage spikes, making it harder to tune reliably across content types.
  • Converging Storms feels out of place in its current talent row. It lacks synergy with surrounding talents and comes across more like a placeholder than a thoughtfully integrated option. Its design doesn’t contribute meaningfully to the overall gameplay flow or thematic cohesion of the spec. A rework or repositioning could help it feel more impactful and aligned with the rest of the talent tree.
  • Once again, the spec leans on over four active AoE spells just to stay competitive in AoE scenarios…on top of three additional on-proc AoE mechanics. This results in a bloated and fragmented rotation that feels more like juggling a checklist than executing a cohesive combat strategy. Why are we relying on over seven separate AoE effects just to meet baseline throughput?
    A more elegant approach would be to streamline the kit: remove Crash Lightning entirely and rebalance AoE damage around Voltaic Blaze (which could transform into Fire Nova after use, generating Maelstrom Weapon stacks) and Chain Lightning. This would tighten the rotation, reduce redundancy, and give each AoE spell more impact and identity.
  • The Hero-Talent: Storm Swell underperforms compared to Supercharge
  • The Apex Talent Storm Unleashed brings the same filler-spam design as Stormstrike. Yes, it relies on MW spend, but you litterally give it multiple charges just to have something to press. Enhancement shouldn’t need artificial charges or cooldown resets to feel playable. Why not simply increase MW generation in the talent tree and remove these filler-gap talents that exist solely to repeat the same mechanic over and over? This isn’t engaging, it’s gimmick that defines the current gameplay loop, and it’s not fun.
  • You said you wanted to reduce APM. So why is Enhancement again a frantic button-mashing APM-Fest?

Optional Talents:

Doom-Wolves:

  • Fire Wolves: Lava Lash applies a stackable DoT.

  • Storm Wolves: Increases Windfury proc chance.

Emberstorm (Molten Assult):

  • Lava Lash has a chance to unleash a fiery tornado at your target’s location, dealing Fire damage to enemies
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With 18 sec cooldown on Healing Rain, if you mistakenly place healing rain on a place and then fight takes place further away, you cannot fix this mistake. With Surging totem though, you can just relocate… there should be a way to relocate healing rain if not surging totem hero tree taken..

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looks like Stormsurge (Enchancement Shaman Mastery) has been changed it used to be 5% (modified by your mastery) on any special attacks to reset the cooldown on stormstrike it is now only 5% chance (modified by mastery) to reset the CD on stormstrike when using Stormstrike only this is a big nerf to stormsurge generation i checked the development notes for shamans and class changes and i dont see this mentioned anywhere i assume its a bug or unintended change?

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Please let me see my maelstrom somewhere else than a shady bar that is hard to read, add an icon in the cooldown manager to track maelsrom

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This design was clearly intentional, it’s been like this since the early Alpha phases. The goal behind the Tempest Hero Talent was to reduce heavy Stormstrike spamming. But apparently, they overlooked that back-to-back MW10 procs combined with Elemental Tempo still recreate the same issue. Even if you intentionally use MW10 stacks, Elemental Tempo keeps you locked into a loop where you’re sitting on two Stormstrikes most of the time.

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i see i guess that makes sense weired how it wasnt posted in the huge class changes blog though

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Intitial feedback from the beta for enhancement. Will not go too deep, but just give my initial reaction.

The good:

  • Both hero talents are not that different, and feel quite fluid to play.
  • Talent tree seems in a good spot overal
  • The split from MSW to differentiate between healing and damage is a nice addition.
  • Overall feels good

The bad:

  • Although this has to do with the UI, a pain point is the MSW. No other spec tracks its main resource just from a single buff. We either need a way to customize auras to a better degree (make them function as bars), or just pull the bandaid and make it a resource like soul shards. It feels bad to see a mana bar as a resource that I do not care about.
  • Our defensive toolkit is spread a bit too thin. I feel that having a second charge of Astral Shiftness would fill that gap.
  • What is the reason for having stormbind in the talent tree other than trolling people?
  • Wolves are pretty much DoA, but is there a way to keep them as a glyph/visual? Something like making a glyph for an ability that whenever it procs, it “summons” a wolf (no need to deal damage, just to keep the fantasy). But would prefer to have them as a more active part of our rotation (yes I liked sepulcher, DF, and TWW s1 wolve implementation).
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This is a basic opinion of me. Might be silly but bear with me.

