[PvP] My thoughts on the Pack Spirit nerf and Shaman survival

Classes Shaman
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Getting x3 of this trait was a lot of fun, it gave us Shaman a chance to turtle up in PvP. It did come at a price though, in Ghost Wolf form you couldn’t do anything but auto-attack, it’s also unique to us Shaman which is a bonus. Yes it probably was too powerful, but it didn’t need nerfing down to 25%. Why? Because Shaman survival is really poor without it, it was a great band aid fix over the monstrous problems the class faces in PvP.

Restoration Shaman in PvP is already struggling, Pack Spirit gave them a sort of niche that they needed to compete. Now it’s been gutted by 75% it’ll just further distance themselves from the healer pack, they’re already sub tier.

For Elemental, the spec I’m currently playing it was a great tool to use. Kite, throw interrupts, stuns and time your attacks then jump in to Ghost Wolf and get the 20% damage migration for big damage. Too me it was a high skill ceiling, if you were efficient you didn’t even need to Healing Surge anymore and that tells you the extent of Shaman problems.

Enchancement, the spec I’ve played 100% till BFA. Why even bother in PvP, you’re a walking free honor kill due to your lack of survival and look what’s just happened? Another direct nerf to Enchancement in PvP. Those that sort comfort from the over the top Healing Surge and MP5 changes last year will find Pack Spirit play-style is now a shadow of its former self. It’s a sad time to play Enchancement and with a heavy heart I suggest you either go Fury or Elemental, you’ll feel better.

I conclude my thoughts with, why Blizzard? I can see Pack Spirit needed to be nerfed but it’s power of survival should of been siphoned down through the class rather then straight deleting where we were. You could of buffed our survival tree talents, healing surge or heck given us some attention at the alarming problems we have. But you didn’t, you first nerfed it by 50% and then gave it another 50% nerf, that means in PvP if you have 3x Pack Spirit you’ve now only really got 0.75. You don’t even get to have the full power of one Pack Spirit in PvP, how stupid does that look just from a design point of view.

We didn’t want to be a one trick pony but we’re fans of the Shaman class, we try to make the most of what we’ve got! We found a way to compete and got punished for it again! I’m a very sad PvP player today, very sad. Those are my thoughts on the whole Pack Spirit nerf.

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The sad part is that while it was definitely broken design it was legit the only way survive in PvP these days as Shaman are very squish and have totems that can be insta stomped and Astral Shift which is basically worthless and is straight up ignored by 90% of DPS who just burst through it and you die anyway.

#skill

People will completely abandon Shamans across the board for PvP I am 100% sure of it.

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Its true , they just removed the crappy band aid and left shamans totally worthless in pvp.

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For a tl:dr: It needed nerfing and we don’t really need to debate whether or not it was OP, because it was and i have no idea how it got to be like that in the first place.

Spirit pack made it so Shamans were somewhat competitive. With the careless Blizzard nerf, it deleted the class. I’ve never seen such a huge nerf to an underperforming class without any buffs, i hope something gets fixed for the new season.

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I played restoshaman in legion. Now im playing ele but when my friend healer is off im trying healing again. Wow i have only 1 pack spirit and playing resto feels bad. Maybe i dont have right traits but traits looks so weak. On ele i have traits which have big impact on my dmg. On resto it feels so weak and unimportant(outside of pack spirit which is gone probably)

Which traits are good for 2v2? I have only 390 ilvl and 2x turn the tides and feel like im underperforming a lot againts anything outside of priests.

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That’s another thing, in Arena with dampening it’s only going to be even worse. To be honest, what traits you pick now really depends on your play-style. But if you want to use Pack Spirit/Kiting method like most shamans, you’ll need use 3x imho.

Even then, with 3x it’s going to be very lacklustre. There’s really not a whole lot you can do to make your Shaman more tough in Arena, Pack Spirit was the Band Aid fix that they’ve just ripped apart.

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I dont think that Blizz even tested if the nerf was needed or not. Before this nerf, a skilled DH or Warlock coulded solo a shaman in ghost wolf. Now, they wipe the floor with him.
They coulded nerf it for arenas/bg’s ; but to nerf it even in wpvp (WM) that was a stupid choice. Especially that in wpvp you always fight against minim 2-3 oponents. Now the shaman is a paper hero.

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If you were getting killed by a single dps with triple pack spirit and ghost wolf traits, you must of been doing something very, very wrong…

The trait needed nerfing and that’s coming from an Rsham main… And tbh it’s only a 25% nerf as it was nerfed to 50% already anyway…
But like all nerfs that blizzard make they normally compensate the class with a buff elsewhere. Where is our buff Blizzard? 10-15% on our healing output might make it so when our partner is focused he doesn’t die even with us spam healing!

I mean when you hit high dampening and you’re crit heals are healing for 24k… Then the enemy resto druid crits for 40k with Swiftmend straight into a 90k Regrowth… Why even both trying?

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