TL;DR: Molten Blast is subpar at AoE threat and woeful at Single Target, please consider reducing the mana cost considerably and upping the damage (in Single Target situations only!) e.g. Whatever damage to 4 targets = 1 target (whatever damage*4).
Or Lava Lash working with a shield to give a secondary main hand hit.
Warning: Long, often rambly, nonsense.
I want to start by saying that I love the “Warden” Shaman and I’ve had a lot of fun playing since SoD started, this isn’t a post about how I am lamenting how absurdly OP we were in p2 (remember those halcyon days? Sigh… anyway). And I feel like we are 1-2 changes away from having a balanced and solid tanking class but we seem to be beating around the bush with these changes when it just needs to be rethought.
Right, on to what I feel is the core of the issue, Molten Blast is bad.
WHAT, IT HITS 10 THINGS NOW ?!!!?
Yes, that was never it’s problem, the AoE Threat potential of a shaman tank is not, nor has it been dependant on Molten Blast since p1, even then it wasn’t. If it hit infinity targets it still wouldn’t be. If Molten Blast is solely a AoE filler spell then it works fine as is (although saying it has a “high” threat modifier is bit laughable it’s +10%(since the rockbiter 90% nerf) and it hits for 200, that’s 20threat per target, that’s a mild cough). It’s thirsty as hell on mana but in AoE (trash)… who cares about that?
In short; In Single target, i.e. Boss tanking, Molten Blast is not viable.
Why?
It doesn’t hit very hard (around 200-300 damage per target which is 1)
It costs too much mana (it costs more mana than in causes in damage)
So, we have established for single target, Molten Blast is no good, so we look at the other hand runes.
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Lava Lash.
Upside:
Would be perfect, was perfect, which is why we used it all throughout P2, not just cause DW OP but because in a notoriously mana thirsty class, it could be used to maintain threat in low mana environments.
Downside:
Can’t be used, Offhand only.
Verdict: sadly no.
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Water Shield
Upside:
Would solve all mana issues.
Downside:
Does literally 0 damage.
Provides 0 threat.
Provides 0 active gameplay.
40% of our threat is Lightning shield damage, are you crazy?
Verdict: Hell No.
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Lava Burst
Upside:
High Damage = High threat, that’ll do
Downside:
Needs to be hard cast outside of MSW 5 stacks (~2 per minute)
Feels terrible to play with and encourages madmen to consider hardcasting Lightning bolt for threat. Please, I beg you, don’t let them be right!
Makes even more of our damage spell based, but all our buffs, including our new +Defense thingy, are atk power based.
Verdict: What is currently used, so it’ll have to do, I guess.
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The current meta is described above, LvB in single target and Molten Blast in AoE.
I don’t mind switching runes between roles and trash/boss tanking.
But as we reach more multi-tank content I feel like I have to make my case to improve shamans ability to viably offtank.
We currently are terrible at this, we don’t gain mana back at all when not actively tanking, meaning we cannot use Molten blast or Earthshock(as it also taunts). So double shocking which is a high proportion of our ST threat/damage is locked behind being the active tank. No other tank suffers from these issues.
Possible fixes;
Lava BASH!!!
Have lava lash work if you are single weapon and shield. It’s terrible at AoE so Molten blast still has it’s place and it’s perfect for single target.
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Molten Blast, itself
Reduce the mana cost in single target, at 300mana per cast, in a class that full bore with free spells goes OOM in 45 seconds, it’s way more expensive than all other hand runes, which is fine in AoE.
Increase the damage, it’s a cone of 4(10 now, but that’s absurd) for [(7.583798 + 0.471881 * 50 + 0.036599 * 50 * 50) * 72 / 100 + 5 / 100 * Attack power] to [(7.583798 + 0.471881 * 50 + 0.036599 * 50 * 50) * 108 / 100 + 5 / 100 * Attack power] make it that *4 for single target. Would hit about the same as lava lash does.
On use proc Shield Mastery stack: This would give some level of mana back and vastly boost the offtankabilty of Shaman’s meaning less ramp up consistent tanking
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Lava Burst, full madman
Give pushback resistance when using WoE to allow Lavaburst to be a viable tank option.
Yeah, nvm don’t do this one, it will cause you Elemental shaman pvp issues.
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Disclaimer;
Dear, Alliance players.
You will be tempted to reply “Shaman? OP! You want buffs>!>!!!>!>???”. I’m asking you nicely to just … like… not?
You will largely not know what you are talking about, this isn’t about PVP, I realise that you once “totally got one shot by a shaman” and “definitely died just to Overcharge dmg by an AFK tank” and that sucks for you, but again, not about PVP.
Paladins, I realise most of you will somehow think the above doesn’t apply to you, maybe you forgot you were in the Alliance? I dunno, but it does. We are not the same, any changes to either class shouldn’t be linked or interdependent and I genuinely hope you get whatever fixes you seem to/ think you need. It’s got nothing to do with me, I don’t care, so kindly, extend me the same apathy.
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