  • Get rid of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning in Enhancement. Doesn’t make you feel like a melee storm handler at all.

  • Also hinders any imagination to actually design the spec better, because you must tie spenders to LB and ChL. Also feels pretty bad to press to ChL and LB after CrL and Stormstrike.

  • Design around Voltaic Blaze, Crash Lightning, Stormstrike and Tempest for Stormbringer. Change Sundering to Surging Totem when Totemic is chosen. Does sundering but at all directions.

  • Make the base name of primal strike as Elemental Slash or something and when you change to Stormbringer, name goes to Stormstrike and when you’re in Totemic, it changes into Lava Lash.

  • Crash Lightning changes into Flame Crash in Totemic. Make Hero Talents actually distinguishable from each other. Close/same playstyle but you change the elements you’re using.

  • Since you’re getting rid of LB and ChL, make Stormstrike and Lava Lash semi-ranged with 15 to 20 yrd range. Crash Lightning/Flame Crash isn’t a 60 degree angle cone AoE anymore, it’s a full circle and makes your Stormstrike and Lava Lash hit up to 5 enemies.

  • Make Ascendence spam Crash Lightning every 1.5-2 seconds during it’s active time and every Windstrike you send hits all the enemies around you.

  • Change Windstrike to Blazing Strike that sends fire tornadoes during Ascendence for Totemic.

  • I didn’t think this out thoroughly, but it was bothersome for me to play around CL and LB in Enhancement, so these were my raw design ideas off the top of my head.

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Elemental shaman feedback:

After a few days of playing, all I can say is that the class had a “flat” feel.

I miss the Icefury/Frostshock in the rotation.

With Stone Bulwark Totem, we are loosing a lot of survivability, both is solo and group gameplay

Farseer feedback:

Bottom right side of the “Elemental” tree with Voltaic Blaze seems to be not as impactful as expected. Lava surge should proc much more - right now Crackling Fury and Purging Flames does not give enough benefit to spend 3 talent points. Flames of the cauldron should be reworked and proc rate of Lava surge should be upped in this talent.

Echo of the elementals should not be in the last line of talents, it does not give enough benefit to be there.

Voltaic Blaze CD should be brought down to 4 seconds max, including all other talents which reduce CD. Also, 10 yard range should be brought up to 15 yards. I had many encounters where adds were a little more spread and VB was hitting only main target, thus whole spell was wasted.

Stormbringer feedback:

Tempest procs are too rare.

Also it seems that the whole build is dull. Terribly repeatable, smashing few buttons.

Fury of the storms should by upped to 15 seconds from 10. 10 seconds is just not enough.

Fury of the elements - either add 60% instead of 40% effectiveness or buff Elemental Blast damage, 201% of SP seems like a joke.

Some kind of interaction should be added between Frost shock and LB/CL and Earthquake, maybe buff LB/CL and Earthquake dmg to targets affected by FS + Encasing Cold / Arctic Snowstorm.

After years of playing Elemental shaman as main, I am not sure it will be my main character in this expansion. For now it just seems dull and uninteresting. At least for solo gameplay.

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First of all I love the pruning. For me Enhancement feels playable again. But either buff healing surge or also remove it. At the moment it heals so little it’s not worth putting on my bar. And losing this would mean no self healing.

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Maelstrom weapon stacks. Maybe I’m not looking at the right place, but I cannot find an option to move the visual representation of Maelstrom Weapon stacks. Currently they are placed above my character often exactly over the nameplates. As a result both the nameplate as the stacks aren’t clearly visible.

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i know everyone is going to hate post me BUT!

could you please allow use of 2handers for stormstrike/windstrike and doomwinds please!

not for anything meta or a viable way to play but for fun times and lvling fun like it used to be in years please!

2 Likes
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Deeply Rooted Elements for Resto Shaman is ruining the healing ramp/rotation and is just annoying. I want to be in charge of healing not some random procc that just heals for me.